Zoobooks has become quite the popular kids education affiliate program in Share Results. This is not only because of their coupon offers, and dual CPA and rev share commission models. But they are also right up there with The CuteKid.com and Sittercity, as programs that are perfect for affiliates that specialize in online retail offers for families. That being said, there’s more to a merchant like Zoobooks than first glance. Their audience is a little more comprehensive than most affiliates think. For instance, ever take into consideration the language of those customers, the education, the number of children they have, and what age their kids are? This family audience is not a one-size-fits-all type of demographic. Let’s break down the family audience a little more for a merchant like Zoobooks.

Firstly, families interested in Zoobooks are interested in promoting reading in their homes. With this in mind, it may be a good idea to look at offering their educational products to a more multilingual audience. Perhaps it’s not a bad idea to promote to families that don’t speak English as their first language and may want to help their kids further their knowledge of the English language.

In addition to language enhancement, more than 50% of customers for this product have homes run by college-educated parents. Most of those purchasing products are female and to be more specific, they range between 35 and 50 years of age. It also shouldn’t be surprising that grandmothers make for great potential customers of Zoobooks products. They’re as much invested in the education of their grandchildren as the parents are.

The range of products available from this online retailer include animal-themed magazine subscriptions, as well as DVD sets. The reason for this (besides branding) is the fact that families will have an average of 1.5 children with most averaging around 7 years old. The Zootles group (parents with kids two to 6 years) is also a popular audience.

Also, the average Zoobooks customer not only has college education, but they also have a higher income bracket. Besides 95% of Zoobooks customers owning their own home, they also earn on average $65,000 or more annually. This is a great shopping opportunity for affiliates that cater to this audience of online users.

Furthermore, paid search (with restrictions) is a highly popular method of promotion in this program as is email marketing. Evaluate how to carefully tailor your campaigns, especially when it comes to keywords for PPC. Bidding on keywords like “zoo animals” will be costly, so try using more distinct words or variations, such as “zoo” in tandem with other terms. Some examples are “zoo magazine”, “zoölogy”, “zoo hippos”, “zoo animal education”, “animal education for kids”, and “zoo monkeys”.

Because Zoobooks has a wide variety of products and subscriptions, it presents a unique opportunity for affiliates to cater to a niche market looking for unique educational products for their kids age two to 12. If you would like to learn more about Zoobooks or their affiliate program, feel free to view more details via their merchant co-branded page.

At the end of this past October, eLearners brought a final close to one of their most popular education campaigns yet. The Career Stimulus Package was one of a few exclusive offers within their affiliate program in Share Results and was a huge hit with affiliates actively promoting since its introduction this past summer. Over the last several months we’ve made mention of CSP via our blog, mailers and newsletters to Share Results affiliates.

Just in case you missed all the news, the initiative was all about giving women and men in the US the chance to  boost their careers and overall lifestyle. Participants gained access to online college opportunities to further their education, which was wonderful for those who may have only achieved a high school diploma. The campaign also aimed to assist prospective online students the chance to benefit from financial aid opportunities with a number of reputable online colleges. Furthermore, companies like ELance, Orbitek, spud!, and Entrepreneur Media Inc. were part of a list of companies offering paid internships.

While CSP is no longer available, remember that eLearners is still offering other great edu opportunities through their portals like Criminal Justice and Entertainment Industry Degrees. They are also running their very popular Project Working Mom… And Dads, Too! A monthly campaign perfect for moms and dads who are working and need some financial help to go back to school through an online college.

In the meantime, please check out some video footage from the CSP campaign. It’s a great example of how Americans were impacted by this project.

To learn more about eLearners, feel free to check out their merchant page by clicking here.

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.

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.

Affiliates in the education sector are constantly looking for a unique offers to promote to their prospective learners and students and with good reason. It’s the back to school season and there are plenty of people looking for ways to improve their way of life. Since this area has been gaining even more interest from affiliates, here are some merchants in this field that are offering niche opportunities.

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eLearners is one of the largest aggregators of online education leads in the industry and as such, is also one of the most popular programs among affiliates during the back-to-school season. Typically, August and September are peak seasons for eLearners, as are January and February. But one of the reasons why affiliates like eLearners is due to the variety of edu and financial aid opportunities, and marketing tools available for promotion all conveniently supplied under one program.

For instance, eLearners affiliates get the advantage of promoting with widgets that link directly to school pages based on a prospective student’s choices from the drop down menus. This is a major factor for appeasing students who want direct access to a school that will offer a course or program in their career of interest. Banners and text links are highly popular, as are the co-branded creative by profession, which appeal to prospective students who want to pursue careers in nursing or criminal justice, just to name a few. The more targeted, the better. Even affiliates in the Christian education area have been given a boost – recently, the Christian edu tools have been upgraded and have a fresher look to help appeal even more to students who want a faith-based education.

Signing up to this edu affiliate program simply requires that affiliates show samples of their education site(s) being operated. Affiliates also can offer details about how they intend to promote and what tools are needed to help them attract the attention of prospective students. This type of transparency helps expedite entry into the program, as does emailing eLearners@shareresults.com with any inquiries about promoting in this program.

Education is a potentially lucrative vertical during times of economic slowdown. As consumers face lay-offs, they start considering other career options and looking into furthering their education.

We recently had the chance to ask Gen Tanabe of SuperCollege.com about how the company is using social media and where they see affiliate marketing headed in the near future. A portal that helps consumers get into and pay for college, SuperCollege.com offers college and scholarship search functions, forums, and a variety of expert pieces that college applicants can use to find a college that’s right for them and the resources to finance their higher education.

In another installment of this interview on the 5 Star Affiliate Programs Blog, Gen discusses how community, content, and affiliate reporting and management are behind the success of SuperCollege.com.

Share Results: What verticals do you focus on?
SuperCollege: We are exclusively focused on higher education including graduate and adult student learning.

SR: What do you think about the growth of the affiliate industry in the coming years?
SC: We like the pay for performance model. As a mid size website, we don’t generate 100 million pages views a month, and with declining CPMs, we have found that display advertising is making up less and less of our overall revenue. Affiliate revenue, on the other hand, is growing and when the offers are targeted, we see it easily outperforming display ads.

SR: Do you use Social Media for driving traffic? If so, which channels do you use and how do you use them? To build community? Retain customers? Acquire new customers?
SC: We do use both Facebook and Twitter as part of our social media strategy. To some degree this has come at the expense of our blogs which we no longer update as often. We find that we are getting more response to short messages sent out through real time channels than posting a blog entry.

SR: What are some of the trends that you see emerging in affiliate marketing in the coming years?
SC: Our hope is that more advertisers join programs like ShareResults. It’s nice to be able to work with a small number of affiliate networks and choose the best offers for your users. We often test new offers and having them all within the same network makes this type of testing extremely easy.

So we hope the future brings more automation to the process of optimizing offers. It would be great to get away from individual tracking links and just place a single piece of code on all pages that can be controlled from a dashboard. Right now affiliate advertising is still time intensive and optimization usually requires a person crunching some numbers. We love to offload this process of the affiliate network!

On the heels of the highly successful Project Working Moms… And Dads, Too! campaign, eLearners is now offering affiliates the chance to promote a really great offer, which just kicked off the month of May. There’s no appearance on Tyra’s talk show in store for prospective students.   However, there is a wonderful chance for working moms to pursue an accredited certificate or degree online, while they continue to work full or part-time.

DegreesForWorkingMoms.com is perfect for any mom who is thinking about pursuing their education through on online program via a reputable academic institution. Affiliates who publish educational content or have sites geared toward working moms, will find success with this offer. Banners are available in a variety of sizes (125 x 125, 300 x 250, 120 x 600, 728 x 90 and more). In addition to niche creative and a landing page, email marketers may also be considered to promote this offer.

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Project Working Mom… And Dads, Too! was given some fantastic TV coverage yesterday on the highly popular Tyra Banks Show. For some time now, the eLearners powered scholarship contest has been buzzing about online. Yesterday, a few select recipients not only received news that they won scholarships, but they also got a chance to meet the supermodel herself! To see video footage of the show, please refer to PWM on Facebook.

If you’re an affiliate that promotes education to your visitors, there is actually still 1 week left to promote this scholarship contest, which offers working mothers and fathers a chance to get an accredited online degree without the debt. This contest will close after April 30, 2009. And, while it may seem like this is a temporary campaign to promote, remember that eLearners is in the business of helping you help prospective students all-year round.

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There’s been a lot of interest lately about education-related affiliate programs, how much they pay, etc. However, there’s more to promoting for an education-focused merchant than just dollars and cents. In the end, it’s about the quality of traffic sent and how many of those potential students referred actually pursue their academic endeavours.

Last month, Statesman.com published an insightful article about the increase in the number of people pursuing online degrees:

Demetria Barksdale tried unsuccessfully to earn a bachelor’s degree at three different colleges while she was in the Navy. It was ironic because she enlisted 22 years ago mainly to finish her education, she said…

Online offerings have been popular with military personnel and rural residents seeking access to higher education. Students like Barksdale say flexibility and lower costs have prompted them to take classes remotely even when traditional campus-based programs are nearby and particularly as the economy has worsened.

Read More…