For the fourth year in a row, Direct Agents’ employees, family and friends will be participating in the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure in New York City on Sunday September 12.  The 5K run/walk was developed to raise significant funds and awareness for the fight against breast cancer, celebrates breast cancer survivorship, and honors those who have lost their battle with the disease.

“The Susan G Komen Race for the Cure is a great event for a very important cause.  As a company we felt that it was important for us to show our support in the fight against breast cancer.  We hope that our partners and friends will join us in this exciting event.” says Dinesh Boaz, Managing Director, Direct Agents.

To learn more about the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure and to support the Direct Agents team, please click here

Social media has provided affiliates with a whole new landscape to promote products and services.  It is a fundamental shift in the way people communicate.  Whether it is through video product reviews on YouTube, fan pages on Facebook, 140 character messages on Twitter, or tags on Flickr, the opportunities available on social media websites continues to grow.

Highlighted in a video produced by Socialnomics author Erik Qualman, are some fascinating social media stats including:
•    Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the US
•    YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world
•    If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 3rd largest
•    25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user generated content

With social media becoming such a major media player and influencer, it is important that affiliates learn how to tackle this burgeoning area.  Following are some important tips and rules that affiliates should keep in mind when developing their social media campaigns:

Keep up to date on the changing advertising policies on each social media site. Social media channels are monitoring their sites more closely.  If they suspect suspicious behavior then you run the risk of getting your account suspended.  Play by the rules!

There are several tools available to help you track who and what is being said about you and the message you are putting out. Free tracking tools include blogsearch.google.com, search.twitter.com, search on Facebook and search on Youtube.  Paid tracking tools are also available including Brandwatch, Whitevector and Synthesio which provide better accuracy. Listen to your followers, you can learn from what they are saying.

With growth comes competition. The rise in popularity of social media channels has led to a rise in price in CPCs/CPMs.  However, pricing can be managed effectively by utilizing high converting creative and ad copy.
Learn and address privacy issues. For example, people have mixed reactions towards ads that highlight/speak to private demographic information that they have included in their profiles, especially when this information does not relate to the product you are promoting.  There is a fine line between being effective and being obtrusive, make sure to look at things from an advertiser as well as consumer prospective.

Make sure to engage and interact with your followers. Social media is all about being able to have an open communication with your consumers. Listen to what your followers are saying and focus on building trust, goodwill and loyalty with them.  Accept the good with the bad, address any negative comments immediately with a genuine response. In the end, you will be more respected for it!

Finally, have fun, get creative and make the best use of these tools to engage your new audience!

Written by Jill Solomon, Online Marketing Manager, Direct Agents

Previously Published in Adotas

After a busy three days full of networking, sessions, clinics and parties, we hope that everybody who attended Affiliate Summit East this year made it back home safe and sound. It was so great to see so many friends including affiliates and advertisers this past week!

Following is a small recap of how our Direct Agents team spent those three days:

Sunday, August 15- The DA team was anxious to start their experience at ASE. We began by attending the Meet Market where we were able to engage in some schmoozing and networking with various affiliates and advertisers.

Monday, August 16- We were prepared, organized and eager to greet the rush of attendees when the doors opened at 10AM to the expo hall. Throughout the day different members went off to client meetings, lunches and sessions. Some employees even made it to the Affiliate Showcase as well as the Vertical Exchange.

After a long day at the conference, it was time for everyone to unwind at the “Direct Agents presents Rooftop Drinks at Sunset” at AVA Lounge. With the on again off again rain, guests were given the option to enjoy the rooftop or enjoy the excellent view from the comfort of the indoors. A great time was had by all and included great drinks, great food and of course great company!

Tuesday, August 17- Day 2 began with a slower start as people were recovering from the previous night’s festivities but once again, our team was excited to meet both new and current affiliates and advertisers at our booth. When 4PM came around, we were sad to see that this years’ Affiliate Summit East conference was over.

We hope that you enjoyed Affiliate Summit East as much as we did. Feel free to share with us some of the highlights from your experience!

In anticipation of Affiliate Summit East, Direct Agents has been awarding weekly prizes to the affiliate who generates the most amount of leads/sales for the campaigns listed below.  New to Direct Agents?  Don’t worry, you too can win a weekly prize!  Just sign up and start running one of the campaigns below and be entered into a drawing for a weekly prize.

Weekly Prize for Week of August 9= $100 Visa Gift Cards

Got what it takes to make it to the end?

At the end of the countdown, Direct Agents will award two lucky affiliates with an Apple iPad. One will go to the affiliate who generates the most number of leads/sales from August 1st to 15th and the other will go to a new affiliate who has signed up and generated the most amount of leads/sales.

Participating Campaigns:

US-Autos.com, US-Shoedazzle, US-Movers.com, FR- eDarling, UK- Zoosk (email only), UK- Opinion Outpost, US-Home Security Value, US-Jenny Craig, US-Lasik Vision, US- Lumosity

Click here to sign up with Direct Agents.  To learn more about Direct Agents and the Direct Agents Performance Network please stop by our booth RG3030 at Affiliate Summit East.

Guest Writer: Sean Cheyney, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, AccuQuote

When I first started in the interactive space, affiliate marketing was just getting started, and I jumped in immediately. In those early days, the relationship that could be formed between advertiser and publisher was fairly easy because of the size of the affiliate universe. It felt very much like the way business is conducted in a small town. It’s all about the relationship.

At AccuQuote, we approach the affiliate space the same way that we approach all of our business partnerships. We focus on building the relationship as a partnership that requires nurturing, ongoing communication, and a willingness to try new approaches in order to maximize everyone’s profitability. We understand that affiliates will not want to work with us if our offer doesn’t perform, so we focus time and manpower (both through our internal resources and through resources at Direct Agents) on the program to ensure its success for our publishers and for AccuQuote.

Affiliate marketing plays a key role as one of the spokes in the overall growth of our business and the AccuQuote brand. Just like display, search, radio, print, and television, affiliate marketing has its own nuances and special areas of attention. As a result of its uniqueness, we make sure that we have a daily dialogue with Direct Agents, and focus our creative resources towards coming up with impactful creative, based on feedback we hear from our other media channels as well as from our affiliates. The key for us has been to listen to what is working for our marketing partners and deliver to our affiliates creatives as well as creative solutions to make their lives easier.

Just like building relationships with our customers, it is part of our DNA to build strong relationships with our affiliates. Along with these relationships comes the growth in the affiliate channel to meet everyone’s goals.

To sign up for the AccuQuote Affiliate Contest on the Direct Agents Performance Network please click here!

Sean Cheyney is responsible for spearheading the overall growth and direction of AccuQuote’s marketing initiatives, channel development, strategic partnerships, emerging media platforms, brand image, and customer acquisition through both online and offline advertising.
A California native, Cheyney resides in Northbrook, Ill., and holds a bachelor’s degree in criminology, law, and society from the University of California-Irvine.

AccuQuote would like to reward all affiliates who run their offer on the Direct Agents Performance Network!

Run the AccuQuote offer from July 1st through July 31st and automatically be entered into a drawing for an Apple iPad! In order to qualify, affiliates must generate a minimum of 50 quality leads for the campaign. To sign up to run the AccuQuote campaign, click here.

Aah…..back at my desk and I’m already missing Denver- the fresh air, the clean streets, the great people- definitely seems so far off from the bustle of NYC.   This nice feeling of Denver was the feeling throughout the AffCon show this week.   I had a chance to present at the ‘Digital Marketing Spectrum’ session and also got a chance to meet up with a lot of great people and discuss the state of the industry.    Both my colleague Mark Glauberson and I felt that a common topic among attendees was accountability on behalf of agencies, networks and affiliates.  Everyone seemed to agree that gone are the days of easy and ‘fad’ revenue generating campaigns without any concern for the advertiser or the consumer.   My own presentation addressed this point on how affiliates can attract more brand advertisers by being more accountable and adhering to campaign guidelines.  While there, we attended other panels at the show that discussed similar themes and we also met potential new clients who agreed with us on this subject.  AffCon is definitely a great show to attend for anyone interested in learning more about new trends in the online industry.

Thank you so much to the great people of AffCon and Webmasterradio for including us in the show and we look forward to seeing the show continue to grow!

Written by Dinesh Boaz, Managing Director and co-founder of Direct Agents.

To see Dinesh’s presentation at AffCon 2010 click here.

As a result of media overload, brands are having an increasingly difficult time developing memorable and unique customer relationships. But with the influence of e-mail marketing and the emergence of social media, companies now have the ability to communicate with customers online in the mediums where they spend most of their time.

Forrester Research predicts that in the next four years, e-mail users will go from 145 million to 153 million. In that same time frame, social media will see the fastest growth of any online media with spending projected to reach $3.1 billion by 2014.

By combining e-mail and social media tactics, brands can help drive consumer acquisition and engagement.

Some tips to help brands navigate the email and social landscape are:

Deliver a consistent message across both email and social mediums. If you are promoting one offer in e-mail, promote the same offer through your social media presence. Conflicting messages can cause confusion amongst your customers.

Promote e-mail subscriptions on your social network platforms. Use sign-up forms, landing pages or custom applications to acquire e-mail addresses that will ultimately result in extending your customer reach.

Develop a community. E-mail and social media efforts are all about customer engagement. If you are not showing your customers that you are listening to them, then your efforts are for naught.

What are some ways that your brand has integrated its marketing plan across different mediums?

Direct Agents is proud to be exhibiting at a4u Munich today and tomorrow.  If you haven’t done so already, please visit our booth #B5!

We look forward to meeting with you!

Affiliates, please take the time to let us know how we are doing, what you would like to see from us,  what types of campaigns are doing well for you, and of course what we could do to make your Direct Agents experience better!

Affiliates who provide us feedback will automatically be entered into our drawing. One lucky affiliate will win a $50 AMEX gift card.  Drawing will take place on May 28, 2010.

Feel free to post a comment here or email us at marketing at directagents dot com.

Thank you and we look forward to reading your comments.