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Affiliate Marketing

Tips for Launching a Lead Generation Program

By | Affiliate Marketing, Affiliate Programs | No Comments

Are you launching a lead generation program online? Lead gen programs are a great way to grow your business and Paulson Management Group Inc has the tools to help.

Lead generation campaigns are a tremendous way for you to find potential customers for your product or service. Being able to focus your attention on customers that have already expressed interest helps stretch sales and marketing budget. Here are a few things to pay attention to when starting up your lead gen program in a way to prepare it to grow.

• Tracking – Integrate the source of your leads in your CRM in a way that allows you to trace back the source.

• Quality – Make sure that you are working with partners that are working with you to ensure your not just getting volume, but also quality leads.

• Partners – Look for partners that can exponentially expand the source of your leads and can help optimize your program to further hone in on higher converting leads.


PMG works with numerous publishers and networks to funnel lead traffic to you from varied sources and works with you to isolate the best quality. For an evaluation of your lead gen program contact the Lead Generation Management Team at Paulson Management Group, Inc.

Online Lead Generation – Getting Started

By | Affiliate Marketing, Affiliate Marketing News | No Comments

Online lead generation can be an extremely successful proposition for those looking to increase their lead funnel.  Although, getting started can be a daunting task for those not familiar with the channel.  There is an endless list of online lead generation networks and many agencies who promise to generate a high volume of quality leads but fail to meet expectations.  In the end the problem can usually be traced back to the agency’s or network’s inability to understand the ultimate goal of the company seeking leads.

When PMG takes on a new client we take the time to REALLY understand your overall goal for the online lead generation channel.  This starts with evaluating some key items:

Online Lead Generation

Online Lead Generation

– The type of online leads you want to receive
– Understanding how you’re monetizing your online leads
– The criteria being applied to qualify a lead
– The value attributed to each lead
– How much you should or are willing to pay for each lead
– Evaluating the quality of leads
– How aggressively or slowly you want to ramp up
– Etc…

We have worked with companies that are very familiar with the online lead generation space and those just getting started.  This means that we know which questions to ask and what advice to give.  If you’ve already ventured in to the space and have had some success then we can take your program to the next level.  If you’re just getting started then we can make the launch of your online lead generation program an extremely comfortable and stress free process.
Either way, PMG has the team and tools to make your online
lead generation program successful.

Click HERE to learn more about our online lead generation management services.

If you’re ready to get started then contact us for a FREE PROPOSAL.

Affiliate Program Management | Increasing Your Revenue

By | Affiliate Marketing, Affiliate Programs | No Comments

Launching an affiliate program under the management of PMG is a great way to increase your revenue stream. The beauty of the affiliate program is that you have thousands of affiliates marketing your product or services and you only pay when they generate a sale. This is known as CPA or Cost Per Action. This is one of the most effective means of online marketing because you are almost guaranteed to have a positive ROI.

With that said, not all affiliate programs are successful. You need a strong affiliate program management team that can effectively manage your program and increase your revenue.

PMG Affiliate Program Management

PMG Affiliate Program Management

Here are a few things to consider when launching your program.

• How you’re going to structure the overall program and commissions
• What network(s) you will launch with
• How tracking is going to be set up
• What affiliates you want to work with
• How your affiliate program management will be structured
• Etc

In our experience we’ve seen that these decisions are best made with an agency who can advise you on the best course of action. There’s nothing worse than spending a bunch of time and resources on launching a program that isn’t going to generate results.

As your affiliate program management agency we will launch, manage and grow your affiliate program(s) with attention to every detail.

Contact us today for a free proposal!

Affiliate Summit West Photos

By | Affiliate Marketing, Affiliate Summit Photos | No Comments

Affiliate Summit West started off with a bang, and hasn’t slowed down since!

Below is a collection of some of our favorite Affiliate Summit photos so far, starting with our limo trip to the hotel, to winning and giving big at the ABestWeb kick-off party, to seeing Paul Oakenfold bring the house down for the Buy.at party at Rain Nightclub at The Palms! Yeah!

Then, of course, the Affiliate Summit Meet Market the next day brought us a ton of traffic, meeting some of our favorite affiliate industry friends. But it’s not over yet! There’s still a lot more fun to be had at Affiliate Summit West, so consider this only the first of many more to come!

PMG Girls in the Limo on the way to Affiliate Summit!

PMG Girls in the Limo on the way to Affiliate Summit!

PMG Kat and Clarissa check out limo reading material on the way to Affiliate Summit

PMG Kat and Clarissa check out limo reading material on the way to Affiliate Summit

PMG girls Kat, Amber, and Clarissa meet with Brook and Forrest Schaaf before the ABestWeb party

PMG girls Kat, Amber, and Clarissa meet with Brook and Forrest Schaaf before the ABestWeb party

Heather poses with Brook and Forrest Schaaf of Schaaf Consulting

Heather poses with Brook and Forrest Schaaf of Schaaf Consulting

Heather gives Carolyn Tang her bachelorette present from MyJewelryBox.com

Heather gives Carolyn Tang her bachelorette present from MyJewelryBox.com

Heather meets up with Todd Crawford of Impact Radius before the ABestWeb party

Heather meets up with Todd Crawford of Impact Radius before the ABestWeb party

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Affiliate Banners | How PMG increased banner impressions by 600%

By | Affiliate Marketing | No Comments

Affiliate banners what works and what were the influencers that helped PaulsonManagementGroup.com gain a 400% affiliate banner impression increase in one month and a 600% increase in affiliate banner impressions for a client within 4 months?

There are many types of affiliate media, and no program should simply rely on affiliate banners to pull the weight of the affiliate sales but they are a very important factor concerning your affiliate media lineup. Affiliate banners first need to be attractive to your affiliate partners in order for your affiliates to decide if they are worthy of their website space, blogger space, or other advertising vehicle space. Your banners not only need to entice affiliates to carry them within their advertising, your affiliate banners must also call out to consumers and entice that click and conversion! So what works as far as affiliate banners in a well managed affiliate program and how can it impact your brand extension and affiliate sales?

Example Affiliate Banner PMG developed for Dyscern.com affiliate program in CJ.com

Tip: Affiliate banners should have a uniformed brand presence and or theme, seasonal media, or design elements should be tested to find what works for your product and vertical mix. You should be testing and improving your media metrics every quarter.

Affiliate Banners must convey an “Offer Statement” to the consumer

Affiliates are savvy online marketers and with the channel being more then 15 years old now (Read History of Affiliate Marketing by Shawn Collins) there are many affiliates who have advanced knowledge of what works as far as display advertising. Affiliate partners are attracted to banners with effective, substantial offer statements, a simple banner with your logo and a click here call to action will not suffice, affiliates are attracted to and will host media that displays some type of offer statement such as a discount or other consumer offer. Affiliates are attracted to banners and advertising that offers “their” traffic a special “deal” or offer that entices the consumer to click on the media so the affiliate’s cookie is dropped on click and the deal is so enticing that the consumer decides to make a purchase.

Examples of Affiliate Banner offer statements

1. Percentage off a purchase – 40% OFF
2. Shipping offer – Free Shipping
3. BOGO Offer – Buy One Get One Free!
4. TwoFER Offer – Get Two For the Price of One!
5. Limited time – $25.00 OFF Limited Time Only!
6. Incentive offer – Free Necklace with $100 Order or More
7. Coupon – Use Code HP23 for 25% OFF any order!

Tip: Affiliate banners should come in a variety of IMU’s (Internet Marketing Unit) sizes to appeal to a mass array of affiliate partners. PMG recomends having at least 25 media sizes in your affiliate program or more. See IMU standardised ad unit sizes.

Affiliate Banners must have a “Call to Action”

Affiliate banners that do well have a select call to action statement to the consumer, many banners have repetitive calls to actions and there are varying ones that work for different verticals depending on your offer. Retailers have an easier time then lead generation programs who often times have to impart a call to action with some type of giveaway or “freebie” to gain the consumers click. Testing your call to actions on your affiliate media is a great way to see what works and what does not. A call to action statement on your affiliate media can be either in the form of a button or underlined text, for statistics and testing data there are many sources you can refer to concerning what works such as MarketingExperiements.com and emarketer.com to name a few, for information on IMU sizes (international marketing units) see IAB.net (International Advertising Bureau)

Examples of Affiliate Banner “Call to Action”

1. Click here!
2. Buy Now
3. Order Here
4. Shop Now
5. Learn More
6. Sign Up
7. Get free info here

Advanced Affiliate Banner considerations adserving domains & adblockers

If you have an affiliate program hosted within an affiliate network, chances are your affiliates banners are hosted within the affiliate network on one of the affiliate networks ad serving domains. Many of the larger networks have many ad serving domains and you SHOULD have an affiliate management team that understands what an ad serving domain is and if that ad serving domain is BLOCKED per default by Norton or MacAffee ad blocking software (and others). You can research to find the list of adservers that are blocked per default and that should help you in choosing the right affiliate network (With adserving domains that are not blocked). If your affiliate management team has a great relationship with your affiliate network partner then they can request to be on one of the newer ad serving domains if they spot a problem with banner or advertising being blocked. There is an online source that used to post adblocking lists and we wish they would come back and post them again AdBlock.org! AdBlock.org also has an interesting adblocker detection script, we have not used it but if you would like to check it out it is here. If you need to hire an affiliate management team that understands adservers and media relationships simply contact PaulsonManagementGroup.com at 800-384-7760 .

Tip: Many adblockers also block via IMU sizes or the standardized pixel sixes of a banner, you can “shave” your banners to an irregular size to avoid adblockers. (Example 468×60 pixels “shave” to 467×59 pixels)

Affiliate Banners what should your goals be?

Sales are nice of course but sales in the affiliate channel take time and you have to get active affiliates, obtain impressions, and then clicks before you can obtain sales from your media so your KPI’s should start with the first goal set of getting affiliates to carry the media by building the right relationships with your affiliate partners and that does not happen overnight! Your first goal sets or KPI’s (Key performance indicators) for your affiliate banners would be how many affiliates actually picked up your banners, second would be your banner impression rates, third would be your CTR rate (Click through rate of the media), and fourth would be your conversion rate. Please consider that sales are fantastic but exposure and brand extension ALSO assists in building your companies long term sales goals. Affiliate impressions are a valuable asset if you look at the mass exposure you are getting without paying the CPM rate that other online advertisers do outside of the affiliate channel.

Affiliate Banners KPI’s ” Key Performance Indicators”

1. How many affiliates are actively displaying the media?
2. Impression rate of media
3. Click through rate of media
4. Conversion rate of media

Tip: BIG MISTAKE adding your domain URL or your phone number in an affiliate banner, affiliates depend on the consumer clicking on the media to set their cookie and they will not trust your program if you add your phone number or domain url on the media they are hosting..

Affiliate Banner what happens when it works?

What happens when the right affiliate banners are developed for an affiliate program? The following graph from one of our (PaulsonManagementGroup.com) affiliate clients affiliate programs will give you a pretty good indication.

When we first took over the management of the following clients affiliate program (Chart below) one of the first things we identified was the need for new media. We took over the program in August 2009 and developed new affiliate banners, text links, added an affiliate video, and recruited affiliates to the program as well as communicated to existing affiliates in such a mannor as to entice an increase in their activity. By Sept 2009 one month after PMG took over management of the program we had a 400% increase in affiliate banner impressions and within 4 months the increase was over 600% for affiliate banner impressions! Imagine what would happen for your affiliate sales if the following impression rates increased from 250,000 to over 1,750,000 within a couple of months… Fabulous!

Quantify your impression rates into the VALUE of your affiliate programs overall success, think about the brand message as well as the offer you are sending out to your affiliate partners through the affiliate channel via your affiliate banners. Consider the KPI’s as well as the affiliate relationship building aspects and you too could see tremendous gains in your overall affiliate media success. For more information about PaulsonManagementGroup.com or our affiliate management services please feel free to contact us here. We develop media that works for our affiliate partners and your brand!