von Erfolg Im Netz | Aug. 17, 2019 | Affiliate Marketing, Events
- Winning SEO Tactics for Product Affiliates Dale Bertrand President, Fire&Spark August 12th, 2019
- SEO is a Moving Target
Gets more competitive every day
Search algorithms are constantly changing
Generating backlinks is harder than ever
- What Type of Sites Are We Talking About Today?
Anyone promoting products with any type of content
Dropship
Ecommerce
Coupon
Product review
Price comparison
Product blogs
Wholesalers
- My background
Built product review and education lead gen sites
Studied AI in graduate school
Practicing SEO since 1999
Founder of Fire&Spark digital marketing agency
Focus on SEO, content marketing and analytics
- Problems We’ll Tackle
Competitors are outranking you
Organic traffic isn’t converting
Gave up on link building
Lost traffic during an algorithm update
- You must have the most useful, trustworthy content in your niche
What Does Google Want?
Happy searchers (and to sell more ads)
Google is a happiness engine
Google wants to send searchers to sites they trust
- Foundational SEO Strategies
1 Build an SEO friendly site
2 Develop SEO Content
3 Generate backlinks
- Research keywords one- by-one I did this for a decade!
Rinse and repeat
Lurk in forums and FB groups for content ideas
Continuously generate content
Send thousands of link building outreach emails
- Old-school SEO Tactics
Rely on SEO Is Not a Numbers Game
More content
More links
More outreach emails
- SEO in 2018 Keyword targeting
Build an SEO-friendly site Authority based on backlinks SEO in 2019
Content must be high quality and useful
Minimum viable technical SEO
Authority based on backlinks and reputation
- One-task Strategies
Interview campaigns
Product giveaways
Student group sponsorships
- User Generated Content Strategies
Forums
Q&A Sites
Learning communities
- Purpose-driven Strategies The process
1. Identify a trending topic in your niche
2. Engage authentically
3. Build relationships
Lead a movement!
- Strategy,
We led the movement against the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA)
Contacted anyone who wrote about the law
Interviewed activists
Wrote articles about the impact
Distributed banners and badges
- Results, Content, links and Rankings
Mentions and backlinks on blogs
Backlinks from Handmade Toy Alliance
Backlinks Overlawyered Blog
Banner and badge backlinks
Links from toy makers
Interview and issue oriented content
- Takeaways
SEO has evolved and we need to elevate our strategies
Your affiliate site can be “important reading”
Influencers have a soft spot for causes they care about
Dump mass email outreach for targeted email outreach
Generate natural links (don’t do link building)
Find a cause that you personally care about
- Choosing a Niche
OLD Evaluate keyword search volume vs. competition
NEW Start by looking for trending topics that you care about
von Erfolg Im Netz | Aug. 17, 2019 | Affiliate Marketing, Events
- BRANDS’ NEEDS
• Track partner activity and know ROAS.
• More automation and scalable tools.
• Tie payout to performance.
• More transparency.
• Better brand experience.
- PUBLISHER/ PARTNER NEEDS
• Grow their share of marketing budget shifted from brand to performance.
• More transparency into brand partner’s data and KPI’s.
• Clear communication from brand partners on changes, opportunities, etc.
• Fair and hybrid compensation.
• Real-time reporting on performance.
- BIGGER PARTNER MANAGEMENT TEAMS
• Multiple FTE’s.
• 5-10 year experience, VP/Director level.
• Multiregional experience, local language capability.
• Specific experience in recruiting, business development, campaign development, fraud, data analysis, etc.
- MORE LICENSED TECH & “IN HOUSE” PROGRAMS
• Separation of services and technology.
• No more “roadmap”, platforms will have to compete as tech companies on features available today and tomorrow.
• More licensed tech, continued phase out of performance fee.
• Partner and “In House Programs” using white labeled technology.
- ENABLING TECH – Reporting Automation & Integration
• OptimusPrime
• Affluent. Fraud
• Forensiq. Date and Attribution
• Odyssey. Buy Now
• Monotote. Publisher Analytics & BI
• Trackonomics
- INTEROPERABILITY
• Shift towards “open” systems vs “closed” systems.
• Interoperability will be essential. • Similar to path programmatic.
• Network compatibility.
- GOING GLOBAL FASTER
• Direct to consumer brands starting global and going global faster.
• Consumers are increasingly shopping from outside their own countries.
• As global e-commerce and global partner marketing grows, so will brands’ demand for more global partner marketing solutions.
- APAC GROWTH
• Ecommerce sales = $3.5 trillion in 2021
• Mobile device-commerce sales = 80% of transactions, just over $2.7 trillion dollars by 2021.
• Multitrillion-dollar e-commerce market and the world’s largest.
- GLOBAL AGENCIES & COMPLIANCE
• Why have five agencies when you have one platform?
• Brands looking for global solutions, integrated global strategy and in-country support.
• Brands/agencies need to stay abreast of global and region-specific changes such as GDPR, Nexus, FTC, rollout of more stringent policies in the U.S. around privacy and disclosures.
von Erfolg Im Netz | Aug. 17, 2019 | Affiliate Marketing, Events
- If you’re not active on Linkedin You’re missing 80% of your leads on users in 200 countries, and 2 new member network every second!
- 600+ MILLION content impressions in the Linkedin feed
- EVER DO THE MATH…468 BILLION PER YEAR ONLY 3 MILLION SHARE CONTENT WEEKLY
- #1 Profile
- #2 Content
- #3 Connecting
- #4 Engage
- #5 Messaging
- Tips for Picking the Right Linkedin Profile Pic
– Choose a recent pic that looks like you,
– Pic should take up 60% of the frame
von Erfolg Im Netz | Aug. 17, 2019 | Affiliate Marketing, Events
- Hamburg HQ • 35+ premium partners • 13 countries • Content adjacent coupon sites • 100+ staff • Digiday & Deloitte Awards
- Tip 1: Trust in Coupons
- Tip 2: Find the right partners
- Tip 3: Develop a Winning Strategy
- Tip 4: 360◦ Approach
- Tip 5: Ask for Innovation
- Trust in coupons
- Find the right partner
- Develop a winning strategy
- 360 approach
- Ask for innovation
von Erfolg Im Netz | Aug. 17, 2019 | Affiliate Marketing, Events
- op·ti·mi·za·tion – the action of making the best or most effective use of a situation or resource. Our resource is our website! noun
- Problem: You can’t optimize what you don’t measure.
Solution: Implement tools to help you measure, target and optimize.
Free & paid tools will be provided to help guide you through the chaos of marketing technology.
- About Me
Head of Optimization with LeadsMarket.com (a network) which paid out $48M in affiliate commissions as of 2018.
- About LeadsMarket.com
● Short-Term Loans & Personal Loans ○ Leads ○ Clicks ○ Calls ○ US & UK Markets
● Over 460 Active Affiliates ● Optimized Forms
- Chronological Order of Events (Pun Intended) – Types of tools covered with top tool pick in each:
1. Event Tracking
2. Funnel Tracking
3. Session Replay & Heatmapping
4. Experimentation
5. Automated Web Testing
- Description & Solutions – Event Tracking
● Allows you to get more granular data than just pageviews
● Can be highly targeted actions! ○ Based on custom goals ○ Needs custom development. Solutions –
● Google Tag Manager (GTM) events to Google Analytics (Free) ○ Debug events with Google Tag Manager preview tool
● Heap
● FullStory
- Tool of Choice For Event Tracking – Google Tag Manager – tagmanager.google.com
Why:
1. Develop once and syndicate out to other tools
2. Easy self-serve
3. Good versioning system
4. FREE
- Quick Hack Develop events for Google Tag Manager ONCE and then syndicate out to other tools for ingestion into those platforms.
This allows for develop time to be shorter and tool implementation to become faster!
BONUS: Value parameter can pass time on step also!
Custom Event Triggers
- Event Hierarchy From Google Tag Manager (GTM) you will have to have at least 3 parameters covered.
1. Event name a. Generally the topic
2. Category a. Self-explanatory
3. Action a. Click, Popup displayed, etc
4. Value a. Can pass back time it took to complete action Event Name Category Action > Label > Value
- Key Benefit For Event Tracking Helps you DRILL DOWN ON ACTIONS people take on your website and not just what pages they hit
- Description & Solutions Funnel Tracking
● The act of tracking starting point and end point user will take on your website ○ With events it could be by field or step
● Let you see key drop-off points Solutions
● Google Analytics ○ Pageview Funnel ○ Virtual Pageviews From Events
● Heap
● FullStory
- Tool of Choice For Funnel Tracking Heap Analytics heapanalytics.com
Why:
1. Event driven data visualization
2. You can create funnels with pageviews and events
3. Excellement segmentation options
4. Retroactive event capture and naming
- Quick Hack
Using Heap Analytics you can start with a pageview and then transition into events specific to single page application.
Heap also allows for more steps captured than Google Analytics.
Example Funnel Report Transitions from pageview to events on single-page multi-step form and has way more steps than allowed on Google Analytics funnel visualization report
- How it works
Step 1 Google Tag Manager sends event to Heap
Step 2 Heap collects events to then have you create sequential report on
Step 3 Report in Heap can then be segmented interpreted
- Key Benefit For Funnel Tracking Helps you IDENTIFY KEY AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT to fix bugs and/or user experience
- Description & Solutions Session Replay + Heatmaps
● Allows you to SEE the actions being taken by your users while heatmaps collect the actions that could be taken on items that are NOT intended to be clicked on or receive errors Solutions
● FullStory
● Crazy Egg
● Hotjar
- Tool of Choice For Session Replay & Heatmaps FullStory fullstory.com
Why:
1. Excellent video recordings of users while keeping high security fields private
2. Console log of bugs that can be detected by dev tools
3. Collects actions like “rage clicks” and “dead clicks”
- Quick Hack
Get dev tools add-on for FullStory to allow you to collect console log files from users to see errors and bugs.
Then setup segments with errors so that you can monitor any bugs that may arise proactively.
Example Rage Click Replay
- Key Benefit For Session Replay & Heatmaps
Helps you SEE THE USER EXPERIENCE and capture log files to see bug errors and report to IT with a simple shortlink
- Description & Solutions Experimentation
● A must for being able to test new designs out with a well thought out hypothesis.
● Allows you to split test urls or has visual editor for you to do minor adjustments.
Solutions ● Google Optimize (Free) ● Optimizely ● VWO ● Freshmarketer
- Tool of Choice For Experimentation Freshmarketer freshmarketer.com
Why:
1. The best value in the space
2. Fast reporting
3. “Custom attributes” segmentation of results
4. Polling and other subtools
5. “All-In-One Conversion Optimization Suite”
- Quick Hack Use Freshmarketer “custom attributes” feature which are collected from events syndicated from GTM.
This will allow you to target all and tag users as they come in to segment out later based on your criteria and not just device or behavioral data.
Example Report
- Key Benefit For Experimentation
IMPLEMENTATION ACROSS ALL USERS by being able to split traffic, tag users via events fired and segment out later in reporting
- Description & Solutions Automated Web Testing
● This is a tool that follows a script set by the user that tells it what to do on a website
● Scheduled testing will show if new experiments break things and alert if issues arise Solutions
● Ghost Inspector
● TestCraft
- Tool of Choice For Automated Web Testing & Monitoring
Ghost Inspector ghostinspector.com
Why:
1. Easy to script out new process via Chrome Extension
2. Intervals and notifications are quick to set up
3. Low learning curve for non- developers
- Quick Hack Create tests for every facet of your website/offer.
From logging in to submitting a new order.
This can even look for error on front-end UI or source code.
When test fails, Ghost Inspector will tell you what step failed, play back video of the test and show you a screenshot of end point of test.
- Key Benefit For Automated Web Testing & Monitoring
PEACE OF MIND and proactive alerts via email, and/or Slack to you or your team when issues arise
- The Top 5 Tools
1. Event Tracking (DRILL DOWN ON ACTIONS) ○ tagmanager.google.com
2. Funnel Tracking (IDENTIFY KEY AREAS) ○ heapanalytics.com
3. Session Replay & Heatmaps (SEE THE USER EXPERIENCE) ○ fullstory.com
4. Experimentation (IMPLEMENTATION) ○ freshmarketer.com
5. Automated Web Testing & Monitoring (PEACE OF MIND) ○ ghostinspector.com
von Erfolg Im Netz | Aug. 17, 2019 | Affiliate Marketing, Events
- US Census Bureau, 2017 National Population Projections By 2025 57% of Americans will be Millenials or younger By 2025, more than half the U.S. will have grown up with a digital first mindset Millennials are:
● First generation to have had access to the Internet during their formative years
● WiFi, Google, AOL chat rooms, Facebook, and Smart Phones were all released when Millennials were ~5-25 years old
● First generation to have parents who regularly used technology Millennials, defined: Born 1981-1996, in 2019 they are 23-38 y.o
- 57% of Baby Boomers use social media 71% of Baby Boomers use online banking services 1X per week 36% of 50+ year olds use ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft
52% of Baby Boomers watch Digital Video Source: Gallup, July 2018; eMarketer, November 2018; Pew Research, May 2018; ABA Infographic Millennials significantly influence older generations
- Consumer expectations are changing 1 in 3 Expect personalized recommendations +55%Growth in searches for ‘ideas’ on mobile 70% Of who started shopping will make a purchase ‘today’ Curious Demanding Impatient
- The New Age Shopper Driving Results in a Changing Coupon Market Be There Be Helpful Be Frictionless
- For Today’s Curious New Age Shopper Driving Results in a Changing Coupon Market Be There Be Helpful Be Frictionless
- Most customers start their journey online Retail 53% Food & Dining 38% Beauty/Wellness 20% Source: Google/Kantar TNS; Auto CB 2018; eMarketer 2018; Google Consumer Survey 2019 Percent of consumers who look for coupons online
- But the journey is no longer linear or predictable 30% 56% Source: Google Internal Data, 2019; Google Survey 2019 24% online search engine 22% visited a marketplace like: amazon 13% visit a coupon app 11% visit a coupon website 6% from friends & family of those who use the internet during their search*: Prefers cashback/discount directly applied at checkout consumers have multiple touch points when researching coupons 23% Directly search for the brand coupon Use coupons in the notifications they receiv
- Query the physical world with Lens Image scan and recognition Shoppable images Shop Similar Products Drive organic visibility and traffic for your products with Lens Inspire new purchasing journeys Now Next
- Connect with consumers during discovery Merchandise with beautiful imagery Inspire with content rich ads & relevant promos Showcase Ads Drive increased discovery and consideration of your brand with Showcase Ads Influence consideration Now Next
- Curious – Be Helpful Source: YouTube.com; ThinkWithGoogle, August 2015 1.5M+ “Bug Wisdom” 8 video sequence 350% Boost in brand search Views
- 64% of smartphone users expect to get information specific to them and their situations while using their smartphone.
- 58% of smartphone users feel more favorable towards companies whose mobile sites or apps remember who they are and their past behavior.
- Provide the features your customers need to use your site/app 42% 31% 25% Q: Which features on Coupon/cashback Websites/Apps are MOST important to you? 25% 24% 15% Source: Google Survey, Jul 2019 Credible & Reliable Ease of Use Quality of Offers Automatic discounts based on cart value Clear/ Transparent Offer Brands Available
- 56%of shoppers will signup on a coupon site with a strong cashback offer 33%of shoppers values a coupon provider if they have personalised deals Source: Google Survey, Jul 2019
- Performance Matters of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load *15s: the time it takes for an avg. mobile page to fully load 56% reduction in conversions for every 1-second delay in loading time7%
- Help impatient shoppers Proprietary + Confidential 56% of mobile site visits are abandoned if a page takes 3+ seconds to load 44% of voice-activated device users order weekly 76% of people who conduct a local search visit a store within 24 hours Your site Your stores Across the web “Hey Google…”
- New users +600%, Checkout steps 18 to 2 +9% revenue per visit, +15% time on site +36% revenue Faster mobile sites with Accelerated Mobile Pages App-like experiences with Progressive Web Apps Faster checkouts with Google Play Make it fast and easy to buy on mobile Remove friction on your site Now Next
- ASSISTANCE is the new BATTLEGROUND FOR GROWTH
- If you only remember 3 things… 1 2 3 New gen shoppers are here. These are the ones who are looking to save time & money You are competing with the best experience your customer has ever had. Future proof your business by being helpful, personalized, and frictionless.
