Small Business Information

Here are the leading online merchants in five important categories for March.

DVD/Video - Amazon

Office Supplies - Office Depot

Consumer Electronics - eBay

Jewellery and Watches - eBay

Toys, Games and Hobbies - eBay

All three companies listed here have affiliate programmes - but, if you’re new to affiliate marketing, don’t rush into advertising any of them. Their commission rates are not big and it is possible for affiliates to earn more promoting other merchants in the same field.

To read more about the top 5 in each of the above categories go here

… but few actually buy.

Yesterday in Affiliate Marketing - The Hidden Benefit for Merchants - I wrote about one of the hidden benefits for merchants (and one of the hidden negatives for webmasters) in affiliate marketing.

Today I’ve got even more ‘bad’ news for those of us who’s small business is involved in affiliate marketing. A new survey has just been released that confirms the findings of several others that were run during 2006 and it doesn’t make great reading for affiliate marketers.

The survey found that lots of people go shopping online but they actually do their buying offline. 68% of consumers research and compare prices for a product online before heading off to make their purchase in a bricks and mortar store.

That means that you really do have to be prepared for a lot of tyre kickers to hit your online stores and you have to work out a way to convert those tyre kickers into people who actually buy from you.

 Small website owners get into the affiliate marketing business in the hope of making money. They display banners and, if they’re more than just beginners, add in some engaging text (or even write a product review or infomercial) in the hope of encouraging surfers to click through to the merchant and make a purchase.

On the other side of the coin the merchant is increasing his market penetration. With the help of affiliates and with minimal upfront costs the product that the merchant sells is exposed to a much greater audience. With an affiliate marketing programme a merchant gets some great advertising that he or she doesn’t have to pay for until a product is sold.

Even if no product is sold by most of a merchant’s affiliates the merchant is still gaining a huge benefit from branding. Every time a surfer visits an affiliate’s page and sees the merchant’s banner there’s a hidden benefit for the merchant.

So if you’re an affiliate what does that mean for you? Think about the value of the real estate on your website. Are you actually earning money from the spots where you’ve placed a merchant’s banners or are you just giving them some free advertising and branding?

If you are giving that space away for free what can you do to turn it into money in your pocket?

It seems to be the day for travel marketing posts today - here’s another one with some information you may need to stow away in the back of your mind. 

The Courier Mail - a newspaper here in Australia - is running a story today about a small survey that might put a bit of a crimp in your plans if you’re doing affiliate marketing in the travel area.

It seems that the travel industry here in Australia is very concerned that climate change could affect the numbers of people coming to Australia. It seems that the travel industry is looking at the possibility of European travellers turning their back on long-haul travel because of its effects on the environment.

You can find the full story here

 And a hat tip to The Hervey Bay Gossip for linking to the article.

 Wherever you look it seems that all the experts are suggesting that travel is a booming industry on the Net – although just lately several reports have suggested that travel is beginning to fade just a little. When you see all those glowing reports it’s quite natural to think that maybe you should be getting into some affiliate marketing for travel.

Perhaps that’s what motivated Overstock to purchase Ski West Inc in 2005 and launch Otravel.com.

Sadly for Overstock that didn’t turn out to be the wisest investment they have ever made and it never really worked for them. In fact this year they posted a rather nasty loss and it should come as no surprise that Overstock are now trying to sell Otravel.com.

In its place Overstock has developed the O-Cars.com programme where Overstock will display listings for car dealers. Instead of being paid a percentage of the sale figure for each car sold Overstock will be listing the vehicles for a flat rate.

So does that mean travel is out and cars are in for affiliates? No I don’t think it does but if you think you have traffic that’s interested in car parts and collectibles then ShareASale has several merchants that you could push.

Maybe you should quite your day job is the title of an interesting post that anyone who is thinking of getting into affiliate marketing should read.

Most of us who have been in affiliate marketing started out doing it part-time but there always comes the time when we need to make the big decision about whether or not to quite the day job.

If you follow the link you will find one affiliate marketer’s suggestion that the sooner you quite your day job the better chance you have of succeeding in affiliate marketing.

It’s an interesting point of view.

The news has been out for a week or so now that Google is about to launch a test run of cost-per-action advertising. For affiliate marketers that’s an interesting development but not one that my partner and I will be able to participate in.

While several of our sites have a large amount of American traffic Google is restricting the participants in the test to those who have business addresses in the United States.

Not every affiliate marketer who does reside, or have a business address, in the United States may want to participate once they’ve read the terms. Many merchants who run cost-per-action programmes pay a percentage of each sale to the affiliate who sent the purchaser to the merchant’s site but Google will not be paying any percentages.

Instead Google will be paying a flat rate for each sale. That would be enough to make us think twice about joining the programme.