Welcome to another episode of the AffPlan Strategies Session, a podcast where industry leaders share their expert advice to help you with all aspects of creating and refining your online affiliate marketing plan.

Lisa Picarille moderated a discussion about the CPA space with special guests Mark Roth and Jim Lillig.

Mark Roth, CEO of OfferVault.
Mark got involved with Internet Marketing as a PPC Affiliate in June 2005, focusing mainly on CPA offers. In March of 2006 he was able to get into affiliate marketing full-time and simultaneously developed Affiliate Radar and Offervault in 2007.  In addition to PPC and CPA, Mark’s expertise also includes split testing and landing page optimization, landing page design and SEO.
OfferVault.com
Twitter.com/markroth

Jim Lillig,  Director of Networks at ClickFusion
Jim is a long time Performance Marketing industry veteran.  He started his own consulting company in 1997 and over the last decade has held posts at various CPA networks. His latest venture, ClickFusion is a new CPA network that combines post transactional monetization with CPA network distribution. He recently authored a detailed report, called The State of CPA and is the director of network at DotComSecrets.
Clickfusion
JimLillig.com
Twitter.com/jimlillig
DotComSecrets.com

We talked about how CPA differs from CPM; why using CPA can be beneficial for affiliates; which affiliates CPA is right for; the tainted reputation of CPA networks and how to go about selecting one that adds value; what are the questions merchants need to ask when thinking about using a CPA network; how CPA is going to overcome issues about fraud, compliance, lack of transparency; FTC scrutiny; whether or not the big rev-share networks are going to get into CPA; industry consolidation and more.

Resources

• DirectTrack
• The State of CPA

Thanks for listening to the AffPlan Strategies Session. For more information and resources to take your affiliate marketing plan to the next level go to AffPlan.com.

Welcome to another episode of the AffPlan Strategies Session, a podcast where industry leaders share their expert advice to help you with all aspects of creating and refining your online Affiliate Marketing Plan.

Lisa Picarille moderated this episode about datafeeds in Affiliate Marketing, featuring Deb Carney and Eric Nagel.

Deb Carney, president of Team Loxly.

Team Loxly is an outsourced program management firm. Deb has been creating websites for more than 15 years. She is currently an affiliate as well as an OPM. She enjoys teaching affiliates how to optimize their sites.  You can hear her tips on Affiliate ABCs and Make Your Mark (art marketing) podcasts on Geekcast.fm. In addition, Deb has also been a professional photographer for 30 years.

Eric Nagel, president of Eric Nagel & Associates.

Eric Nagel is an affiliate marketer specializing in PPC and SEO. He started his career as a freelance web designer in 1998.  In 2005 he became a fulltime programmer for an affiliate in London. Four years later he left that job to become a fulltime affiliate.

Today’s topic is “DataFeeds and Affiliate Marketing“.

We started out by defining datafeeds as a database or digital catalog of a merchant’s products that can come in a variety of forms (including .xml). These datafeeds can be subscribed to by affiliates, who would then use that information to help them build their website.

We also discussed the benefits of datafeeds to affiliates and merchants; how hard it is to implement a datafeed; why datafeeds are not standardized (Deb would like them to be standardized. Eric took the opposing view); the challenges of dealing with them such as categories and broken links; using datafeeds as a tool for keyword generation and more.

Here are some of the tools mentioned in the show that help with datafeed process including creation and management:

• DataFeeder

  http://www.datafeedr.com/

• DataFeedFile

  http://www.datafeedfile.com/

• PopShops

  http://www.popshops.com/

• Golden Can

  http://www.goldencan.com/

• Web Merge

  http://web-procreate.com/wm-about.htm

• ShareASale Make a Page

  http://www.shareasale.com

Thanks for listening to the AffPlan Strategies Session. For more information and resources to take your affiliate marketing plan to the next level go to www.affplan.com.

Welcome to another episode of the AffPlan Strategies Session, a podcast where industry leaders share their expert advice to help you with all aspects of creating and refining your online Affiliate Marketing Plan.

Lisa Picarille moderated and was joined by two very well-known and well-respected OPMs:

Karen Garcia, a partner at GTO Management

GTO Management offers nearly 20 years of combined experience in developing and managing successful programs in affiliate marketing. They have expertise in Web and graphic design, SEO and SEM, conversion analysis, and recruiting. They work with over 200 of the top producing affiliates from various networks and have thousands of affiliate relationships. Karen also a big foodie and blogs at www.ultimatefoodie.com. In addition, she has spent countless hours helping grassroots efforts fighting the advertising tax in California and other states. http://gtomanagement.com/

Jamie Birch, owner and principal at JEB Commerce

JEBCommerce is a full service, online marketing agency specializing in performance marketing. It services both large and small organizations with a heavy focus on affiliate marketing. Almost ten years ago, Jamie began his career as a Search Engine Marketing professional and has extensive experience in all aspects of Internet Marketing.

http://jebcommerce.com/

Today’s topic is “Working with New Clients as an OPM“.

We discussed the importance of evaluating if a client is a good fit for your company; if there are types of merchants that these OPM don’t want to work with; setting realistic expectations for merchant’s about their affiliate programs; what merchants need to put in place internally to make a program work; the importance of picking the right network; measuring a program’s success; tools that help in the process and more.

Karen and Jamie gave Lisa an “under the hood” look at life as an OPM, including some comedic anecdotes and many profound insights during this lively and entertaining discussion.  (And, for the first time in AffPlan Podcast History:  The audio quality is great!)

Another big “Thanks!” to Jamie Birch, Karen Garcia, and Lisa Picarille for providing us, and our entire Affiliate Marketing Industry such excellent content and an overall excellent podcast.

Recommended Tools:

• Drop.io

  http://drop.io/

• HootSuite

  http://hootsuite.com/

• PoachMark (from BrandVerity)

  http://www.brandverity.com/