The Blue Phoenix Media team will be at the Affiliate Summit West 2010 in Vegas!  This event will be fully loaded with experts, vendors, affiliate merchants and networks ready to share their expertise and create money making relationships that will help affiliates rack up on the big bucks for 2010 and so on.  Some of the speakers include Larry Adams from Google, Dave Gaetano of the New York Times and the CEO of Offers.com, Steve Schaffer.  Some other companies that will be in the building are Facebook, Affiliate Future, Resource Nation and Hub Spot. 

Yes, these speakers and companies are fabulous movers and shakers of the online marketing world; however, it’s only right that we take a few seconds to boast a few of our many attributes that we feel you should know about before meeting us at Affiliate Summit West.  We’re known for our affiliate network which consists of over 200 advertisers and 4,000 publishers.  We’ve got our back end PHP server along with 20+ exclusive web properties to maximize brand awareness that we’ve built and own as well as various Education Portals that generate quality leads.  We offer campaigns in over 20 verticals which include Education, Consumer Products, Health and Diet, to name a few.  We also have a Coreg platform to serve into registration pages to monetize websites.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, our CEO Amy Sheridan and COO Malaika Schmidt along with their team of affiliate managers will be in full effect at Affiliate Summit.  If you’d like to schedule a meeting, shoot us an email at Meetings@BluePhoenixMedia.com, otherwise just stop by Table #7 on Sunday January 17, at the Affiliate Meet Market, Rio All Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Amazon A-E
Time: 12:00pm – 6:00pm .  See you soon!

Hello Blogosphere and Happy 2010 (It’s officially pronounced “twenty-ten” and not “two-thousand-(and) ten” in case you hadn’t heard). I’m off to work my way through day one of a trial membership at a local gym to try to get back to my fighting weight (one of several New Year’s resolutions that I have undertaken). I know that this is going to require jogging, which may be the cruelest self-inflicted punishment that is routinely undertaken, but alas, I fear I have no choice.

Once I get sick of the gym routine, I may have to reach for a cup of Yun Wu Tea to help me fight the battle of the bulge. After all, scores of affiliates can’t be wrong. Yun Wu is one of the last ancient tea formulas passed down from generation to generation. Only the finest blend of the purest tea is used for this premium blend of Yun Wu Tea. It’s got a $40.00 payout on a third page submit, and I’m guaranteed to see results in two weeks.

According to a recent study by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), online advertising has just begun to outperform television advertising for the first time ever. This is despite the fact that many big brands are still hesitant to enter digital marketing full-throttle due to a perceived lack of insight into the depth of engagement with consumers and inability to compare similar data.

Any misgivings that these bigger brands might have could be falling by the wayside soon , and for a couple of big reasons. In the first half of 2010, Nielsen and The UK Online Measurement Company plan to launch a panel of 35,000 consumers in order to measure the reach and frequency metrics using similar methods to those currently used to measure TV and Radio advertising. At the same time, Comscore is developing their own hybrid approach, which combines user-based data with site-centric information from website servers.

According to Nielsen, these implementations will reduce confusion in the market and build trust, giving agencies confidence in the numbers on which they are basing their planning decisions. This confidence should attract more high-end brand advertising into a medium that has, until now, grown through direct sales and search.

These changes should allow online marketers to work with a wider variety of client, as well as to more precisely target the appropriate consumers with each campaign.

Dear Mr/Ms. Affiliate,

I find it puzzling that once you have been approved to be a part of our network, you all of a sudden mysteriously become unreachable. My emails go unanswered and my calls are almost guaranteed to go straight to voicemail. I understand that for the most part networks are self-service and that you don’t really need anyone to tell you how to pick up offers for the umpteenth time. But believe it or not, I am not calling you to tell you something you already know.

The reason I call is because I want to work with you in figuring out how I can make it easy for you to generate substantial revenue with our network. I can tell you details about an offer that’s not written in the campaign description – like how one offer performs when promoted via search versus email or which creative is performing the best. I can tell you the brand newest offers on the network before they even go out on the affiliate newsletter, where everyone will see them and will want to pick them up.

Heck, I’ll even go so far as to cater our calls so that if you tell me you only want to hear about diet offers, you won’t hear anything but diet offers. Every now and then though, I will be brazen and tip you off that an education or financial offer or some other vertical is performing extremely well and worth looking into. Rest assured, I only do this with your best interest in mind.

I wish I could say that one phone call translates into dollars, but sometimes it takes several phone calls and even more phone calls and a few emails back and forth to get you paired with the right offer. This is why I call you more than once – not to annoy you, but to figure out which offer you can work your skills on (within compliance guidelines, of course!)  to take you into super affiliate status.

So the next time you see my number pop up on your caller ID, give me a chance and pick up the phone. It could be the 5 minute conversation that changes where the commas fall on your affiliate check when affiliate pay day rolls around.

Sincerely,
Your Affiliate Manager

Blue Phoenix Media

Economic downturn has caused employed and unemployed consumers to voluntarily purchase benefits and insurance such as Health, Life, Long Term Care and 401K plans from other vendors.  Online Insurance campaigns have increased in the Performance Marketing space this year and have been profitable for Affiliate Marketers due to this high demand.  The demographics of these consumers include 40+, Diabetics, AARP Members and Wheelchair consumers.

Thanks to the recession there have been increases in benefit costs to employers, which in turn affect employees.  Employers either cut back on the benefits or require employers to pay higher premiums.  According to Guardian Life Insurance, “nearly one-third of workers think it is more expensive to obtain healthcare coverage at work than it is to buy coverage on their own.[i]”    The people most affected by benefit changes-Blue-collar employees- “value disability, life insurance and retirement benefits more than do professional/managerial and clerical employees.[ii]”  This explains the increase search for outside sources in the insurance/benefit market.

Affiliate marketers may not expect baby boomers to be a target audience online but according to MetLife Mature Market Institute, baby boomers have invested in accessing information on the web and using social media to build support systems for their current needs and interests in such areas as politics, health care and employment opportunities.[iii] This is why there are now a number of Life Insurance, Long Term Care and Disability campaigns infiltrating the Internet Marketing space.

In light of this new demand from consumers, Blue Phoenix Media recently launched some exclusive campaigns in the insurance/benefit vertical for our CPA network.  These offers are Find Me Life Insurance, Long Term Care for All, Your Disability Quote and Top 401K Plan.  The sites are built and owned by us and since we manage the data we are able to provide quick feedback on the quality.  These offers are available for Email, Banner and Search and all convert on the first page.   Affiliate Marketers who want to tap into this market should consider the demographics previously mentioned to provide rich content and optimize your campaign strategy to be profitable.

Contact your Account Manager today to learn more about generating revenue from this high demand market!

Blue Phoenix Media

[ii] http://www.guardianlife.com/company_info/Spotlight_on_Benefits_and_the_Economy.pdf

[iii] http://www.metlife.com/assets/cao/mmi/publications/studies/BoomersTheNext20YearsEcologiesofRisk.pdf