Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Status Update: Marketing Operations


I will start with a little background. I am doing affiliate marketing, and I have been part of an affiliate network for quite some time now. The perk of being part of a network is that you:

  1. Do not have to busy yourself with setting up new affiliate programs as the network is busy doing that for you.
  2. You do not need to busy yourself with the ever changing legalities of contracts between affiliate and merchant.
  3. In my case, one does not need to worry about the maintenance of the actual affiliate website. (Though I am responsible for the layout, tracking code, and whatnot)
  4. Following 3, one does not have to be busy with keeping the website in compliance with each of the affiliate offers, as the network does that.
  5. This frees the affiliate up to focus on the pure marketing of the website via CPC/CPM campaigns, SEO, and other efforts/innovations.

Now, in keeping with the above points, it does not mean that one can become complacent with the way the website is being run, nor the way traffic is going to and from the site. Though my marketing efforts, focus on back-links and link popularity I ran across an issue. My Google links seemed to be pointing to another site that, while very similar to mine, was not mine. This is not my CPC/CPM ads that I am talking about. I am talking about back-links. That raised a big red flag, and led me to begin the process of talking to those that maintain my website, as well as Google. I am still working on getting that straightened out but it is important to note how this sort of mix-up can easily happen.

I do not know if there are others out there that have a similar kind of structured affiliate business, but I do urge vigilance when it comes to making sure everything is in order, from page links, all the way down to back links. It does no good to have all of your efforts go to benefit someone else.

I will continue writing about how things go and how the situation was solved as the days progress.

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