Just a note that TradePub is back up and currently stable. We now have an idea of what may have caused the downtime and we're working hard to nail it down to ensure it does not occur again. We'll send a full debrief once we have it. In the meantime, please accept our sincerest apologies for the troubles you and your readers may have had in accessing our TradePub pages. We are currently back to normal and will keep you posted along the way on here and Twitter.com.
You may have noticed that your TradePub promotion landing pages are periodically delivering users to broken pages this morning. Please bear with us as we work on the issue. We're really sorry for the inconvenience. Check out our Twitter account for updates on the situation.
You're looking to promote an eBook, white paper or magazine to your audience and you want to find the hottest resources in your category. How would you do it and what are your choices?
Your first option? The Offer Catalog page. In this section, you can specify the following:
Category of your content. The more specific you are, the better. For example, a marketing blogger would select "Sales & Marketing". An IT forum may choose "IT - Software & Development" and so on.
The Country that drives the most traffic to your site. For the majority, it'll be the same Country where you reside. Check your Google Analytics data just in case. This is important as it'll inform you of the "Country" filter imposed by the Client and will help cut down on your number of rejected leads.
The type of offers you want to promote. There are three options - publications (which are magazines) and white papers which encompass eBooks, newsletters, guides, and so on. The default is "All" which is what we would recommend.
The Sort By field will have the highest impact on your offer results. Here you can view offers by earning potential, payout per lead, or popularity. Most partners opt for the first two selections. We recommend selecting "Popularity." Here's why - earning potential and payout per lead focus on how much you can make, not necessarily the resource your readers would be interested in. Arranging the offers by popularity gives you direct visibility on the material your readers are attracted to. While the earning potential and payout per lead could be less, your volume will likely be higher. Think of it this way - would you rather have a few high payouts come in or a consistent flow of low payout offers? Promoting the popular offers will offset the lower generating payouts.
The "Show Only" dropdown allows you to pinpoint active offers, new offers, or expired offers. We suggest keeping the first option. You can play around with the second to look for new recommendations. In case you're wondering why we allow visibility into expired offers, it's so you can view offers you may have promoted and have gone down since.
The Keyword field can also skew the results in your offer. Use it to submit keywords that relate to your content. Let's say you're a developer and you just wrote a post related to Linux. Use that keyword to find offers related to the topic. Or you're an Apple fanboy/fangirl that wants to share iPad tips. Typing "iPad" will yield many results. Remember - the more relevant you are to your audience, the more revenue you will generate as well.
Besides the Offer Catalog, you can also add a prepopulated grid of our hottest offers to a blog post, confirmation page, thank you page, 404 page - pretty much anywhere you see fit. It's useful in that it shows a variety of related offers which can increase click-through from visitors depending on their interest. An example is shown below. Head over to the Confirmation/Thank you Page Tool or talk to your Account Manager about how you can get a custom widget just for your site.
In addition, don't forget about our Resource Library (Note: Please use a browser other than Chrome). This tool is available in the Tools Wizard and allows you to add a Resources page to your navigation or footer full of content for your readers. We even brand it to fit the look and feel of your site.
Say goodbye to Google Reader, which will be shutting down July 1, 2013 according to Google's blog. By now, this announcement isn't news. In fact, our social media channels were in an uproar when the news first hit as we're sure yours was as well.
Most of us consume our information through RSS. Obviously, it's not the only platform that allows us to but it's the most popular. I couldn't find the exact number of users Google Reader has for this post but it's safe to say it's in the tens of millions. As users and bloggers ourselves, we're concerned about finding a viable alternative and losing our readers as many others are.
Before we get into solutions for these issues, it's worth taking a moment to discuss the reason Google cited for retiring the service, stating "...over the years usage has declined." We've seen many articles speculate it's due to an effort to push more users to consume information through the floundering Google+ instead. While we'll likely never know for sure, it's worth noting that the methods we use to consume news has changed. RSS is NOT dead by any means as it has been contemplated by many authors. In actuality, our dependency for information discovery has widened. We're spending more and more time on social networks and as a result, we've relying on them for the latest news. Think about how often you discovered a breaking story on Twitter/Facebook, or a new job posting on LinkedIn before you opened your RSS reader? While RSS readers are best for aggregating articles and allowing you to quickly scan headlines, it doesn't beat instant gratification.
All is not lost and as I alluded to in the title, there are solutions to keep your audience engaged and to ensure you minimize the impact of your site traffic.
In a few weeks, we’re launching BlogNotions, a content distribution platform that compiles the latest buzz in the blogosphere from industry leaders. BlogNotions is actually an entity of ours that is already up and running under a separate domain. We’re moving it to live inside of RevResponse as yet another channel for our partners to generate revenue.
Until it goes live, the purpose of this blog post is to educate you about the program so you know what’s coming. We hope it gets you as excited as we are about the launch – keep your eyes peeled for an official announcement in the next few weeks.
What can BlogNotions do for me?
BlogNotions provides readers with a full spectrum of information from the top leaders in the space. They cover mostly every vertical in the B2B space - everything from technology, business, and marketing – and are received by over 2 million site visitors & email subscribers every month.
With the program, you have the opportunity to build thought leadership, expand your audience reach, and earn revenue. All from your existing posts. That means we won’t require bloggers to write for us, but simply to syndicate the blog posts you've already written. To measure the impact of your new-found readership, an analytics report will be sent monthly to help you gauge your expanded influence.
If you haven't heard of the Affiliate Summit, it's the conference for affiliate marketers and lead generation publishers. In its tenth year, it provides a great forum for educational sessions on the latest trends and networking for publishers, affiliate managers, networks and the like.
The Affiliate Summit East will be held on August 18-20 in our backyard of Philadelphia and we want to meet you! Drop us a line in the comments below if you'll be in the area and we'd love to set up a time to chat.
Finally, we all know the affiliate marketing and lead generation industries are fragmented which can make it difficult to accumulate reliable information. The AffStat Affiliate Marketing Benchmarks group surveys affiliates every year to collect data about demographics, best practices, and more. Take a look at the results in 2012 to give you an idea of the valuable information aggregated after you take it yourself. And psst...don't forget to include RevResponse in your answer to #22 (for which networks you use)!
Note: If you added this the TopBar before December 2012, please update your code by reinstalling it.
We launched the TopBar back in May of 2012 as part of 3 brand new monetization tools. The goal was to provide another way to monetize a resource in a unique way. This particular one displays one featured offer every time a visitor comes to your page or refreshes. It can easily be minimized or maximized per a reader's preference. An example is shown below.
The TopBar can be added in 3 steps. First, select your brand if you have multiple sites. Don't skip the channel code field and add "TopBar" so you can distinguish how much revenue it's bringing in through the "Report by Channel" page. Select a color that matches or compliments your site design, then choose the categories that correspond with your site theme (and be as specific as possible to optimize your conversions). If it looks good on the "Preview" pane, generate the ad code and copy it on your header or index file.
Always test to make sure it appears properly before pushing the change live. Here's a screenshot of an example I created:
We couldn't think of a better way to show our appreciation then to create a visual representation on how we've grown together last year. How have you evolved? How have we improved? The interactive infographic below provides the highlights. Take a look to gain more insights into how our partners performed collectively, where they reside, what tools they use and more. We also dive into the number and type of leads generated, as well as some of the campaigns you've participated in. We recommend viewing this in FireFox or Chrome, not Internet Explorer.
Bonus: In addition, we produced a brand new "How RevResponse Works" video, now live on our homepage. Finally, an easier way to explain how you generate revenue from our network!
According to our last infographic, 70% of the leads you generated came from the US. That leaves quite an untapped opportunity to pursue downloads from other countries.
If you're an international partner looking for geographic resources to offer your audience or a U.S. partner with a wide reach that wants to cater to a specific demographic, we're highlighting 8 popular international offers in this post. Not only are they performing well, they're also paying out commissions of up to $22 dollars. Take a look at the demographic data in your Google Analytics to see which of the bunch would be suitable for you (don't forget to ensure they're relevant to your audience). If one catches your eye, add your cobranded tradepub link to the URL so you can get credit for the lead.
Information Technology offers:
Serena - Twelve Lifecycle Management Principles for World Class Cloud Development. This white paper discusses how companies are leveraging the cloud for software development without stretching their budgets. It's available in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States.
It's been a few months since we've run an exclusive offer and this particular guide is a good way to start the new year. The Windows 8 eBook, normally sold for $9.95, is available for free from now until Tuesday, January 22nd at midnight.
Why should you promote it?
Exclusive offers almost always perform better because 1) they're only available for a short time, 2) they're discounted heavily (and free in this case), and 3) are based on a hot topic.
In a few weeks, we’re launching BlogNotions, a content distribution platform that compiles the latest buzz in the blogosphere from industry leaders. BlogNotions is actually an entity of ours that is already up and running under a separate domain. We’re moving it to live inside of RevResponse as yet another channel for our partners to generate revenue.
