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Festive Seasonal Affiliate Marketing
November leaves are turning, nights are colder and there's that particular scent of marketing in the air. It's making its way onto the internet and the options for smaller players to profit are improving, says Sarah Falcon...
It's November, leaves are turning, nights are colder and
there's that particular scent of marketing in the air.
It's making its way onto the Internet and the options for
smaller players to make a profit are actually improving...
By Sarah Falcon
[Register and post your own comments
on this story below...]
Already the big players: Amazon, Ebay, Marks & Spencers have
rolled out Christmas affiliate campaigns and bonuses. Slowly,
even the smaller websites: personal sites, blogs, small company
pages are looking to get involved in seasonal affiliate
marketing.
Following online newspaper formats, operators are finding they
can make a profit with little effort. Keyword ads campaigns from
Google and Yahoo are neat, clean services that work. Partially
due to their relevance - the ads that show up are driven by the
content of the page - but also a subtle layout that takes away
from the garish and dated pop-ups.
Less obtrusive equals more appealing
Another unobtrusive method is the integrated ad. With readers
used to seeing adds in all forms of journalism, bloggers in
particular can use this medium to introduce ads that readers
will see and that can even add an aesthetic element to the page.
The fun fashion-bash blog gofugyourself.typepad.com does it
well, as does the food site www.101cookbooks.com/. When the ads
match the style and topic of the website, they're not only a
means of funds, but provide a valuable service for site
visitors.
Less obtrusive equals more appealing
Affiliate programmes are the small operator's tool of
choice. They serve to link websites to a large pool of companies
happy to pay for the chance to advertise on the site. With a
variety of setups, owners can get paid for every click made on
an advertisement or any purchase made through clicking on an
advertisement. There's a host of European and UK-focused
programmes: they collect merchants especially catering to the UK
market. The big players offer the most options, and usually
sign-up is completely free. Some favourites are: Affiliate
Window (
www.tradedoubler.com and
Commission Junction (
www.cj.com/).
Relevance in the festive period
What to look for in advertising? Especially for the Christmas
season, sites offering gift options are attractive. Always
popular are food and alcohol sites.. In the season of giving,
gift-able items in the £20-50 price range can add spark to the
site with seasonal banners and some extra spending cash. Popular
options: wines and spirits from wine.com, decadent chocolates
from www.godiva.com or something more personal and unique:
photographs and photograph gifts from Shutterfly
www.shutterfly.com or customised apparel from Spreadshirt
www.spreadshirt.co.uk.
Grassroots options
The grassroots, back to the sources, favourite is the net ring.
The fantastic sports blog
www.ericmcerlain.com/offwingopinion links
unto others and has others link unto him. More organised methods
include: Webring
www.webring.com and
RingSurf. The sites
link smaller sites in a large directory: it simultaneously
boosts online presence and makes less ubiquitous sites easier to
find.
All ranges of sites, including ones that never thought they
could be advertisers, are joining the bandwagon. It's adding
to the ever-dynamic world of online marketing, and offering up
the promise of payoff for free expression and creativity.
About the Author:
Sarah Falcon is Affiliate Marketing Manager of
Spreadshirt.co.uk
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