AffiliateBrand.com by Gene Kavner

Blog Window Widget Update - May 22, 2007

I hope you are enjoying our Blog Window widget, especially its new web 2.0 look.  If you have any questions or concerns about the widget, I will be happy to address them -- please post your question as a response to this post. I would like to inform you of a few new and exciting changes that are already live or about to become live.

The new Blog Window widget will automatically appear on your site When we introduced the new Blog Window look a couple of weeks ago, we have not automatically changed the look of the Blog Window widgets you have already placed on your sites.   Because of the enthusiastic response that we have received for the new widget look, we will be updating all Blog Window widget installations to automatically pick up the new widget look. In the unlikely case if you notice that dimensions of the Blog Window widget look inappropriate for your site once the widget has updated, please visit the Blog Window Registration Page, and edit your widget to match your site. You will see these changes on your site over the next couple of days. You will also notice the new space at the bottom of the widget that contains a link to our site.  I will post another update as to what exciting plans we have for that space. One JavaScript line Up until now, in order to properly install the Blog Window widget, we have asked you to copy two lines of JavaScript code to your site.  One line was to enable us to track popularity of your posts and the other one was to display the widget itself. We have observed some confusion over having to place the two lines of JavaScript code.  Some of you placed only one line of JavaScript code causing the Blog Window widget to not work properly. As a result, we will be removing the requirement to place both lines of JavaScript code on your site.  You will only need to place the one line that will display the Blog Window widget AND track popularity of your posts. Note: If you have the widget on your site working properly, you should not need to make any changes to your widget.  You may want to remove the tracking code of JavaScript (that contains jScript.aspx) in a few days as it will no longer be needed. If you wish to get your analytics but would prefer not to display the widget on your site, you may place the unified JavaScript code inside the <div style="display:none"> </div> segment.  We may introduce a nominal charge for this service in the future if you wish to not display the widget. Monthly Analytics You may have noticed a brand new set of monthly analytics displayed for your Blog Window widget.  The new monthly analytics are now reporting in addition to the daily analytics you have been receiving. To see your monthly analytics, visit the Blog Window Registration Page, edit your widget and select the Analytics tab.  You will see the brand new Monthly section. You will also be receiving these monthly analytics by a separate email notification on the first of each month for the previous month's visits.  You may subscribe or unsubscribe from monthly and/or daily analytics reports separately. This monthly analytics reporting is now active. Gene Kavner, Former World-Wide Director, Amazon Associates, 2005-2006.

NEW Look for the Blog Window Widget

First of all, a big thank you to those of you who are members of the AffiliateBrand community. I hope that you are enjoying our services, whether it is the Blog Window widget or the Amazon Associates Report Notification. Click on the link if you are not familiar with the particular service that we offer. Secondly, I want to let you know that we have changed the look of the Blog Window widget and made it cooler and sexier with the new Web 2.0 look. To see what your new widget looks like, visit the AffiliateBrand Blog Window Registration Page. You will need to log in in order to be able to see your widget. If you are not using the Blog Window widget yet or if you have created it but haven't placed it on your site, this is a perfect opportunity to do so! The Blog Window widget has received quite a bit of coverage on the Internet. For the latest posts about the Blog Window widget, visit our Blog Window Widget - Blog About It! page. Of course, if are enjoying the Blog Window widget, we ask you to please blog about it and we'll be sure to include your post on our Blog About It! page. Leave me a comment here to let me know what you think!

A couple of notes about the new Blog Window widget: The new widget will NOT automatically appear on your site. You must visit the AffiliateBrand Blog Window Registration Page, edit your widget and replace the second JavaScript line: If you change the new widget's look-and-feel (such as size, etc.), both the new widget and the old widget will get the new specifications automatically. You will no longer have access to the old widget once you remove it from your site. Any new Blog Window users will only have access to the new widget. A couple of things to keep in mind if you are insalling for the first time: Make sure to copy both lines of Java Script code from the JavaScript Section. First line of code allows us to track the most popular pages / posts on your blog. If you only copy the the second line of code, your widget will not show any popular posts. Second line of code will display the widget. By separating the two lines of JavaScript, we allow you to display your widget on a completely different blog or site than the one whose popularity you are trying to measure. Gene Kavner, Former World-Wide Director, Amazon Associates, 2005-2006.

AffiliateBrand.com - One of Top Web 2.0 Sites and Applications

Thanks to Shawn Collins, Sam Harrelson, Scott Jangro, and Jim Kukral for naming AffiliateBrand.com one of Top Web 2.0 Sites and Applications during their eComXpo panel titled  “Web 2.0: Views from the Thought Shapers”.

AffiliateBrand.com is the companion site that I also publish with tools for affiliates and bloggers.  My most recent tool is the Blog Window Widget designed to allow bloggers display their most popular posts to their community.

View Shawn Collins' post where he lists all of the panel's picks for the Top Web 2.0 Sites and Applications.

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Gene Kavner, Former World-Wide Director, Amazon Associates, 2005-2006

Which Network is Better - CPC or CPA?

Hi Gene, Does cost-per-action work as well or better than cost-per-click in your opinion? I'm nervous. Google ads are just too good compared to anything else I have on the site that requires purchaser action before I get anything. I only switched to Amazon for my sidebar ads because those were my lowest performing Google ads.

We all have many options these days for monetizing our sites.  The big challenge is figuring out which set of ads is going to generate the largest amount of revenue for us.  As you correctly pointed out, there are several networks that pay you on a per-click basis (CPC or cost-per-click) dominated by Google AdSense and quite a few networks that are compensating you based on some kind of user action, such as purchase of a product from the advertiser (CPA or cost-per-action).  Almost all affiliate networks pay you on a CPA basis. Obviously, there is plenty of room for both.  In a way, the only way these networks exist is because people who click on the networks' ads eventually purchase from the advertiser (and if not from the advertiser #1 then some other advertiser who advertises on advertiser #1's site -- this chain could go quite deep). This dependence on an eventual purchase makes these advertising networks quite similar. The major difference between them is who takes all of the risk for the ad.  CPA-based networks pass all the risk to your site.  If your user clicks on an ad but makes no purchase (in other words, does not convert), you will typically not get paid.  However, when the conversion does occur, you will get paid well for it.  For example, if someone purchases an Amazon Gift Certificate from this site, I will receive 6% of the value of the gift certificate ($100 gift certificate will net me $6 in earnings).  CPC-based networks, on the other hand, pass a significant amount of risk away from your site to the advertiser.  If a user clicks on an ad, you will get paid a small amount.  If the user ends up not converting on the advertiser's site, the advertiser has lost however much he bid to receive this click.  There is a vast range of what advertisers bid on a CPC basis and much of it depends on what they are selling and how competitive their space is.  A good range is to pay $0.50 per click of which you would receive about $0.25 after the network takes their cut of about 50%. In the above example of an Amazon Gift Certificate, if Amazon were paying you $0.25 per click, you would break even between CPC and CPA methods if one out of every 24 clicks resulted in a purchase of a $100 gift certificate.  Here's how this math works: CPC                CPA $0.25 per click * 24 clicks $6 in revenue $100 Gift Certificate purchase * 6% in fees $6 in revenue If the assumptions above held true, it would make both networks equal in value to you.  However, there are additional factors that play a role in making a good decision. Factor #1: Competitive Marketplace Google has created an extremely competitive marketplace where various advertisers are bidding against each other to win the privilege of displaying an ad to your site's readers.  Thus, CPC networks such as Google carry an inherent mechanism that drives advertisers to bid high.  If an advertiser does not have good analytics in place (which most small advertisers do not), there is a very good chance that in an effort to win the advertising slot they will bid too high and even lose money on the transaction.  If an advertiser bids too high, your site (and Google, of course) are the  winners. CPA networks, on the other hand, do not have a competitive marketplace established. If you choose to run Amazon's ads on your site, there is only a single advertiser for that slot:  Amazon.  I can assure you that Amazon has excellent analytics in place and it is very unlikely that they would be willing to lose money on the transaction.  Thus, without the competitive marketplace and with a sophisticated advertiser, you are likely to not see the same level of monetization of your site with the CPA network as you would with the CPC network. Factor #2: Ad Relevance The second factor that plays a role in this decision is the fact that no matter how competitive the CPC network is and how high their per-click payouts are, if the ad displayed to your reader is irrelevant, the reader will not click on it. It has been long proven that the more aligned an ad is with the content of your site, the more likely the reader is to click on it and eventually convert (purchase something from the advertiser).  So, if your site is about Microsoft Windows, the user is more likely to interact with an advertiser who is selling a "Learn Windows Vista" Video than an advertiser selling a window cleaning solution. CPC networks typically rely on a computer algorithm to decide which ads are most appropriate for your site.  While Google has done an exemplary job of scanning your web and learning its content, it still makes many mistakes and displays random ads that have nothing to do with your site.  With CPA affiliate networks, on the other hand, you have an opportunity to hand-pick the product you would like to show to your readers.  You will always make a better choice in picking the most relevant product for your site than the computer algorithm.  While the downside of picking your own products is you having to spend a significant amount of time trying to figure out what product to advertise (which may or may not be practical if your site has many different posts on various topics), the upside is that you are likely to monetize the hand-picked CPA ads at a higher rate than algorithm-generated CPC ads. Conclusion In conclusion, I would stick with CPA offers when you have the opportunity to pick the "perfect" product that matches the content of your page exactly.   I would stick with the CPC network if you cannot chose the perfect product or it is too tedious for you to do so.  I would stay away from CPA offers that rely 100% on an algorithm to decide which offers to show.   In the end, use my suggestions as a guide and remember that you have to experiment to learn what works best for your site. Gene Kavner, Former World-Wide Director, Amazon Associates, 2005-2006

Amazon Philosophy on Personal Purchases via Associates Program

Hi Gene, Can you buy your own products through your affiliate links or is that a breach of terms? I'm a regular Amazon shopper as it is and was wondering...

I hear this question quite frequently and would like to first explain Amazon's policy on this issue and then offer you some additional rationale and practical advice. First of all, let me quote directly from Amazon Associates Operating Agreement: You may not purchase products during sessions initiated through the links on your site for your own use, for resale or commercial use of any kind. This includes orders for customers or on behalf of customers or orders for products to be used by you or your friends, relatives, or associates in any manner. Such purchases may result (in our sole discretion) in the withholding of referral fees and/or the termination of this Agreement. Products that are eligible to earn referral fees under the rules set forth above are referred to as "Qualifying Products." The section above clearly states that you may not click on the link that contains your Amazon Associates ID and make a purchase from Amazon. However, it is not that simple. Several questions come immediately to mind. As you know from my previous post titled Does Amazon store cookies on people who bought through your affiliate program?, Amazon keeps the cookie for 24 hours after the customer clicks on an Amazon affiliate link. So, what happens if you have been clicking on your own links to test them then inadvertently went to Amazon later in the day and made a purchase? Obviously, you would be tagged with your own Associates ID. Clearly, this is is not an intended violation of the agreement. What happens is Amazon reserves the right to withhold paying fees on products you purchase for your own use. If you clearly abuse this section and build a site via which you exclusively purchase all your Amazon products and offer your friends, relatives or associates to purchase Amazon products, Amazon reserves the right to terminate the agreement entirely (in other words, terminate your Associates account and not pay you any fees you've earned so far). So how does Amazon know when to withhold fees and when to terminate agreement? Because it is not easy to tell if your purchase is inadvertent or intentional I am only aware of Amazon withholding fees for personal purchases and not terminating the entire agreement for this reason. The next question that comes to mind is why restrict such sales? Retailers that have an affiliate program generate only a portion of their sales via affiliate sales. Majority of all sales occur when customers come to a retailer directly and the retailer does not have to pay any affiliate fees on such purchases. Because retailers regard affiliate programs as a marketing channel, they hope affiliates introduce customers to their products and service, especially those customers who have not shopped with the retailer previously. Once a customer has a positive shopping experience, retailers hope the customer will return directly to them, bypassing affiliates and thus saving the retailer from incurring affiliate fees on follow-on sales. When the affiliate purchases products directly from the retailer with his own affiliate ID, the goal of the affiliate program is broken. That is why Amazon and many other merchants do not pay fees on purchases made by affiliates for personal use. Then why restrict sales by affiliates to their friends and family? This a poor decision in my opinion. Obviously, if I encourage all of my friends and family to shop at Amazon, Amazon will get sales that they otherwise may not have received and will benefit from such sales. I believe that this rule was put in place because Amazon argued that as an Amazon affiliate, I would tell all of my friends and family to shop at Amazon even if I don't receive affiliate fees. I do not agree with such an argument. A merchant should give all of their affiliates 100% incentive to drive any and all sales to the merchant, including sales to friends and family. Thus, affiliates should be compensated for such sales. Furthermore, while I do see the merchant's perspective for restricting personal purchases, because of the difficulty to enforce such activity (affiliates could always open two accounts, one for personal sales and one for referred sales), I also believe that all such purchases should be allowed. Unfortunately, today Amazon does not permit such sales. Gene Kavner, Former World-Wide Director, Amazon Associates, 2005-2006

AffiliateBrand.com is live again!

As you may have noticed, there has been a service interruption on AffiliateBrand.com over the last few days. I would like to explain this interruption and apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused you. The popularity of AffiliateBrand services such as the Amazon Associates Report Notification and the brand new Blog Window widget have caused an enormous load on the AffiliateBrand database which I was using. It's a great story of growing much faster than I anticipated! As Murphy's Law would have it, just before this problem developed, I left for an overseas trip where I had very limited Internet service. With the Internet connection that I had, I was able to make a post about these problems on my blog: Working through some technical issues with the AffiliateBrand.com site. Unfortunately, I did not have enough bandwidth to fix this problem right away. I just returned back to the US last night and have had the opportunity to not only make some key architectural changes to the AffiliateBrand site but also move to a more robust, much better loaded system which will withstand several orders of magnitude more load. If you have been a subscriber of my Amazon Associates Report Notification service, you should have received a notification of Amazon Associates report for yesterday. If you have been using the Blog Window widget, I know that you may have removed it during the service outage. It is ready to go live again. If you have tried it, you already know that it is a fabulous, 100%-customizable, widget which lets your readers know what posts are popular on your site. The widget has received excellent coverage in the blogosphere, so please feel free to place it back on your blog. I hope you continue to enjoy AffiliateBrand services and apologize for the down-time you may have experienced. Gene Kavner, Former World-Wide Director, Amazon Associates, 2005-2006

Working through some technical issues with the AffiliateBrand.com site

Well, as Murphy's laws have it, this one fits right up there with them. 

A few technical issues related to the load on the site (due to the enormous popularity -- something that all of us would want) has caused it to stop communicating with my SQL Server database which is holding all of the data related to the Blog Window widget at the Amazon Associates reports. 

The bad news is that I happened to be out of the country with all but bare-bones Internet service available to me to resolve this problem (which would normally take but an hour or two). 

I am working to resolve it as soon as possible but I fear that it may not be until early next week when I will be able to get it fully resolved.

If you have any specific questions, please drop me an email at Gene [at] AffiliateBrand.com and I will do my best to address them asap.  In the meantime, please be assured that I'm working to resolve this problem as quickly as possible.  I will notify via a post to this blog when all is resolved.

Thanks to all for your patience.

Gene Kavner

Great Feedback on the Blog Window Widget

Since I launched the Blog Window widget 3 days ago, it is getting excellent adoption among the bloggers with some very good feedback.

Here's some coverage it has received (with more coming daily):

	This widget allows you to display links to some of your most popular posts in an attractive, fully customizable widget. ... I can already see the value of such an addition to this blog. ... This widget will stay on Widgets Lab ! -- The Widgets Lab
	The Blog Window widget enables bloggers to display the titles of the most popular posts on your blog or pages of your site. Great to see these community building tools, and I look forward to whatever is next. -- Shawn Collins
	I just put [The Blog Window] up only now, but I'm already very impressed with it. It loads quickly and it's highly configurable: you can change a number of attributes at the AffiliateBrands site, and if you want to you can configure further using your own stylesheet. It's just downright elegant... -- Debra Hamel
	Over the last few months I’ve been seeing more and more widgets in the wild. You can check out my sidebar to see some of my favorites. My most recent edition was one from Gene at AffiliateBrand. It is helping me learn what my most popular posts/pages are. Oddly enough, my About Me page seems to be performing quite well. Apparently all of you are wondering who the heck I am! Perhaps I should monetize it -- Robyn Tippins

My "Blog Window" Widget is Ready - Easily Display Popular Posts

As many of you have noticed, I've been away from posting on my blog over the last couple of weeks.  I have focused on finishing the latest of my tools:  The Blog Window widget.  If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that I am a great believer in widgets and I am planning on developing many more.  Here is my recent post about the future of widgets titled Widgets - The Future of Affiliate Marketing.  I have also discussed widgets in an interview with Shawn Collins.

I'm happy to say that the Blog Window widget is finally done.  It is a 100%-customizable widget that allows any blog or web site to display the most popular posts or pages of their site. 

I have seen some WordPress plug-ins that do the same job but they seem too complex and are limited to a single blogging platform.  Not the Blog Window widget.  It takes literally seconds to install and works on any site. 

The biggest value proposition from the Blog Window widget is that I have observed a 25% boost in page views, just from the widget.  It looks like when a reader is done with a page, Blog Window offers him/her a compelling next page to read on your site.  They would typically leave the site at that point.

Because the Blog Window widget is customizable, you can make it look exactly like your site and it is quick and easy to do this.  You can see my own Blog Window is customized in its look-and-feel to this blog.  My AffiliateBrand.com widget has the look-and-feel of my AffiliateBrand.com site:

I'd love to see your comments on how easy it was to integrate the Blog Window widget with your site. The widget is completely free.  In a few days I will do a post highlighting unique and interesting implementations of the Blog Window widget, so get yours today.

Discuss in BumpZee! community

Gene Kavner, Former World-Wide Director, Amazon Associates Affiliate Program, 2005-2006.

Amazon Associates Report is Significantly Delayed Today

Today, for an unexplained reason, Amazon Associates have significantly delayed posting of their daily report which allows their affiliates to see information about how their campaigns performed during the previous day. 

Announcement of the delay came at about 11:30am Pacific time, almost 3 hours after the reports are typically due and almost 9 hours later than the reports have been typically posted over the last few weeks.  The message on the Amazon Associates announcement board simply read:

"At the current time, we do not have an estimated time for when they will be published. When we know more, we will post an update.

We're sorry for the inconvenience and are working to resolve this problem as quickly as possible."

Because so many affiliates of Amazon are dependent on analysis and review of their earnings, this delay has caused discussions on various Internet bulletin boards.  I do not have any additional information on what has caused this delay, which rivals some of the longest report delays during the busy Q4 shopping season.  As soon as I have any information I will post an update.

In the meantime, I recently released a tool which will instantly notify you the moment Amazon posts its Associates report.  Since it is likely that you are already checking email, this alert will allow you to carry on with your routine without needing to keep checking Amazon Associate Central every few minutes for an update.

To sign up for this notification, simply create an account on my Affiliate and Amazon Associates Tools Site and opt-in to the notification.  If you sign up right now, you will get the alert once the report that was due this morning is posted.

Gene Kavner, Former World-Wide Director, Amazon Associates Affiliate Program, 2005-2006.
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