Keyen Farrell Offers Useful Tips For Incentive Promoting

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A few years ago, Keyen Farrell authored a guide to incentive marketing titled Mastering Incentive Websites. In it, Keyen Farrell shared his observations of the business and detailed the steps he took to form Topaz Financial, a network of Incentive Websites that ultimately drove additional than 100,000 advertiser actions. Topaz Financial was also chronicled in the Spring 2006 Issue of Colby Magazine. As we have a tendency to head into a replacement decade, Keyen Farrell needs to share 2 items of recommendation that he hopes those who currently are in or aspire to be in incentive selling, might notice useful.

Free Trials are The New Leads
Many years ago there was no shortage of advertisers wanting to partner with incentive marketers on a pay-per-lead basis. It's readily apparent that the pay-per-lead has gone the way of the dodo. The few pay-per lead programs that remain grant payouts well below what's needed to actively promote them. Pay-per-lead offers have perpetually been the motivation ...
... marketer's Holy Grail since they allow conversion rates that are several times those of pay-per-sale affiliate programs. Furthermore, pay-per-lead programs offer more consistency than pay-per-sale programs since the payouts are fixed instead of a percentage of a final sale. Fastened payouts are invariably more attractive to users and convert at a considerably higher rate.

It ought to come as no surprise that in the Incentive marketing area, what matters at the top of the day is conversion rate. Every part of an Incentive Website, from the visitor funnel to the individual offers should be tuned to drive the very best conversion rate and ultimately the best revenue per visitor. In 2005 we experienced conversion rates as high as 20% on bound pay-per-lead offers.

As true pay-per-lead opportunities (think lead generation) have evaporated, a connected model remains a viable supply of conversions: free trials. Most clearly, free trials involve no immediate money outlay from users, lifting conversion rates. Secondly, the purchase funnel is much shorter and additional direct than nearly all pay-per sale funnels. Free trials are an provide kind where the merchant's goals are directly aligned with yours. The issue with pay-per-sale affiliate programs is that the purchase funnel is long and can be downright confusing to the user. Many pay-per-sale affiliate links will direct users to a landing page that's either irrelevant or too high in the purchase funnel. This can be typically an intentional merchant tactic since not all sales or actions may be needed to generate affiliate payouts. You must continuously browse the fine print in the terms of each pay-per-sale affiliate agreement. Free trials are a key strategy to stay your incentive promoting competitive this decade, and as models of digital media distribution continue to evolve, the opportunities will only grow.

Don't Go In-House
If the quantity of actions you drive becomes significant, it's a lot of than likely that the merchant will look for to bring your relationship in-house. Removing the affiliate network from the equation leads to deep and immediate cost savings for your merchant partner - since affiliate networks charge merchants as abundant as 30% of every completed action, merchants will happily bump up your payout as an incentive to lure you in-house. My recommendation is easy: Don't do it. Whereas the prospect of upper payouts may seem alluring, in-house relationships will be fraught with bother even among the foremost reputable merchant sets.

Affiliate networks offer a valuable service to you by acting as a robust intermediary. If you've got gone in-house and a merchant decides to bilk you, there's no recourse. The merchant is only risking your relationship. In fact, if you have got a blowout month in that you're owed a large commission check, an unscrupulous merchant might simply decide that the chance of losing your referrals is price stiffing you on the check. In an affiliate network, this merchant's actions would jeopardize their relationship with that network's entire affiliate base. Good networks can de-activate deadbeat merchants and fight for you if you've got been wronged. Some merchants can reverse or cancel additional transactions than they ought to, and also the network is a valuable arbiter of such disputes. You will seemingly realize that your network is raring to lend their ear when you have got issues. They recognize that the integrity of the network rests on a quality publisher and merchant base. You can't have a top quality network without both. And don't forget, the network gets paid when you do! So when the phone rings from your prime payer's affiliate manager, say yes to the free schwag, but say no to going in-house!

Source From http://www.keyenfarrell.com/articles/useful-tips-for-incentive-marketing/

Keyen joined Google in 2007 as an Account Strategist, Keyen has worked in Google's Media & Entertainment Vertical. As Account Strategist, Keyen is directly responsible for a paid search portfolio consisting of several top Media & Entertainment advertisers. Since January of 2009, Keyen's work has been focused on the Big Three Television Networks. He is currently the lead east coast Account Strategist assigned to ABC, NBC, & CBS.