FeedFront Magazine Issue 47

FEEDFRONT

47

AUGUST 2019 | ISSUE

The official magazine for Affiliate Summit Building an event within an event

Your customer is your best influencer

You need to invest in your employees

Summits and conference events are the ultimate melting pot of long lasting existing and potential partnerships. There’s no doubt leveraging the footprint in these events is beneficial.

What if I told you everyone could earn commissions for the sales they influence through their social posts?

If employees are well invested in and their innovativeness encouraged, the customer, and therefore your business, wins.

By Melissa D. Salas, Page 23

By Ricky Ahuja, Page 30

By Priest Willis, Sr., Page 8

KNOW WHEN IT IS TIME TO LEAVE

BY SHAWN COLLINS PAGE 4

FEEDFRONT CONTENTS NO.47 08/19 STAFF Co-Editors in Chief Missy Ward, Shawn Collins

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Editor’s Note

4 Ways to Win the CrossBorder Consumer

Building an Event Within an Event

Nele Sharp

Priest Willis Sr

AFFILIATES AFFILIATES

Shawn Collins

Co-Publishers Missy Ward, Shawn Collins Contributing Writers Ricky Ahuja Cyrus Ameri Debbie Bookstaber Dan Cohen Shawn Collins Susan D. Crum Rebecca Felker Jonathan Goodwin Jason Hunt Pawel Kijko Ashley Klotz Jesse Lakes Richard B. Newman Valeria Pagano Debra Pivko Marco Ponce Geno Prussakov Melissa Salas Nele Sharp Sara Malo-Szado Paige White Priest Willis Tom Wozniak Graphic Design Andy Medley for YMP www.youngsmedia.productions Magazine Coordinator Sara Malo-Szado Affiliate Summit 35 Nutmeg Drive, Trumbull, CT 06611 tel (417)-2SUMMIT (278-6648) fax (908) 364-4627 Articles in FeedFront Magazine are the opinions of the author and may not necessarily reflect the views of the magazine, or its owners. FeedFront Magazine always welcomes opinions of an opposite nature.

For more information, visit: www.FeedFront.com Interested in advertising?

Please visit: feedfront.com/advertising/ or email us at: contact@feedfront.com © 2019 Affiliate Summit, Inc. and Individual Authors.

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5 Ways to get Banned from Amazon

3 Methods for Readyto-Post

3 Trends in the US Coupon Space

3 Tips for Writing Great Email Copy

Jesse Lakes

Ashley Klotz

Dan Cohen

Tom Wozniak

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3 Tips to Diversify Your Traffic Channels

11 Tips to Dominate Amazon PPC

How to Increase Nutra Advertiser’s Profits

Valeria Pagano

Cyrus Ameri

CONVERSION

Rebecca Felker

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Influencer Marketing - A Sprint or a Marathon?

10 Types of Subject Lines that Sell

Paige L. White

Debra Pivko

The Importance of Personalizing Cart Abandonment Strategies

3 Strategies to Turn Objections into Opportunities

Jonathan Goodwin

Susan D. Crum

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Qualitative and Quantative Data and User Experience

LEGAL LEGAL

Top 5 Ad Claim Substantiation Mistakes Richard B. Newman

Marco Ponce

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Your Customer is Your Best Influencer

Effective Techniques for Instagram Growth and Engagement

3 Ways to Take Control of Facebook

Melissa D. Salas

SOCIAL SOCIAL MEDIA MEDIA MARKETING MARKETING

STRATEGY

Jason Hunt

Debbie Bookstaber

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How to Make the Most of Conferences

Strive to be a Balanced Beth

Geno Prussakov

Sara Malo-Szado

29 TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

Best Tools to Setup Google Ads Pawel Kijko

30 You Need to Invest in Your Employees Ricky Ahuja

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Shawn Collins @shawncollins

KNOW WHEN IT IS TIME TO LEAVE 9/11 was a catalyst for me to figure out a way to stop working for other people and be my own boss.

I was really excited on the morning of September 11, 2001. It was a gorgeous, sunny day in New York City as I headed into my job at ClubMom.com.

My CMO with an impressive MBA from an Ivy-League school forced me to pause the affiliate program for the summer, even though it was cash positive with every lead and doing great. But that’s a discussion for another day.

Anyhow, September 11, 2001 was the day I was tasked with resurrecting the affiliate program. It was on Be Free (a popular affiliate network at the time) and I had an email scheduled in BFAST (their technology that had to be installed locally!) to hit all the affiliates that afternoon announcing the return of the affiliate program.

As I was finishing up my everything bagel and strawberry Yoohoo I got an email from one of the IT guys. It was sent to the whole company and it was a breaking news alert from CNN about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. The idea of that was impossible in my mind and I thought he must have been trying to make some bad joke.

But no, it was real. Somebody wheeled out a TV on a cart to a conference room and turned it on. It was reminiscent of 15 years earlier when a TV cart was brought into my class in high school for coverage of the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion.

One big difference, though. The Space Shuttle was way far away from me when it exploded. The World Trade Center was a couple miles away. I was in shock. We all were. I alternated between watching and chatting with friends and family on AIM. Then I saw a plane hit the South Tower on TV. The bosses were telling us to stay calm and stay put. Then the South Tower collapsed before my eyes on TV. I needed to get out of there.

I chatted with some people and then gathered my things to try and make my way home. In addition to being totally freaked out, my now 17-year-old daughter Lexie was due to be born on September 27, 2001, and I wanted to live to see her birth.

That might sound overly dramatic now, but nobody knew what the hell was going on then, except that this was apparently terrorism. And our office was a couple blocks from the Empire State Building. I figured that could be the next target and I didn’t

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want to be there to find out.

So, I headed over to my supervisor’s office to tell her I was heading out. She said, “No, you can’t leave.” It was at that moment that my fight or flight instinct kicked in. My first thought was fight, and I was going to do that by saying, “Fuck you.” But I chose flight and just left.

As I headed down Fifth Avenue towards 34th Street, where I was going to hang a right towards Penn Station, I heard thundering noise across my whole body. People in the street were screaming and running.

I looked up and right there in front of me the North Tower was collapsing. I froze. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. It was too much to handle. I watched the whole thing crumble and I was in shock.

Shortly after, I snapped out of it and started running towards Penn Station to escape from New York by way of a NJ Transit train.

It was all a blur. Some people were walking There was screaming and crying in every direction, and I was running as fast as I could in jeans. Finally, I got to Penn Station and sprinted down to the tracks to jump on the next Jersey bound train. I got a seat and about 30 seconds later the doors closed, and the train began to move.

The train erupted in cheers that lasted about ten seconds. Then it stopped.

We sat there for a while and they wouldn’t let us off. Finally, they announced that there may be explosives in the tunnel, and we should safely evacuate the train. I’d like to say I sat there and did the women and children first thing. But a few years earlier I saw those guys die in the Titanic movie. I broke out ahead of everybody and ran all the way to the Hudson River to get away from buildings and people and everything.

I tried frantically to make a phone call and say I was on the way home, but there was no getting a phone signal. I walked into a line of people about ten blocks long waiting to get on a Circle Line Cruise boat to cross over to New Jersey.

When I finally got on the boat there was an eerie calm. We started moving south towards lower Manhattan before cutting over and pulling into a dock in Weehawken, NJ. I didn’t know what to do and wandered off the boat until I saw a NJ Transit bus. I asked the driver where it was going, and he said they were taking everybody to Giants Stadium. I just wanted to get away, so I got on board.

After they brought us to Giants Stadium there wasn’t a plan for

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EDITOR’S NOTE

TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION

moving on from there. Bus after bus unloaded people and we all walked around confused and flustered and hot and thirsty. They were not allowing traffic in – only out. So, I got an idea – I took a piece of paper out of my bag and wrote the name of the town where I lived: MILLBURN. I stood along the road hoping to hitchhike. And I was ecstatic that a car pulled over within ten minutes. It was a station wagon that already had like ten people in there and they let me jam in with them. The driver was some guy who worked for the Giants. We rode mostly in silence while hosts on the AM station WABC tried to make sense of things for themselves and us. There was all sorts of confusion and misinformation.

The highways were empty, so we made good time. I was the third or fourth to be dropped off and they let me out at my local train station where I’d parked that morning for the commute.

There were literally no cars gone, yet. The lot was packed. I am pretty sure I was the first one to make it back. I wondered how many of my fellow commuters weren’t making it back that day or any day. I learned later that eight guys from my town were killed.

Over the course of the day I was thinking a lot about how I was told I couldn’t leave. I had to leave, and I really didn’t like that feeling of being told I couldn’t. It weighed on me and I just couldn’t shake it. I spent the rest of that fall in a daze, except for the birth of my daughter, Lexie, on October 2, 2001.

I was so wrecked by the whole thing that I was asking the

obstetrician, during the birth of my daughter, about the risks of Anthrax exposure, as there was some monster mailing it to places in NYC after 9/11.

I started to get a grip on things in 2002 and figured out my first step in leaving the company. I started my own OPM company on the side to see if that could take off and replace my day job. The affiliate program management gigs started taking off, and then a random conversation with Missy Ward turned into us starting Affiliate Summit. We registered the .com on May 19, 2003.

That was the final thing I needed to leave my job for good. We held the first Affiliate Summit on November 3, 2003 in New York City. It was 783 days after 9/11. Shortly after I quit my job.

Know when it’s time for you to leave and don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t... [FF] Shawn is Co-CEO of Affiliate Summit and Co-Editor-in-Chief of FeedFront Magazine, and blogs at affiliatetip.com.

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4 WAYS TO WIN THE CROSS-BORDER CONSUMER

The rise in cross-border shopping creates a wealth of opportunities for retailers who want to grow their global market share of both new and existing customers—wherever they are located. It’s a smart strategy, particularly when ecommerce growth in your domestic market is reaching maturity.

To succeed on a global scale, it is important to understand what drives the cross-border consumer. These shoppers are pricesensitive and it’s often cheaper for them to buy imported goods.

They also value authenticity and want to know they’re getting the real thing.

With that in mind, the following are four ways to win the cross-border consumer:

Global Payment & International Shipping Options Cross-border shoppers will accept shipping delays to get what they want from retailers outside their market, but they expect to have global payment options. In addition to ensuring international shipping options are prominent on your site and easy to understand, non-domestic brands should consider offering competitive shipping rates, running free shipping promotions, or accommodating freight forwarding.

Global Shopping Events Major retail events such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Amazon’s Prime Day, and Single’s Day attract global shoppers to shop online and can be great way to get massive exposure for a brand amongst new audiences. Affiliate publishers are smart marketers and will optimize their sites and apps for these events to promote additional brands and stores. Retailers can take advantage of this by offering higher commissions and media placement to their top affiliate publishers and influencers. Set up competitive offers that will catch the attention of the crossborder shopper, otherwise they may not be interested because of great domestic offers.

AFFILIATE MARKETING

Online shoppers are increasingly buying from global ecommerce sites, in addition to sites in their own country. Nearly all (96%) of the retail advertisers in CJ Affiliate’s network have seen website visitors from other countries this year. By Nele Sharp

Mobile is a Must Due to heavy mobile phone ownership and usage rates, mobile phones are the primary device used for ecommerce across the globe. This goes hand in hand with the trend that consumers will spend more time watching digital videos. The key to launching a successful global strategy is partnering with publishers who know the mobile ad space in any given region. For example, partner with publishers who know how to promote a products using WeChat and understand the ever-growing trend of QR codes. [FF]

Social Media Influence Matters Cross-border shoppers want more than just a good deal—they need validation from peers and influencers. Today’s consumers are bombarded with brand messages and often turn to influencers for inspiration and advice. Influencers are extremely powerful in helping brands break through the clutter and establish credibility, which is particularly important for brands entering a new market. Even if the social media stars are not directly selling the product, they heavily influence purchasing decisions. One of the best-known examples is fashion blogger Becky Li, who has more than 3 million followers on WeChat and sold 100 Mini Cooper cars on her blog in just five minutes.

Nele Sharp is a Director at CJ Affiliate and leads the company’s global publisher development team.

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AFFILIATE MARKETING

BUILDING AN EVENT WITHIN AN EVENT

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Summits and conference events are the ultimate melting pot of long lasting existing and potential partnerships. There’s no doubt leveraging the footprint in these events is beneficial to build loyal relationships for a business. By Priest Willis, Sr.

Strategizing is the cornerstone of success and having a game plan or strategy for the next conference you’ll be at is no different. The focus of this case study is to share my strategy at a high level to give some insight and hopefully inspire others to take advantage of these central events and build more connections and recruit partners for the future.

The motive behind this global exercise for the Lenovo team and myself throughout Lenovo’s affiliate program was finding another avenue through separate meetups to build connections with industry experts and recruiting new partners for better growth and higher success potential in the long run.

The basic approach followed was investing time and resources to foster better relationships with industry stakeholders who can really help us enhance our businesses growth together. Meeting face to face in a casual environment outside of the event allowed us to have upfront conversations, analyze their needs, and understand how we can develop a quid pro quo relationship, which is backed by loyalty and trust.

I shared a business plan for this approach internally whereby we would set up a small shop either within or nearby a large affiliate conference. With a pre-defined list of partners in hand, we approached them and then found a way to better connect on a business casual level before engaging on a much higher level of networking and partnership.

We chose these conferences and events in places like London, Amsterdam, the U.S. and looking at Singapore because of the strength and growth of Affiliate Summit. Some affiliates are looking to learn, others are looking for direct connecting, and some are here to share their experiences and let everyone learn from them.

Our goal is to deliver efficiency and partnership benefits

which are sure to make a difference in the way we move together moving ahead. This included doing a presentation on what to expect ahead for the business, product training, one to one discussion, and finally a private dinner with many.

So, What Were the Results?

The results were better than expected based on the feedback.

We’ve been successful in reaching and connecting and seeing the positive year over year results in revenue and profit growth.

We’ve done well in building credible relationships with new partners who are new in the EU, especially, and hope to do more. At the core of all these activities and partnership building exercises is creating genuine relationships, and as a bonus all the additional net new success we’ve seen. We hope to connect at an event near you soon. [FF]

Priest Willis, Sr. is Senior Global Partnerships Marketing Manager at Lenovo and doer of online things.

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5 WAYS TO GET BANNED FROM AMAZON

To keep this from happening, it’s crucial that you review Amazon’s Associates Program Operating Agreement.

Familiarizing yourself with the rules in which to play Amazon’s affiliate game, and consulting legal professionals in regards to specific use cases should keep you on the winning side.

1. Cloaking Links

Amazon requires affiliates to mark their links as going to Amazon. They call this “buyer trust” and clearly labeling all of your links with “Amazon” in the CTA, anchor text, or in the proximity of the link keeps Amazon happy.

Labeling links is essential when using specialized tools, short links, plugins, or posting on social media.

Section 6 “Content on Your Site” of the Operating Agreement’s Policies page includes section “v” that discusses obscuring your affiliate links while section “w” clarifies that link shortening services are permitted when labeling your links.

2. Links in Emails

Placing affiliate links in email, PDFs, and ebooks also violate Amazon’s Operating Agreement. These are considered “offline” uses and are prohibited per section 4 Promotional Limitations of the Policies page.

While it’s common to see famous online personalities, with large online communities, sending affiliate links in emails, it’s essential to realize that these publishers have either not yet gotten caught or have a unique contract with Amazon.

A growing best practice for monetizing your email audience with product recommendations is to include links for specialized, affiliate focused landing pages, instead of direct affiliate links. We call these “Choice Pages.”

3. Mentioning Prices It’s a common belief that including an item’s price near your affiliate link helps improve conversion rates. While this may be true, it’s a violation to include a price that isn’t updated dynamically via Amazon’s Product Advertising API. A quick copy of the price from Amazon’s site could jeopardize your whole account. Section 2 of the Polices page Links on Your Site (b) General Requirements Applicable to All Special Links clearly outlines this.

If listing prices is vital to your strategy, then use a plugin or tool to pull the data programmatically.

AFFILIATE MARKETING

Learn the top five ways affiliates are inadvertently breaking the rules and get kicked out of Amazon’s affiliate program. By Jesse Lakes

4. Asking for a Click or Bookmark

Asking your audience to buy from your affiliate links is a no-no, even verbally in a YouTube video or podcast. It’s best to get your clicks based off of your product recommendations. Specifics are in section 2 (b) General Requirements Applicable to All Special Links and section 6. (g) Content on your Site of the Policies page

5. Not Including an Affiliate Disclaimer

Not being transparent in your use of affiliate links could get you kicked out of Amazon’s affiliate program and also land you in trouble with the FTC. Amazon mentions this requirement twice in its Operating Agreement -- section 3. Responsibility for Your Site (b) and again in section 5. Identifying Yourself as an Associate. [FF]

Jesse Lakes helps thousands of affiliates succeed as CEO of Geniuslink (www.geni.us).

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AFFILIATE MARKETING

3 METHODS FOR READY-TO-POST A strategy that’s coming into play more often with affiliate programs is ready-topost content. Ready-to-post (RTP) content comes in many forms, but is simply prewritten content that brands share with their partners. By Ashley Klotz

This content helps a brand inspire their content partners’ sponsored posts and increases their chances of getting promoted. With affiliate programs generating 15%–30% of all sales for advertisers, according to data from 99firms. com, implementing RTP content into your affiliate strategy is a simple and smart way to increase exposure for sales.

Distributed through your program’s network, here are three ways to offer RTP content that your partners will appreciate.

1. Pre-Written Article Not your normal blog article, these tend to be a little sales-y in context, offering vital brand information that goes with the theme given and gives them a complete template to follow.

These articles have detailed information on recommended products that are related to the theme and should include images, as visuals are an essential part of a blog.

2. RTP Text Links Text links are a fantastic way for your partners to promote. They can be used on social channels or within articles they already have planned. Offering RTP text links can encourage your partners to include you in their content calendar since they’re easy to grab and insert where needed. While text links related to specific themes (e.g. trends) are great, another option to offer is fun holidays (e.g. National Dog Day). These are huge on social media and a delightful way to get quick promoting opportunities.

Try offering 3-4 links with a variety of copy for each and sending them within a newsletter mentioning what they are for and how they can be used.

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3. Content Inspiration This content is meant to inspire your partners’ next post like the pre-written article, but differently. Some content partners don’t need or care for a complete article. Instead, they appreciate quick ideas and recommended products. Therefore, come up with two possible themes that go along with your brand and season; then, include a sample of theme-related copy for each, recommended products with simple descriptions, and images if applicable.

Although the content is meant to promote your brand, the actual audience is your partner’s readers.

Having a broad audience with different verticals can be tough. The trick is to offer an array of themes that can cover the multitude of different partners you have and their readers.

Also, your partners should be encouraged to adjust this pre-written content to fit their own voice and style. This avoids duplicate content penalties and makes writing the content easier.

Knowing your partners will be changing the copy will eliminate the stress of trying to write for so many different people.

Since 2015, revenue from affiliate marketing programs grow by 10% annually and projections for this trend are to continue at least until 2021, according to hostingtribunal.com. That’s good growth brands should be capitalizing on and including ready-to-post content into your affiliate program is an enticing benefit for affiliate partners. [FF]

Ashley Klotz, Content Manager, All Inclusive Marketing. 7+ years of content, social and performance expertise.

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3 TRENDS IN THE US COUPON SPACE

Here are three trends that US advertisers and affiliate networks should keep an eye out for in the coming months.

Media Houses Entering the Coupon Market In the last year, we have seen premium media houses entering the US coupon space through the use of white label partners.

Publishers are jumping on this opportunity. It draws in a new audience and provides an incremental revenue stream without interrupting the experience of their core readers.

Advertisers also benefit because they are able to boost their visibility and achieve their business goals through brand-safe channels. This is a successful, proven business model in Europe, and we expect to see this type of solution rise to prominence in the US market, too.

Targeting Digital Deals to Match Real-Time Needs

Digital Coupons for Grocery Shopping According to industry estimates, online grocery sales will be the fastest growing vertical in the US in 2019. The food and beverages category is set to grow to over $19 billion this year.

Money-saving coupons have long-standing appeal for grocery shopper and the use of digital coupons in this category is also growing.

Keeping in mind, online grocery shoppers tend to be younger, affluent, city-dwelling consumers, and they are more likely to embrace new developments in technology. As we see more and more US consumers choosing to do their food shopping online, this provides new opportunities for advertisers to woo savvy shoppers.

An increasingly time-pressed and financially cautious generation of smart shoppers are always eager for a great deal; coupon publishers are ideally placed to deliver. [FF]

AFFILIATE MARKETING

With almost all US internet users redeeming coupons, we are seeing use increasing across all age groups and demographics stateside. While print offers remain popular, digital deals are taking up increasing space in the market. By Dan Cohen

With today’s consumers conducting more of their lives online, and offline spaces taking on a digital dimension, the boundaries between the two worlds are becoming increasingly blurred.

Coupon publishers are in a great position to harness this wider trend by offering services such as proximity triggered deals.

These deals can be served directly to a consumer’s mobile device via an app when they come within range of a predetermined location.

For example, a shopper who is passing a grocery store could receive a time-limited coupon for that day’s special offers. Or, a consumer who checks into a hotel or travels to a new destination could potentially be offered coupons for goods and services in that area, such as theme parks or food. In these ways, coupon offerings can be more tailored to consumer’s needs.

Dan Cohen is the Group Commercial Director at Savings United, coupon partner of premium publishers.

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AFFILIATE MARKETING

3 TIPS FOR WRITING GREAT EMAIL COPY Writing effective email copy can be a challenging process for any marketer. With that in mind, here are three tips for writing effective email content to optimize your next campaign. By Tom Wozniak It’s Not About You

Close the Deal

Planning an email campaign starts by thinking about what you want to achieve; the new product you’re excited to promote; how the email will impact sales, etc. But, once you get to writing email content, it’s time to stop focusing on you/your company/ your product and think about your audience.

What do they care about? It’s not the cool features of your new product, it’s the benefits it will deliver to your customer.

Think about what’s in it for them. Make sure the final content is focused on what matters to your audience and you’ll go a long way toward engaging with them in your email campaign.

It’s possible that you’re just sending out an announcement and your goal is simply to get recipients to read the email. But, in most cases you want them to take some action after reading the email. It could be a simple as clicking a link for more information or it actually completing a purchase. In either case, the point of the email is to drive action. Still, many marketing emails fail to include a compelling call-to-action.

In traditional sales, there’s a step called “asking for the sale,” which many salespeople consider the most difficult part of the process. It can be uncomfortable to ask someone to buy.

However, in traditional sales or email marketing, you have to keep a focus on that end result and call-to-action.

Even if the campaign’s goal is to move a prospect one step further through their decision process, it is still designed to elicit a response. Always keep that in mind and it will show in your campaign results. [FF]

The Long and Short of It As a general rule of thumb, email marketers try to grab their audience’s attention and quickly get to the point. Since recipient attention is limited, short and sweet is often the best approach to writing email copy. If the average recipient will only read the first few sentences of your email, then you want to get to the point in a hurry for them to convert.

However, many successful email campaigns go in the opposite direction. Instead of keeping the email short and to the point, they write LONG emails that scroll for page after page and 90% of the content is well ‘below the fold’. These types of emails deliver a slow build toward the conclusion and often include repetitive sections of content, numerous testimonials, and other aspects that move a prospect through their entire customer journey in one email.

The best advice is to really get to know your audience and how they will respond to shorter or longer messaging. Testing is a great way to dial in the right copy length for your audience.

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Tom Wozniak, Executive Director of Marketing at email compliance and suppression list management company, OPTIZMO. FeedFront | August 2019 | No. 47

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3 TIPS TO DIVERSIFY YOUR TRAFFIC CHANNELS

You’ve probably heard time and time again how important it is to diversify your traffic channels to stay relevant as a top affiliate. With Facebook and Google’s algorithms continuously changing and hitting the inbox getting increasingly difficult, it’s more important than ever to leverage and capitalize multiple traffic channels.

But where should you start? As simple as it sounds, breaking into a new media channel is not exactly easy, especially when you’ve honed your skills, invested countless resources, and mastered your craft in one particular channel. It is possible, however.

Here are 3 tips to follow when you’re ready to diversify.

1 - Understand the Data Assess the way your target audience is engaging in your current channel. You may already do this on a regular basis, but taking a deep dive into the analytics will give you better insights and a clearer path. Understanding your key metrics and data can open a new door. Take for example an affiliate who is buying Facebook media, there are a plethora of data points collected that paint a picture of the ideal consumer persona and is more translatable than you think into search or even native. Are you letting limiting beliefs stopping you from trying?

3 - Stay Current Staying on top of new trends and the latest industry news will not only keep your marketing strategies and techniques relevant but will also provide you with insight on emerging traffic channels as well as old channels that are making a comeback.

Staying abreast of this information can keep you one step ahead of the game when you might need it most.

Good news, you’re reading FeedFront, so you’re already doing this. Other ways to stay current is via trade shows or apps that help you discover new content such as Nuzzle, StumbleUpon, Feedly or Google alerts. Are you looking into the horizon often enough?

While these are not the only factors to consider, they will at least help you get started and put you on the right path to broaden your traffic channels. [FF]

AFFILIATE MARKETING

Ways affiliates can improve revenue and consistency with diversification of traffic channels. By Rebecca Felker

2 - Get to Know Your Audience There are several data enhancement services that can bolster up your list with new data points to give you even more specifics about your audience. If you’re an email affiliate whose target audience are baby boomers, take a look at your data segments and key email metrics such as delivery rate, open rate, and conversion rate to search for new clues about your audience. It may interest you to know that, according to Forbes, social media is important to baby boomers. With an average of 4.6 social media accounts per person, it may be time for you to retarget your email list through Facebook and LinkedIn to see a boost in engagement.

Rebecca Felker is the PR & Marketing Manager at Madrivo.

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CONVERSION

11 TIPS TO DOMINATE AMAZON PPC Amazon PPC, also known as Sponsored Products, is an advertising platform that helpa sellers amplify their product sales online. Here’s how to optimize your campaigns. By Valeria Pagano 1. The right start: choose ten keywords that define your product in a unique way. This will determine the right target and categories for your campaigns. Just ten keywords will provide enough data for analysis and avoid unnecessary loss of budget. DON’T use bulk keywording, it will needlessly spread your budget. Use free tools like Sonar to check your keyword volumes.

7. Don’t underestimate the power of negative keywords: after running campaigns on automatic for 10 days, you’ll have collected enough data to optimize keywords. Insert all nonperforming keywords (Above ACOS Keywords) in the negative keywords field as “Negative Exact Match”. Find it here: Amazon Advertising Account > Campaign > Click on Negative Keywords Tab

2. Reverse ASIN Search: find your competitor’s best product in your group (see Amazon’s Choice), extract the ASIN, and use tools like Sonar or Amazon-ASIN to find their keywords. The ranking indicates the best performing; include some in your campaign.

8. Keep on running keywords with a break-even ACOS: although you may want to insert them in negative keywords, my suggestion is to keep them running, as Amazon will continue boosting your organic ranking and traffic thanks to the golden rule: “the more sales, the better organic ranking”.

3. Your first KPI: use your margin in percentage as KPI for your ACoS and optimize each keyword based on this value. ACoS is an Amazon KPI that indicates the Advertising Cost of Sales.

How to calculate it: ACoS = 100* (total ads spend / total sales).

Categorize the performance of keywords as Above ACOS, Below ACOS, and Break-even ACOS. You will use them later.

9. Once you know the best performing keywords, add them to a manual campaign and focus your bid on them. Start moderately, you can scale the bid later.

4. Plan your initial budget for the first 10 days (Research) of $10 to $15 per day.

10. Adapt the match on the campaign: use broad and phrase match on your campaigns in a research phase, to discover which keywords perform best. Once you want to run a highly targeted campaign with your performing keywords, you can use exact match.

5. Try to run campaigns all day and avoid stopping them.

Firstly, pausing your campaign will lead to a loss of potential sales in the golden hours, such as after work. Besides every time you stop your campaigns, you have to start from scratch once you restart and you’ll lose your collected data.

11. Your PPC campaigns won’t be effective if you don’t optimize product title, bullet points, pictures (a 1000x1000 will boost your sales), and product description. The reason is simple: if you send traffic to your product but you don’t deliver relevant content, you will just waste money. [FF]

6. Optimize your campaigns, excluding the last three days due to the 48h delay on Seller Central stats;

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Valeria Pagano is Head of International Partnerships at the Agency OnMaCon and an International Speaker.

FeedFront | August 2019 | No. 47

@feedfront | www.feedfront.com

HOW TO INCREASE NUTRA ADVERTISER’S PROFITS

There are, however, a handful of advertisers who are able to run high volume and take home substantial profits.

They’re able to do this because they understand the most important aspect of scaling their business: if they can pay a higher CPA than their competitors to acquire a new customer, then they own most of the traffic, because they can outbid their competitors for customers every time.

So the question becomes: how can I, as an advertiser, afford to pay higher CPA’s for new customers?

The answer is simple… by monetizing your data with a proper backend. Monetize your partials and your average CPA drops.

Monetize your customers and you can afford a higher CPA for new customers.

Building out your offer backend can be extremely complex and the ways you can monetize your data are endless. However, there are low hanging fruit that you can harvest without too much effort.

Email sequences are important for any offer, and they’re one of the easiest ways to monetize your internal lists. Lists you can monetize with email include partials, customers with no upsells, customers with certain upsells, declines, and even customers who’ve cancelled. We see a 13-15% conversion rate from our 10part email sequence to partials, and the cost to convert is much less than average.

SMS texts with discounted shipping for your trial offer, or with highly reduced pricing for your straight sale offer, work very well. To be compliant with texting laws, we recommend verbiage on your page that makes it clear they’ll be texted, and only text your partials once – we log SMS converting at about 8% of partials on average.

Facebook/Instagram retargeting tools are powerful and the first step here is getting a Facebook pixel properly set up on your store so Facebook can track your site visitors, leads, and buyers.

Facebook can then curate audiences for you to monetize.

Third party marketplaces like Amazon are great for people who want to shop on familiar websites. Some people just won’t use your site to checkout, and that’s okay as long as you have your product on a trusted third party site.

Monetizing data works best when you can offer custom price points with your merchant account. It’s important to make sure your bank knows that you’ll be running these discounted offers.

Most banks enjoy the benefits of offers with backends because it allows them to process more volume with lower chargeback rates.

In a turbulent ecosystem like the nutra advertising space, it’s important to capitalize on every source of data. Start with just one of the traffic sources mentioned above and you’ll see why the top advertisers are able to pay high CPA’s and dominate the best sources of traffic. [FF]

Cyrus Ameri is the co-founder of The Monetization Group, which specializes in monetizing advertisers’ data.

FeedFront | August 2019 | No. 47

CONVERSION

Nowadays, only the strongest advertisers remain active in our industry, and even still, margins are thin for the many who profit only off the arbitrage between affiliate CPA (cost per acquisition) costs and LTV (life-time value) of the customers. By Cyrus Ameri

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CONVERSION

INFLUENCER MARKETING A SPRINT OR A MARATHON? Big brands started out as ideas which became businesses, and after years of advertising, marketing, consumer awareness, and product recognition, these names became brands. By Paige L. White Digital marketing, Facebook, Google, YouTube, Instagram, Influencer marketing, and other consumer facing technologies have empowered today’s businesses with the ability to achieve brand recognition much faster than at any other time in modern history.

However, the advent of digital technologies and the ability to get your marketing message in front of thousands or millions of people has also led to the belief that business ideas now go straight to brand recognition without ever having to build a foundation of concept validation, product recognition, and customer loyalty.

Influencer marketing is perhaps the most dynamic, and certainly the fastest growing, vehicle for those looking to quickly move past business recognition to become a brand. Therein lies the problem; the concept of quickly becoming a brand.

Simply because influencers post content about your product in and of itself does not mean you are now a brand. Influencer marketing should be seen as a story arc such as you might see for a television show where the drama unfolds over multiple episodes or, in our case, posts and reviews (a marathon), as opposed to a movie where everything occurs in the space of 90 minutes (a sprint).

Your influencer marketing marathon should be developed with an eye towards mid to long term content development and distribution, set against a backdrop of message testing and analysis, data collection, and analytics review.

First, you need to determine the objective(s) of your influencer campaign. Is it to raise awareness of your products?

Are you hoping to mitigate neutral or negative search engine content? Do you want to test consumer interest in a new idea?

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Second, you need to identify the timeline needed to achieve your objectives. One month may be enough for your Thanksgiving campaign, but you’ll need a much longer time period if you want to build a deep corporate awareness and connection with your audience. Quite simply, ask yourself this; in spite of their worldwide recognition, why do the brands mentioned at the outset of this article continue to advertise?

After all, everyone knows McDonalds.

Regardless of the scenario, you will need a clearly defined, long term influencer content strategy that is intended to achieve your program goals. You will also need to establish KPI’s that will help you analyze the results and insights collected from the campaign. You should determine at the start exactly how much time you need to gather the data that will help you make informed business decisions.

So, remember; Coca-Cola. Apple. Walmart. Microsoft.

Amazon. Nike. Starbucks. Macy’s. McDonalds. All businesses first and then brands. Think of influencer marketing as a marathon and not a sprint to get you there when it comes to building your business into a brand. [FF]

Paige L. White is President and co-founder of SheSavvy.com, a leader in influencer marketing solutions.

FeedFront | August 2019 | No. 47

@feedfront | www.feedfront.com

10 TYPES OF SUBJECT LINES THAT SELL

In the time it takes to quickly scan a restaurant menu for what to order, you’ve decided which emails are urgent, important, interesting to squeeze into your overwhelmingly busy schedule—or delete.

Fake FOMO

Today’s audience is savvy to the email sales tricks of the past, so if you’re the one sending a mass email, you have to get creative…

Here are simple tips to make your subject lines truly connect with your ideal customer’s desires to turn potential customers into paying customers.

Push Pain Points

Master The ‘From’ Field

Addressing the recipient by name can lift open rates by 20%. For example, “Debra – this outfit has your name on it!” or “Debra – Can I send you these goodies?”

Research from Pinpointe Marketing found that using a personal name can increase open rates by as much as 35%. It’s surprising that a whopping 89% of email marketing campaigns are still sent from a company name. But hey, that gives you a chance to stand out.

Use the Preview Line Even today, many marketers aren’t aware you can write this message seen underneath the subject line. You can use it for benefits, explanation of a short subject line, or a separate offer/ idea.

The fear of missing out is a powerful motivator. Use your subject line to highlight what someone could lose. Examples: “You won!” or “Your earned credit expires tonight!”

People want to do more, see more, and earn more. Identify the obstacles that prevent them from doing so and use those insights to position your product or service as the solution.

Personalize It

Add Emojis Not only do these convey emotion in little space, but they help your emails literally stand out. Use dollar signs, stars, presents, and more.

Be Real

Create Urgency

A little authenticity goes a long way. If you write something a human would write to another human like “Hey, here’s a 30% off code for ya!” rather than announcing to a crowd like, “Shop our sale today”, you’re much more likely to build a rapport.

NO actual urgency in your offer? Create it. Even if your promo runs for a while, you can still write “today.”

Change the Conversation

Discount Right Do your calculations. I’ve had clients tell me to feature extra 10% off when the items were already on sale for 60%, which sounds WAY better. Feature what sounds best. If the highest item is 50% off, say “Want 50% off today?” You’ll get a much higher open rate.

CONVERSION

Want to turn potential customers into paying customers? Make your subject lines truly connect with your ideal customer’s desires. By Debra Pivko

Work different angles. For example, if they aren’t interested in the results you’ve seen, try getting them exited about the breakthrough ingredients or a deal.

You can use subjectline.com to score ‘em. And test, test, test.

You’ll see which messages catch the majority of people then rework your funnel to send those sooner in the journey. [FF]

Debra Pivko, Founder of IntrigueCreative.com is an experienced sales Copywriter known for high conversion rates.

FeedFront | August 2019 | No. 47

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CONVERSION

THE IMPORTANCE OF PERSONALIZING CART ABANDONMENT STRATEGIES One of the most important aspects of conversion enhancement is personalizing the shopping experience. Through personalization, you help streamline conversions for the advertiser. By Jonathan Goodwin

“The percentage of abandoned carts ranges anywhere from 50% to 80%,” – Annex Cloud.

Oftentimes, advertisers or affiliates are driving significant amounts of traffic to a site, but when a user makes it to the cart or checkout stages, there are no abandonment strategies in place. When the user shows abandonment intent at these stages, it’s best to engage users with personalized messaging or incentives that get them back on track.

There are many engagements retailers can use to recover abandoning shoppers - the success lies in matching the engagements and messaging to the customer journey. When there is a clear, personalized path leading the customer down the funnel, retailers see greater results in the form of purchases.

Here are five ways to personalize messaging and engagements to get abandoning customers back on track: Use Social Proof: When a shopper has an item in their cart and goes to abandon, launch unique messaging that emphasizes what other customers love about the product. Since that shopper already has an interest in an item, all they may need is a little social proof push back along the path to conversion.

Offer an Incentive: One of the most common abandonment strategies is offering an incentive. Since some visitors would prefer a discount on their items, presenting those that show true abandonment intent with a unique incentive is enough to pivot them to purchase.

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Use Different Targeting Methods: If the goal is to increase your new-to-file (NTF) percentage, targeting specific traffic segments with separate messaging could be the best option.

Since new customers respond to different strategies than returning customers, customizing the strategies and messaging to match their respective needs may improve conversion rates and lifetime value of customers.

Display Dynamic Product Recommendations: You know what customers are already buying, so leverage browsing behaviors and purchase patterns to increase average order values. By implementing a series of personalized recommendations, you can increase the profit per visit by driving larger purchases.

Integrate Video in Your Engagements: Videos as on-site engagements have been proven to enhance the user experience.

Since videos immediately capture a user’s attention, integrating video in a seamless way can boost engagement instantly.

Shoppers are smart, savvy, and know what they’re after. It’s important to find new ways to engage them and provide a path to purchase that is unique to their journey. Personalizing the shopping experience will not only enhance your shoppers’ experiences, but it will give them a reason to keep coming back to shop with you. [FF]

Jonathan Goodwin is a Partnership Executive at UpSellit, with 9 years of digital marketing experience.

FeedFront | August 2019 | No. 47

@feedfront | www.feedfront.com

3 STRATEGIES TO TURN OBJECTIONS INTO OPPORTUNITIES

“I don’t have the money” or “I don’t have the time” or “I need to think about it” . . . do any of these sound familiar? If you’re in sales, you’ve heard these more than once. But here’s the thing.

Objections are not a bad thing.

In this article I’m going to share three strategies as a result of my expertise of turning objections into opportunities, which has allowed me to generate millions of dollars in sales from coaching packages of $1,997 to six figures.

But first, it’s important to understand what an objection really means. An objection is not a no. An objection is nothing more than a prospective client trying to push their decision out into the future, usually as a result of fear or the unknown.

Objections also indicate the client is engaged. As sales professionals, we have to be prepared and know what questions to ask in order to handle and get to the true core of objections.

In order to handle any objection, you first need clarity around what’s most important to them and why. Then you need to ensure they are clear on what their biggest challenge is, as well as their level of commitment. When you help them identify those three aspects during a sales conversation and you provide a valuable solution, any objection is not a rationale solution for not taking action.

So let’s look at three proven strategies to turn those objections into opportunities, so you can begin to inspire more clients and generate more revenue.

Regardless of the objection, always tie everything back to what’s most important to them. When you start talking about how great your product or service is you turn salesy on your client rather than supporting them from a service perspective.

No one likes to be sold, but most people love to be served.

Next, maintain control of the conversation, stay in the conversation (don’t back off) and keep it in the present.

Attempting to push a decision out into the future does not serve your client nor will it allow your client to serve others. Learning how to ask the right questions, so together you and your client come up with a resolution, is one of the best sales techniques you can master.

Finally, become an active listener. Give your client your undivided attention and acknowledge and repeat back to them from time to time to ensure you heard them correctly. Ask relevant questions to further clarify your understanding of their objection. During your sales conversation, you want to listen more than talk. You can’t become an active listener if you’re talking more than your client.

Objections are an inevitable part of the sales conversation.

Learning how to handle objections by responding to their concerns and providing answers is critical. Once you clearly know what the real obstacle is you can handle the objection, fully support them, and together move to the next step, so your client can accomplish their goals, dreams and vision. [FF]

Susan D. Crum is a High-Performance Strategist and Sales Expert and is Co-Founder of Financial Acceleration Strategies, LLC. FeedFront | August 2019 | No. 47

CONVERSION

Learning how to turn objections into opportunities so sales professionals can help their prospective clients reach a resolve so they can move forward. By Susan D. Crum

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CONVERSION

QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE DATA AND USER EXPERIENCE The quantitative data type is concerned with discovering facts via numbers and analyzed through numerical comparison. By Marco Ponce User experience optimization is something every website and business model should take in consideration at any level. With digital media, like a website, you have only two types of data you can collect to help you make informed decisions on improving the user experience: quantitative and qualitative.

The quantitative data type is concerned with discovering facts via numbers and analyzed through numerical comparison. This will give you the who, what, and where for your users. The top sources for this are tools like Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, and Yandex. Things to consider for this data type are behavior, like time on page, pages visited, bounce rate, and behavior flow.

This will give you a good starting point as to what user device, browser and landing page to target for your optimization efforts.

The second type of data is qualitative. This data type is concerned with understanding user behavior and collected through observation. For this, you have sources that record user sessions for playback, or capture heatmaps on clicks and scroll length like Fullstory, a relatively new player on the scene.

The qualitative data shows you why people are doing something you intend or might not intend. For example, you may see through a recorded session via a video of that user interacting with your site that they are clicking on something that they think is a button but is not. As mentioned, the new vendor on the block, Fullstory can also go above and beyond to let you see what clicks receive errors in the user’s console to even detect things like bugs, which you can then annotate and send over to your IT department for fixing.

Long gone are the days you have to explain and try to recreate the issue using the same technology as the user reporting it. You can now just send them a short link with the record of that very bug.

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Qualitative data can also involve you polling your users or getting them to fill out a survey to get your questions answered more directly. Vendors like Hotjar will allow you to place polling widgets on your website to ask questions to prospects or postpurchase users while actively on the website, to see why they came to your website in the first place.

Tools like Hotjar and SurveyMonkey can then allow you to follow-up with customers or leads with longer form surveys to get insight as to what they thought of your funnel and see if they would recommend you to friends or family (NPS score), a measurement many ecommerce companies use to get a quick continual pulse of the customer’s user experience.

Ultimately, these are the only two data types that can help you optimize your website’s user experience, and just some of the vendors that can help you source those data types.

User experience optimization is a marketing discipline that is on the rise and will help make any business excel against their competitors that do not monitor and optimize their user experience. [FF]

Marco Ponce is the Head of Optimization at LeadsMarket.com & B2B Marketing Manager.

FeedFront | August 2019 | No. 47

@feedfront | www.feedfront.com

LEGAL

TOP 5 AD CLAIM SUBSTANTIATION MISTAKES Advertisers should be intimately familiar with FTC substantiation investigation and litigation triggers, because the consequences of making false claims can result in, without limitation, civil penalties, consumer redress, and other remedies. By Richard B. Newman The Federal Trade Commission requires advertisers to possess a “reasonable basis” for express and implied claims. The failure to do so constitutes an unfair and deceptive act or practice in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act. Substantiation is a key FTC enforcement priority.

Advertisers should be intimately familiar with FTC substantiation investigation and litigation triggers, because the consequences of making false claims can result in, without limitation, civil penalties, consumer redress, and other remedies.

Below are five claim substantiation mistakes made by affiliate marketers that are almost certain to result in unwanted regulatory scrutiny.

1. N ot Possessing the Proper Type of Evidence. What constitutes a “reasonable basis” for advertising claims can vary depending upon the nature and specificity of the claim. For example, a more rigid standard of randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies remains the “gold standard” for substantiating health-related claims. In some circumstances, other types of scientific studies and data may be permissible.

What constitutes reasonable evidence these days? It depends.

2. D isseminating “Treatment” or “Cure” Claims. The FTC aggressively polices advertisers that make baseless and overstated claims. Claims of “treatments” or “cures” for diseases like Alzheimer’s, cancer, heart disease, arthritis, opiate addiction, and others cause regulatory agencies to salivate. Unsubstantiated claims targeting vulnerable populations, such as children and the elderly, and claims exploiting emerging health threats, are routine enforcement triggers.

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3. F ailing to Possess Pre-Dissemination Substantiation.

Lacking a reasonable basis before an ad is disseminated exposes advertisers to prosecution. It is not enough to possess the requisite level of substantiation after the FTC has initiated a regulatory investigation or lawsuit. This issue is often overlooked despite the fact that civil investigative demands often inquire as to what substantiation advertisers possessed at the time ads were disseminated.

Subsequent evidence of truthfulness will typically not absolve a marketer of liability for failing to possess prior substantiation for a claim.

4. M isstating What Scientific Studies Have Found. Just cherry-picking one good study is not a sound strategy. The FTC considers myriad factors when assessing the sufficiency of “reasonable evidence,” including, but not limited to, the overall body of evidence, statistical significance, where studies are published, if studies were conducted on humans, if tests were conducted independently, and whether advertisers possessed written opinions of experts in the field prior to dissemination.

5. I gnoring Endorsements and Social Media. Endorsements must also be substantiated. Ads that feature endorsements from people who achieved exceptional, or even above average results, are a regulatory enforcement favorite. An example is an endorser who says she lost 20 pounds in two months using the advertised product. If the advertiser does not have proof that the endorser’s experience represents what people will generally achieve using the product as described in the ad, then an ad featuring that endorser must make clear to the audience what the generally expected results are.

Affiliate marketers that do not understand these FTC claim substantiation rules and policies are exposed to serious legal hassles. [FF]

Richard B. Newman represents digital marketers in advertising substantiation proceedings and investigations conducted by the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general.

FeedFront | August 2019 | No. 47

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YOUR CUSTOMER IS YOUR BEST INFLUENCER

Everyone Has Influence

Own Your Customer, Own the Content

We all love products and services that we use on a daily basis.

Or ones that have knocked us out on the first try. We may have bragged recently about such an experience by posting on social media for everyone to see. What if I told you everyone could earn commissions for the sales they influence through their social posts? You may say, “But I’m not an influencer?” Yes, you are. That’s brand advocate marketing.

Amazon, the largest internet retailer in the world and the most data-centric, had two launches last year: their influencer program and an “UPLOAD YOUR VIDEO” button on every product page. Why is this a problem for merchants? Because they are not only owning the customer, they are owning the content and paying people to drive traffic about your product to their website. But there is a way to own your customer and own the content with Indi.com.

Road to Authenticity A brand’s best influencer is an existing customer who organically and authentically loves your brand. It’s getting back to grassroots, word-of-mouth advertising that still remains the richest path to authenticity, new customers, and a positive ROI for brands. Current customers have true influence in getting you new customers.

Everyone wants to be popular online. But, sadly, brands struggle with influencer partners having fake followers (the black-hat follower factory). However, with brand advocate marketing, you are targeting an authentic look-a-like audience that is every marketer’s dream. Smaller audiences, yes, but highly engaged and that can be influenced based on a peer recommendation. You can protect your brand from false claims when it’s your actual customer giving their testimony and product review.

Customers Validate a Brand on Social Are you a new-to-market brand or a health and wellness brand?

Even more so, you need your customers to become your virtual sales force and drive new customers by validating your brand on social media. When it comes to deciding if a product or service is worth trying, a friend, family member or colleague is going to believe someone they trust over an influencer/celebrity endorsement. You can scale to the masses and grow your program with the user-generated content created, because you can recruit thousands of your customers as brand advocates on social media on a performance basis.

A solution does exist for turning your customers into loyal, content creating, social influencing affiliates. It’s called Indi.com.

[FF]

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

What if I told you everyone could earn commissions for the sales they influence through their social posts? By Melissa D. Salas

Power of the Peer More and more people are sharing every aspect of their lives on social media: Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat. Significantly, some 70% of millennials prefer peer recommendations over celebrity endorsements, because they are authentic, according to Forrester. The conversions are there not only because it’s 100% authentic, but because the conversations last beyond that single post. They’re also showcasing the excitement of their experience with your brand at the gym, work, girls’ night, or weekend barbeques.

Melissa Salas is the Senior Marketing Director for Indi.com specializing in affiliate/social/video marketing since 2000.

FeedFront | August 2019 | No. 47

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SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

EFFECTIVE TECHNIQUES FOR INSTAGRAM ENGAGEMENT Is organic growth still possible on Instagram? By Debbie Bookstaber

“Is organic growth still possible on Instagram?”

As the founder of a digital marketing agency and the CMO of Hashtracking.com, this is one of the most frequently asked questions.

While I highly recommend Instagram advertising to clients looking to grow their accounts and increase their engagement, organic growth is still possible on Instagram.

However, it requires consistency, time, and strategy. Here are my top tips for Instagram growth and engagement in an hour a day or less.

Start with Hashtag Research: Instagram’s artificial intelligence (AI) studies how you use hashtags when posting and when engaging on Instagram. To build authority, you’ll want to start with a list of targeted and relevant hashtags. Don’t use hashtags inaccurately as it will hinder the growth of your account, and the use of “banned hashtags” will result in your posts being hidden from the hashtag feeds. You can research hashtags manually on Instagram by observing what the most influential users in your niche consistently use. Or you can save time by using a tool such as VitaminH by JuicedSocial.com to find an updated list of hashtags for your niche.

Identify Key Influencers: Hashtag research is like keyword research for SEO. It’s only the first step. What you DO with the hashtags/keywords is what matters. Once you have your list of hashtags, use them consistently in your posts and in your engagement. Make a list of key influencers for each targeted hashtag. In some cases, this is obvious. If you aren’t sure who has the most influence for a particular hashtag, use a tool such as Hashtracking.com to research the hashtag and get a list of top contributors. Once you have a list of key influencers for each targeted hashtag, engage consistently with them.

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Use Hashtags Appropriately: Use 3-5 hashtags in your profile.

Use up to 30 hashtags in each post or story. You can even use hashtags when commenting.

Don’t Post and Run: It is most beneficial for you to engage immediately after posting your content. Plan to post when you have time to engage with other relevant content on Instagram.

Shortly after each post, make a point to engage with others using the same hashtags. This puts you in their notifications at the time you have posted similar content. Comment on their posts in a relevant, useful, non-spammy way.

Be Practical: While it would be ideal to get engagement with the biggest influencers or gain momentum on the biggest hashtags, think realistically. Divide your time between small, medium, and large hashtags. Not sure how to determine what’s a small, medium, or large hashtag? Tools such as JuicedSocial. com will sort your hashtags by size or you can check the hashtag size manually using the Instagram search tool. Spend at least 1015 minutes per day engaging with tags from each group (small, medium, and large hashtags). Don’t limit your engagement to only the biggest influencers, as small to medium influencers may be more likely to reciprocate and build a relationship.

Measure Your Results: On a weekly basis, evaluate your results.

Once you know your top hashtags and top influencers or fans, make a list. Spend at least 20 minutes engaging with your top tag and top influencer lists. The remaining time can be spent engaging and testing hashtags from your small, medium and large hashtag groups. [FF]

Debbie Bookstaber is President of ElementAssociates.com, a digital marketing agency, and CMO of Hashtracking.com.

FeedFront | August 2019 | No. 47

@feedfront | www.feedfront.com

3 WAYS TO TAKE CONTROL OF FACEBOOK

What most people do not know is that you have total control over your experience on Facebook. The Facebook algorithm works in such a way that the user experience is predicated on the behaviors you take while sifting through content.

If you have the tendency to engage on political articles, then you can expect that more of it will populate your news feed.

When you like and comment on your friends baby photos, you are continuing to feed the algorithm as a user that enjoys baby photos so you can expect to see similar content from your friends.

If you’re a person that consumes a lot of video content, then you’ll be served more videos. If you’re a foodie then you’re likely being targeted by every restaurant in town, and if you have the tendency to buy products online then voila! More product advertisements will be up in your face.

My Facebook experience is full of chitter chatter, banter, and knowledge consumption within social media marketing groups, because that is where I’m engaged. My experience is enjoyable and has me coming back for more without complaints.

Here are three easy ways you can control your experience on Facebook: Engage with the content you want to see. Facebook wants to give you more of what you like so be aware of the behaviours you are taking on the platform and like more of the content you want to see.

Hide the things you don’t want to see. On the top right hand side of every post there are three little dots. When you click on those dots you will see an option to ‘Hide this post.’ You will then be asked the reason on why you want to hide this post and you can choose ‘irrelevant’. By selecting this option you are telling Facebook to stop showing you this type of content. Sick of seeing content from Life Coaches trying to change your life then select ‘irrelevant’ and you’ll never see an ad from another Life changing coach again.

See good content first. You have the ability to turn on notifications for groups that you follow so you can be notified anytime someone posts in a group. Do you have groups that publish way too much content? No problem! You can snooze groups as well.

On average we scroll through 300 feet of social media content daily, according to NetNewsledger.com. Substitute 15 minutes of scrolling to customize your experience, so that each and every piece of content is something that is relevant.

Take these steps to customize your feed to make it your own personal news source full of the topics, people, and places that matter most to you. In doing so you will transform your Facebook experience from time-wasting into time well spent.

[FF]

Jason Hunt is the CEO of Social Media Agency Fresh Crowd and CoFounder of Merged Media. freshcrowd.com merged.ca FeedFront | August 2019 | No. 47

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

People are giving up Facebook and Instagram because they find themselves spending too much time consuming ‘garbage content’. By Jason Hunt

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@feedfront | www.feedfront.com

STRATEGY

HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF CONFERENCES Having attended about a hundred different conferences, including twelve of my own, I couldn’t help but observe an alarmingly recurring situation. By Geno Prussakov

Every time I meet someone new at a conference I ask them: “What is it that you’re hoping to achieve here?”

The intention is that their response would help me quickly figure out if we may be a match. Unfortunately, quite often I don’t get a firm or concrete answer.

I was there, too, and I can tell you that the difference between a successful conference experiencee and a failed one lies more in what you do before and after it than what you do during it.

Don’t get me wrong: what you do at the conference is important, but unless you’ve come (and gone) prepared, the end result will not be the same.

I believe that there are three specific things that conference attendees frequently miss, and I’d like to urge you to pay a special attention to these the next time you plan on attending a show.

3. Act Talking about different topic, Seena Sharp once wrote that “the real purpose” is “not to gather data” or “develop information” but “to learn and to act” and the same holds true for everything that you do after the conference. Turn the knowledge into actionable steps to improve your doing of things, and turn your new connections into new opportunities. Don’t just gather data and business cards. Apply the knowledge and act on what you’ve brought back.

At the end of the day, it’s all about preparation. The old saying that “by failing to prepare you are preparing to fail” applies here one hundred percent. Your success is in your hands.

Spend the time before the conference on setting goals and structuring your agenda, while after the conference: ensure to take action on what you’ve learned and follow up with those you’ve met. [FF]

1. Set Goals Why are you going there? Is it to learn and improve, or to make new connections, or to cement existing relationships? There are no wrong answers here; but what’s important is that you do have concrete goals to reach. Otherwise, you won’t know what to aim at.

2. Structure Plan the events you want to attend and schedule the meetings you want to have. Don’t count on figuring it all out once you get there. Take Affiliate Summit, for example. At an event that gathers between 5,000 and 6,000 people in one place, it is easy to get overwhelmed and lost. Come with a structured schedule, and you’ll be thankful you’ve put the time into creating one in advance.

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Geno Prussakov runs AM Days workshops within Affiliate Summits and AM Navigator (affiliate program management agency).

FeedFront | August 2019 | No. 47

@feedfront | www.feedfront.com

STRIVE TO BE A BALANCED BETH

I am a single mom working full-time as the Client Success Manager for Affiliate Summit, a subsidiary of Clarion Events. I have been in and out (and back in) the affiliate marketing world for twenty years. I love this industry and have met so many amazing and interesting people that I network with daily. I am raising two brilliant and very active children. My daughter, Molly, is twelve going on sixteen, and my handsome son, Shane, is eleven - both currently immersed in the difficult and awkward middle school years.

We are a very busy family of Three Musketeers. At least once a week, I force us to eat dinner together at the table. We go around and discuss our best moment of the day and our least favorite moment of the day. My children tease me about this, but it forces us to communicate with each other about our days and it always ends in laughter.  I certainly have not been balanced my entire life, and like many women, I have had my fair share of struggles, both personally and professionally. I was in a failing marriage for far too long. I was walking behind a person, rather than alongside, and living someone else’s goals and dreams over mine.

One day I decided I am no longer afraid to do this thing, we call life, on my own. I am no longer going to settle because I want and deserve it all. I want to be a role model and be in the movement to empower women to do exactly what I did and make that positive change. From that day forward, I knew I was choosing a better life for my children and for myself. If I did not make that decision two years ago, so many professional opportunities that have come up for me would not have been possible. This continues to remind me how right my decisions really have been.

Finding the right balance and what works best for you takes time and lots of trial and error. I work remote, travel for business, and go into the office a few times a month. If you add a full-time mom to this mix, it can be a lot to balance.

When you work remote, you tend to never turn work off, work more hours than most, and for me my computer and phone are always at my fingertips. I force myself to run every day on my lunch break and on weekends. This is not only for my physical appearance, but mentally it helps me to stay focused. This is my stress relief and it gives me a recharge to be even more successful the rest of the workday. It also helps me teach my children the importance of having fitness in their life.

It is so important you take an hour to yourself every day to de-stress and re-group your mind. More companies, like mine, should encourage step challenges and lunch break fitness. It makes employees more productive and balanced.

I certainly do not have it all figured out just yet, but I am on the positive path to do so and I am not going to quit until I do. I want to be known as the woman that had it all, for my children to be proud to call me their mother, and my co-workers to love working with me and feel confident in my decisions.

I want to continue to travel, write more, meet new people, and grow in this amazing industry. I want my children, along with my nieces and nephews, to learn from my life mistakes. Life should be about professional success, having fun, and making amazing memories, because as we know life is extremely short. I want to strive to be one of the Balanced Beth’s of the world. [FF]

Sara Malo-Szado is the Client Success Manager here at Affiliate Summit and inspiring blogger. Follow her lifestyle blog: http://saramalo8103.wixsite.com/meetsara FeedFront | August 2019 | No. 47

STRATEGY

I was recently on a trip to London for a Customer Love Day event. I was the lead participating in a role-play as a successful middle-aged balanced woman. At the end, I realized this could really be about me. By Sara Malo-Szado

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BEST TOOLS TO SETUP GOOGLE ADS

Imagine you’ve set up your first online store. What’s the next step? Advertising. But you don’t know how to do it and you can’t afford a marketing agency. So you need to try to figure out how to create an advertising campaign on your own.

You need to know that an effective Google Ads campaign consists of two stages. The first one is bringing traffic to the website. It means using different channels to attract users who might become your potential customers. Ideally, it’s that easy, but very often the target audience doesn’t make a purchase during their first visit on the website.

That’s why there’s a second substantial element, remarketing.

It’s the process of reminding customers about your products.

The statistics clearly show that a client acquired by remarketing generates lower costs than a new client brought to the website by an online advertisement.

Following this two step process is the most effective way to optimize Google Ads. That’s why you need to equip yourself with the tools available to help you to set up a campaign. If you own an online store, it’s recommended to focus your attention on Google Shopping ads and targeting specific keywords in Google Search results.

Make use of apps like Heraldbee, which allow you to start a Google Shopping campaign in just a few steps. Another option, specific for Google Search, is using a Keyword Planner which is part of Google Ads. There’s no easier tool to create ads based on the popularity of keywords.

Ok, you’ve covered bringing traffic to the website. Now don’t forget about remarketing, which takes advantage of the cookies collected during the first stage. I recommend you to install ROI Hunter, a tool designed for advertising products to customers who visited your website previously.

Some other essentials about running ads to bring in prospects. Don’t advertise products without demand or for products not available on your website.

Also, don’t focus on catchy keywords justbecause you like them. Analyze and adjust the content of your website so that it matches the search engine queries and the text in your ads.

It will positively affect the quality score and ads relevance evaluated by Google, and thereforethe costs of a click and a whole campaign will be lower.

In the end, advertising should be a constant test. Regularly check which ads yield the best possible results. You can’t test too much. Always presume that your best campaign is still ahead of you. [FF]

Pawel Kijko is an Internet Marketing Consultant.

Personal site: klewer.pl. Promoter of the Remote Work.

FeedFront | August 2019 | No. 47

TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION

You have just set up your first online store. What’s the next step?

Advertising. That’s where the problems start... By Pawel Kijko

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@feedfront | www.feedfront.com

TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION

YOU NEED TO INVEST IN YOUR EMPLOYEES If employees are well invested in and their innovativeness encouraged, the customer, and therefore your business, wins. By Ricky Ahuja

It is commonly said that “customers come first”, but Richard Branson has helped put this statement in proper perspective: “employees come first; customers come second”. This is an important principle in the business world. If employees are well invested in and their innovativeness encouraged, customers would get the best services and treatment.

Employees are the blood flowing through the veins of a company. It is their contribution that keeps the company in existence and once a business starts to lose employees, the end may be drawing close for the company.

However, the glaring fact is that many employees are dissatisfied with their jobs. According to the “State of the Global Workplace” survey conducted in 2017, 85% percent of employees are dissatisfied with their current jobs the world over.

More disheartening is what is being lost in productivity. It was discovered that almost $7 trillion is lost every year, the world over, in productivity.

How then do we change the narrative and increase productivity in our workplaces? Money is a factor, but many times, it becomes secondary. Many employees often quit their jobs because of learning and growth opportunities. An IBM study revealed that employees who do not feel they are developing in a company are 12 times more likely to leave it.

The growth of companies like Google and Adobe is not unrelated to the heavy investments they put in their employees.

Google, for instance, invests so much in its employees that the company offers everything from laundry facilities to places for naps, and creatively executed common areas as well. They also provide free breakfast, lunch, and dinner; health and dental benefits; and hybrid car subsidies to keep their employees happy.

The result of this is seen in the several innovative projects that its employees have come up with. Googlers are allowed to spend 20 percent of their time pursuing special projects they feel are worth their time. Many of their best products, such as Gmail, Google Maps, Google Cardboard, AdSense, and Google Talk, are products of this policy.

Give Room for Innovation When employees see that they are engaged and are empowered to make decisions, they get a sense of belonging and they make moves that are in the best interests of the company. Talent is an important resource but there needs to be room for the talent to make an expression in solutions. This is one thing that Virgin puts as a cardinal principle.

Every investment in an employee is an investment in the company. The employee is empowered to make smarter decisions. [FF]

Invest in Your Employees; Invest in Your Company The prospect of self development and the actualization of potentials is great pull for many employees. This is why investment in employees is very vital. Employers have to understand that the investment comes back to the company in multiples as the employees try new ideas and make better decisions.

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Ricky Ahuja is Head of Business Development at MoreNiche.com, based out of Nottingham, UK. FeedFront | August 2019 | No. 47

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