The Art of a Targeted Click

Written by The Shops at 24Seven on Friday, October 03, 2008

A visitor to your site should be handled with care. Your visitors are busy people and they’ve trusted your site with their precious time. Ultimately, in our affiliate minds, we hope that visitor translates into either some sort of commission for you or becomes a repeat visitor. There is a wrong way and right way to handle your visitors.

When your visitors click on your affiliate link you want it to be as targeted and of the highest quality (best position to convert). Don’t make the mistake of quickly sending your visitors off to another site in hopes they convert. That’s the equivalent of crossing your fingers, hoping your business succeeds. I understand that many affiliates have the mentality of "if I can just get them to click on my affiliate links as much as possible, the sales will come." That is the wrong approach.

It is best to keep your visitors on your site if they are not going to convert. Why give away free clicks to a merchant so they can brand their sites name into the head of YOUR visitor? Foolishness! Your great content (which you do have, right?) is better used by branding that visitor with your site. You want visitors to return to your site in the future and if you just send them quickly off to an affiliate offer, your site is just a blur in their experience.

Are we clear? Now, here is want you want to do. On your product or money pages you want to qualify that click before sending them off. How is this done?

One of our affiliates, favorideas.com, is a pro at this. Take a look at this product page for one of our wedding favors.

http://www.favorideas.com/shopping/prod/BRLeaves.htm

See the button she uses? It says Buy Now. Not click here for more information, not shop now. She is telling the customer what to do. Want to buy this now? If so, this is what you need to click. They know the price and have seen the product. The obvious next step is to buy it. If the user is just browsing then they won’t click and will stay on her site. Again, you don’t want YOUR visitor browsing someone else’s site. Browsers don’t buy. Browsers build up ideas in their heads. If they find a good one, you want them to remember YOUR site so that they return later to buy it through you.

One last thing FavorIdeas.com does. When you click the Buy Now button is opens the site in a new window. This is also a great strategy because if the visitor doesn’t like what they see after the click, her site is still viewable. Yet, the affiliate cookie is still set so even if they do go back to the merchant's site, she will still get the commission.

Now go...and make your business better.

ShoeMoney on Becoming A Super Affiliate

Written by The Shops at 24Seven on Thursday, June 12, 2008

I wanted to pass on this short video from Jeremy Schoemaker who gives some good advice on how to become a super affiliate. It's something you've probably heard, but it's a nice reminder and worth more to hear it from someone who actually IS a super affiliate.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC-yy_nSpH8

How To Get More Visitors To Your Website

Written by The Shops at 24Seven on Wednesday, May 21, 2008

If you’re a Shops at 24Seven affiliate I wanted to share with you a great idea. Recently, I shared with one of our affiliates, ForBrideandBaby.com, an easy way to grow their e-mail subscriber list. After they took my advice, within a few weeks she added over 1,000 new subscribers. Here is how you do it.

1. Run a sweepstakes. Give something away that a bride-to-be would want. It doesn’t have to be all that expensive, something like a $20 gift card.
   
2. Post your sweepstakes for free at Online-Sweepstakes.com. To enter your giveaway, users will need to signup for your newsletter/e-mail. You just got thousands of visitors to your website.
   
3. Because of the huge popularity of this site, you will get over 500 signups within a week or so. Offer something more attractive and you’ll get more signups.
   
4. It’s that simple. Don’t abuse the system. Make sure you post who your winners are, ship out your prizes, provide an opt-out, define eligibility requirements (US residents only) etc…
   
5. $20 = 500 signups. Hmmm. That’s $.04 per signup. Now you have 500+ people receiving e-mail from you (don't spam or they will opt-out) that you can use to promote our party favors, baby gifts and wedding favors.

Some may say that the quality of the signup is not that great. I would not agree with that. These people will be checking their e-mails to see if they have won anything so I’d guess your open rate would be pretty good. From my experience, I gave away 5 prizes using this method and all five of the winners responded within 2 hours from being notified.

The Bigger Picture: Now that they are a regular subscriber, you’ll want to e-mail them some coupon codes to My Wedding Favors or Favor Affair. You may even want to run a giveaway every few weeks or so and continue to post your sweepstakes on related websites.

A Great Way to Use PopShops

Written by The Shops at 24Seven on Tuesday, April 29, 2008

MyWeddingFavors.com - I discovered one of our affiliates today that was using our PopShops feed perfectly. They have a page dedicated to Calla Lily Wedding Favors and I love how they have layed out this page and then feature all of our Calla lily favors. Check out the MyWedding Favors PopShops service: CJ - ShareASale