Industry News  |  In Practice  |  The Bigger Picture  |  Digital Marketing  |  Your Business

Latest Articles

More Web 2.0 Needed In Schools

An influential think-tank calling for more Web 2.0 use in school and technology experts agree, arguing that children should get used to collaborative tools before they enter the workplace.

more

UK Council for Child Internet Safety Launches

The UK Government launched its programme to help protect children from exposure to potentially harmful content on the Internet, including some forms of advertising. New Media Knowledge spoke to AOL, one of the companies involved, to see what real impact the new group would have.

more

US Presidential Election Gets Social

Last week, Twitter launched its US Presidential Election microblogging site and, with social media likely to play a big part in the outcome, politicians this side of the pond should be looking closely at its impact, experts say.

more

Related Articles

Related Events

Festive Seasonal Affiliate Marketing

Filed under: all articles
By: NMK Created on: November 24th, 2005
Bookmark this article with: Delicious Digg StumbleUpon

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

Comments

You must be logged in to comment.

Log into NMK

Register

Lost Password?
Login

Newsletter


For the latest news from NMK enter your email address and click subscribe:


Subscribe