Day 3: Domain and Domainstructures / Affiliate Marketing

We talk today about domainstructures and Affiliate Marketing:

1 Domain and Domainstructures --> First step in the digital strategy.

The domain is not just a name for our website, it can help us to improve the usability and the search:

• Domain endings TLDs: com, de so country-specific or topic-specific - see United Domains
www.reisen-rucksack.com
www.reisen-rucksack.de
www.reisen-rucksack.en

• Subdomains : outsourcing of own issues such as Store , Blog, Mobile
www.reisen-rucksack.de/blog - Verzeichnis Struktur
blog.reisen-rucksack.de - subdomain
asien.reisen-rucksack.de

• Extra Blogs : Tumblr, WordPress, Blogger (range , interest of a user base)
www.reisen-rucksack.de/microsite/../.../...

• Directories : countries or specific topics
rucksack-reisen.asien
reisen-rucksack.de/afrika
shop.reisen-rucksack.de
business.reisen-rucksack.de

• Microsites : Own pages only for a campaign (integrated into the site or outsourced)
 outdoorspiel.reisen-rucksack.de

2 Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is a type of marketing where you use a platform on Internet and you get the results using an "affiliates network", it means you can have many websites which show promotions and advertisers, and are paid when such advertising as a result generate a click, lead or sale for advertiser.

The affiliate websites sites are usually small to medium sized and focused on a specific niche content. It can be a site of a football club , a tech blog , a site for fans of cinema, a cooking site or a site for professional women for example. This is highly relevant content for site visitors , which attracts visitors with a defined demographic profile and a high interest in the content presented and consequently for certain types of products related to the content and visitor profile. The sites are very interesting to advertisers because when promoting their products or services in such sites browsing your target audience, the more visitors become buyers for the advertiser than any other marketing channel - traditional or online. The concept of " win -win " occurs , the advertiser increases your online sales and pay only for results, and the owner of the website gets a new source of income and can better monetize their website.

This means that companies are looking for advertising partners that will help them their products / services to sell. This works in a variety of ways. Firstly Affiliate banners, links or information of companies can publish on their websites or blogs. 

Who participates in this process?

Affilate / Publisher - Network - Merchant / Advertiser - Agencies

A typical procedure is :
• Portal Search
• details of profile and advertising
• Application
• Upon receipt of integration of advertising
• Payment of fee form

There are several platforms for create a Affilate Marketing, for example 100partnerprogramme.de,  here you can find a Affilate Network and through that network you can get a category of company and product for a campaign.

The big advantage in the affiliate marketing is that you can complement and improve your sales activity:

1. You have a variety of partners: "Swarm Intelligence" 
2. Measurable sales channel: you can know all the movements and activity of your advertising using a tracking system
3. Pay for performance: the companies pay for the performance of the campaign, therefore it´s cheaper: they want to see results.
4. Affiliate: partnership
5. Long Tail: access to qualified niches & special interest sites
6. Creativity: initiative, quickness and sales know- how of the "Innovation" - New distribution models (for example: couponing)
7. Range: Additional collaborations and forms of advertising

 

Now we go more in deep with some concepts:
• Range
The networks serve a large number of different affiliate programs. They have mainly but also about a more or less large base of affiliates. About the two market leaders zanox and affilinet Merchants can always appeal to more potential partners than smaller networks : This can be an important decision criterion for Merchants. Especially programs with great potential to land closer to the market leaders.

• Costs for Merchants (companies)
Differ mainly in terms of monthly fixed charges and one-time setup fee. Only the 30% commission are generally charged by each network.

• Registration
The registration process is very similar for affiliates and merchants across the network , as some industry standards have prevailed. Nevertheless, there are small differences here and there. Usability of the platform many affiliates and merchants all have to work daily with the affiliate networks of their choice. Therefore, it makes sense to evaluate the networks in terms of their usability.

• Support
What support affiliates and merchants from the network, if there are times questions and problems, is one of the most important criteria at all for us.

• Transparency
In affiliate marketing do not always have all involved the same interests , the more important is a transparent business relationship. 

 

 
When we already have the correct network, it´s necessary to know how the money comes and how to get a commission:

• CPO : from engl. " Cost per Order "
• CPS : from engl. " Cost per sale "
• CPL : from engl. " Cost per Lead
• CPC : from engl. " Cost per click "
• CPA : from engl. "Cost per action "
• EPC : from engl. "Earnings per 100 clicks"



 We can calculate the commission payment based on 100 clicks, because then we can make an universal measure to different billing forms and deals effectively comparable.

Which types of Advertising can we do?, basically text and pictures, here some examples:

 

An affiliate network takes an average of 30% surcharge on paid to partner commissions. The commissions may be paid only correct if the correct tracking method is used , which is also checked regularly:

• Pixel Tracking: Transparent pixels in the banner (for example you can put this in a picture inside your blog)
• Database Tracking: HTTP resonse control (you can use this tool for track a content for a long time and see the whole activity)
• Session Tracking: Encrypted PHP session
• Tracking Cookie Mini text browser cache
• URL Tracking URL with parameters such as PartnerID

Which criteria are important for you in an indirect network (Publisher and Merchant)?

Publisher:

1 The quality of the company: transparent, serious, with communication guidelines, etc.
2 The correct Target for our content.
3 Good filters for get the correct Merchant (this should be related with our content).
4 The company should respect the payment and also provide you with important information about the campaign (keywords are also important to know).
5 Be active, we should create content daily. 


Merchant:

1 The quality of the affiliate network: it must stay alive in time, should not be spam, it should be with a big number of members.
2 We should have a focus for every network, it means, we should have a topic or thema for every network, then it´s more easy to be more specific.
3 Also manage guidelines, be serious.