How to Measure the Value of Your Article Marketing Campaign

How to Measure the Value of Your Article Marketing Campaign
By Garrett French

It's not enough to scatter your articles across the internet - you've got to measure what you're doing so you can be sure that you're getting value from your effort.

Here are some of my preliminary thoughts on what's measurable in regards to article marketing, (and what you measure should depend on your predefined article marketing goals, but you knew that already):

Number of new of links to your site

This is a big one of course, and just about the easiest to measure with a simple "link:" search in the major engines.

Since I submitted "Build Links and Your Brand: Article Marketing Delivers" to 8 directories on January 26th Google has logged 24 instances of my article (I did have a little help from search engine expert Andy Beal's mention in his blog), MSN search shows 59 instances and Yahoo has me down for 10.

Now, all those mentions aren't links... just instances of my article title.

Google currently shows no links to my main blog site. Yahoo and MSN both show 14 to http://articlemarketing.blogspot.com.

I'm also currently ranked 3rd in Yahoo for the term article marketing - woo hoo! Not bad for only 3 days. We'll see how long I stay there - things may change dramatically after an update. I'm currently nowhere to be found in MSN. Ditto for Google, except the post from Andy's blog about my article marketing blog that puts me at 4th for "article marketing."

To give some idea of scale, here are the number of millions of results for article marketing per engine: 12 million in Yahoo; 17 million in MSN; 27 million in Google. I don't think Article Marketing is a phrase that currently generates much competition.

Article submission sites like EzineArticles get the freshbot treatment because of their regularly updated content and I think that speeds indexing.

Article submitted 1-26-05, searches conducted 1-29-05.

Number of readers/impressions

To borrow a bit from the world of online advertising you can measure impressions, that is, the estimated number of readers/site visitors who had the opportunity to at least read your article title and, let's hope, associate it with your business name.

To get an idea of how many impressions your article may have gotten talk with those who republish your article. If you submit to EzineArticles you can see how many writers and editors have viewed your article's page.

It's great to have your impressions high, but it's better to have them targeted to your audience (and by audience I mean customers... here are my thoughts on client as audience). The more care you give your content creation process the more your content will appeal to your target audience.

Which brings us to...

Placement in previously identified key industry media

If at the beginning of your article marketing campaign you identify key industry publications you'd like to be published in... and you get published or don't get published, that's something you can measure.

This is more of a branding initiative than a linking initiative, though it can certainly generate at least one solid link. And once your article's been published and your editor says "go" you can submit it to your article submission directories of choice. And then measure links.

Lead generation through reader inquiries

This is a fun one. There are specific industries and products that are likely to sell well through article marketing... namely information products. If your primary goal for article marketing is sales though you should construct your article campaign in a particular way. Many of the same rules still apply, but the strategy needs to be a little different. Let me know if you have questions about creating sales generating articles. And you still have to follow responsible article writing guidelines.

Email addresses gathered for newsletter signup/downloads/free service

Yeah you're being published in someone else's email newsletter but that doesn't mean you can't try to drive signups to your own newsletter! We had this happen when I worked at WebProNews, where we published all free content. One author's article marketing strategy focused on driving subscribers to her newsletter. I think, but I'm not sure, that it was Dianna Huff [http://www.dhcommunications.com/resources.htm], who specializes in B2B article marketing. As an aside, be sure to check out her site.

Pageviews to info pages on your site

If you link out of your article to more info pages on your site you can measure for an increase in traffic on those pages. Have some kind of call to action on these pages though. Don't just boost page views for the sake of having higher page views. Get them to do something on that page, such as give you an email address or visit your products or services page.

Requests from editors for articles

If it's your goal to have more involvement with your target market then be sure to accept all requests from editors for new articles. In fact, cultivate any relationship with an editor you can. This is one fantastic way of staying in front of your target audience and getting new ideas for articles.

How can you increase this likelihood? Contact editors from publications within your target market. In addition, include a mention in your author bio that you'd like to work with editors to help them have happier, more engaged readers.

Audience involvement/questions

This is another fun one, and something I tried to promote during my time at WPN. The level of reader feedback I received led to my creation of the "Ask the Expert" section [http://www.webpronews.com/ebusiness/asktheexperts/ebusiness_ask_the_experts.html] of WPN (now untended) as well as my proposal for the WebProWorld forums, now with over 50,000 members. (To be fair iEntry had rolled out forums before - they were just scattered across all our publications rather than targeted on the flagship. WebProWorld was definitely a home run.)

So if you'd like to establish more of a relationship with the online audience in your publications contact their editor and see if you can field audience questions.

What else is measurable?

Those are a few of my thoughts for article marketing measurables. Did I miss any? Let me know your measurable ideas and if I use them in an upcoming article I'll throw you a link with your link text of choice.

Want to build links to your site and enhance your brand? Send article marketing questions to GFrench@gmail.com for free article marketing brainstorm, including article topic suggestions and key industry media identification. Garrett French is a search engine marketing [http://www.keywordranking.com/] copy writer for Websourced and conducts branding and link building research on his article marketing blog. If you wish to publish this article, please retain all links.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Garrett_French
http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Measure-the-Value-of-Your-Article-Marketing-Campaign&id=12204

Affiliate Marketing - How Many Campaigns Is Enough?

Affiliate Marketing - How Many Campaigns Is Enough?
By Scott C Baxter

In many aspects of life more is better, but in the eyes of many successful affiliate marketers, more is not always better. When trying to determine how many campaigns one should have in order to meet success, it is quite difficult to come up with one specific answer. Not enough may be detrimental if something goes astray in the particular niche that you are presently in and having too many may be too difficult to devote the necessary time to make each and every endeavor successful.

This has always been a question that many affiliate marketers have tried to answer, and to be truthful, there is no correct answer that is inclusive to everyone or every situation. The answer has to come from trial and error as it is also person specific as the methods for success are not global to all affiliate marketers.

Some marketers have found out that having only a couple of campaigns at once have put them at risk of losing it all when they all take a turn for the worse. At some point, this may be unrecoverable if the amount of money invested is a totality of what is available. On the other hand, some have noticed that by having too many campaigns at once puts them at risk because they are unable to devote enough time to each and every site/niche. This puts them at risk because eventually they are left behind in an industry that is currently seeking an expansive amount of growth.

Through the trials and tribulations of creating campaigns, adding campaigns, and maximizing what you already have on the market, you can in time determine how many campaigns is enough for you to be successful. Within this industry, one has to expect and understand that there will be many ups and downs along the way, but perseverance and determination is the key. You have to be willing to accept that things will not always go as planned, and more importantly, that time changes everything. At one point in time, one niche may be high in demand, but two years later a new a new and improved product comes out making the old one obsolete.

If you are new to affiliate marketing and have yet been able to experience what I am talking about, there is something that you must comprehend; with every success story that you can create there are likely to be 10 stories of failure that are also created. What I mean by this is the fact is that not every campaign, niche, or marketing attempt is going to yield positive results, and more likely, not the results that you were hoping for. Otherwise, despite what you have heard, success does not come over night, but instead it comes over time by enacting many of the positive aspects that you have learned over time pertaining to internet marketing.

My best advice to you is simple; take the slow approach at first until you are able to fully comprehend and master the campaigns that you have. When you have done this, continually expand until you get to a point where you are either overwhelmed or the market in your area is no longer. There is no way to predict this industry; if there was, everyone who enters would be reaping the success that they are hopeful of achieving.

Over the years, I have learned much about affiliate marketing and what it takes to be successful in this dynamic business. All Affiliate News is an all-inclusive website for all your affiliate marketing news, insights, strategies, products, and advertising capabilities on the web. Visit this comprehensive and high profile website at http://allaffiliatenews.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Scott_C_Baxter
http://EzineArticles.com/?Affiliate-Marketing---How-Many-Campaigns-Is-Enough?&id=7457101

A Brief Encounter With Affiliate Marketing

A Brief Encounter With Affiliate Marketing
By Steve Forrester

Affiliate Marketing In A Nutshell

As you pursue research in an effort to understand search engine optimization and Internet business more fully, one thing you may be left wondering is whether it is actually possible to make money online, or whether (as many people assume!) every "make money online" approach is nothing more than a scam.

The simple answer is as follows:

There are certainly "make money online" approaches that are nothing more than scams, but there are also plenty of legitimate - and lucrative - ways to make money online!

And outside of setting up a website that is specifically designed to promote your business, the best way to set up a website - and make it generate money for you - is to become an affiliate.

Affiliate marketing entails using your website to promote products from external websites - from whom you receive a percentage of the sale, each time a sale is made as a result of your website.

The best way to completely understand affiliate marketing is to look at an example:

One of the most popular affiliate websites is Amazon (its popularity as an affiliate site being due largely to the fact that it is such a popular site in general!). When you set up an affiliate account with Amazon, you can use your website to detail certain products, and as you detail a particular product, you can also link to it (using an affiliate link) directly. If anyone who visits your site clicks on this link and subsequently buys anything at all on Amazon, you will make 4% of whatever the person pays. This affiliate payout quickly escalates to 6%, and you will generate this money at all times of the day - regardless of whether you are at your computer or not - just by virtue of providing the link and sending people to Amazon through your site!

While Amazon is on the low end of payout percentage, it is also a website people recognize - and probably already have a buyer account on - which will make it likelier that they will pull the trigger on a purchase. However, there are websites on which you can make as much as 10% or 15% of each sale you create - and all you have to do is link to their products on your page!

Of course, there is more to making money as an affiliate than simply setting up a page and waiting for people to click on your links. After all, you need to get people to your page in the first place - which will require a thorough understanding of search engine optimization. But once you have a handful of affiliate accounts set up and an understanding of search engine optimization in hand, you will be ready to start building your website - and effortlessly making money on the Internet!

Steve Forrester
"This free site will help you profit fast. This automated system was designed for marketing ""newbie's"" but yet it's so powerful that even the pros are using it."
http://www.sisoptin.t15.org/

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Affiliate Marketing - What Is Payment Threshold?

Affiliate Marketing - What Is Payment Threshold?
By Laura Wolf

Before signing up for an affiliate network, the marketer needs to be aware of the payment terms and the different conditions set by the company. That said; it is not only the payment threshold that matters; the method and schedule of the payouts is just as important. When you are doing affiliate marketing as a full time job, you need to ensure the liquidity of your business in order to be able to pay the bills on time. Nobody wants to wait months to the payout date, therefore, before you choose an affiliate marketing network you need to check this. A payment threshold is an amount set for minimum payout.

Minimum Payment Threshold of Affiliate Marketing Companies

Most companies set a threshold of 50 dollars. This is usual when you are signing up, however, if you are able to reach this in a day or a week, you might be able to ask for better conditions or payouts more often. Until then, you just need to work on reaching the goal. Some affiliate networks and CPA companies allow you to set your own threshold. The more confident you are that you can successfully promote campaigns the higher you set it up. This is extremely important if the network charges you for withdrawal or you pay a transaction fee to your payment provider/bank.

Set Your Payment Threshold

You will need to consider setting the payment threshold that is easy to reach. If you are new to affiliate marketing, choose the lowest possible amount. However, if you are already successful at a campaign, you can increase this and withdraw a larger amount every month, making it easier to do your accounts. It is worth changing the payment settings every couple of months to make sure that they are still applicable to your business.

Payout Dates

Setting a payment threshold does not mean that you will receive the same amount every month. Check how many times a month the affiliate network sends commissions and whether they hold the money for 30 or 60 days. Most CPA companies apply a Net 30 or Net 15 payment frequency, depending on how you meet certain requirements. This means after the end of the month you will need to wait for the money to be released, due to different checks and refund issues.

Give the Campaigns a Push Before the Network Closes the Month

If you know the closing date for the accounting in the affiliate network, you will know when you need to meet the payment threshold by. You need to keep checking your account on a regular basis, and if you have not met the minimum payout level by the 3rd week of the month, you have to give your campaigns a big push if you would like to receive your commissions.

Laura F Wolf is an experienced internet marketer with a passion for teaching. She loves sharing her experiences and affiliate marketing tactics

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Laura_Wolf
http://EzineArticles.com/?Affiliate-Marketing---What-Is-Payment-Threshold?&id=7458022