Affiliate marketing

SUMMARY: Getting a granular look inside an individual marketing campaign can be informative, but sometimes it can be helpful to see the entire picture of the overall marketing strategy covering many channels.

This case study looks at how one B2B e-commerce company utilizes and integrates a number of channels including email, PPC, display ad retargeting, affiliate marketing, social media, and comparative shopping engines. Find out how this total marketing strategy led to triple digit growth for the company in a tough economy over the last four years. read the complete case study

SUMMARY: Social media marketing continues to increase in popularity, both among marketers and affiliates. Your team likely has rules for promoting in social networks -- but do your affiliates follow them?

See why -- and how -- to keep an eye on your affiliates' social marketing practices, to ensure they're aligned with your brand and reputation. Find out which types of networks this expert says to avoid. read the complete article

SUMMARY: "A third of merchants (34%) say that 5 or fewer affiliates are driving 80% of their affiliate sales of sign-ups." "A further 23% say that between 6 and 10 affiliates account for 80% of sales." "More than a quarter of merchants (28%) say their organisations are poor at managing networks and monitoring affiliate activity." view the complete research record

SUMMARY: Even though eBay is one of the Net's top 5 advertisers, they still invest significantly in growing their affiliate program -- which we guess proves no site can get all the traffic it deserves by itself.

In MarketingSherpa's new exclusive interview, eBay's Senior US Affiliate Manager reveals practical tactics on structuring commissions, best publishers to work with and going global: read the complete interview

SUMMARY: We continue our look back at 2009, with a focus on how B2C marketers adapted to the challenges of the recession and gained new insights into emerging channels, such as social media and mobile marketing.

Here are links to five B2C articles from 2009 that show how marketers can boost conversions even when consumer spending is down, and can optimize existing tactics while testing new campaign strategies. read the complete article

By Anne Holland, Founder

The US Supreme Court has ruled that if a company does not have a physical location (a store, office, warehouse, etc.) within a particular state, that state can't require the company to collect and remit sales tax on customers located in that state. For decades now, many state legislators have floated ideas about changing that law because they "lost" millions of dollars in potential tax revenues.

First, the catalog and TV direct response... read the complete blog post