Hello all. I'm a new affiliate manager and I want to ask about media and conversion. What works best for you? If you were one of my affiliates, what types of media would you prefer?

I'm pretty sure the 468x60 banner is dead... but I still see an awful lot of them.

Here's what's on my list so far:
- short text (like an Adwords ad)
- longer text (40-150 words)
- Javascript "pop-up" 300x250
What else do you need? What converts?

Thank you,
George

hate the popups. Don't like them when I visit a site--I use a popup disabler (part of mozilla). I wouldn't irritate my visitors to my site with popup ads either. Whether or not they convert better is another issue.

Set up lots of promo content for publishers to copy to their pages and plenty of different text content variations for each product (within reason of course).

Curt --

I didn't mean an "open in new window" pop-up -- the java is more like a sticky-note that appears on the site. Maybe those are just as hated -- ?

Regarding the promo content -- what format works best? Product reviews, testimonials, product profiles, discussion of a tangential issue that mentions the product specifically, surveys of competitors' products, or something else?

Thanks again for you input!
George

I hate all popups, they get in the way of the content you are using. Short text like adwords works fine for me.

it doesnt matter what you like or hate... what matters is what works.

He did ask what type of media I would prefer if I was an affiliate. No pop ups for me.

I've worked in the past with 2 pop-ups that seemed to work, both simple text designs:

1. Pop-up on exit -- offered to donate $1 to a charity of the user's choice if the user answered a 4-question poll. We used this info to redesign the site.

2. Pop-up on shopping cart abandonment -- offered free shipping if the customer ordered now. This saved maybe 10% of abandoned shopping carts.

This site:
((url removed)) uses a pop-up on your first visit to encourage registration.

Have pop-ups worked for you in the past?

[ Message was edited by: bhartzer 04/26/2005 08:04 am ... Reason: url removed ]

as an affiliate - please - make available lots of text content - reviews etc.

PLUS, if it is a common brand name - specials that only affiliates offer - differentiation.

hfgeorge said:

Regarding the promo content -- what format works best? Product reviews, testimonials, product profiles, discussion of a tangential issue that mentions the product specifically, surveys of competitors' products, or something else?

As an affiliate, I'm looking for text content to work with and maybe perhaps an image diagram or picture where appropriate. Product reviews, profiles, and issues I suppose would be good too.

hfgeorge said:

I didn't mean an "open in new window" pop-up -- the java is more like a sticky-note that appears on the site. Maybe those are just as hated -- ?

From the affiliate standpoint, any kind of popup or sticky popup would not be ideal. A sticky note type of popup might work if it were sized right and would appear in the right place on a page, but then every affiliate would have a different layout and what might work for a few would not work for others. You could try the sticky note approach to see how many affiliates actually use it and to see how effective it would be. If I wanted to do a sticky note type of thingy, I'd be inclined to create it myself so that it appeared the way I wanted it.

BTW, Java is NOT JavaScript—2 very different programming situations.

When we do lead generation we look for companies that offer the same model as our mortgage clients use (www.mortgagelenders.cc) whic guarantees a 100% contact rate on all leads. This way if you can't reach them, they are no longer interested or they signed docs with another you can return them and get an instant credit which long term saves thousands on leads you would never have done business with.

MortageLenders.cc has a pretty advanced application so who ever you do business with may not be able to match that type of capability.

Best of Luck,

I have checked out several Mortgage Lead companies for comparison. I think SB suggested site of www.mortgagelenders.cc is pretty good. They do offer an excellent return policy and I like the fact that you can get the lead credit anytime 24/7. Almost all of the other companies I looked at mirror each other in model and slightly vary in price but do not offer such a liberal return policy and marketing tools to go with it.

I also agree that lead generation such as the MortgageLenders.cc site is the better way to go unless you are a professional marketer. Time should be spent on what you do best as opposed to trying to manage a complex marketing campaign.