Leadpile’s Blog

Day in and day out I have great conversations about what a publisher thinks they should do to become an effective affiliate in the Leadpile Marketplace. Like other networks, there are certain things that any affiliate should do to become an effective affiliate marketer. The Examiner points out some good points on becoming a successful affiliate marketer.

1. Create a website
*Don’t just throw a website together and not put any thought into it. Add some creativeness and content to the website, so others can enjoy their experience too.
2. Create a website about something you enjoy
*Design your website around something you enjoy and will want to work on. If you are excited about the website then that will come through to the visitors, and they will enjoy their experience too.
3. Take the website seriously
*Unfortunately, just having a website is not enough. The website has to flow well. Putting the right type of design and content on the site will ultimately make the site attractive and EFFECTIVE.
4. Build links
*Once you have a completed website, you want to try and get ranked in the search engines. Having other sites link to your site will ultimately help with this search engine ranking, but you have to have something on your site to make others want to link to you. Once you have others linking to your site, you now have 2 ways for people to get to your site- search engine AND other sites that have linked to you. Having traffic to your site is ultimately the goal because that potentially = more $$.
5. Develop affiliate partnerships
*Monetizing your website with offers and banners is a great way to make money with your completed website. Using companies like Leadpile allows you to capture leads from your site, and then earn revenue from those leads selling. The other way is working directly with traditional affiliate networks like CJ. Do your research and find offers that will flow with the website you have created AND make you money. Once this project is working well, look at doing it all over again with additional websites to maybe run other sorts of offers. Find your niche and what you are good at doing effectively. Is it financial offers, product offers, work from home offers, or a combination of them all?
6. Track statistics of your website
*To help you determine what is working well for you on these sites, then you might want to implement some sort of tracking system. Monitoring your statistics will allow you to make necessary changes with your campaigns. Utilize various sources of traffic and see what works with the particular site. Some networks will control how you drive traffic to the site, so you will always want to find that out. Finds networks that even have their own tracking available for you so you can have that as an additional source of information. You can never have too much information to be successful in the affiliate world!
Become a Leadpile Super Affiliate………

In recent conversations with many of my affiliates, the conversations about the economy and the housing market have been very popular. The housing market as we all know has impacted those around us in a very dramatic way. There are short sales, foreclosures, and home sale conversations going on with those on the internet, and with those in our every day lives. If you are one that is in the market to buy a house, this is certainly the time to do that. However, knowing what a short sale , foreclosure and FSBO (for sale by owner) are is very important. To help with finding homes to purchase AND becoming educated on these terms, there is a list of websites that Hitwise.com considers the highest ranked real estate websites ending the week of 3/21/2009:

1. Realtor.com
2. Yahoo! Real Estate
3. Zillow
4. ZipRealty
5. RE/MAX Real Estate
6. US Department of Housing and Urban Development
7. Rent.com
8. Homegain
9. Trulia.com
10. ServiceMagic
11. Homes.com
12. Apartments.com
13. Century 21 Real Estate
14. Foreclosure Store
15. Foreclosure.com
16. Reply!
17. RealtyTrac
18. Coldwell Banker Real Estate
19. RealEstate.com
20. MyNewPlace

Leadpile Lead Exchange is always looking for new partnerships with websites such as these, and any other websites that are looking to be monetized. However, we are also looking for those sites that are great resources for consumers to learn information from, such as the ones listed above. Being educated on a large transaction, such as buying a home, is key to making that transaction that much more successful. These listed websites can certainly help with accomplishing that, so you might want to take a look!

I have to share some information that I obtained from the Affiliate Summit Vegas.  In a informative pamphlet given out by Davis & Gilbert LLP, they point out some helpful tips that affiliates should pay attention to.

1.  Know your stats- make sure you receive sufficient feedback and reporting on your accounts.

2.  Know what is being done with your data- use data in a ethical legal way according to all privacy laws.

3.  Any new partnerships, always get the agreement in writing- anyone doing business for you or with you, make sure agreements are in writing for you to always refer back to.

4.  Have a game plan for 1 year, 5 years down the road- where do you want your company to be in the near future or even years down the road?  Have a plan.

5.  Know what you are agreeing to – if you are signing up with a new affiliate or starting a new offer, make sure you know all the ins and outs of what you just agreed to.

6.  Have insurance- corporations need to make sure they are adequately insured (ie- errors and omissions, liability and possibly some other applicable types of insurance).

7.  Know what your employees are doing with your systems and data- monitor what is happening in your business with your own employees and partners. The more involved you are in all aspects of your business, the more you will know what is going on. Proactive NOT reactive!

8.  Corporate housekeeping-keep all that you are doing as a company organized.

9.  Monitor internal and external business practices regularly

10. Have good ethics- those affiliates that do things “right” will have a long successful affiliate marketing partnerships.  Those that choose to try and “beat” the system will be short lived.

Becoming the best affiliate you can become is very important in building your business.  Leadpile Lead Exchange is very concerned about how it conducts business and making sure it maintains the highest standards.  Like any other affiliates, if there is room for improvement we are always open to getting feedback from our partners and clients.  Have some additional tips…. We would love to hear them.

I have to say there are so many beautiful places to see in New York City.  This week the city was also the host city for the Ad-Tech New York conference.  Seeing some old, new and familiar faces is always nice to see at any industry conference.  We were also a sponsor at the Glam Interactive Group party, which we were very happy with the outcome of this gathering.  Great event to network at!  Also, thanks to the great city for hosting this conference, and we look forward to seeing all our affiliates at the next conference!  There was also some beautiful places we were thankfully able to see.

Leadpile Lead Exchange is always looking for new affiliates to work with in this industry.  If we are not working with you already, we would love to speak with you and get some business going in any of the number of 30 or so verticals we are working in currently.