ABestWeb Affiliate Marketing Forum

3 tricks for more visitor clicks

Chuck Hamrick — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:14:02 GMT

Full article here: 3 tricks for more visitor clicks - iMediaConnection.com

It's a time-honored question: Why do people do the things they do? In the digital marketing world, that translates as: "What moves site visitors to action?" When you're selling online, "action" is the Holy Grail.

Have you heard of the 90-9-1 rule of participation inequality on the web? While developed with social media participation in mind, it applies to many business websites as well. Some 90 percent of your visitors are so-called "lurkers" who rarely or never take action.

But the success of your business depends on high quality leads -- and preferably, lots of them. So how do you get them online? How do you improve your site's conversion rate and increase the number of qualified leads coming through your website? We need to look beyond the more commonly known techniques of tuning and testing various page elements. Cognitive science researchers in the academic world are studying this problem from a psychological perspective. What they're discovering could change the way marketers persuade potential customers and -- here it comes -- move them to action.

Dr. BJ Fogg, psychologist and founder of the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, has developed a proprietary behavioral model that describes how behavior change happens. The gist of it is that in order for a behavior (e.g., a click to subscribe, or filling out a form on your landing page) to occur, three conditions must be present at the same time: motivation, ability, and an effective trigger.

Motivation
There are three basic human motivators. Can you guess what they are?

Sensation -- The desire to feel pleasure, and the need to avoid pain. Generally, pain avoidance is considered to be the stronger motivator.
Anticipation -- The hope that good things will occur in the future, and the dread or fear that bad things may happen. Fear is considered stronger.
Social cohesion -- Our need for social acceptance, and the avoidance of social rejection. Ostracism and shunning are the stronger motivators.

Are you seeing a pattern here? As nice as it would be to think that people are motivated by pleasure, optimism, and the quest for social acceptance, the truth is they try harder to avoid pain, negative or frightful outcomes, and being ostracized. Marketers that understand these powerful motivations and know how to impact people as strongly as possible near one of these extremes can change customer behavior.

Ability
In order to perform a target behavior, a person must have the ability to do so. There are two paths to increasing ability. You can train people, giving them more skills. We've seen many an eager brand marketer when faced with the question, "But why would they take action here?" Give the answer, "Because we're going to teach them how. We'll educate them."

Have you ever seen that actually work? Of course not. People are lazy! They don't want to have to do more than they have to. Instead, you can just make the target behavior easier to do. Dr. Fogg calls this approach simplicity. Simplicity is a function of your scarcest resource at that moment -- which could be time, attention, effort, or money. By focusing on simplicity of the target behavior, you increase ability.

Triggers
Triggers tell people to "do it now!" Sometimes a trigger can be external, like the sudden sound of a car horn. Other times, the trigger can come from routine: Walking into your house reminds you to take off your shoes.

The Fogg behavioral model describes the three trigger types and how to use them:

Facilitator: If someone is motivated but not responding because it seems hard (perceived lack of ability), then use a "facilitator" trigger. It should include a call-to-action and some messaging that says "it's easy."
Spark: If someone can do a task (has the ability), but is not motivated to do it, you should try to design a "spark" trigger. It should include a call-to-action plus some sort of motivator.
Signal: If a person has both the motivation and ability to do something, then all that's needed is a straightforward "signal" trigger. This is essentially a "do it now" reminder. Don't try to motivate these kinds of people or emphasize simplicity or ease of doing the task.

You might know trigger by another name: call-to-action. Many marketers make the mistake of asking people to perform a complicated behavior. They might think their call-to-action is incredibly simple, but it's not. It's also tempting to pack too much into a trigger. "First they'll click this button, then fill in their name and email, vote in the poll, and 'like' us on Facebook!" You're asking the impossible. Note, however, that when done right, triggers can lead to a chain of desired behaviors. An effective trigger for a small behavior can lead people to perform harder behaviors.

Put hot triggers in front of motivated people
The best way to get a desired behavior, then, in the words of Dr. Fogg, is simply to "put hot triggers in front of motivated people." You've seen this technique used with great success by Amazon, with their special "bundled" pricing that encourages you to buy one or two extra items along with the item you're looking at. And many e-commerce sites have adopted the "You might also like" offers displaying related products they want you to buy. You're obviously motivated because you are looking at product detail pages, and they're giving you some hot triggers.

Think about how you can apply the Fogg behavioral model to your website to better persuade visitors to take action. Start with your analytics -- what are the key pages in your conversion funnel, and how are you currently triggering action? Think about your audience in the context of the three types of triggers, and you'll probably come up with some new ways of prompting action. Don't just approach triggers from your own viewpoint. Think about them from a behavioral and cognitive science perspective. Using this 3-point framework for behavior change, you can turn your website into a powerfully persuasive sales tool.

Tim Ash is CEO of SiteTuners.

New Valentine's Coupon from Soccer.com

jodirieger — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 19:29:53 GMT

Happy Valentine�s Day from SOCCER.com!

Now through February 14, customers can take 10% off purchases over a $100. Log in to your account for the coupon code and details. For the Love of the game, get the man in your life something he will remember this Valentine�s Day!

Soccer.com is a one stop shop for the best soccer gear and accessories including soccer shoes, replica soccer jerseys, soccer balls, team uniforms, goalkeeper gear and more! Affiliates earn 7.5% commission on a 7 day cookie. Start promoting today!

Hot Deal ICE is back!

Groupongaljuj — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:52:07 GMT

Hey Everyone-

Just in time for all the last minutes shoppers (I've been told that means you, Gentlemen), we are featuring ICE.com on the site.

Starting at $45 you get a $100 Groupon to ICE.com
For $80 you get a $200 Groupon.

Check out the deal here

Your Tracking Link:

HTML Code:

http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-INSERTYOURCJPID-10822373?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Egroupon%2Ecom%2Fdeals%2Fdc-nat-val-ice-com

This deal is hosted as part of our Valentine's Deal Collection, a page that has been doing really great for affiliates and features both National and Local deals that are auto-targeted for your reader.

All Valentine's Day Deals
And your tracking link:

HTML Code:

http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-INSERTYOURCJPID-10822373?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Egroupon%2Ecom%2Foccasions

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hello Everyone!!!

CPADNA — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:46:30 GMT

Hi Everyone,

I just joined not too long ago and I want to say hi to everyone.
I have been lurking for a couple of weeks now and finally decided to sign up and become a part of the community.

I look forward to talking and getting to know you guys better!

jQuery and SEO

itsupportnotes — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:42:11 GMT

I am thinking of doing a site in part to learn about how to use jQuery. If I use jQuery pagination with that effect my SEO. I ask because the pagination will preload all the results and when browsing the URL will not be refreshed. It will basically be one URL with an area that is refreshed with jQuery. Any advice is welcome.

Join the Chocolate Tasting Club Affiliate Program Today!

Morgan Foland - buy.at — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:58:45 GMT

Join the Chocolate Tasting Club Affiliate Program Today! Don�t miss out on these easy, tasty sales/commissions!

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-100% natural, authentic ingredients � no artificial nasties

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-Choose your assortment � Classic, Dark or Alcohol-Free

-An all-new selection every 4 weeks

Creative
We provide a variety of banners to promote this offer. We can also accommodate size and creative requests.

Commission Structure
$20 per completed purchase

Cookie Length
30 days

Search Marketing/PPC Policy
Affiliates cannot use search to promote this offer in any way.

If you're an existing buy.at affiliate, click here to join.

If you're brand new to buy.at, click here to join.

Accepted by top merchants?

BobEwing74 — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 07:32:58 GMT

I have joined a few Affiliate Networks... But, have found it difficult to get accepted by top merchants. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated...
(just seems like merchants that pay the better commissions and have higher conversion rates are hard to get accepted by...)

Difference between internal ranking and external ranking factors?

lavainfotech10 — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 06:53:27 GMT

Internal ranking: Internal ranking is about the content on pages in a site for example Meta tags keywords etc. This also happens with on site optimization.
External ranking: It is a work for off site like link popularity, inbound links and etc�
Both are the very important for Search Engine Optimization purpose and a good page rank.

I am looking for custom coupons to promote

Tiberius624 — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 06:24:57 GMT

I am an publisher looking for custom coupons to promote offline(newspapers, magazines, radio commericals etc)

If your company offers custom coupon tracking can you please send me a PM. I promise to deliver you some sales.

Thank you for your consideration,
Andrew

Blindsided...

S_DeLynne — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 06:11:10 GMT

Is it possible to do this without an ounce of experience or education? I've been trying to figure this out on my own and I have trouble understanding. Thought maybe it's because I've been looking in all the wrong places....:confused2

Very New, Somewhat Skeptical, And Still Eager!!!

S_DeLynne — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:46:48 GMT

Name is Sheena... I am lost in the WWW. of research in affiliate marketing. Jargon has left my mind swirling and the expense for such knowledge is crazy with scams. Yet I am eager to learn and still taking in all that I can understand. My interests vary as do my hobbies... I do play alot of video games on cold and rainy days and a new hobby of metal detecting on the pretty and warm days. So I have a start for a niche.The road to success will never be straight and narrow. I am willing to travel the unknown to get there! So with that, I'm not looking for hand-me-outs, just a few good pointers and some knowledge to help shed a little light on the dark paths of the unknown. :D

Ah Geeze... I missed the random question twice. Guess I'm somewhat a ditz, too!

APNewsBreak: Amazon in talks for NJ warehouses

Chuck Hamrick — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 04:48:15 GMT

Quote:

The Seattle-based online retailer is not required to collect the 7 percent state sales tax for purchases like brick-and-mortar retailers do. That has led to what Greenwald and others believe is an unfair advantage for Internet-based sellers, because they can sell their products more cheaply than local merchants.

Quote:

New Jersey stands to collect $200 million or more a year in sales taxes if Amazon locates there, after its exemption ends.

So if I take $200M in tax revenue and divide by 7% sales tax I get $2,857,142,857 or approx $2.9B in sales going through those distribution centers?

Read more: APNewsBreak: Amazon in talks for NJ warehouses

Don't Stop Skiing

Chuck Hamrick — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 04:27:37 GMT

This is where I live, this is what I do!

Quote:

Last season the resort was approached by students from Utah School of Rock, the REEL School and BYU about a unique project. As a collaborative effort with SocialKiva these students brought singing to the mountain. Check it out and we hope you enjoy this unique rendition of the classic rock anthem "Don't Stop Believing."

Back in the affiliate world, after 1 year off

Andie — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:29:55 GMT

Hi Everyone!

My name is Andrea Finn, some of you may recall me from Mason Companies, Inc. I was the affiliate manager for all of their 9 programs (ShoeMall.com, Stoneberry.com, etc.) for five years. After having a baby, I decided to leave the corporate world, spend some time with my newborn, and help my husband set up his business, Finn Chiropractic Clinic, in our hometown. We are up and sound, and I am ready to get back into the affiliate business.

All of my experience is on the merchant side, although I have lots of friends on the publisher/affiliate side, so I am familiar with the ins and outs. I am interested in any and all opportunities out there.

I look forward to engaging in this community again, and I appreciate ABestWeb for giving me the opportunity. DM me for more information.

Cheers!
Andie

CPADNA�s New Affiliate Rewards Program!

CPADNA — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:32:15 GMT

Merchant Name: Dedicated Media
Network: CPADNA
Join Link: http://cpadna.com/cpa/affiliatesignup.aspx
Product or Service Description: CPA Advertising Campaigns
Contact Info: Ben Yu, promotions@dedicatedmedia.com, (310) 524-9400 x347

CPADNA is the affiliate network for Dedicated Media, a full-service online advertising company, with a nationwide sales team including offices in Los Angeles, New York & San Francisco. We work with the biggest agencies and direct advertisers so we're able to bring in the best offers, the biggest budgets, and the top payouts. We have a team of knowledgeable affiliate managers to help you every step of the way, from finding the best offers to monetize your traffic, testing campaigns and getting you set up, and helping you optimize your campaigns! We offer real-time reporting with our proprietary tracking platform, aggressive payment terms, and around the clock tech support.

At CPADNA we accept all forms of promotion � Display, Search, Email, Social, PPC, PPV, Contextual, Incent, Mobile � and we pride ourselves on being the biggest and best partners to great branded offers. We know it�s not about trial and error; it�s about finding the right campaign that fits, whether from an audience perspective or an EPC one. Our relationships matter to us, which is why we leverage the latest and greatest fraud tools out there, as well as our own internal systems, to identify and weed out bad traffic. And by delivering only the best traffic, we get the best offers, the top payouts, and their branded campaigns stay around so you can keep on earning.

CPADNA is currently running our February MEGA REWARDS PROGRAM, sending our new affiliates great rewards for generating their commission with us! We�re giving away iPods, iPads, Amazon Gift Cards, 3D TVs � and our top earners will get a trip to the Bahamas! Try out the CPADNA difference and reward yourself for a change!

We�re all about relationships, quality, results � to create a mutually beneficial partnership between our advertisers and our affiliates alike. What are you waiting for? Sign up now!