[stroudtx]

There were over 187,000 searches for baby gifts according to Overture in the month of Oct. As in our first year of business we are starting to grab some of that business.

We also sell high end furniture, diaper bags, and designer children's clothing. With over 1000 products, we have something for everyone with little ones.

Dimples and Dandelions (http://www.dimplesanddandelions.com)

We now are offering an affiliate program to family friendly sites. There is no special code required and we provide both clicks and commission data online. We pay 10% on every order that comes from your site and we write a 30 day cookie so follow up orders pay as well.

Our shoping cart design won the grand prize from Webassist's "pimp my cart" contest so most of our customers checkout on our site vs. calling. We do not offer a catalog. In addition, our site uses real time XML integration with FedEx for shipping costs. With a Versign SSL and Autorize.net we process secure payments online. Soon we will offer PayPal as well.

Signing up for the program is easy. Once approved, all you'll need to do is link back to our site or use one of our professionally designed banners.

To sign up, click here (http://www.dimplesanddandelions.com/affiliate_program.asp)

Michael Stroud
Dimples and Dandelions Children's Boutique
214-245-4456
1009 Llano Trace
Irving, TX 75063

[Susan]

Hey Michael,

Give me a shout (contact info below). You may want to consider working with our network as well...

Cheers,

[SSanf]

all you'll need to do is link back to our site or use one of our professionally designed banners.LOL!! Man, oh man. You're killing me!

Not to make fun but we've got another newbie AM who does not think we actually DO anything to earn our commissions!

I STRONGLY advise that they hire a professional affiliate manager at once because if they really think that they don't understand the business at all.

However, best of luck to the program. I hope you stick around ABW where you can learn how to make it all happen.

Fortunes have been made by good programs that have come here.

[SSanf]

What's a "family friendly site"?

Would you have any problem what-so-ever being on sites that cater to the Pagan population and witches? Pagans and witches have babies. We even have Wiccaning ceremonies which are similar to Christenings.

This could be a pretty dress for a Wiccaning. http://www.dimplesanddandelions.com/product_detail.asp?Product_ID=1450
especially if the child had a leopard animal totem.

[stroudtx]

LOL!! Man, oh man. You're killing me!

Not to make fun but we've got another newbie AM who does not think we actually DO anything to earn our commissions!.

I'm not sure what this means?

Mike

[stroudtx]

What's a "family friendly site"?

A family friendly site is intended to mean something voild of violence, porn, etc.

Mike

[Susan]

Mike,

Just so you're on the same page, this forum is filled with affiliates that know this business inside and out. Your post, well the tone of your post implied that the affiliates here may not know anything about affiliate marketing....

My recommendation is you do some reading to try and understand the community a bit better. I think you'll have an idea of who your audience is here after that. Your future posts may be better received as a result.

;-) Cheers,

[SSanf]

Mike, when we sell for a merchant, many, many hours of w*rk and a good bit of money may be invested in promoting that merchant.

We may buy domains and develop whole sites just to promote that merchant. We may purchase advertising to promote that merchant. We w*rk for hours on end with data feeds to incorporate a merchant's products into existing sites. Some spend many hours writing pre-sell advertising copy. We test and adjust our sites trying to get the merchant's products to beat out similar merchants in search engine results. We present the products in new ways to new markets, for example promoting that dress as a "Wiccaning" dress. We make this investment of time and money on the speculation that our efforts will generate a profit for us.

WE DO NOT just slap up a link or a banner somewhere!

In exchange, we expect fair and honest treatment and timely payment. We expect an advertiser to have a clean site with no leaks and that they will have no dealings with parasitic applications. Also, we need tools to work with such as good well catagorised data feeds and so forth.

You have arrived at the forum where many people do this full time and it is their only source of income. Good luck with your program!

[Trust]

Ssanf, relax. Of course there's more to it. Don't think they were implying anything else, more to the ease of joining the program.

[phillyburbs]

WE DO NOT just slap up a link or a banner somewhere!

You mean there's more to it than that? Shoot!

[SSanf]

I can only go by what he said, "all you'll need to do is link back" which sure did indicate a lack of understanding, to me.

But, Yes, I sure guess, I got that all off my chest. So many DO think that is all we do and treat us like we don't DESERVE to be paid our itty bitty commissions because, after all, all we do is put up a link or a banner (which mysteriously makes LOTS of sales). Some even justify shaving our sales to themselves because they feel we didn't EARN the money.

I should give the poor guy a break. He didn't mean anything by it. I will relax, now.

[Trust]

I'll be signing up, program looks good. 1000 products, 10%, 30 day cookie etc.

Michael i was reading:
http://www.dimplesanddandelions.com/about_us.asp

and noticed you had the same last name. Husband?

[stroudtx]

I'll be signing up, program looks good. 1000 products, 10%, 30 day cookie etc.

Michael i was reading:
http://www.dimplesanddandelions.com/about_us.asp

and noticed you had the same last name. Husband?

Yep - Wife's idea to start, mine to build site, run business, and finance it.

Mike

[stroudtx]

In exchange, we expect fair and honest treatment and timely payment. We expect an advertiser to have a clean site with no leaks and that they will have no dealings with parasitic applications. Also, we need tools to work with such as good well catagorised data feeds and so forth.

That's good, because your expectations are in line with what we plan to provide. Payment's are made exactly 30 days after purchase due to our return policy. Returns are rare though, so don't expect that to be an issue. I'd be happy to show you the code that writes the conversion source to each order and show you our order history with conversion source next to each order. We've had it on there since day 1 to see where our conversions come from paid advertisements - ie. Celeb. Baby Blog, Baby Names, etc. and it's been tuned to work really well. Test it! Put a link on your site, click through to our home page, click on about us, then partners, and see if your link shows there under FAQ. Right now, it's set up to read .com and .net sites and could be easily modified to handle .org, etc. (we just didn't have any ads running on .org so it was never implemented.

Since most of our competitors have affiliate programs, we decided to start doing that too. Most of who I've seen putting up affiliate ads are just placing up our banner (ie. daddy drama blog). However, I can completely understand that one might be willing to put a lot of effort into making money through our affiliate program.

The difference here is I'm the webmaster and business owner and I know if I don't take care of my affiliates they won't take care of us for long.

Hope that clears it up. Would love to see you sign up!

Best Regards,
Michael Stroud
Dimples and Dandelions

[SSanf]

I am working on updating my data feeds and site structures to my mall sites for the coming year, right now. The niche sites will be built from informatuion taken from those "master" feeds. If you can get a feed together, I will be glad to incorporate your products into the "master" feeds.

I am sure everyone else here would appreciate that as well.

Most of who I've seen putting up affiliate ads are just placing up our banner Well, you are at ABW, now. Things will, no doubt, be different with this crowd depending on who you recruit, of course.

As far as recruitment goes, read what some of the other AMs are up to and you will soon see what is needed to get good affiliates. Or, hire a pro. Some have a following and the affiliates will pretty much do almost anything they ask because they are really and truly that good.

Also, while being independent is good, there are some major advantages to network affiliation. Affiliates really like those consolidated checks and some networks rank very high in the trust factor which an independent has to work to earn. (Some rank very low!!) SAS is cheap and has a fantastic reputation. Share Results looks like an up and comer.

[webworker]

Nope, just putting up a link and a banner isn't enough. If that's all a program provides, it won't be able to compete on a site against merchants who provide more tools.

I've actually got 2 sites that can use a good part of these product lines, but the merchants I've got product links up for (even if it's only 2 or 3 as an example, which is all there is in most cases) would be the ones that will continue to convert. There have been zero sales for merchants who provide only banners, in spite of the same amount of exposure on exactly the same pages.

[stroudtx]

Nope, just putting up a link and a banner isn't enough. If that's all a program provides, it won't be able to compete on a site against merchants who provide more tools.

I've actually got 2 sites that can use a good part of these product lines, but the merchants I've got product links up for (even if it's only 2 or 3 as an example, which is all there is in most cases) would be the ones that will continue to convert. There have been zero sales for merchants who provide only banners, in spite of the same amount of exposure on exactly the same pages.

I'm not sure what your saying here? You can decide what to put up. If you want to feature a product, you can do that too. Just tell me so I can set up a redirect page to capture your domain for credit. It's easy, but no one has requested. It's a win win deal here, so whatever I need to do to make it sucessful, just ask.

Mike

[SSanf]

Mike, I think you should join SAS and learn about the free data feeds they can help you make for your affiliates.

Data feeds are spreadsheets that have all the information on them; the product name, the image location, the product category, the tracking link to the buy page for the product, the product description and so forth.

When an affiliate has this all out on a spreadsheet, they can use it many ways. They can build dynamic or static sites with it. They can choose a few products or build whole stores all which send traffic to your buy pages where the final purchase is made.

Also, at SAS there is a tool that generates all the code for affiliate pages depending on the criteria the affiliate chooses such as "pink girls size five hats". The right tracking is already in the code to ensure the affiliate gets paid.

These tools help affiliates sell your products.

[webworker]

OK, let's look here at burp cloths (I don't have those) - there are also towels, 69 individual products in all in that category, which had to be found by using the search.

http://www.dimplesanddandelions.com/gift_results.asp?who=All&category=Bibs&price=10000&imageField.x=44&imageField.y=8

So let's say there are 10 affiliates who want to put up 10 pages each, featuring 6 of the products on each page. That's a total of 600 individual product links, plus additional lnks for each to the category itself.

Just tell me so I can set up a redirect page to capture your domain for credit. So we each have to write you, listing 60 products each so that you'll know which each of us wants, including links to those 60 products each, and then you have to make the links for us.

You'll have to make 610 individual links and then send the right ones back to the right people (including coding for the photos for the product links). How long will that take you?

Then we have to wait for the email to get back to us with the links, put them up on the pages and make sure they're done properly, including the URLs for the photos, and test that each link is going to the right page and then test for tracking code.

That is not easy. Going to Shareasale's pagemaker and typing in burpcloths and having the links all returned, photos, proper code and all, within seconds, and then copying and pasting the ones we want right onto our pages - that is easy, and takes but a few minutes total.

See the difference?

[SSanf]

Yes, I think you can't come into this cold turkey with no help. AM is an entire profession and you need to understand how it is done. I honestly and truly think you need some help to get going. You aren't knowledgable enough to be independent, yet.

SAS, I think, would be a good starting point. Or, try Share Results. I am not that familiar with them because I just can never finish what I have going on long enough to get to them. But, I have nothing against them, at all, and I have heard no bad reports from anyone about them.

If you go with a network, there will be someone there to help you get set up right. And, if they have a forum, here, that will help you, too.

[stroudtx]

OK, let's look here at burp cloths (I don't have those) - there are also towels, 69 individual products in all in that category, which had to be found by using the search.

http://www.dimplesanddandelions.com/gift_results.asp?who=All&category=Bibs&price=10000&imageField.x=44&imageField.y=8

So let's say there are 10 affiliates who want to put up 10 pages each, featuring 6 of the products on each page. That's a total of 600 individual product links, plus additional lnks for each to the category itself.

So we each have to write you, listing 60 products each so that you'll know which each of us wants, including links to those 60 products each, and then you have to make the links for us.

You'll have to make 610 individual links and then send the right ones back to the right people (including coding for the photos for the product links). How long will that take you?

Then we have to wait for the email to get back to us with the links, put them up on the pages and make sure they're done properly, including the URLs for the photos, and test that each link is going to the right page and then test for tracking code.

That is not easy. Going to Shareasale's pagemaker and typing in burpcloths and having the links all returned, photos, proper code and all, within seconds, and then copying and pasting the ones we want right onto our pages - that is easy, and takes but a few minutes total.

See the difference?

Actually, I'd just add my code to product details. No redirect (I mispoke) and no mess to deal with. Pretty simple..that it's already implemented there :) Also, I use MySQL so getting spredsheets or datafeeds out of it is pretty simple. As I've not done affiliate marking before, I'm learning too, so don't be to harsh. Ask and I may be able to do just what your interested in. The only issue I might have with data feeds is how often will you be able to update it? We add new products every day and our site manages inventory, so how would you know when something is sold out?

Mike

[SSanf]

Well, I guess, you would need a download link for the datafeed that people could use to get it whenever they want. You can notify people when you have made a lot of changes.

Some people are OK with constantly changing inventory. I don't like it much. I prefere a more steady list of products.

Not trying to be rough on you. In fact, everyone will tell you this is one of my BETTER days! http://forum.abestweb.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

I am being extraordinarily kind for me! I deserve PRAISE!

AND, I DEMAND IT NOW!! :up2someth

[BurgerBoy]

With a feed with all 1,000 of your products we could run your feed through a program such as Webmerge and end up with 1,000 static pages of all of your products in about 20 seconds and then we just publish those pages to our site and you have 1,000 new product pages out.

Why would we want to put all of those pages out by hand because you don't have a feed that we can use ????

How many days, hours, weeks or months do you think it would take us to put out 1,000 pages - one at a time - by hand ???

Some of us have dynamic sites that contact your feed daily and update your site products on our site daily.

If you want to go big you will have to have a feed that we can use and keep it current and up to date.

There are only so many hours in the day for us to work on merchants and we spend the time working with merchants that provide us with the best - cleanest - feed.

In fact I'm working right now while I'm talking to you. I just finished publishing 1,500 new pages to my site and I'm visiting here while the database search engine on my site updates and adds the new pages to my search results.

It took Webmerge 19.7 seconds to build the pages verses days by hand.

[stroudtx]

I can export MYSQL to any format and create and ftp to grab it. What size pictures would you need? I'd have to open up one of my picture folders. They are all locked down now. Our site uses 100 x 133, 225 x 300, and 300 x 400. Small, Medium, and Large. Since we have a huge selection of gifts, would it make sense to just do baby gifts?

Mike

[BurgerBoy]

On my category index pages I use 90 x 90 images. That lets you put quite a few images on the page without completely killing the page load time. If pages take to long to load they head for the back button.

I also include a short description with the image and a link to pages with individual product links to each product.

I use a 150 x 150 image on the product page and only one product to a page for these pages. I use a long description on these pages.

I could use a bigger image on these pages though.

You can usually reduce image size with good results but if you try to make the image size larger from the feed it looks like crap.

I have found out that the more information that I provide on my site - the more click throughs you will get to your site.

If everyone uses your feed exactly like you make it there is a good chance that the big G (Garble) will get you for duplicate content and shat on you.

Therefore - We need to be able to load your feed to our computer before we publish it so we can work on it some and change it around a little so every site isn't the same.

Other affiliates may use different methods but these have worked for me.

Your feed needs to be in Excel format because that is what we use and most of the feeds are csv comma delimited. That's what we are used to working with. I don't want to have to learn something new just to use your feed. I have all that I can do now. We all do.

The fields you need in the feed are:

Product name:

Product Manafacturer:

Product Keywords:

Product Category:

Product Sub-category:

Product Price:

Product Short Description:

Product Long Description:

Small image URL:

Large Image URL:

Buy URL:

and ETC.

Did I miss anything SandraD. If so tell us what.

Different affiliates will use different combinations of these fields to try to make your products unique on their site.

This isn't meant to be rude - just informing you what you will have to do if you want a lot of ABW affiliates to sell your products.

We are the cream of the crop. http://abestweb.com/smilies/cheerful.gif

Good luck in your venture.