Whilst you must carefully consider what you can afford to pay, there are a number of other instrumental factors to consider.

• What is the competition paying?  If you can beat it, do so. If not, think about how you can add value in other ways. For example, some affiliates place greater value on being paid quickly, rather than be paid more and having to wait
• What is the lifetime value of the customer? You might just pay the affiliate a percentage of the customer’s first order, but considering how much that customer is worth to you over a lifetime will justify a more competitive rate of commission

Should all affiliates benefit from the same rate? Remember that your commission structure needn’t be flat. If you’d like to incentivise a select few affiliates, you can set them targets and adjust their rates accordingly

Video content provides a unique opportunity for product demonstration; a subtle sales pitch. Affiliates can embed their links into the merchant’s video, display the clip on their site and even publish copy to complement the video’s message.

Consumers who click through from the video already have a vested interest in your brand, and a sound understanding of the product offering, therefore the conversion rate from those who have clicked through from video content tends to be considerably higher than clicks from banners and text links.

Video content ultimately generates sales for the merchant and commission for the affiliate. Everyone’s a winner!

These sites give 100% of their commission back to the consumer in the form of cashback or points, and whilst we have traditionally offered increased commission in exchange for more exposure, the affiliate channel has now evolved to the extent that tenancy fees are justified by the quality of the advertising we receive and the targeting opportunities available.

Furthermore, the media channel will generally “claim” sales on a post-impression basis. Whilst the affiliate channel doesn’t generally operate in this way, it could be argued that affiliate banners actually contribute to far more sales than they’ve historically been given credit for.

The latest development on this comes in the form of Google not only trailing PPC ads for this service, but in the position 1 spot. As expected, advertisers in this vertical are making some noise about this- competing against Google for a spot in the paid search listings could force up keyword prices (a win-win situation for Google in any case). Whilst still appearing in select geographies only in the US, it’s definitely one to watch.

Building on the foundations laid by cross-channel attribution, Google is predicting further blurring of the lines between online channels and indeed between online and offline channels. Bringing together each individual user conversion and mere interaction to generate a more comprehensive view of customers.

All part of the move to integrate social signals into search and online marketing, it is expected that switched-on brands will be working hard in 2012 to gain a deeper understanding of purchase/lead/conversion motivators and feeding this back into their strategy.

In a previous post we’ve expressed our reticence to pursue such a strategy and professional experience in more competitive markets have served to reinforce this. A few words to the wise on this:

Find out:

• What effect do the positions have for each keyword?
• What’s our PPC position strategy relative to the Organic listings?
• How do the users in each marketplace behave?

And more importantly:

• Set a maximum bid!

Many observers of the SEO industry had expected the further penetration of the Google+ network to happen at some point in 2012. However, for it to happen in the second week of the year came as a bit of a surprise. This is what transpired with the launch of ‘Google Search, plus Your World’ on January 10th.

Search, plus Your World introduces enhancements to your personalised search results (if you’re signed into Google).  Now, if you’re signed in you’ll see listings from a number of sources within your private network of connections including:

• Listings from the web
• Listings from the web, influenced by of your personal behaviour
• Listings from the web, influenced by your social connections
• Public Google+ posts, photos or Google Picasa photos (all of which are also listings from the web)
• Private or “Limited” Google+ posts, photos or Google Picasa photos shared with you

These personalised results are indicated with a blue figure to the left of the search listing:

There are a few rather notable absentees from these sources; namely Facebook, Twitter and Flickr and in fact visits from any social network that isn’t related to Google won’t appear, which has sparked more anti-trust controversy. Will they be able to hold off from providing Google with access to at least a portion of their data for much longer?

Whilst these personalisation enhancements are interesting in themselves, it is the further push of Google+ results into the main Google serps (search engine results pages) that has pricked the ears of many in the SEO field.

For example, when searching the name of a person or a company, Google will now suggest their Google+ page as a result within the search toolbar.

Another change is suggested Google+ profile pages. Although these search queries are limited at the moment, there are signs as to where Google is going with its Google+ network. If you search for ‘SEO’ the results return the listings for some well known SEO experts Google+ pages – the key point here is that you don’t need to be signed in to trigger these results:

Will Google push further with these results appearing in more and more queries in the future? We would guess that it was highly likely. Indeed, the advent of Search, plus Your World and the continued penetration of Google+ results into the serps should make businesses and brands seriously consider how they’re going to manage their presence on Google+.

From these indications this is unlikely to be the last aggressive move that we see from Google as it continues to integrate its social network further into its search results.