One of the most exciting things about working in the online world is that it is constantly evolving and growing. Those who are able to remain on the leading edges of new technologies will continue to be the most competitive players in what has become a world in which only the savviest survive. And in what might seem like a bit of a paradox, the ever-growing online world is actually becoming smaller.

No, the amount of opportunity for business is not shrinking, but with new technologies like iPhones, and Google Android devices – to name just a couple – tech-savvy marketers are finding ways to shrink the sizes of their marketing materials to fit onto these new devices.

It’s not unusual to see teenagers or twentysomethings with smart phone devices these days. In fact, you’re almost as likely to see someone walking along the sidewalk while accessing a 3g network as you would be to see a young hipster with a laptop in a Starbucks. A recent survey done by Sprint says that 80% of those in the 18-34 demographic cite their cellular phone as their “lifeline” to others.

And that’s exactly what they’re doing with their phones: they’re communicating. They’re heavily invested in social networks and, according to one source, the top 20% of those using social networking sites are spending up to 31 minutes a day on them. What that means to marketers is that those people are spending more time with ads.

The opportunity to reach out to that market is there— it’s just a question of how to best market to your target audience. More people with mobile devices means that they are going to be spending more time online, which makes them easier to reach. It’s definitely worth looking into ways of reaching these consumers. In 2008, smart phones accounted for 13% of the total handset market, and this number will only continue to grow. The more you can adjust your marketing campaigns to accommodate new technologies, the greater your market share will be.

For more information on how to best market your campaigns in this exciting new market, you can contact our SEM Agency to get some advice on how to get started.

Because Share Results is committed to providing you with every service possible to help your business grow, we have started a new SEM Agency that offers services in PPC Management and SEO. We are now poised to offer services that help online business networks develop their Internet footprint and brand recognition. We are also offering supplemental Marketing Support because, at the end of the day, it’s really all about converting those leads into sales.

One of the most frustrating and challenging parts of SEO these days is the constant changing of the criteria that helps web pages to rank. Keeping track of these changes is really a full-time job, so unless you have someone employed within your company that can make sure that all of your codes and protocols are up to date, then you may be missing out on some small protocol that might be keeping your pages and PPC campaigns from ranking as high as you might like. That’s where we can help.

We have a team of dedicated professionals whose entire function in life (well, at work, at least) is to make sure that they have the most up-to-date SEO information. They can dissect your website, page by page, and show you where improvements can be made in coding, and keyword distribution. In addition, a navigational review of the site can be performed that will show you how you can keep traffic for longer, creating more opportunities for conversions.

It is one thing to get traffic coming to your site, but it’s something else entirely to convert that traffic into sales, so along with SEO support, Marketing Support is one of the most important aspects of the SEM Agency’s function. Our SEM professionals will help you to improve your web copy, and show you how you can more effectively reach your audience on websites and PPC campaigns. You’ll also receive some tips and tricks to help you increase your online presence and how to get there faster than your competition.

The best part of this service is that it is always personalized to your individual needs. We want to help your business be the best it can possibly be, and our new SEM Agency is just one more step in that direction. To find out more about how we can help drive qualified traffic to your site, feel free to contact us at agency [at] shareresults [dot] com and we’ll get you started in the right direction.

Major retailers are re-evaluating their marketing strategies, with more and more opting to invest in Internet search ads, as this medium becomes mainstream. Indeed, Efficient Frontier, a search engine marketing firm, predicts a ‘double-digit’ increase in search ad spending this quarter, most notably from retail advertisers during the peak holiday online shopping season.

As this marketing medium becomes more popular, marketers are also becoming savvier. As a Wall Street Journal article reports, some of the new strategies include buying top ads tied to phrases consumers tend to search for when they are in the final stages of making a purchase decision. Being aware of how consumers search when they are ready to purchase, is critical to making your ROI as lucrative as possible.

With Halloween fast approaching, a good example of this might be using long-tail keywords like “buy a Spiderman Halloween costume” versus a more general search term like, “Halloween costume”. A consumer would be far more likely to use a long-tail keyword like the Spiderman example above when they are further down the sales channel, and are ready to buy.

When you do incorporate long-tail keywords in your search ads, make sure the landing page where you are sending the consumer truly matches their interest. Using the same Spiderman costume example, it would be wise to send the consumer to targeted page on your website. In this case, unless the landing page had a selection of Spiderman Halloween costumes, chances are that your ROI on this search ad would be less than attractive.

If you haven’t tried your hand in search ads, the holiday season is probably the best time of the year to give it a shot. Whether you choose to go with Google, or with Bing which increased its share of searches and search-ad dollars in Q3 (Source: PaidContent.org), Share Results is now offering its SEM services (contact Jamie [at] shareresults [dot] com), with a team of search engine experts, to get you going with what is now recognized as a very popular, and very savvy way of marketing.

If PPC is part of your affiliate marketing campaigns, (and it should be!) then the Affiliate Custom ID (ACID) Tool is a great feature of the Share Results software that you should become familiar with.

What is the ACID Tool?
The ACID Tool is a Share Results software feature that allows you to add a custom parameter to your links to enable more detailed tracking at the transaction level, and to track the traffic that you are generating directly to a merchant’s website.

What is the Benefit of Using the ACID Tool?
The great thing about using the ACID Tool is that you will be able to instantly identify which keywords are working for you. This information will allow you to tweak your future PPC campaigns, ensuring that you are getting the greatest return on your investment.

Where Do I Access the ACID Tool?
To access the ACID tracking, (1) go to the Share Results Banner Manager, (2) select your campaign, (3) select your creative and (4) add a unique identifier in the addACID text box and click on update.

How Do I Implement the ACID Tool?
Implementing the ACID requires that the additional parameter and value be added at the end of the standard affiliate link.

1) When you create your ACID link in Share Results, it will look like this:
http://www.shareresults.com/t/url.php/cid/[cid]/sid/[sid]/acid/[ACIDtracking]

[cid] = is the banner id generated automatically by Share Results
[sid] = is the site ID supplied by Share Results that identifies the affiliate
[acid] = can be your keyword or an alphanumeric value supplied by the affiliate

2) For the tracking to be PPC compliant, you need to modify the tracking to the following:
http://www.shareresults.com/t/url.php?cid=[cid]&sid=[sid]&acid=[ACIDtracking]
And note, when you are tweaking your tracking (in point 2 above), that you are adding “?”, “=” and “&”. This will ensure that your tracking is PPC compliant.

I Have my Affiliate Custom ID, Now What?
Once you’ve created your ACID, you need to add this URL to the destination URL in your PPC campaign. The keyword that generated the sale will now show up in the Transaction Report of Share Results. To view the ACID, look at your Affiliate CID column, shown below.

Are you getting ready for Q4… and the upcoming holiday season? It’s the perfect opportunity to start using the ACID tool. Log into your Share Results account and get set up with the ACID Tool by implementing this tracking to your PPC campaigns today! Have questions, need assistance getting started? Contact jamie at shareresults.com—he’d be pleased to help!

Slowly but surely, Bing is building more bang.

For the third month in a row, Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing gained a slight increase in the U.S. search market. Accounting for 9.3% of U.S web searches for the month of August, a .4% increase from its July share of 8.9%, Bing continues to gain market share from its giant competitor, Google.

Similar data indicates that Google remained the leader of the U.S. search and advertising market with a 64.6% market share in August; this down 0.1% from July. Yahoo also dipped from a 20.1% market share to 19.3%.

While comScore reports on Bing’s rising popularity, it still finds that most Google users are still turning to old-faithful. That being said, Bing’s steady rise does present an attractive opportunity to affiliates who might be ready to try their optimization hand with another search engine, which for the time being remains less popular, but perhaps less competitive as well.

Here is what our experts recommend for affiliates that want to experiment with Bing to get more traffic:

1. Experiment with PPC on this engine to test the ‘keyword waters’. How does your keyword performance compare with your current Google campaign or past campaigns you have run?

2. If you own multiple sites you might want to create a site specifically optimized for Bing – remember that this may take some time to determine its success, so be prepared to invest 6-12 months on this project.

3. Set-up your additional affiliate marketing ID’s in your affiliate account to track traffic results and conversions. In Share Results you can create additional site profiles and track performance of specific key words using the ACID ID Tool. Speak to your affiliate manager to learn how you can set this up today!

4. Set-up monitor tools to monitor site performance with your favorite third part analytics account.

Here are some recommendations for merchants wanting to build their business with Bing:

1. Suggestions 1 & 4 that that we made for affiliates above, are equally important for merchants, plus:

2. Make sure your affiliate program is set up to support Bing. Have creatives such as text links featuring products that you think would work well with Bing (for example, your target consumers who would be using Bing), and clear policies about PPC.

By all reports, Bing is doing well—very well. Its user friendly and attractive design and useful way of sifting through information is, if nothing else, turning heads. Who knows if those heads will stay permanently glued to Bing, but the potential is definitely there.

Are you on board with Bing? We want to know!

The Bing search engine was launched by Microsoft in June 2009 and was followed in July by a search tie-up with rival Yahoo .

For a new affiliate, the opportunity to make money from home or working part time can definitely be appealing but there can be a lot of challenges as well.

If you’re looking for some great tips on how to get off on the right foot and succeed in the affiliate marketing industry, check out the following article:

“Many people are looking at affiliate marketing as a source of income now that the world financial situation is so dire. Affiliate marketing is not rocket science, but there are certain guidelines you need to follow….”

Another great way to learn about the industry is by attending conferences such as the Affiliate Summit which provides great opportunities for networking and learning from some of the best experts.

Online coupons are hot these days and people are looking to save money from coupons and deals more than ever.

This trend should be continuing into Q4 of this year. If you are an online retailer and are not presently offering coupons through your affiliate program, you can lose out during this holiday season as consumers are expected to hunt for more bargains and discounts.

Coupon websites are seeing double to triple growth this year which is worth noting as it tells us that there is a huge demand for it. A blog post in GrowFromHere.com brings a good point up about the environment benefits for offering online coupons;

Using the internet to distribute online coupons for some retailers has led to a reduction in catalogue production/distribution, saving both the consumer & the supplier money, not to mention lowering environmental impact by reducing paper waste…

While creating coupon codes, make sure to have codes that are easy to remember, have a clear call to action along with an expiry date.

A successful affiliate needs the right tools and resources to maximize conversions, and create and maintain a successful online presence. Part of this equation also includes staying in-the-know about important industry information, and keeping abreast with current search news, as this provides the affiliate with further opportunity to target additional market segments.

So when Microsoft and Yahoo! reached a deal whereby Microsoft’s Bing search engine will power Yahoo search, it got our attention. As you know, getting ranked in search engines takes time. Whether that transition period takes an affiliate 6 months, 12 months or longer, it can be a definite advantage to start optimizing now, to ensure you get found later.

There is still so much up in the air, like when exactly this will go live, but here’s what we know for sure.

What We Know for Sure
• Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10-year license to Yahoo’s core search technologies.
• Bing will become the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo sites.
• Yahoo will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers.
• Microsoft’s AdCenter platform will fulfill self-serve advertising for both companies, and AdCenter will set prices for all search ads.
• The deal is estimated to be worth an extra $500 million in annual operating income and $200 million in capital expenditure savings to Yahoo.

What Yahoo Says
“This deal will make the difference between a great Yahoo! search experience and an awesome one!” Yahoo CEO, Carol Bartz. In an interview with CNBC, Bartz talks about the aspects of Yahoo’s strategy, and its value to consumers, advertisers and publishers.

What Microsoft Says
“This agreement with Yahoo! will provide the scale we need to deliver even more rapid advances in relevancy and usefulness. Microsoft and Yahoo! know there’s so much more that search could be. This agreement gives us the scale and resources to create the future of search.” Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer.

What this Means for Affiliate Marketing
It’s far too early to draw any conclusions, but we think at the very least that affiliates should start optimizing for both Bing AND Google, and that Bing certainly has the potential of becoming a strong competitor. Especially since Yahoo will be powered by it in the upcoming future.

What We Like About Bing
What is interesting about Bing’s platform is that it focuses on making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition and finding a local business. This kind of platform is great for affiliates, who are often involved in helping consumers make decisions about which products and services they should buy.

And so far the feedback on Bing is pretty positive. It’s still too early to say whether people will make a permanent switch away from Google, but either way, we think the online playing field is changing, and affiliates best optimize now, and Bing later.

What are your thoughts on the Microsoft-Yahoo deal? Will this affect the way you conduct your affiliate marketing?

With our recent affiliate dashboard makeover, we couldn’t let our merchants go without a new dashboard makeover as well.

Here now, are a few of our merchant interface changes in a little more detail.

New Welcome Dashboard: The redesigned merchant interface allows our clients to get more information, with less effort. Merchants can immediately see their KPIs, allowing them to quickly change their marketing campaigns in response. This new interface reduces the number of clicks, and more importantly the time spent searching. So with new graphical reporting, merchants can analyze their program performance from the moment they log into the Share Results system.

Top Performing Affiliates: Displays in descending order the top 10 affiliates earning commissions in the merchant’s program for the current month. Includes quick links to affiliate details such as IDs, username and website URL. Other info in this section includes impressions, clicks, click-through-ratio, registrations, approved transactions, total commissions earned for the current month.

Top Banners: Displays the best performing creative by EPC for the merchant’s affiliate program. Includes thumb nail version of creative where applicable. This includes creative by type such as banner, flash, text link, coupon and widgets.

Period Comparison: Displays a graphical trend of the overall program stats over a specific period. Compares stats by number of transactions, impressions, clicks, number of affiliates generating clicks, amount of revenue share commission generated, amount of CPA commission generated, total program commissions and program EPC (earnings per click).

Reports: Allows merchants to quickly access top-level reports directly from the welcome dashboard. Reports include Quick Summary, Traffic, Earnings, Transactions and showing results month-to-date.

If you are a merchant of Share Results we encourage you to take some time to log into your account and provide us your feedback about the new appearance. Email us at: merchants@shareresults.com

Back to school shopping is a dizzying time for families. There are many expenses a family needs to contend with; we’re talking clothes, shoes, books, laptops and computers. Homework can be almost impossible to do these days without a computer and access to the Internet. These items can be costly, so it’s important to family to not overspend on technology.

If you are an affiliate looking for an opportunity to promote a niche vertical during the back to school season, an excellent choice is software. By helping your customers save big with products offered by Nero, you can use a variety of placements like search, newsletters and coupons to increase your earnings during this period.

With Nero software users can rip, burn and copy with one click. They can easily export and share to their Youtube and MySpace accounts. Users can also stream to their Xbox 360™ and PlayStation® 3 and backup important files. Their software products are used for creating, editing, burning, sharing and enjoying digital media of all types. College and university students can enjoy sharing the fruits of their labor with family and friends back home.

Be sure to take a moment to sign up to the Nero affiliate program and earn up to 20% commission on all Canadian sales. For more info or to join, please visit: http://www.shareresults.com/local_affiliate_desc.php?mid=14602