Category Archives: Guest Posts

Why Landing Page Loading Time Matters To Affiliates

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This is a guest-post written by Kate Carpenter, the lead designer over at the web-oriented design and development studio, Fireworksable.

What are page loading times?

I assume that simply by reading the phrase “page loading times” most of you understand what it means, but for those who don’t I’ll elaborate:

The page loading time is the time it takes for a web page to complete loading of that it’s content in a visitor’s browser. The time it takes to load a page increases as the file-size’s of the it’s content increases.

Making sure that page loading times are optimized should be a key concern of developers, however when you hire a cheap freelancer from Digital Point or Elance to put together your landing page or website, it’s often not taken into account, ultimately at your own cost.

 

So, why exactly do page loading times matter to me as an affiliate?

 

If you don’t take into account how fast your page loads, chances are you’ll experience a higher bounce-rate and lower conversion-rate than you would had you optimized properly, due to:

Impatient visitors, which tend to make up the majority of us.

In this day and age, we’re used to getting stuff done very fast. That’s why when we visit a web page that appears to load slowly, even if it’s just by that tiny little bit, we’re very much inclined to hit the back-button.

Google and it’s various algorithms.

Google search now takes into account the loading time of a page when ranking pages, so if you get a lot of visitors from organic search, you could see your primary source of traffic start to slip away.

It also plays a part of your “Quality Score” if you’re using Google AdWords as an advertising platform to run PPC campaigns (NB: I think I read it only effects the search network and not the display network, but I’m not entirely sure).

What can I do to improve my page’s loading time?

 

Here’s two things you can do to improve the loading time of your web pages pretty significantly without diving too much into the technical side:

Compressing those images of yours.

 

Images are by far the biggest contributor an increased page loading time, as they tend to make up the majority of a page’s content in terms of file-size. Compressing an image allows you to remove unnecessary little bits of data from it, and reducing it’s file-size.

For the average affiliate whose not too technical, the best way to compress images is by using Yahoo!’s SmushIt, image compressor.

“Minifying” any JavaScript you’ve got.

 

Often JavaScript files can contain additional comments, white-spacing or code indentation that pumps up their file-size. Removing these additions is called “minifying”.

 

Again, for the average affiliate whose not too technical, a great way to “minify” JavaScript files is by using Google’s Closure Compiler.

 

Some final words on the subject of page loading times…

You can also calculate your page loading time on a scale of 1 – 100 by using Google Page Speed, as well as advice for improving loading time, specific to your page.

In all seriousness, I really recommend that you check out the resources I’ve mentioned in this guest-post, as it shouldn’t take you much longer than 10 or 15 minutes to compress your images and “minify” your JavaScript, and while the impact won’t be a 200% increase in conversions, it will certainly be worth far more than the time spent doing it.

How to Strategically Create and Optimize Landing Pages

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This is a guest post by Danny Schwartz, lead designer at landing page design team WePixelate.

As a landing page designer and former affiliate, I’ve got the best of both worlds and a ton of knowledge when it comes to creating and optimizing landing pages for conversions.

One thing I’ve come across time and time again in the affiliate industry is that unlike traffic sources, people tend to not approach landing pages and optimizing with a degree of strategy. Perhaps this is because people in general tend to look towards increasing traffic to increase profits rather then optimizing landing pages, or perhaps it’s because there doesn’t seem to be an exact logical path one can take when designing landing pages to ensure that they achieve the maximum level of potential they possibly can.

People tend to approach landing page optimization and creation with the mindset of “oh, I’ll just change out that call to action there” and “hmm, let me try a pink background instead of white”, essentially it’s an approach which favors tracking random elements, as oppose to tracking elements that have a logical basis for being changed.

What do I mean by this? I mean start thinking strategically about which elements are going to have the biggest impact on your conversions, and change them, not the color of some random icon on your page.

Here’s a little insight kind of steps I take to create and optimize landing pages for my clients. I will be throwing in an example of a dating website for a campaign that is specifically targeted towards males that are between 30 – 35 for a Facebook campaign.

  • Create 6 or so completely different styles of landing page, that all deliver exactly the same message, for example “Free exclusive account, only 1 left, find your match now” with a description of the account they will be getting. One page may for example contain a picture of a 30 year old professional kind of guy making out with a similar girl, another may contain a set of pictures of girls who are “using this service”, another will have a picture of a really sexy girl lying down, each page having a different call to action and fonts and what not. Point being, each page is drastically different, with the only similarity being the message.
  • Once my client has tested each one to a reasonable standard, e.g. 100 clicks, I then take the best converting page and change out the message that’s delivered to the visitor, taking the offer they’re looking for and spinning it into a different perspective, so for example I’ll have “We’ve got the kind of women you’ve only dreamed of” or “Women so sexy that you won’t need to Facebook stalk people any more” or “Over 1,273 people have found their perfect woman”. Point is again, drastic differences so that differences can really be felt.
  • My client then tests each new page to a reasonable standard, e.g. 100 clicks and tells me which one is converting the best. I then take that page begin changing smaller elements and working with the client to do back and forth tests, until we reach a point where continuing to optimize is no longer worth mine or my clients time, e.g. where any changes are too small to make any significant impact.

This is what I define is a strategic way to create and optimize pages. Unfortunately, being affiliates, there’s a certain “peak” level, where optimization becomes ineffective due to merchant landing pages play a significant if not, the most important role in attaining those conversions. Pre-selling and pushing visitors to make a purchase or fill in a lead form is one thing, but ultimately, it depends on the merchant to secure that lead or sale.

How To Cherry Pick The Best Offers For PPV

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This is a guest post by the UK affiliate sensation, Finch. In case you’ve been living under a rock, he blogs at FinchSells.com. I can honestly say he is one of the smartest guys in our industry. Do yourself a favor and add him to your RSS reader ASAP.

Hello Victim

There’s only one serious problem I’ve found with PPV marketing. It offers too much freedom.

As an affiliate marketer who’s accustomed to working within the confines of what a Facebook intern deems acceptable for publishing, taking the leap to PPV can be a little daunting. I’m so used to covering skin in my dating ads, or being careful not to call out user attributes, that I don’t always know what to do with a clean slate. I’m like a starved kid in a sweet shop when I sit down to ponder the possibilities.

I think many affiliates are in the same boat. We know PPV is one of the few remaining advertising platforms for our last generation ads. But without imposing any strict limitations on the affiliate’s campaigns, it can be hard to find a starting point.

If you’re looking for the motivation to get stuck in to PPV, you obviously need to select an offer first.

As a guy who’s established a reputation for working heavily in the dating niche, I regularly get asked if I promote dating offers on the main PPV networks. The answer is yes, but very selectively. It’s not as easy to promote dating with PPV for one simple reason. You have very primitive control over your demographic targeting.

A lot of experts in the field will tell you that demographic targeting is as simple as taking your ass to Quantcast, running a few searches, pretending to soak up the information and then launching the same campaign you had in mind anyway. Well, nice work if that’s the case. You really should have been a scientist.

My problem with using even the most sophisticated demographic analysis tools for a dating offer is that the percentages are still against me. Even if 75% of the audience on a given URL is male and single, 25% is a huge waste of eyeballs. PPV can be a cheap marketing vehicle, but don’t let anybody fool you. For a niche like dating, it’s NEVER as cost-efficient as a well planned CPM campaign.

The secret to success with dating ads on PPV is to take one of two paths:

1. Only targets URLs and keywords where you have sufficient assurance that the large majority of users are going to be in the boundaries that are accepted on your offer. Here’s a tip, hot shot. Don’t go trying to promote an offer like Mate1 25-30 year old female users only. You’re digging your grave by narrowing the goalposts.

2. Produce creatives that are unisex, suitable for most ages, and targeted to most needs. If you’re going to target a broad selection of URLs, you’ve got to be able to pop a creative that captures and hooks as many of the demographics as possible. Now there are ways you can do this. My personal favourite is to capture the user’s information, rather than sending them directly to an offer. Use a dropdown box to allow the user to select his/her age then perform some quick PHP “if else’ing” behind the scenes to match said user to an appropriate offer.

The third option would be to avoid dating ads altogether. And this is actually what I would recommend for most newbie PPV marketers.

In my opinion, the easiest way to succeed with PPV is to work with niche offers where the user’s demand for a solution is at the “ready to buy, just get rid of my damn problem” stage.

We could use the recent bed bug repellent offers as an example. Now I don’t live in America so I can’t honestly report whether my sleep has been disturbed by bugs in the night, or whether it’s as big a problem as the international media has made out. But from my understanding, bed bugs are becoming a pain in the arse across the pond.

The reasons I would choose something like a bed bug repellent for a PPV campaign are three-fold.

1. Where there’s a demand, there’s an affiliate marketer. If somebody thinks they have bedbugs, they’re going to flip out and buy something in a hurry. Nobody wants their blood sucked from them in the night. Not even Finch is that kinky. So it’s the kind of campaign where you really don’t have to do much work to inspire the user to whip out a Mastercard. Target, fire, reload. Just the way we like it.

2. It’s pretty easy to target the users who are actively searching for a solution. How many other reasons do you have for Googling pages about bed bugs? It’s not something I’ve been forced to add to my LeechBlock.

3. The offer is not tied to demographics. The beauty of bed bugs is that they’ll bite the crap out of anyone. It’s an affiliate marketer’s sweetest dream! We should be welcoming them in to our neighbourhoods with open arms. No more demographic targeting. The only targeting you need is “Hello, Victim… Want To Stop Itching Tonight?”

I’m using pretty niche examples here, but the idea is simple. The best way to deem an offer’s suitability for PPV is to weigh up those two important factors. Is it an impulsive buy? And more importantly, can you guarantee enough interested eyeballs from your targeted URLs? If you’ve got no control over your demographic, you’ll become a sucker of your own creative license. PPV offers a lot of freedom. But it makes no sense to lack discipline with your efforts. This is a platform that punishes bad marketers and sloppy marketing.