{"id":89,"date":"2009-02-17T09:17:20","date_gmt":"2009-02-17T14:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tim.mcguinn.es\/s\/?p=89"},"modified":"2015-07-23T01:20:06","modified_gmt":"2015-07-23T01:20:06","slug":"affiliate-marketing-without-a-net","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tim.mcguinn.es\/s\/?p=89","title":{"rendered":"Affiliate Marketing – Without a Net"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Install.

Install. Forget.<\/p><\/div><\/em>A few weeks ago I wrote about converting<\/a> SoccerClub.com<\/a> to a social network from its original Web 1.0 format and the subsequent revenue drop. The story at the time was that the Google Adsense links took a serious click-thru hit in the new format, even though page views were way up. This confirms the issues that face big-league social networks like Facebook and Myspace, but now it was affecting my “Tortured-NY-Sports-Fan” ticket account. I mean I have a late season collapse by the Rangers coming up in April to attend.<\/p>\n

A man has to eat, so I decided to jump into the world of affiliate marketing. The steps were easy to outline:
\n1) Sign up for affiliate networks — The key was to find networks that offer soccer-related ads. I signed up for a couple of the leading services, Linkshare and Commission Junction, because they represent many of the big box sports stores and some specialty shops, like Soccer.com and SoccerGarage.com. I also signed up for a smaller service called Shareasale.com who represents SoccerPost.com.
\n2) Upgrade Ad Server — Sounds like a scary high-tech nightmare. It was. I installed the Open Ads software 3 years ago to serve banners on the original site, but I had NO IDEA how it was working. It just did. I had a message in my inbox that suggested I upgrade to the new Open X version, so I figured — why not give it a try and ruin everything. I couldn’t even remember how to do a back-up, so I was working without a net. Well I did it, and it works!! Cue the engineer dance music.
\n3) Find the banners — This was like crawling through a dark room to find a flashlight, only to learn that you then had to find new batteries. After pulling the HTML code for the banners, I had to figure out how to set up a test page so I could see how to set the display banners. Once again, it worked*. Amazing. So I loaded up the new banners and they are appearing now.<\/p>\n

* The asterisk — Technically the banners are displaying, so it “works.” Unfortunately, no one is buying, so it’s not working too well. So there have been extra late-night meetings over pizza between the engineering director and the business manager. However, it’s only been two weeks, so I have continued to expand the banner coverage and monitor the reports to see what works. I have stayed true to the sports \/ soccer relevancy for the most part. I’ll admit that I slipped in a Match.com link to see how it performs. Ya gotta do, what ya gotta do to pay for those pizzas. <\/p>\n

More updates after I let this run for a full month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the Google Adsense revenue tanked on the new SoccerClub.com<\/a> it was time for a new plan — Affilate Marketing. There was just one hurdle; how did my adserver software work?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,15,87,133],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tim.mcguinn.es\/s\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tim.mcguinn.es\/s\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tim.mcguinn.es\/s\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tim.mcguinn.es\/s\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tim.mcguinn.es\/s\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/tim.mcguinn.es\/s\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":814,"href":"http:\/\/tim.mcguinn.es\/s\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions\/814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tim.mcguinn.es\/s\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tim.mcguinn.es\/s\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tim.mcguinn.es\/s\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}