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August 15, 2007

Why Follow-Up with Freebies? To Analyze your Market and Collect Customer Data.

Filed under: customer incentives — Andrew Christiansen @ 12:35 pm

Why Follow-up with Freebies?  If you don’t, you won’t achieve any benefit.  Freebies are a great tool to gain visibility and gain subscriptions, however it’s important to remember that visitors rarely make a purchase on their first visit to a website.  In fact, visitors probably don’t make a purchase until after at least five visits to your website.  Following up with Freebies will get you those five visits.

The purpose of Freebies is to create awareness.  But once the consumers are aware of your website, it’s your job to let them know who you are and what you have to offer.  You need to imprint yourself in the customer’s mind.  You need to remain in their presence without being overbearing, and convince them to make a return visit.  However, to do this, you must monitor traffic and collect data from your Freebie promotion. If you haven’t done that, you will have a difficult time reaching those potential customers again.  An analytical follow-up to Freebie strategies should always be implemented.

There are many ways to Follow-up with Freebies.  By devising data collection methods and subscription based email lists to incorporate with the Freebies, you have collected a method to contact you target market for follow up. 

One non-invasive method for Following up with Freebies is to ask for consumer feedback.  A week after your Freebie promotion ends, contact the group and ask them their opinions about the Freebie, and if there are any changes or additions they’d like to see.  Maintain records of who responds, and who doesn’t.

The following week, contact everyone with a notification of the changes you made in response to their feedback.  Also include promotional material on your website, and encourage them to visit. Monitor your traffic the following week and determine if there is an increase.  Analyze webpage navigation habits to see where their interests lie.

The third week, contact your Freebie group with an opportunity for consumer-generated content, whether it’s pictures, opinions or any other content you can dream up.  Have the consumers contribute to your website and include a short sign-up form before they add their content.  You can use this information to build your customer relationship database. 

Once they have contributed content, evaluate the content and do your traffic counts.  What information are they most interested in?  Follow up the following week with an informational newsletter or a news piece which compliments your analysis of the consumer-generated content.  Make sure you include an unsubscribe option to maintain your integrity.

By following up on the Freebie, you have made your customer aware of who you are, you made them feel important by requesting their opinion and their content, and you promoted your knowledge and your integrity.  Now that you have a more concrete idea of what the customers are interested in, you can develop your pricing, product and promotion strategies based on your analysis of the Freebie follow up.

Why Follow up on Freebies?  You follow up on Freebies to let your customer know who you are and find out who they are.  Get a benefit from Following up on your Freebie promotions, and Follow-up on your Freebies!


What About Offline Advertising and Online Advertising? It’s about the Blend.

Filed under: offline advertising — Andrew Christiansen @ 12:34 pm

What About Offline Advertising and it’s application to website promotion and marketing strategies?  Do bricks and mortar separate the offline and online communities, or does Internet connectivity penetrate the bricks and build a bridge between the offline and online communities?  It appears that Internet connectivity has been and still is penetrating the bricks and mortar.  The bricks have found advantages to Internet advertising, and now the Internet business community is finding advantages to Offline Advertising in bricks and mortar style.

One of the finest most recent examples of successful marrying of Online and Offline Advertising, is Webkindz (www.webkindz.com), who successfully paired a plush doll with an interactive website and now has over a million visitors and a hefty worth estimated at $100 million.  Consumers buy the plush doll, the doll has an internet code, and that code is the key to taking care of the virtual Webkindz pet online.  The child can now enjoy the plush by touching, and interacting in the video format that is pervasive in today’s world. This was a genius step forward that derived from and blended strategies from cabbage patch dolls, puppy adoption papers and neopets.  Moving up to teenagers, Pew Research (www.pewinternet.org), reports that 85% of teenage girls and 81% of teenage boys go online to look up information about their favorite movie star, television show, music group or sports stars.  The new generation expects integration between online and offline worlds.  If you are present in the media form that the teenagers are connecting with in their offline movie, television and sports stars, then your connection can meld the offline and online presence. 

Pew Research reported in 2000 that 73% of adults go online to research products, and only 52% buy them online.  Can you be the offline presence that informs adults that you are the place to go to do your research? Use Offline Advertising promotion to promote your online presence as a destination site for product and service reviews.

Need more evidence of online and offline worlds penetrating each other?  Take a look at web-based Billboards.  Out of the 450,000 billboards in the U.S., approximately 600 to 700 are web-based, according to outdoor advertising company Watchfire, as reported by Internet Retailer (www.internetretailer.com).  The trend is on the upswing, and although consumers are often numb to television and newspaper advertising, they continue to drive the freeways to work, passing billboards on the way. Web-based billboards have an IP site and the content can be changed frequently.  Could one of these billboards advertise your site?

Offline Advertising opportunities are everywhere, from inside the store to on the freeway.  The Internet has integrated our household communication, our businesses, our schools and our shopping experiences.  The Internet has penetrated the bricks and mortar and the bricks and mortar have penetrated the Internet.  Don’t ignore the opportunities that lay ahead in the offline world as the two become one, or you will suffer from a one-sided relationship, and lose the sales from the other. 

What about Offline Advertising?  Online advertisers better get Advertising Offline and connect themselves to both worlds, or consumers will connect with their competitors.  Start thinking outside the web, and have your Offline Advertising program get the offline world to connect to you.


Write a Business Plan that Means Business - Tips on Resources for Writing.

Filed under: business plans — Andrew Christiansen @ 12:34 pm

Tips on Writing a Business Plan are conveniently found at the Small Business Administration’s Website located at www.sba.gov.  The SBA offers volumes of tips and free advice on developing and running a small business.  Their SCORE division (www.score.org) offers free personal email counseling from retired executives.  If you haven’t written a Business Plan, this is the best place to start.  Banks are familiar with and accept the SBA format.  And don’t let the term Small Business throw you off; a typical small business loan under SBA standards is defined as being under one million dollars.  Regardless of whether you are pursuing a small business loan or not, the most valuable Tip on Writing a Business Plan is to visit the SBA website - then Write a Business Plan that Means Business.

The SBA website includes an outline of information to include in your Business Plan, which is boiled down to four categories: Description of the Business, Marketing, Finances and Management. The description of the Business Plan will include an overall description of the business, marketing, and competition, operating procedures, personnel and business insurance information.  The Financial Data you should include in your Business Plan consists loan applications, capital equipment and supply list, balance sheet, breakeven analysis, profit and loss statements, three year summary, then details of projections for the first year by month, then details by quarters for the second and third years, and the assumptions on which these projections were based, and of course a pro-forma cash flow.

Supporting documents typically included in a Business Plan are tax returns for the last three years, personal financial statements, franchise financial statements and contracts if they apply, copies of proposed leases or purchase agreements, copies of licenses, legal documents, resumes of owners and key management, and letters of intent from suppliers.

Sounds like a lot?  It is.  But it’s worth it.  Once you are able to disseminate all of this information you will have a more accurate and clear plan of your cash flow, your pending difficulties, and discover areas where you might be able to expand or improve.  There is no better way to get to know your business than to actively participate in creating the Business Plan.  The better you know your business, the better your business will be.

There are many websites available to help you with your research.  The Government has resourceful page at www.usa.gov. The Census Bureau has a wealth of data for any demographic, economic or geographic need at www.census.gov.  Trademark and patent information is available at www.uspto.gov.  The Department of Labor has employment regulations and wage information at www.dol.gov.  A portal dedicated just for businesses is located at www.business.gov.  Here you’ll find permit information, specialty loan information, industry information, and links galore.  The IRS is located at www.irs.gov.  If you are going to incorporate, do a search for your local Department of State office.  

Tips on writing a Business Plan and the resources you need to confirm your data are available within these government websites.  By researching your Business Plan thoroughly, writing a Business Plan will be the interactive tool you need to comprehend all of the interwoven implications of every decision.  Take a tip, do your research and Write a Business Plan that means Business - and your business could be the one that survives.


Use Perception and not Pressure to Create Urgency So People Buy Now.

Filed under: internet advertising — Andrew Christiansen @ 12:33 pm

How to Create Urgency so People Buy Now without losing credibility to your website by creating excess hype, is a balance that must be achieved in order for your urgency tactics to have a return on investment.  Creating Urgency so People Buy Now is a strategy that needs to be applied with the knowledge that the majority of consumers recognize and ignore hyped-up sales offers, last minute promotions, and last minute opportunities.  Urgency can be created by designing perceptions rather than hype.

Time is the basis for Urgency.  People buy now what they need. They plan to buy later what they don’t need to buy now, unless there is a reason to buy now instead of later.  If your promotion can creatively divide and label sections of time within categories, you can create a perception of urgency for your customers to take advantage of an offer - now, instead of later. 

Time can be divided into years, months, weeks, days, hours and minutes, but how is time divided in your industry?  Could time be divided by seasons?  Could time be designated by a future threat of being obsolete?  Can time be divided by holidays, or work schedules or school schedules?  How about periods of enjoyment, such as weekends, or emotions, such as while your relationship is young, or while you can appreciate their presence?  Don’t limit yourself in Creating an Urgency so People Buy Now by limiting yourself to traditional definitions of time.  Give a perception to the consumer that designates a shift in the paradigm in time, where there is no actual ending in your promotion, but there is a perception of time ending.

Another subtle way of creating a sense of urgency is to simply note a number of units available, relative to the minimum amount you want to sell, on your promotional material.  Don’t say that’s all you have or “hurry before we run out.”  You will lose credibility if you do.  By having a number of items in stock on your promotional material, your customers will equate that number with availability.  This will create a perception of “an ending for the offer,” even if there is no end.

Another suggestion for How to Create and Urgency so People Buy Now, is to simply upsell.  Think about “would you like fries with that.”  You are standing in line, ordering your meal.  Your mind is completely focused on the food that your body is craving.  Is it urgent that you buy the fries now?  Not really.  There are millions of fries available, but you want to satisfy that craving now, and fulfill your buying experience.  Upselling at the customer point of sale creates a sense of urgency through perception.  A popular sales cliché says “don’t push the sale, just prevent procrastination.”

How to Create Urgency so People Buy Now is a strategy that has been abused, but still holds significant sales opportunities if implemented with perception rather than hype.  Take note of your customer’s lifestyles and time perceptions, and learn How to Create Urgency So People Buy Now through providing opportunities, and not pushing sales.  Your customer will see you as the website with integrity, and buy your products from you, because it’s Urgent that they do.


To Find Your Niche Market: Analyze, Analyze, Analyze.

Filed under: internet advertising — Andrew Christiansen @ 12:33 pm

To Find Your Niche Market you must first get to know the guts and the core of your business, then do the same to your competitors.  On top of that, you must have a clear understanding of your target market and the consumer.  If you can target a Niche more effectively than your competitors, Niche Marketing will give you the opportunity to build competitive advantages over your competitors.  Niche Marketing provides a business the opportunity to satisfy customers faster than the competition, and customer satisfaction is the biggest competitive advantage any business can have. Niches become successful despite their small size because they have an intimate relationship with the customer and are better able to meet their needs.  In fact, finding your Niche and propagating exceptional customer experiences will give you an opportunity for value-added pricing, which contributes to your overall profit margin. 

A Niche Market, as defined by the European Journal of Marketing, is “a small market consisting of an individual customer or a small group of customers with similar characteristics or needs.”  The journal suggests that when selecting the Niche, to “realize your sustainable competitive advantages with products in specific markets.”  Your advantages must be based on long-term interests of the customers.  Customer relationships are one of the most powerful, and profitable, advantages in Niche Marketing.

The research you conduct to find your Niche Market should include an analysis of the short-term and long-term goals of you and your competitor, the financial backing, products, services, website design and functionality, SEO analysis with an emphasis on keyword analysis, pricing, geographical areas, and the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of both you and your competition. Once you know what you have to offer, and what your competitors don’t have to offer, you’re almost on your way to creating your Niche.  Almost.

After analyzing your business against your competitors, you need to research your market and your consumers.  Identify their buying habits, search habits, keyword habits and changes, visit blogs, forums and social community sites, research online and offline resources, narrow down the demographics and analyze their yearly and monthly expenditures and consumer buying patterns, find out what they want and if you can give it to them, or how you can give it to them. 
Find a business problem that you can solve that your competitors can’t. Then customize your solution.  Decide if you want to focus on the target market, or the product.  Then, you are set to develop your Niche Market.

Choose your keywords carefully; use every program and search engine you can to analyze them.  Pay attention to trends.  Find out the best advertising programs to reach you Niche Market, don’t waste your money advertising to the world.  There are over 1 billion Internet users in the world today, 200 million from the United States, according to the Computer Industry Almanac (www.c-i-a.com).  You only need to reach the ones that are most likely to buy from your website, that is - your Niche.

To Find your Niche Market, analyze yourself, your competitors, your market and your consumers.  Find what you can supply that your competitors can’t, and find out who wants to have that supply.  Develop an intensive customer relationship strategy, and a marketing mix specifically targeted towards your Niche Market.  Once you find your Niche Market and develop your key strategies, your Niche will always be coming back to you.


August 14, 2007

Five Proven Ways to Promote Your Website from Top Companies and Their Success

Filed under: internet advertising — Andrew Christiansen @ 11:25 am

Five Proven Ways to Promote Your Website are demonstrated in the successful promotional strategies of companies such as Pet.com, Blendtec, E-loan, Webkindz and even Texas Beef. Keyword Strategies, Marrying Offline and Online Promotions, Consumer-Generated Content, Videos and Email List Services are Five Ways to Promote your Web Site that have been proven effective.

Out of the Five Proven Ways to Promote your Web Site, E-Loan’s classic keyword strategy had creativity take a backseat to pencil pushing (or keyboard tapping).  E-Loan bids on approximately 250,000 keywords and phrases and determines the ROI for each.  The search engine sector of the total marketing budget is between 20% and 50% of the total market budget.  Since E-loan has generated over $32 billion dollars worth of loans, it’s evident this keyword strategy works.  Keywords are nothing new, but how many developers allocate 50% of their marketing budget to keywords and determine an ROI for each word?  Promote your Website by putting your money where your keywords are.

But, money isn’t everything, and creativity and inspiration are at the heart of the business world - and Videos are in the eyes of the internet world.  Videos are hot, and one of the Top Five Proven Ways to Promote your Website - but remember, consumers like them short (15 seconds).  If you haven’t looked into promotional video strategies, now is the time to do it.  In their 2007 studies, Advertising.com, Inc., the industry’s largest online advertising network (www.advertising.com), revealed video advertising as having the largest gain, and 80% of Interactive Publishers are planning to implement video advertising.  Blendtec, a blender company, posted a video on You Tube of their blender chopping up golf balls and other blender-breaking materials to show just how strong their blender was.  The result?  Millions of sales and visits - increased five-fold.  Pringles, Pillsbury, all the big names are jumping in on the video bandwagon.

Pet.com believes video increases stickiness and branding (www.internetretailer.com).  Pet.com had pet show contest winners post one-minute videos of their pets doing tricks on You Tube, and had visitors vote for the winner. Pet.com now has consumer-generated pet pictures and pet stories on their website.  Consumer generated Content is one of the fastest growing ways Proven to Promote your Website.

In addition, the Internet and Bricks and Mortar world are still mixing.  Webkindz sells a soft plush doll in concert with its interactive video website.  Webkindz stopped counting accounts after they reached a million. Mix Internet and Bricks - Marry the online and offline for a powerful promotional strategy. 

Customer Engagement and personalization is the focus of email list servers.  Bell Canada implements billing and promotional strategies through email programs and has 300,000 subscribers.  The Texas Beef Council began an email educational newsletter that increased subscriptions by 100%.  Listservs that engage the audience or provide a benefit are proven to promote your website.  Spam is out, but personalized email and engaging list servers are in.

Promoting a Website through keywords, consumer-generated content, videos, marrying offline and online content, and personalizing emails are Five Proven Ways to Promote your Website that these companies have exemplified.  These Five Proven Ways to Promote your Website have a common denominator - the customer. By concentrating on consumer-driven content that engages and focuses on analyzing customer needs, any one of the Five Proven Ways to Promote your Website can have powerful results for you.


August 13, 2007

Why is Content King when Customer Should be King?

Filed under: blogging/content — Andrew Christiansen @ 7:34 pm

Why Content is King, although not hotly debated by those who agree that Content is King, is a question that brings up speculation about the effectiveness of Google’s massive algorithms.  Particularly when search engine results still place results with keyword stuffing, link manipulation, irrelevant search engine saturation, and articles with more formatting than they do substance in the top search engine results.  To get visitors to your website, you have to manipulate your content to satisfy Google’s excessive qualifications and the customer’s preferences, which might be contradictory.  In addition, Content is not King if it exists without functionality and easy navigation.  Your Content can be the King of the Universe, and maybe show up in first page search engine results, but without an effective web site design, or not having what the customer wants, your customer will be leaving faster than they came in and - Click - your Content may be a prince, but your Content is not King.

Content, defined as many have, as simply written material (copy) is not King.  Content, as the whole substantive part of your website is certainly King.  In order for Content to be King, it has to go beyond articles and blogs.  It has to anticipate the customer’s wants and needs.  Now that Google has implemented their universal search, your webpage is under some more stiff competition.  However, it has opened huge doors that lead to pathways of marketing opportunities.  Videos, images, news, maps, books and websites are no longer specialty requests by the search engine user, they are inclusive in all search engine results, pushing and shoving their way into the top.  Google’s aim with the Universal Search was to “deliver a truly comprehensive search experience.”  Which translates into your website having a truly revamping experience.  If you don’t have all forms of media integrated into your website you could very well be left behind.  Add content and not just copy.

Engaging the reader should perhaps be King, because Content is created to Engage the reader.  However, the Reader is engaged by Content - and that makes Content the King to get the reader.  Which came first the chicken or the egg?  But doesn’t engaging the readers also include sales and marketing tactics such as branding strategies and opportunities for reward or pleasure?  Do these necessarily contain good content? Look at Amazon.com and Ebay.com - their content is great because it gives the customer what they are looking for - it’s not necessarily full of information, and I haven’t investigated their foray into the world of blogging, forums and social networking, however I’d guess they only need that for support, because their websites give the customer everything they want.

The Content is King mantra needs to step down and make Customer the King.  The Customer is and always has been King. Even if you have great content, your Customer is only going to buy or do what they want.  You have to anticipate their needs, and for now, Google’s needs.  Engaging a customer won’t work without a customer, and content won’t work without a customer, and your website won’t work without a customer.  Anticipate your customers needs, meet your customers needs, keep up with the times, and make your Customer King.  How do you do that?  By anticipating your customer’s needs and making your Content King of course!


August 10, 2007

Why Content is King - An SEO Fairytale

Filed under: blogging/content — Andrew Christiansen @ 12:07 pm

King Good Content Serves his Kingdom

Why Content is King, although hotly debated, is easy to answer.  It’s because a King serves his Kingdom.  On the web, there are many Kings, and many Kingdoms.
Your Content is the King - trying to reach the people to bring into his Kingdom.  Your Content is the gold and the riches, the food and nourishment, and the promises that the people desire.  But the Content can’t reach all of the people at once, even those whose greatest fantasy is to spend time in Content’s beautiful surroundings.  There are Kings clamoring everywhere for people to come visit their Kingdom.  But the people can’t see through the smoke and the fire created by the fiercest, most terrifying, most barbaric fire-breathing dragon of them all - the gigantic Green Google.

King Content is a courageous King.  He decides he has to kill the evil Green Google.  But the dragon is too big, and King Content is a vegetarian, and concerned about global warming.  He can’t displease his people or they will never enter his kingdom.  So King Content decided to tame the Green Google.  He knew he had to use respectfulness, gentleness, and firmness.

King Content approached the Green Google through a forum to find out what the Green Google needed to by happy.  The evil Green Google was leery at first, believing that the Content was just out to deceive him.  But as the King developed a relationship with the dragon through a social networking community, he started to realize Google wanted to give people the results they were searching for, just as Content did!  After many chat sessions and blog posts, the dragon and King Content came up with a plan to get people the results they wanted.

Green Google agreed not to pollute the air or give a need to go searching for  fire engines - if the Good Content Kings could help make the Bad Content Kings go away.  The Good Content King agreed to let the dragon bring people from far away kingdoms.  The dragon couldn’t talk to the people easily because he was always full of hot air, but he could carry them to Good Content.  Sometimes on the way to Good Content, Bad Content hijacked the dragon, snatching people away from their results.  Sometimes the people jumped off early and went to King Bad Content, just because he was closer.  So the Green Google developed mysterious algorithms to keep the Bad Content from keeping the people away from the Good Content.

King Content and Green Google worked closely together for years. The people who found Good Content were so happy they decided to stay in his networked palace and visit his webpage everyday to explore the riches they had found.  Through word of mouth and tagging, people learned who the Bad Content was, and went straight to visit Good Content.  There was hardly any more searching for engines, because the fire and smoke had cleared and the Green Google had wore down a path so people could find what they were looking for.

The people looking at Good Content shouted “Content is King! Content is King!”  At night, everyone turned on their networked computers that the riches had provided them, and looked in awe at all the webpages that Content had created.  The links were full of everything they had ever searched for; dynamic content, functional parts, easy navigation and personalized pages with all of their latest interests.  Bad content had disappeared, and the Green Google was evil no more.  People loved the Good Content, who was King, and everyone in the virtual kingdom lived happily ever after.


Review Products and Services for Buyers and Build your Commissions

Filed under: internet advertising — Andrew Christiansen @ 12:06 pm

Use a Review Site to Build your Commissions and you might be good enough to be snapped up by Amazon.com (www.Amazon.com), like the Digital Preview review site (www.dpreview.com) did earlier this year.  Reviews have been around since apple-pie blue ribbon competitions, and Commissions have been around since the first door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen.  Today, we microwave pie and go online to find the information, products and services we’re interested in.  What used to be door-to-door and word-of-mouth has spiraled itself into the word of the web.  But Americans are still buying, and customer satisfaction in e-commerce sales is at an all-time high.  Instead of eating our pie and looking to buy, maybe we should be looking to sell.  By creating a review site to build your commissions, you could take advantage of America’s love affair with shopping.

“The proof of the pudding is in the eating,” so they say.  The latest American Customer Satisfaction Index (www.theacsi.org) report from May 15, 2007 said that although customer satisfaction is slowing, it’s still at the highest quarterly national average in ACSI’s 14-year history.  On top of that, the report of February 20, 2007, showed E-Commerce improving for the second year in a row, “and is less than a point off from its all-time high.” Online retailing was one of the highest scoring industries, led by Barnesandnoble.com and Amazon.com.  Ebay, of course, led online auction sales for customer satisfaction.  Even financial industries were hitting new high levels.  One of the few industries that didn’t rise with the same enthusiasm, was the online travel industry.  Smaller travel websites dropped 4%.  People are traveling less, and buying more.  Notably, both Amazon and Ebay, the most successful online retailers, run affiliate programs.

Comparison shopping is a popular web activity, and review sites contribute to their support.  Using a review site to build commissions is a stable endeavor.  The internet is becoming more user-oriented with social networking sites, and people are more than happy to give opinions. Your review site should allow people to contribute their opinions.  These opinions can be good or bad, but they will demonstrate honesty and bring frequent visitors to your site.  Software programs are available to help you do this.

Some review sites are focused on a niche; others offer multiple categories, and others are directories or listings of review sites that offer reviews. Many of the websites run affiliate programs, and layers of affiliate networking are capable of being weaved into your website.

Ideas for a Review Website are limited to something people are interested in - but there are literally thousands of ideas.  You can build a digital camera website like Digital Preview, or set up a review site for movies, employment services, electronics, gifts, computer products, even love letters - the list is too long to even begin. For added commission, you can expand product lines and associate with other affiliates.

There are low-cost web hosting services and software programs to get you started.  E-Commerce customer satisfaction levels are ripe for the buying.  If you’ve been thinking about a Review Website to Build your Commission Levels, now is the time to do it.  Do your research, make a plan, and get online.  You just might get a nice commission check for doing it!


Customers Don’t Click and Tell - Click Tracking Results Reveals Their Secrets

Filed under: affiliate programs — Andrew Christiansen @ 12:05 pm

The Importance of Click Tracking to the Successful Affiliate should not be undervalued.  Click Tracking is necessary to monitor the success, efficiency, security and accuracy of your Affiliate program.  It is invaluable in developing and evaluating sales, marketing and advertising strategies.  Click Tracking is necessary for strategic development and revenue enhancement.  Don’t ignore your Click Tracking monitoring because you have a Successful Affiliate program.  After confirming that your click tracking statistics are accurate, you should plan to be more successful.  By analyzing your Click Tracking data, you know your customers’ web experience.  You can apply that knowledge to all aspects of your Affiliate strategic growth plans.

Two useful methods of developing a successful Click-Tracking Plan for your affiliate program are using web log files or search engine conversion counters.  Software is available to analyze your web logs and provide an output of organic and Pay-per-Click (PPC) visitors.  Many programs offer “time trends” which monitors the time of day the clicking occurs, and “click path” analysis, which monitors the path of the clicking.

If based on your anticipated revenue and cost, purchasing a software program doesn’t provide you with a return on investment (ROI), look at Google and Yahoo.  They provide conversion counters that will give you conversion rates and also details on Clicks, Click through Rates (CTR), Cost per Click (CPC) and the total cost of your advertising campaign when you are evaluating their advertising.  Free click tracking methods for affiliates include appending links to URLs that show up in server logs, creating custom landing pages, creating shopping carts or confirmation pages, analyzing server logs, and adding free web counters to your site. Most Click Track tools offer online reporting, scheduling, and the ability to export reports into other formats.

Once you have a web analytics or other program in place to monitor the results of your click throughs in your successful affiliate program, it’s time to interpret the data and to do something with it.  With a good web analytics program, you will see the keywords that pulled your customers in.  You can then optimize your keyword strategy to increase search engine traffic.  You will be able to evaluate any promotions to see if they are responsible for significant increases in revenue, or if they can be better positioned.  With a good program, you’ll see how much you sold, to how many people, how much you made, and your Return on Investment (ROI).  You’ll also know where your visitors go and don’t go, and be able to increase usability and customer satisfaction.  You can determine if any sales were lost due to slow responses, and you’ll have the opportunity to resolve the matter.

The Importance of Click Tracking to the Successful Affiliate cannot be overstressed.  Every aspect of your Successful Affiliate Program relies on it for optimal sales potential.  Investigate Click Tracking programs and methods, and build a Click Tracking monitoring strategy.  Don’t wait for your customers to stop clicking.  Assess your customers’ needs before they click, and keep the clicks coming.  The success of your Affiliate Program depends on it.