We’re excited to announce the launch of the AdditionElle/Penningtons/MXM Affiliate Program in Share Results!

Together, these three sister brands are the leading fashion experts for plus size women.

ADDITION ELLE celebrates the “body confidence” of its plus size shoppers with an exciting array of contemporary and classic fashions. In addition to superb collections of work and weekend styles, Addition Elle carries a beautiful selection of intimate apparel, sleepwear, outerwear and accessories designed to address all of its customers’ lifestyle needs.

Penningtons Featuring a beautiful assortment of classic as well as contemporary styling, Penningtons offers the plus size customer a great selection of affordable career, casual, intimate apparel and accessories that fit her lifestyle.

MXM, a trendy 14+ fashion brand, is 5 years young and has quickly grown in popularity by featuring the latest, hottest looks and trends.

With orders averaging $100 CDN, affiliates can easily promote Addition Elle, Penningtons, and MXM styles to shoppers looking for fashionable pieces at affordable prices. Customers can purchase from all three brands in a single checkout and benefit from a low, flat shipping rate.

Join the affiliate program and take advantage of these three top plus size fashion brands.

Placements permitted in this program include:

• Banner & Text creative
• Content
• Coupons
• Incentivized
• Email traffic
• Deep linking
• 45-day Cookie
• Canadian/American traffic

Affiliates earn 6% commissions on each transaction with opportunities for increased commissions and bonuses. Affiliates are also able to leverage the banners with additional coupon codes that can be accessed through their affiliate portal.

A variety of regularly updated text links, coupon codes and banners are available for use on your website.

If you are a retail affiliate with a strong female audience (especially in the plus size category) and/or are a search, coupon or blog affiliate, you are an ideal partner for this affiliate program.

For more info or to join, please visit:

http://www.shareresults.com/local_affiliate_desc.php?mid=16648

As the cold air begins to flow, merchants are on the lookout for what kind of online shopping trends are on the horizon for this 2009 season. October is half over, and if you haven’t started to prep your Q4 campaigns already, it’s time to get started!

This year, it is estimated that US retail e-commerce sales (excluding travel) will total $132 billion, down 0.4% from 2008. eMarketer forecasts online sales will begin to rebound in 2010 and hit full stride in 2011 if the recession is to end in 2009 as economists have predicted.

Trends suggest consumers will be spending less this holiday season making it more of challenge for retailers to attract ideal customers to both brick and mortar and online stores. That, of course does not mean there will be no shoppers, but it means that consumers will be more selective. That simply means that this season, more than ever, it is important to stand out, and make educated decisions about where advertising money should be spent.

Trends also show a progressive shift in consumer research, and there are more value shoppers who will browse research and compare products on the Internet. Consumers are using social media more to search for deals and coupons via Twitter, Facebook. So, marketers may want to channel more resources into that avenue.

In preparation for the 2009 holiday shopping season, online retailers looking to create the most effective e-commerce site should take the following steps:

1. Optimize website with holiday focused content
2. Improve pay per click (PPC) advertising campaigns for holidays
3. Driving more sales through the Comparison Shopping Engines
4. Create more customer loyalty programs
5. Humanizing customer service
6. Increase free shipping offers
7. Offer exclusive holiday coupons
8. Plan long term on how to reach consumer AFTER the holiday season have passed

For more techniques, tools, tips and great resources to make sure you’re getting every last drop out of your affiliate marketing campaigns, be sure to come back to the Share Results blog. Until November 27, Share Results.com is throwing a big Holiday Blogging Event, packed with all kinds of seasonal information regarding trends for Q4, tips to get the best deals, consumer trends and how best optimize your affiliate marketing campaigns.

Last week we posted the first of a two-part interview with online education merchant eLearners. In addition to getting some great insight from them about the online education industry, we learned what popular degrees that students have been gravitating to and how eLearners has dealt with the ever increasing interest in the online edu affiliate marketing sector.

This week, we continue that conversation and find out what type of edu affiliates are preferred for their program and more…

Q: Tell us about the diverse education offers available to affiliates who join eLearners. What would you say is your most successful campaign to date?

A: OnlineStudentFinancialAid.com has had a long history of success and continues to be a dominant force, and Project Working Mom has been an instant hit, generating national press coverage, but we prefer not to dwell on past successes. We continue to work on innovative new campaigns to reach new demographics; The Career Stimulus Package just launched this summer, and the response has been overwhelming.

• Did you know that OnlineStudentFinancialAid.com can be promoted in Spanish to online users?

Q: What are some of the biggest misconceptions affiliates have about the eLearners affiliate program?

A: One of the biggest misconceptions is that we are just looking for a high quantity of leads. Our main focus is actually making sure our leads are of high quality and continue to enroll.

Q: With all the different type of affiliates who partner with eLearners, what promotional methods would you say do best in the program?

A: All promotional methods, whether SEO, display, PPC, etc., have their own strengths and weaknesses, but all serve a purpose within our program and add a specific value.

Q: What are the key elements do you look for when affiliates apply to your affiliate program?

A: When looking at sites to partner with, we look for (in no particular order) unique content, a good layout, a high page rank, good traffic, high ranking on key search terms, etc. In general, we are looking for something that doesn’t necessarily look like it is set up for just lead generation, but has a larger purpose.

Q: What would you say are the top 3 common inquiries from prospective students that affiliates should know when promoting to their audience?

A: Some common inquiries from prospective students include tuition prices, financial aid/scholarship options, school accreditation and even the location of the school offices so that students may be able to take care of things in person if needed.

Q: Based on your experience in the industry, what would you say are some of the forthcoming trends affiliates should expect to see in the overall online edu market?

A: Social media seems to be something that people are starting to make a big push for.

Q: What kind of exciting campaigns can affiliates expect to see from eLearners’ affiliate program in the forthcoming months?

A: I can’t reveal all our secrets just yet, but we definitely have some exciting things coming in the next few months…

Update: The Career Stimulus Package campaign has indeed been a big hit with online users; however, this offer is only available to be promoted until October 31, 2009.

If you have any questions about Career Stimulus Package or any other eLearners opportunity, please don’t hesitate to reach us via eLearners(at)shareresults(dot)com.

Affiliates! Merchants! Are you ready for Q4, aka the busiest season of the year for affiliate marketing?!

October is half over, and if you haven’t started to prep your campaigns already, it’s time to get started!

And do we have the event to get you in the holiday spirit. From October 14 to November 27, Share Results is throwing a big Holiday Blogging Event, packed with all kinds of seasonal information regarding trends for Q4, tips to get the best deals, consumer trends and how best optimize your affiliate marketing campaigns.

Affiliates, here’s what you can look forward to during our Holiday Blogging Event:

• Affiliate marketing strategies
• Tips on how to best communicate with merchants—and how to secure the best deals!
• Tips on what shoppers will be looking for most this holiday season
• Tips on achieving higher conversion rates
• Tips on earning more revenue

Merchants, we have customized tips that will help you end 2009 with a bang. Here’s what to expect:

• Time and affiliate program management tips
• Trends that apply to your program
• How to be best prepared to accommodate affiliates during Q4
• What tools to have in place to ensure your success
• How to communicate effectively with affiliates
• How to develop a detailed promotional strategy to maximize revenue-earning potential

If you haven’t visited our Share Results blog before, now is a great opportunity to get started. The blog is designed to give you techniques, tools, tips, industry news—and so much more. And it’s a great resource to make sure you’re getting every last drop out of your affiliate marketing campaigns.

Join us starting this Friday, to launch our Holiday Blogging Event. Our first blog will look at online shopping trends for 2009, how consumers are looking for holiday deals and what online retailers can do to create the most effective e-commerce site in preparation for the holiday shopping 2009 season.

The popularity of online education affiliate programs has grown exponentially over the last few years with a few online edu lead aggregators playing a leading role in offering a wide variety of academic opportunities that benefit both affiliates and prospective students alike. eLearners, Share Results’ highly popular online education advertiser, has seen major growth within the online edu industry, and, naturally, increased interest from affiliates looking to promote online degrees from land-based colleges in the United States.

We took some time to chat with eLearners about their widely-recognized affiliate program in Share Results. In the first part of this merchant interview blog series, eLearners gives new affiliates the inside scoop on the online education industry, the most sought after degrees by students, and how they’ve adapted to the growth in online degree opportunities.

Q: For novice affiliates out there who are just entering the online edu space in affiliate marketing, can you explain exactly what eLearners is?

A: eLearners.com is the premier destination for anyone in school or considering furthering their education. We service all phases of the life cycle of a student —  from prospecting for students by connecting them with colleges, to introducing them to resources such as financial aid and scholarships, to ensuring enrollment and retention, to providing a safety net for current students who need support, to helping them move on to their next degree.

Q: What distinguishes eLearners from other online edu aggregators out there?

A: What makes eLearners unique is that we are more than just an aggregator, since our focus is applied more towards the entire life cycle of a student, but in addition to this, we work with over 200 fully accredited schools (more than anyone in the industry) while simultaneously carrying a strong reputation for quality and a reach that is unmatched.

Q: Studies show that land-based operators are seeing a drop in the number of student applications, but also another challenge is the availability of financial aid. How has eLearners been affected by this trend?

A: We actually work with a number of schools that provide financial aid options, and these schools have seen a great response from prospective students. What we have done on our own, though, to meet this trend head-on, is develop a series of scholarship programs to reach a multitude of demographics. Two of our scholarship programs, Project Working Mom and the Career Stimulus Package, respectively, have already given away a combined $6+ million in scholarships in 2009.

Q: How does the number of school applicants compare to two years ago? What valuable feedback from schools can you pass on to affiliates who partner with you about the wealth of online edu applicants?

A: The number of prospective students continues to grow year by year. Online degrees have become increasingly popular, and traditional schools have recognized this trend. Traditional campus schools understand that a virtual campus is now a necessity in order to maintain a competitive edge.

Q: Based on trends you are seeing, what would you say are the most popular degrees and subjects of study in the online edu space?

A: The online education space is ever-changing, but three areas in which I have seen pretty consistent interest are healthcare, business and criminal justice.

Q: What would you say distinguishes eLearners’ affiliate program from other online education affiliate programs out there?

A: We pride ourselves on the happiness of our partners and being available for them, so a high level of customer service is always our priority.  Our industry reputation, competitive payouts, unmatched selection of schools/programs and high conversion rates are what tend to attract people to our program.

Q: Some affiliates think that the education sector in affiliate marketing is too saturated. What do you think of this perspective and how has eLearners coped with the ever-growing online edu sector of affiliate marketing?

A: Especially with the recession, this arena has seen quite a bit of growth over the past year. We see it as a plus because this just means we have more potential partners to work with.

Next week in the second part of our blog series, eLearners will dish on the biggest misconceptions about their program, the three things student look for from online education, and what it takes to become an affiliate of their program…

In the meantime, if you have any questions about the eLearners offers that are available, please feel free to reach us via eLearners(at)shareresults(dot)com. If you have inquiries about any of our other education affiliate programs in Share Results, please email us: affiliates(at)shareresults(dot)com.

If you are an affiliate looking to promote products associated with a charitable cause this fall, you may want to consider partnering with T-Shirtmonster.ca. This October, the online t-shirt retailer is working in affiliation with the Breast Cancer Society of Canada to offer fully customizable t-shirts in honour of Breast Cancer Awareness month. ”The Breast Cancer Society of Canada is a registered, national not-for-profit,  charitable organization dedicated to funding Canadian breast cancer research into the detection, prevention,  treatment and to ultimately find a cure for the disease that women fear most.” If you have Canadian traffic, T-Shirtmonster.ca is a great way to promote to your potential customers north of the border who are in favour of this type of non-profit initiative.

Read More…

We wanted to let you know about the latest Share Results Hot Deals for October 2009. There are some exciting promotions including the launch of one of our newest merchants offering luxury tea products – Language of the Leaf!

T-Shirt Monster

Customer Promotion: Breast Cancer Awareness Month Promote using Breast Cancer Awareness banners + landing page
Canadian Traffic Preferred – Offer expires October 31st, 2009

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Language of the Leaf

Customer Promotion: 10% Off on all orders over $30
Coupon Code – Available via the Share Results Coupon Feed
Offer expires November 30, 2009
Coupon code can only be used once by one customer and cannot be combined with other promotions

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InkPlusToner

Customer Promotion: 10% Off on all orders + FREE SHIPPING
Coupon Code – Available via the Share Results Coupon Feed
Offer expires December 31, 2009

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StyleFly

Customer Promotion: Customers receive 20% OFF Orders
Coupon Code – Available via the Share Results Coupon Feed
Canadian Traffic Only – Offer expires October 31, 2009

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SnagAJob.com

Affiliate Promotion: NEW banner creative for holiday-hiring season
US Traffic Only – Offer is ongoing

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The CuteKid

Affiliate Promotion:
*Send 25 sales, earn $25 Bonus
*Send 50 sales, earn $50 Bonus
*Send 100 sales, earn $150 Bonus
*Send 150 sales, earn $300 Bonus
*Send 200 sales, earn $500 Bonus

Offer expires November 1, 2009

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ZooBooks

2 Customer Promotions:
Free Shipping on orders over $25 (excluding subscriptions)
Offer expires October 31st, 2009

Customers get 10% off all products (excluding subscriptions)
Offer expires February 14th, 2010

Both coupon codes – Available via the Share Results Coupon Feed

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UnderGroundHipHop.com

3 Customer Promotions:

*$10 Off orders
*$75 or more $25 Off orders
*$150 or more 10% Off orders
Coupon Codes – Available via the Share Results Coupon Feed
Offer expires November 1, 2009

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Affiliate Promotion:

Earn a $25 bonus when you refer a minimum of $250 in sales
Offer expires November 1, 2009

To become an affiliate in Share Results, please sign up here to get access to our hot coupon offers! http://www.shareresults.com/affiliates/login.php

There is an ongoing debate pertaining to affiliate links and whether or not it is advisable to cloak (hide) them or show them.

On one hand, people are less inclined to click on affiliate links, as they tend to trust long links with many characters and unknown codes. For the affiliate, it helps prevent others from stealing affiliate earnings from them, while also improving SEO results rankings.

On the other hand, many affiliates have achieved consistently strong commissions from shoppers who trust them. This is because they show their affiliate links and thus demonstrate a “nothing to hide” attitude. Although this may be true for several affiliates, the overall consensus is to hide affiliate links to improve the click-through rate, while maintaining strong SEO rankings and clean links. The featured blogs in the BAMroll this week focus on the aforementioned debate.

Webmasters Central Blog looks at both sides of the debate and presents some clear explanations for how to cloak affiliate links should an affiliate decide upon this course of action.

Tech-Link blog discusses why it is important to cloak affiliate links and the potential dangers of showing them.

See you next week!

We’re excited to announce the launch Language of the Leaf affiliate program in Share Results!

Language of the Leaf offers the best gourmet teas from around the world with a range of white, green, black, oolong, Rooibos, herbal and flavoured teas. They attract health conscious men and women, and seniors but also cater to bridal and wedding market with their line of unique wedding favors and flavors!

With orders averaging between $45 – $60 USD, affiliates can easily promote Language of the Leaf products to visitors looking for affordable everyday luxury. Customers who purchase teas at Language of the Leaf will also enjoy free shipping on their orders of $50 or more, perfect for the upcoming holiday season.

Also exclusively available through Share Results, affiliates will be able to promote a special 10% off coupon on orders of $30 or more. This coupon will be available only to first time customers.  Join the affiliate program today to take full advantage of this exclusive customer promotion expiring November 30th, 2009.

Placements permitted in this program include:

• Banner Creative
• Text Ads
• PPC/Search Marketing (For more info please click here)
• Coupons
• Incentivized
• Deep Linking
• Direct Linking
• 60-day Cookie
• Targeting US and CAN customers

Commission Offer
As a new affiliate to the Language of the Leaf program, you will earn 10% commission on all verified sales.
If you are retail affiliate with a strong female audience and/or are search or coupon affiliate, you are an ideal partner for this affiliate program!

For more info or to join, please visit: http://www.shareresults.com/local_affiliate_desc.php?mid=16370

Looking for that cool new digital camera? Searching high and low for the latest and trendiest handbag? Bing has launched a new visual search engine that displays all results…visually! By using Microsoft’s Silverlight technology, Bing has been able to create a sleek, time-saving way of comparison shopping and searching. Technology in general has emphasized the visual appeal (see iphone), so this development certainly makes sense from a consumer’s point of view. The integration of the visual aspect to search results creates a powerful combo that is sure to attract many users to the search engine.

If a picture is worth 1000 words, then Bing is on the way towards something significant in search engine history. This week’s BAMroll focuses on two blogs that have expressed their opinions on the matter. Read on to find out more!

Battellemedia’s blog post ‘Bing Gets Visual’ highlights the aspects of Bing’s new search engine addition. Written by John Battelle, the blog focuses on search engine news and thoughts on the intersection of search, media, technology, and more.

SearchEngineLand’s blog is a news and information site covering search engine marketing, searching issues and the search engine industry. Led by journalist Danny Sullivan, who has been covering search for the past 11 years, it is published by Third Door Media, which also produces the Search Marketing Expo conference series and the Search Marketing Now webcast events.

Affiliate marketers should be aware of this development, as visual results could provide new methods of recruiting high-potential affiliates.