SEO Copy Writer

By: Bobbie Grennier

What do all super affiliates want more than anything else? Let’s say it together, they want to get paid and get paid handsomely.

So, what does it take to keep super affiliates on their game and advertising for your business? Well, you could say money again and while that wouldn’t be wrong, the answer has a lot more to do with the assurance of potential for income.

You see some merchants are floundering with the concept of “the cookie” and how long a cookie should be set for. They think that if they shorten the lifespan of the cookie that they won’t keep paying for the affiliate to acquire the same lead several times. So, what you might see in various affiliate programs are merchants who short the affiliate by only giving them a 48-hour window to deliver a lead from the customer’s initial click-through.

Statistics show that most customers will visit a site an average of five times before completing the lead or sales process. I’m thinking that the merchant’s 48-hour window might be a wee bit narrow for the affiliates to get what they want from the transaction and a little short-sighted for the merchant since “super affiliates” aren’t likely to want to help them as a result.

As one of the Industries best affiliate management and recruitment solution providers, I can tell you, That’s short-sighted thinking.

The argument is that studies show 98% of sales come within the first 48 hours after a person clicks through to a site. If that’s the case, why wouldn’t you extend that cookie for the maximum time allowed, because it makes the affiliate happier. In fact, some affiliate networks are equipped to track sales as long as 180 days after initial click-through.

If it’s not glaringly obvious, let me say it simply for you. Super affiliates like merchants who set cookies for extended periods of time. The potential for income from their advertising efforts to your potential customers is much greater and for them, that translates to more income return for their efforts to market you.

Super affiliates are basically, commissioned sales people with the whole world to work for, who can walk away at the drop of a hat. Super affiliates are in the driver’s seat in their relationships with marketers, not the marketers. So you should treat that affiliate as you would anyone in the power situation. They are top producing digital sales people, pay them well and make sure they’re happy.

So, what do all super affiliates want? To be paid well and to be ensured happiness throughout the process.

About the Author: Bobbie Grennier is an SEO copywriter, and affiliate marketing manager and affiliate. She publishes several blogs, but you’re most likely to be interested in her Webmaster Blog and Affiliate Blogger. Visit her web sites www.wild-wolf.com for more SEO information.

              

A new report by Elise Ackerman of the Mercury News, is asking the questions that the search engine companies don’t want to answer. Ackerman is pushing the four search giants (Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN) to answer questions about the true extent of your privacy with regards to the volumes of information they track about you.

You know every computer has a unique identifing number (IP) and everytime you log in and do a search, they know exactly who you are and follow your search trends. They then market to those trends, but that not the worst of it.

According to Ackerman, the search logs reveal intimate details about your search habits. For example:

A few weeks after the Mercury News made its request to the companies, AOL published the searches of about 658,000 AOL users on a public Web site as part of an effort to share data with researchers. The searches, which were done from March to May, provided an incredibly intimate glimpse into the lives of the searchers.

On March 1, AOL User 310416 looked for “how to self induce your own labor.'’ A few days later the user searched on “true contractions,'’ then did an “inmate search,'’ which led to the Illinois Department of Corrections. Later in the month, the user searched for “bedbugs'’ and “matress sets in illinois.'’

What this means is the Big Brother most certainly is watching and will prosecute offenders. It doesn’t mean that every search will lead to an investigation, but use some common sense and stay with in the legal guidelines of the laws.

Three Ways You Can Be Tracked Online

IP ADDRESS
Each time you access the Internet, you are assigned a string of numbers identifying your machine. The numbers are kept from 30 days to seven years.

REGISTRATION
You create an account with a log-on and a password. When you log on, companies can also cross-reference cookies and IP addresses with your account.

COOKIE
A string of characters is saved on your computer’s hard drive so that a Web site can identify you, via your browser, each time you return to the site.