General Business and Life Archives

Can Small Businesses Keep Afloat in the New Affiliate Marketing?

November 7, 2023 by Tricia

As PMA Executive Director, I LOVE seeing the growth of affiliate marketing. With every passing year we see more merchants giving it a chance and more traditional media finding ways to integrate it. But as a small affiliate, the pond just keeps getting bigger while I stay the same size. I’m happy with my “lifestyle business” and the flexibility that it allows me. At the same time, I can’t help but always wonder how much longer my 17-year-old business can stay competitive.

If you know me, you know I’m the original Pollyanna with rose-colored glasses. Because of that, I want to give you my tips today on how you as a small business can stay afloat in affiliate marketing. Whether you are an OG OPM, a hobby blogger, or any other affiliate marketing small business owner, I’m here to help!

Understand There Is Room for Everyone

From the very start, you need to remember that affiliate marketing is big and getting bigger. There’s room for all of us and many more. There are so many consumers worldwide spending money on so many things! Do you ever eat at your local mom and pop diner? Why didn’t you go to Applebees instead? Because there’s something for everyone all the time and every busines offers something just a little bit different. Focus on how you can be just a little bit different.

Have a Niche Within a Niche

Sunshine Rewards is a cashback site. We’re never going to be *insert big venture capital backed cash back site*. But do you know what those other cashback sites are NOT? They are not DISNEY FREAKS like we are. We look for Disney deals. We post Disney pictures. We pay out in Disney gift cards. (Please, Disney, don’t try to shut us down now…. we’re small potatoes!)

You can be a travel site but also focus specifically on people who don’t like to fly. You can be a craft site only for people who are terrible at crafts. You don’t have to be everything to everyone to be successful. Find your smaller target audience and focus on being everything just to them.

Get Personal with Your Customers

As mentioned above, I’m known for posting pictures of my Disney vacations on my cash back site. And you know what? Those family picture posts get more social media love than anything else I post. My members know me. They’ve watched my kids grow up. I get to know them. I couldn’t get to know a million members like I know the ten thousand at Sunshine.

Be Realistic with Your Goals

It would be ridiculous for me to try to demand the paid placement amounts that big publishers get, so I am not even going to ask. I’m honest with the size of my membership and the traffic that we get. Of course I am always going to stretch to get bigger and better brands for the site, but I also have to be realistic about what they are going to give me in return.

Set realistic goals for your company if you want to actually achieve them. It doesn’t mean not pushing the boundaries but it does mean using all of the available data and resources that you can find to figure out what is actually possible and worth working toward.

Like Attracts Like

If you are a small merchant trying to build up your affiliate program, why not start with small but willing publishers? If you are a small niche publisher, I guarantee there is a small merchant out there desperate for any solid traffic you can send. If you are a small agency, there are BOTH small merchants and small publishers who could use your help.

Not everyone is going to be a big dog. Commerce just doesn’t work that way. Find other businesses in comparable size to yours to see what you can do for EACH OTHER.

Leverage Your Network

This is a HUGE one for me and probably what has kept me in business. I cannot say enough times that affiliate marketing is about relationships. This means your competitors, the people you meet over drinks at conferences, members of associations you are in (yay PMA!), and anyone you can genuinely connect with.

Sometimes you can get away with being a smaller company but still getting attention from bigger companies if you have built up a good relationship with the people there. Quality often balances out quantity. When you have proven to people that you are genuine and earnest and will always do your best in your relationships, they are more likely to give you a leg up when you need it.

I’m sure there is a lot more to say, but this post is already my magnum opus. Oh! One last important thing! I have no idea what a small business actually is. Maybe I’m really talking about “medium businesses.” But you get the gist of this post. The “top” 5-10% of publishers make about 90% of affiliate revenue (or something like that). But that doesn’t mean the other 90-95% of us can’t add value!

Do you have any suggestions to add? Comment away!

Converting from Mailchimp to Aweber

June 22, 2022 by Tricia

(This post contains my Aweber affiliate links, for which I earn a commission)

When I first started in affiliate marketing, I created my mailing lists on Aweber like pretty much every affiliate I knew. I always liked the company itself. However, as I started integrating my lists into my sites more, I ran into some problems with using RSS feeds that they couldn’t fix at the time. So I moved everything to Mailchimp, where things were great for 6 years.

However, over the last 3 years, my Mailchimp monthly fees have gone up 40%. That’s a considerable increase, especially considering I only use 4 of my 5 lists once a month. First there were some annual increases which I could understand because everything was going up. But after repeated increases and now the discontinuation of a 10% discount, it’s time for me to save some money and move back to Aweber. Here’s my process for converting all of my lists.

Create Your Aweber Account

Obviously this step is going to be important because you can’t do anything without your new lists being ready to go! You’ll need to create an Aweber account (you can sign up for free to start off until you start adding lists and likely need to upgrade to Aweber Pro). You’ll be able to create your first list profile of up to 500 subscribers free just to get the lay of the land. After that, you get an unlimited number of lists and monthly email sends when you start with the $19.99 monthly plan. That price drops considerably (as much as 20%) if you pay quarterly or annually.

Create Aweber Campaigns

This is the part that took me the longest. I needed to create all of my different lists in Aweber plus re-create all of my content, which includes drip campaigns and RSS feed integrations.

While I was able to do some of this myself, I did end up taking advantage of Aweber’s free migration service. I set up a few of the basic campaigns myself but then had them move over my automated campaigns. It took a few days but they were constantly in touch with me about the migration and I was then able to see what they did to pattern my other campaigns after them.

I won’t lie…. I messed things up a couple of times by jumping in too quickly before I read exactly what each different type of email campaign did. There are some slight terminology changes from Mailchimp, so just be sure you take a look at their documentation if you choose to move everything yourself. I don’t think I will have any problems going forward now that I am familiar, but there is (as expected) some learning curve.

Turn Off Signups

The next thing you need to do is turn off any type of opt-ins you have on your site so that you can temporarily stop people from signing up to your Mailchimp list. Depending on how many signups you get a day, you may need to do this on the weekend or late at night. Don’t forget embedded forms, pop-ups, integrations with giveaways, comment subscriptions, and any other place that you are currently getting people to sign up for your list.

Move Current Mailchimp Lists to Aweber

While your data collection is temporarily stopped, grab those lists by doing an “Export Audience” to a csv file for each one. The csv file will contain a lot of junk that you don’t need anymore (I have no use for latitude and longitude) so you will need to do a little cleanup. After that, you will need to import each of these lists into Aweber.

Replace Your Signups

Now that you are ready for people to sign up for the new lists, you can put all of your popups and embedded forms and all that back. Aweber has a lot of integration options, so you won’t have a hard time finding even more places to entice people to sign up for your lists than you had before. I’m still working on maximizing these opportunities on all of my sites, but the one that is the most intricate (my daily deal newsletter on Sunshine Rewards, which triggers my members getting SR credits when they sign up for it) worked beautifully.

If you are on my mailing list for this site, you will notice that your emails are now coming through Aweber. If you haven’t signed up yet for my newsletter, why not? You’ll get my 30 Affiliate Marketing Tips in 30 Days series!

Was It Worth It?

So far, so good! I’m saving almost $40 a month and haven’t had any major issues. It was really just the time in switching everything over, which I will easily recoup as time goes on. I’m also investigating their Push Notification options, which might be another whole post in the future.

I’ve been running all of my lists on Aweber exclusively for about three weeks and with the exception of just a little bit of overlap in terms of RSS automated emails, I have been really happy. In fact, they have even let me secretly test a little bit of new functionality that is going to make their campaigns even easier to set up. I love that they reached out to me when they saw my account and knew exactly what I needed before I even knew it. It’s been super easy to communicate with them, which is a HUGE plus when you are a non-tech person dealing with tech!

I’m incredibly happy about my switch to Aweber and hope that you will consider them if you are starting new email campaigns or tired of paying too much for your old ones!

Stayin’ Alive in Affiliate Marketing

April 6, 2022 by Tricia

I wasn’t one of the “original” affiliate marketers, but I have definitely been around long enough now to be considered one of the “old timers.” I already had a legal career when I came to affiliate marketing, and I didn’t expect to find an entirely NEW career in writing about potty training. But parenting posts led to coupons, which led to datafeeds, which led to privacy concerns, which led me back around to legal issues. And here I still am almost 17 years later.

As I was thinking today about all of the changes in our industry over these 2 decades, the song “Stayin’ Alive” kept running through my head because sometimes I feel like that’s what I have been doing all this time. So many businesses have come and gone. Some have just changed to stay relevant. People have moved between companies, started new companies…given up on us altogether sometimes.

How have I managed to stay basically in the same place? What does it take to make it down the stretch in affiliate marketing? I do have some advice.

Network Like Your Life Depends On It

I wouldn’t still be in this industry if it were not for my network. Period. Full stop. Whether it’s affiliate managers who slipped me sweet deals to keep my sites going, consulting contracts when the sites were NOT going, or even advice when I needed it most, my network has been invaluable. And I know it’s not just me. I’ve seen people lose their jobs and pick up new jobs almost overnight because the community looks out for its own.

I don’t mean just connecting with people on LinkedIn or following them on Twitter. I mean making meaningful relationships and building trust. The kind where you can tell someone you need help and they will do everything they can to find it for you.

Be prepared to reach out to help others even when there is nothing in it for you.

Network with your business partners but ALSO with your competitors because things can change on a dime and you never know who you might find yourself sitting next to next.

Keep An Eye on Trends

We all know that technology changes quickly, and affiliate marketing is essentially a combination of sales and technology. You can’t bury your head and pretend like you don’t have to change thousands of links when Google Affiliate Network goes out of business. If you don’t change the links, you don’t make money anymore. (If I wanted to be really old school, I would have said BeFree) You need to stay out ahead of major technological changes if you want to keep making money.

It’s the same with everything in the industry. You don’t have to do everything your competitors are doing, but you do need to KNOW what they are doing and how it can impact your business. Likewise, you need to be watching for overall industry trends like cookie tracking, attribution models, the rise of influencers, Google results changes, etc. One quick example is that it used to be great to rank 3rd in Google search results for a term. Now if you rank 3rd, you may find yourself so far below the fold due to ads and “People Also Ask” that you won’t get any traffic at all. If you were only paying attention to your rankings, you would have no idea why your traffic was dropping so much.

Be Good At What You Know, But Keep Learning

I’m guilty of knowing a little bit about a whole lot of things. I can modify my WordPress templates, but I’m not a programmer. I can run some Google Ads, but I’m not a PPC expert. I can pull links and report across all of the major networks, but I don’t know how to run datafeeds or post back from APIs on my own.

What I DO know is how to run a cash back site. And I DO know an awful lot about FTC Disclosure. That doesn’t mean that I won’t keep learning everything thing I can about those two things or work to learn more about other things. Today I watched a webinar about Toolbars and Browser Extensions. I thought I understood them and when I don’t want to get involved with them. But now I might be thinking differently, which wouldn’t be the case if I hadn’t stayed open to learning. By continuing to learn more about affiliate marketing, you stay open to ways to change your business but also understand what might threaten it. (Mental note….maybe it’s time for a SWOT analysis of Sunshine Rewards….)

If you are still with me, it’s because you either really like me or you have been thinking about some of these things yourself already. Drop me a line. Meet up with me at Affiliate Summit. Ping me in the PMA Member Slack. Maybe we can help each other stay alive in this industry.

And so I’ll leave you with this….

Is It Time for You to Energize Your Affiliate Career?

September 30, 2021 by Tricia

When I started in affiliate marketing 17 years ago, my kids were 2 and 4. I blogged about nap time and trips to the library and how to save money on diapers. I worked on my websites outside of my “real” job hours… on weekends and after the kids went to bed. I was constantly hustling to try to learn the industry and grow my business with new initiatives so I could be a full-time affiliate marketer and spend lots of time with my kids.

Fast forward to now. Last month my nest became empty when my younger daughter went to college. I haven’t launched a new website or initiative in probably 10 years. I’ve grown complacent in updating and launching sites. I haven’t even updated WordPress on most of them in so long that plugins are starting to break.

It’s time for me to remember the hustle that I had 17 years ago and get back to it. At 46, I have plenty of career left ahead of me, and I am never short on new ideas. But I have to really get back in the game. If you are in the same boat as me (or even worried you are heading there), here are some things I have done and will be doing to kick myself back into gear.

Get Back to Education

Even though I’ve been in this business a long time, there is always something new to learn. This week I attended the PMA Virtual Conference and watched about 10 hours of videos and webinars about everything from influencer marketing to how to better use coupons on my site. Some of the videos weren’t even targeted to me and yet I learned a lot from them. Just hearing what is new in the industry gave me ideas on what I should be doing and how I can quickly get my sites back up to speed…and maybe even out ahead again.

I’ll be watching the rest of those conference videos but also doing a better job of attending some of the many webinars that I see agencies and networks putting out. They are often free or lost cost, especially compared to my continuing legal education fees!

Network for Growth

From the start of my business I had been attending Affiliate Summit every single year, twice a year. I was always busy–hitting the booths to find new partnerships and partying the nights away to make new friends. With COVID and the halt in conferences, I stopped growing my network and to some extent even stopped nurturing my current network.

It’s a little harder now without going to conferences, but I do make the most of the PMA for “meeting” new people. And I keep the Affiliate Slackers group open on my computer at all times to toss out things I find and ask questions of others. I don’t know when I will get back to going to conferences, but I am going to do a better job of networking electronically.

Find and Use Data

It’s easy to keep doing the same things over and over again, even if they aren’t working. But sometimes you don’t even realize they aren’t working until you measure them. There is SO much data in our industry–from Google Analytics reports that measure our site traffic to Facebook engagement data that show us how our social media is doing to network clicks and conversions that show us how much money we are making.

Sometimes we need to step back and see if what we are doing is actually benefiting us. Is anyone clicking through our Twitter links? Is anyone reading the emails we spend so much time writing? Use the data that is available to you and be honest about whether you are doing something because it is easy or because it is profitable.

Be Okay with Quitting

Revamping your business isn’t just about starting new things. It can also be about ending old things. It’s okay if you have a website that hasn’t performed in years and you decide not to renew the domain name. If you are doing contract work that you don’t like and it is holding you back from spending time doing what you DO like, maybe it’s time to let it go.

Once upon a time, I had to make the leap from a terrific full-time work-at-home job with benefits and pension to focus full-time on my affiliate career. It was scary to quit, but it was what I needed to give me the bandwidth (and motivation) to truly move forward. It might be time to sell a part (or all) of your business. Or just give up on a project that never became what you hoped it would be. Quitting doesn’t mean moving backward.

Create Accountability

Sometimes when you work for yourself, you have to put something out into the world in some way to hold yourself accountable. Whether that’s a Mastermind group or a business partner or….. a blog post announcing things to everyone you know. Let people know where you are on your journey and ask them to check back in with you every once in awhile to see how things are going (hint, hint).

Are any of you in a life change or a COVID dip or just an overall slump? What are you doing to move forward from it?

The Value of the FrieNDA

February 9, 2021 by Tricia Meyer

If you’ve been in business for any amount of time, you likely know that an NDA is a Non-Disclosure Agreement. These are generally legally binding documents that both parties sign to be able to share information without the fear of that information being spread to outside parties.

But have you ever heard of a FrieNDA?

FrieNDAs are used a lot by my circle in affiliate marketing. As a lawyer, I am compelled to tell you that they are not usually binding. But that doesn’t mean that they do not serve a purpose and shouldn’t be used.

A FrieNDA is invoked when you want to have a serious conversation with someone about issues that pertain to your business and your expectation is that the other person does not share them. It is more than a casual conversation. You may need advice or help. Or you may just have really big news that can’t be shared yet but you have to share it with someone.

When I had my Mastermind Group with Eric and Todd (that eventually turned into Wine Club Group), we had a blanket FrieNDA that everything we discussed about our businesses in our weekly calls was not to be shared. This allowed us to openly share data, strategies, and even struggles without fear that the others in the group would spread that information.

Conversely, I will often have one-off conversations with friends that start with “this is FrieNDA information” or “I need this to be covered by our FrieNDA.” We both acknowledge that and understand that whatever is said can’t be shared with anyone–even our mutual friends–no matter what. It’s more than a promise. It’s an understanding that the information being shared with you is so sensitive to the other person’s business that spreading it could damage them.

Now, we do sometimes jokingly bring up the FrieNDA after some cocktails and karaoke as a reminder that photos and video should be kept private. But the true value of the FrieNDA is when you can trust someone and value their opinion enough to share with them and know that your business is safe.