Affiliate WISHES - If I Could Wave a Magic Wand?

[Linda Buquet]

Affiliate WISHES - If I could wave a Magic Wand and give you ANYTHING you wanted, that would make Affiliate Marketing better or easier - what would it be???

I just wrote an article for WebProNews which has over 100,000 subscribers including lots of affiliates. It was basically the same article I wrote here on the 5 Star Blog a few days ago about the evolving world of AM:
Affiliate Marketing Web 2.0 Style - Past and Future Trends
http://affiliate-blogs.5staraffiliateprograms.com/2005/11/21/affiliate-marketing-web-20/

In re-reading the article today I started thinking about the fact that the Holidays are coming which is a most "magical" time of the year. I aso reflected on the fact that I'm an innovator at heart and love to be on the bleeding edge and come up with new solutions. I have so many ideas but have been too busy to to really just pick one and focus on it.

So all of that comes together to make me want to put on my Fairy God Mother Hat and to ask you some questions:

When you read that article and think about the old and new trends in affiliate marketing - can you thinking of anything the industry needs that does not yet exist?

Think outside the box!

What other future trends do you see coming in our industry?

If I could wave a magic wand and give you a new solution
that would make affiliate marketing better and/or easier what would it be?

I'm waiting to grant your Affiliate Wishes. Come tell me what they are...

 

[Linda Buquet]

Decided to make this a sticky. I bet some of you guys can get some really good creative ideas rolling on this.

 

[maiko2299]

That easy Linda,
I would like one of those easy buttons!

That is a great question, I know that one of biggest challenges about marketing is be able to get you link out where people can see them, You need to have a lot of links out in multiple places.

Wave the wand and come up with a solution of posting links in several locations with just one stop! Now I know that google adwords is great if thats what you want, but .40 per click that is pretty darn expensive.

One of the things that I hear is that %50 of all pay per clicks are not even real. Competitors click on your links just to see what your site looks like.
.40 per click can kill your buget real quick that way.

What would be nice if you put lins on someones web site on like a rotator program. That would be nice, and I think a lot of people would be willing to participate with such a program! Low fees,

every time you visit a web site participating in the program the liks would be on the site would change each time.

That's my 2 cents.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi maiko2299,

That's a good one. If my magic wand was working today and I could whip that one up - I'd probably be a rich lady!

 

[my2cents]

no easy buttons or magic wands for me... cuz if I had one many others would have them also...

thereby making them hardbuttons and jinxed wands...

the one thing that fustrates me more then anything is the constant change... and increasing complexity of affiliate marketing... dont get me wrong... I've got a large toolbox of tricks... I've learned over the years...

online businesses are get more like B&M businesses everyday.. which is a good thing.. because it will cause a severe thinning of online marketers...

be had a dotcom bust in 2000 very soon we'll have a AM bust... my feeling is some time in the next 24 months...

good thing fantasies are FREE....

Joe

 

[AdsertiveJen]

Hi my2cents (Joe),

I agree with you on the AM bust. I'm not sure if you were speaking for affiliates or for affiliate networks, or both, but I think speaking from the affiliate network side it's becoming more and more competitive. New networks continue to launch and I think that "survival of the fittest" will come into play. The networks that flourish will be the ones that cater to their affiliates by actively seeking the offers they want to run, paying them on time, and establishing real relationships with affiliates to help them as the indutry changes, because we all know this indutry changes so fast. I think it's becoming increasingly difficult for affiliates to keep up with changes made by search engines, email providers, etc. and more larger companies are finally coming online pushing the "little guys" even further down in the search engine ranking on top of that. Granted the Internet is infinite, but there is only so much information and advertising one person can take in before they overload.

 

[d0m1n10n]

That easy Linda,
I would like one of those easy buttons!

That is a great question, I know that one of biggest challenges about marketing is be able to get you link out where people can see them, You need to have a lot of links out in multiple places.

Wave the wand and come up with a solution of posting links in several locations with just one stop! Now I know that google adwords is great if thats what you want, but .40 per click that is pretty darn expensive.

One of the things that I hear is that %50 of all pay per clicks are not even real. Competitors click on your links just to see what your site looks like.
.40 per click can kill your buget real quick that way.

What would be nice if you put lins on someones web site on like a rotator program. That would be nice, and I think a lot of people would be willing to participate with such a program! Low fees,

every time you visit a web site participating in the program the liks would be on the site would change each time.

That's my 2 cents.

Just wanted you to know that google bot is now very keen on a site picking up alot of liks at a time. Dont get me wrond backlinks are essential to get a good ranking. But the thing is if Googlebot sees that you have picked up alot in a short period a red flag goes up and you now look like a spammer. Google will then penalize you or just remove you from its engine. Slow and steady is the key to getting a good ranking these days. A large amount of linkbacks in a short period of time can absoutly kill your PR.

 

[thedalmation]

It would be nice to have every email address ever created and you were allowed to send out an ad to every one of them instantly and without repercussions. It would also be nice to have a good friend that worked at Google in charge of programming and could have some discretion on ranking pages, and being my friend would keep me in the top ten consistently.

Now back to reality

 

[Linda Buquet]

Good ones! But dream on...

 

[aahh]

Here's my wish: standard XML API

I wish all affiliate software had a standard (perhaps SOAP-based) API for fetching affiliate sales information.

What would I do with such a thing? I'd start with a single web page where I could monitor all my affiliate activity across all networks.

Next, I'd put together one of those really nifty half-transparent desktop widgets to keep track of all affiliate programs on my desktop.

That would be cool.

Last year I wrote a little tray application that monitors my Google adsense earnings and pop up a little MSN-Messenger-like notification with earnings stats when daily income increased. -- Yes, it played a cha-ching .wav file when a certain amount was earned in an hour.
Regards,

Chad

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hey Chad,

"Yes, it played a cha-ching .wav file when a certain amount was earned in an hour."

Love it - you could probably sell it or give it away as an incentive.

 

[aahh]

I thought about giving it away but for one problem: the lack of an Adsense API forced me to use screen-scraping. Google is constantly changing their Adsense page so my little tool constantly "breaks" and I have to re-write the scraper. That could be a real pain if I had thousands of people emailing me asking why the tool "broke" again. Which brings us back to the need for a simple API.

Yes, the sound of the "Cha-ching" was pretty sweet!

I have to tell you, I also added in a second .wav for extremely high earnings (more than $200/hour) - it was a ripped .wav of Homer Simson screaming "Woo Hoo!!".

Whenever that odd sound issued from my home office it really gave me an ear-to-ear grin.

 

[Trudat]

Oh, very simple. I'd like to be an affiliate for a product that pays out $500,000 comission, converts 1:1, has keywords that cost nothing, has no competition, and has no other affiliates that are interested in advertising it.

Basically, I want to live in a world where there's only one person, me, and I can buy a half-million dollar product from myself.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Trudat,

If I had a current contest going for best reply in this thread, you would have just won! Brought a nice big smile to my face! We're gonna get along just fine!

 

[Trudat]

Haha thanks. I do hope so.

 

[hurricaneshutters]

I think submitting articles to the article directories is showing great promise for driving traffic. I am also a big fan of blogging and syndicating your rss feed.