Race for life

I can be really tough in business but I also have a softer side.

This post is to tell you I decided to participate in Race for Life 5km run this year.
My daughter (20 months), a friend and I are participating in the Race for life event in Reading on the 15^th of July.

Race for Life is a series of UK-wide, women-only fundraising events organised by the British charity Cancer Research UK.

Although participation is limited to women, men can get involved by volunteering and marshalling at the event.

Race for Life involves running, jogging or walking a 5-kilometre course and raising sponsorship from friends, colleagues and family for doing so.

The money raised is donated to the charity and funds cancer research and campaigns.

http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/maylysandre

All donations big and small are welcome and will be greatly appreciated, our goal is to raise at least £500 ($1000) in 2 weeks.

Any quid (bucks) matters !
Thanks for us, thanks for them

Affiliate marketing do’s

I do not pretend I am a guru, far from that but hope my experience as I have set up some successful program could be beneficial for advertisers and affiliate marketers alike.

The way I approach affiliate is always the same, I am doing my best to get a win /win situation between the affiliates and the advertiser.
At the end of the day it is in nobody’s interest to have a program that is too expensive to run or with so little commission the affiliate won’t even give it a try.

Not all affiliate programs are the same, but they do share similarities and here is a list of do’s and don’ts I came accross in my Internet marketing life.
I won’t call it a recipe for success too pretentious but it helped me on more than one occasion.

Affiliate Marketing is a system of revenue sharing between one site (the affiliate/publisher) which features an ad or content designed to drive traffic to another site (the advertiser/merchant).

Affiliates do not necessary own a website, they can also drive traffic to a merchant site via Paid Search activity.

1) Affiliate Approach: Affiliates should be considered as an online sales force, and the merchant should provide company information/news, incentives and tools to motivate and educate them to drive revenue. Building a relationship with your affiliates does make a tremendous difference. Merchants should encourage feedback from affiliates. Affiliates can offer valuable suggestions to help you improve your program.

2) Affiliate Recruitment: Constantly look for new affiliates to recruit. They can be potential top affiliates or core producers (affiliates generating a few sales on a regular basis).

3) Commission Schedule: Commission can be a percentage of sales or a flat fee. Commissions should be based on your business objectives, budget, and margins. Commissions should always be paid on time.

4) Link Portfolio: Focus on a comprehensive, effective and diverse creative inventory (Flash banners, interactive banners, storefront, landing pages…)
Bring the visitor to the right page using deep linking, it will boost conversion rates.
The creative inventory should stay up to date and interesting to motivate affiliates and give them a reason to replace links and seek information about your program on a regular basis.

5) Tracking: Tracking is essential. How would you feel if you didn’t get paid for what you’ve earned?

6) Plan your program: Affiliate Marketing is a powerful tool, but make sure you thought and planned your program before getting into it. Yes, you can switch a program on and off but this will ultimatly damage not only your program but also your reputation as a merchant.

7) Get a full time affiliate manager: because affiliation IS a full time job. Not only you have to keep a great relationship with your affiliates and your network but you also need to animate, motivate, educate your affiliates.

Establish tiered commission: a tiered commission is ALWAYS the way to go. Affiliates would need to go this extra mile, if they put money and time in your program they should be retributed.

9) Choose the best product for your affiliate to promote: many merchants are tempted to put the all catalogue and let affiliate decide what to promote. Well this may not be the best option. You know your brand and products more than anyone, put this knowledge into action by choosing the best performing and best value for money products. Don’t ask your affiliate to know your portofolio better than you do.

10) 80/20 rule: Most programs experience a situation where the top 20% of affiliate sales partners drive 80% of sales. It is important to focus on those top affiliates as they will bring immediate high revenues, however core producers are important too as they are producing steady monthly sales at a low cost.

Google in China and Baidu in Europe

Google announced yesterday they will team up with search engine “Sina” in China to expand their offering and customer experience. This would also help Google and Sina in gaining market share as Baidu is dominating the market.

Google is “Gu Ge” in China. The name apparently means “Monsoon song” in chinese. I hope their partnership will bring them luck as the Chinese market currently reports 150 million internet users.

Google objective is of course to become the number 1 search engine in China? I would be happy to take the bets

In the meantime Chinese rival Baidu is flirting with Dame Europe.

If you could double your PPC search spending at the same ROI, would you?

This question was asked by a friend on linked in. 

I would definitly spend more if I can get the same or better ROI. BUT before doing so I would also look at the impact it has on other channels (affiliate being a good example). It can be that the PPC amount I will spend will impact the performance of affiliates and ultimatly decrease my ROI if I look at the bigger picture.
If it doesn’t I would switch money from lower performance media (such as media buys) and invest in Paid search.
I also think that if you keep the ROI at the same level if you double your spend this will mean the first half of your spend is not fully optimised and you could save money by optimising your current budget to start with (through web analytics, better LP, better targeted promotion, high quality ads, position…).

GreenBorder First Step Towards Google FREE Antivirus?

Seems like Google is now acquiring till they drop, the latest one to date being security software provider GreenBorder (I think if I did not miss anything).

GreenBorder is a security software company that specializes in using virtualization to create safe zones for online activities for Internet users. GreenBorder lets computer operators combine hardware and software to create “virtual” machines where tasks such as reading e-mail or exploring websites can be done without exposing systems to viruses or other malicious programs. Web-based programs that try to access files or computer registries are stopped from leaving what are commonly referred to as online “sandboxes” created by GreenBorder. The virtual “sandboxes” vanish at the end of each session, taking hacker assaults such as spyware, viruses, and trojans with them.

So basically, they are providing a good and anonymous security solution.

Now that Google aquired them, what will happen and what is motivating Google choice?