Stack Overflow

Last week, I covered how to monetize your blog with affiliate marketing. Of course, that just begged the questions: What should a blogger look for in an affiliate network ?

Now, affiliate marketing is a business model that emerged long before blogs ever existed, and it evolved to  help the merchant make sales. Helping webmasters make money was only an incentive to help merchants make those sales.

The result was that affiliate webmasters built websites that were more oriented toward promoting products. User experience (UE) was only an afterthought — i.e. make the just bearable enough so that they don’t leave before you can refer them to the advertiser’s site.

Blogs, on the other hand, are a social medium. They stand out from mere websites because they let you hold a conversation with your users/readers. It only makes sense, then, that UE is one of your priorities. After all, if you neglect UE, sooner or later you won’t have any readers left and no traffic to try and monetize through any medium, never mind affiliate marketing.

If you’re going to monetize through affiliate marketing, you’re going to need to find and affiliate network or affiliate program that’s more relationship focused . That is, you’ll have to choose a network that (1) is more than self-serve, and (2) will provide support to all affiliates equally.

These attributes are important because as an affiliate blogger , you have to do more than just buld your traffic. You have to retain it. The affiliate marketing potential of a bloglies in the influence it has over its readerscommunity. That influence stems from a relationship you develop with your readers. It only makes sense, then, that you work with an affiliate network than appreciates that importance of relationships.

If you aren’t already an affiliate blogger , it will help to have some help along the way. After all, when you first join an affiliate network or program, it takes some time to figure out its ins and out.

Every network has has an array of products to promote, and affiliate managers often know which products work best on which sites/blogs. Being able to chat with one those managers will help you choose which products in the network to focus on promoting.

Affiliate networks/program are also all powered by different affilate software. If you want to really optimize your affiliate marketing efforts, you’ll want to get the most out of that software and the analytics it provides. Dedicated affiliate manager can also help you with that.

Finally, some affiliate programs offer more marketing tools than others. As a blogger, there are a few different ways you can promote products (e.g. sidebar ads, in-post links, etc…). An affiliate management team that’s willing to look over your site, recommend tools (and programs that offer them), can save a lot of time and energy when it comes to setting up your affiliate account.

Providing support across an entire network requires staff and that can be costly. Consequently, some networks only provide support to some of their biggest affiliates. This happens with both smaller networks that don’t have a lot of resources, and massive networks that prefer to work with so-called super affiliates . In either case, such networks only want to invest in support when they see an immediate return.

On the other hand, there are network that see affiliate support as a longer-term investment. That is, they believe in the long tail , and know that if they invest in an affiliate, that affiliate will become a better affiliate and make both of them more money. They also know that that affiliate will also stay more loyal, and continue to (effectively) promote products within the network for years to come.

As a blogger, you’d probably be more comfortable with a network that offers such dedicated support . First, they’ll be there through your growing pains, giving you the kinds of support mentioned above. Secondly, they’ll listen to your (and other affiliates’) feedback, and that intelligence will trickly back into the network/program, making it a better, and more competitive place for both advertisers and publishers.

To succeed as a blogger, you have to passionate not only about your topic, but about your readers/users. You have to build a community and develop relationships with its members.

If you’re going to monetize your blog through affiliate marketing, then, it makes sense to choose an affiliate network/program that shows a similar appreciation for relationships and treats its members as a community. A network/program that takes the time to develop a relationship with you and it other members will not only provide better support, but will better understand what you and the rest of the network members (the community) need to succeed. Not to mention, that relationship approach is also likely to attract better advertisers who are actually interested in growing their program, rather than just moving a couple extra units during a seasonal down-turn.

I’ve been away from home for about 7 months. I’ve been in New Zealand for about 5 months now and although i love this country it’s time for me to start heading home. In the last month i have travelled all around New Zealand and with the winter arriving here and the summer in full swing back in the UK it’s time to start heading back. I have did my best to run my websites whilst travelling but there really is only so much you can do – if i never use an internet cafe the rest of my life it will be too soon!!

This was not an easy decision for me as after New Zealand we were planning on going to South America. However, that is merely being put on the backburner until the start of next year and going home allows me to save more money, work more on my websites and organise everything much easier.

All is not lost though. The minute i decided to go home there was only one place that i knew i wanted to stop on the way back – Japan! I’ve been to 8 countries in Asia so far. My original plan was to do a trip of China, South Korea and Japan around the time of the Beijing Olympics but i don’t have the time to do that just now so Japan was the place i knew i was going.

I can’t put into words how im feeling about this. A part of me is concerned about how unorganised i am but a big part of me is excited about the fact i am unorganised and haven’t planned anything out. I bought the Japan Lonely Planet Book yesterday and i reckon i will be staying around the Ginza area in Tokyo when i arrive and i’ll probably head to Kyoto a few days later however that’s about all i’ve got so far haha. I’ve got 5 days to get everything arranged before i go so i should be ok. Plus i’ve got nearly two weeks in Japan so i can organise things there

As i said, im extremely excited about all this. I’ve wanted to go to Japan ever since i can remember. Growing up i hated kiddies films like Mary Poppins and ET and all kind of stuff but i was really into Martial Arts films all the time (plus my best friend is a huge anima fan) – i use to hire out Jackie Chan and GodZilla films (GodZuki got Big G into a lot of trouble!) and i’ve been importing video games from Japan since i was in my teens. Plus im a tech nut so i’m gonna be in geek heaven!

In the last 4 years of travelling i’ve met a lot of cool people from Japan who have spoke about their homeland – now i wish i made the effort to stay in touch with them! When i was kickboxing training in Auckland a few months ago my training partner most nights was Gujee, a Japanese lad who was on a working holiday visa just like me. Again, i forgot to get his email address as i thought i would be back in Auckland in a few months!

Anyways, in the next few days i will be writing posts to cover the next few weeks. I’ll probably give you all an update once im travelling but until i get home the number of posts will remain around one a day. On the plus side, when i do get home i will be able to start posting more and helping visitors with problems and questions

Sayonara!

Kevin