by admin on August 24, 2010
by admin on August 24, 2010
by admin on August 20, 2010
This post is brought to you by The Ringer: News and Views on Pay-Per-Call, a blog managed and maintained by RingRevenue. Here is a link to the original article. We hope you enjoy reading and welcome your comments on our blog.
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A great post on ReveNews today by Adam Viener titled Pay-Per-Call from the Trenches talks about the growing popularity of Pay-Per-Call programs on the leading affiliate networks such as Commission Junction, Google Affiliate Network, LinkShare and ShareASale. His article details some of the many benefits of using Pay-Per-Call including:
- Publishers can get credit for phone traffic they are already driving.
- Companies offering higher-end goods and services (which have historically not converted well online) can now take advantage of performance marketing through the affiliate channel.
- Advertisers and Publishers can measure and get credit for calls and clicks.
The article goes on to list some hurdles the author has come up against when looking at Pay-Per-Call. And while the hurdles are in fact legitimate concerns, they are also concerns that the RingRevenue Pay-Per-Call platform exposes as challenges with traditional online marketing and actually solves.
1. Phone # Replacement Code Implementation- One of the key advantages of promoting pay-per-call campaigns is that it prevents traditional “leakage” that occurs when a consumer picks up the phone to call instead of completing their purchase on online. With phone number replacement enabled on the Advertiser website, the RingRevenue platform will swap out the existing phone number on an advertiser’s landing page with the publisher’s unique phone number–ensuring the publisher gets credit when a phone call occurs. At RingRevenue we recommend all advertisers implement the phone number replacement on their campaigns as a best practice. In fact, across our partners running pay-per-call programs we see approximately 44% of Advertisers implement phone number replacement with their campaigns. This number is also growing week-by-week as Advertisers quickly see the value of using the phone replacement and that campaigns with phone number replacement are more popular with publishers. In a recent update to the pay-per-call platform, we have made it even easier for Publishers to vote with their dollars and find campaigns that specifically have this feature enabled. When finding new campaigns, publishers can sort by campaigns with the “Web Integration” code. A big green check mark appear for advertisers who have phone number replacement enabled.
2. Listed Call Times- The majority of advertisers running pay-per-call programs are large advertisers with fully staffed call centers that do operate 24/7. The case Mr. Viener relates of the advertiser taking the day off “to go sailing” is a fringe case and certainly the exception to the rule. Even still, our platform is all about transparency and publishers can easily see advertiser’s defined hours of operations and call criteria and can chose campaigns which are the most competitive and will allow them to earn the highest commissions.
3. Call Leakage- Pay-Per-Call does solve the phone number leakage problem. It was also designed to help bring to the surface problems like the one described by Mr. Viener where an advertiser placed the customer on hold and then offered the customer call back on another number and not lose their place in line. This is clearly a case where an advertiser is attempting to short-change their publishers. We are glad to see the pay-per-call platform so clearly exposes this behavior. Not only is the advertiser short-changing their publisher, they are creating a poor customer experience for their consumer. Pay-per-call shines a bright light on these practices and again allows publishers to vote with their dollars by not promoting advertisers who engage in these practices. Again, we see this as a pretty fringe case and one that is not isolated to call-based campaigns. An advertiser who is willing to go to these lengths to create a poor consumer experience just to short-change their partners will see their publisher base quickly diminish and will not likely see good conversion rates among their consumers who call.
4. Ghost Calls- This hurdle is indeed something that mobile marketers are seeing, but the reality is it doesn’t have anything to do with pay-per-call. In fact it is another case of an industry problem that pay-per-call actually exposes and overcomes. With Pay-Per-Call our platform and all of our partners only track and bill on actual phone calls placed. The way the leading Mobile Ad Networks operate is slightly different and this is where some of the confusion comes into play. Mobile Ad Networks measure clicks on a phone number and not the call. So if a mobile phone user clicks on a phone number intentionally or by accident and opts not to go through with the call, the Mobile Ad Network will track that as a call and bill for it. With pay-per-call advertisers only pay for actual calls, not clicks that don’t result in a call. With our tracking capabilities, advertisers can see the true performance of their marketing efforts and drill into each call that connects and converts. Advertisers only pay for actual calls that meet their criteria.
5. Standard Landing Pages- In the pay-per-call platform, advertisers can upload practically any type of creative asset you can imagine from banner ads to text ads to video. Our platform creates transparency between advertiser and publisher that allows publishers to reach out directly to advertisers to request additional types of creative. Our goal is to empower advertisers and publishers to communicate and create high-impact campaigns and we give them the tools to make it easy.
Our partner’s pay-per-call programs are continuing to grow with new advertisers and publishers signing on each week. With pay-per-call gaining momentum, visibility and adoption in the market place we see the hurdles that Mr. Viener presents as opportunities to communicate best practices and to illustrate how pay-per-call can help to overcome many of the challenges advertisers and publishers faced with traditional online marketing.
Have you tested the pay-per-call waters? What has your experience been? We’d love to hear from you and get your feedback!
Want to stay up to date on all the latest news? Subscribe to our blog by email or RSS. Or get monthly updates by subscribing to our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/ucnR.
RingRevenue
by admin on August 20, 2010
This post is brought to you by The Ringer: News and Views on Pay-Per-Call, a blog managed and maintained by RingRevenue. Here is a link to the original article. We hope you enjoy reading and welcome your comments on our blog.
———————————————————-
A great post on ReveNews today by Adam Viener titled Pay-Per-Call from the Trenches talks about the growing popularity of Pay-Per-Call programs on the leading affiliate networks such as Commission Junction, Google Affiliate Network, LinkShare and ShareASale. His article details some of the many benefits of using Pay-Per-Call including:
- Publishers can get credit for phone traffic they are already driving.
- Companies offering higher-end goods and services (which have historically not converted well online) can now take advantage of performance marketing through the affiliate channel.
- Advertisers and Publishers can measure and get credit for calls and clicks.
The article goes on to list some hurdles the author has come up against when looking at Pay-Per-Call. And while the hurdles are in fact legitimate concerns, they are also concerns that the RingRevenue Pay-Per-Call platform exposes as challenges with traditional online marketing and actually solves.
1. Phone # Replacement Code Implementation- One of the key advantages of promoting pay-per-call campaigns is that it prevents traditional “leakage” that occurs when a consumer picks up the phone to call instead of completing their purchase on online. With phone number replacement enabled on the Advertiser website, the RingRevenue platform will swap out the existing phone number on an advertiser’s landing page with the publisher’s unique phone number–ensuring the publisher gets credit when a phone call occurs. At RingRevenue we recommend all advertisers implement the phone number replacement on their campaigns as a best practice. In fact, across our partners running pay-per-call programs we see approximately 44% of Advertisers implement phone number replacement with their campaigns. This number is also growing week-by-week as Advertisers quickly see the value of using the phone replacement and that campaigns with phone number replacement are more popular with publishers. In a recent update to the pay-per-call platform, we have made it even easier for Publishers to vote with their dollars and find campaigns that specifically have this feature enabled. When finding new campaigns, publishers can sort by campaigns with the “Web Integration” code. A big green check mark appear for advertisers who have phone number replacement enabled.
2. Listed Call Times- The majority of advertisers running pay-per-call programs are large advertisers with fully staffed call centers that do operate 24/7. The case Mr. Viener relates of the advertiser taking the day off “to go sailing” is a fringe case and certainly the exception to the rule. Even still, our platform is all about transparency and publishers can easily see advertiser’s defined hours of operations and call criteria and can chose campaigns which are the most competitive and will allow them to earn the highest commissions.
3. Call Leakage- Pay-Per-Call does solve the phone number leakage problem. It was also designed to help bring to the surface problems like the one described by Mr. Viener where an advertiser placed the customer on hold and then offered the customer call back on another number and not lose their place in line. This is clearly a case where an advertiser is attempting to short-change their publishers. We are glad to see the pay-per-call platform so clearly exposes this behavior. Not only is the advertiser short-changing their publisher, they are creating a poor customer experience for their consumer. Pay-per-call shines a bright light on these practices and again allows publishers to vote with their dollars by not promoting advertisers who engage in these practices. Again, we see this as a pretty fringe case and one that is not isolated to call-based campaigns. An advertiser who is willing to go to these lengths to create a poor consumer experience just to short-change their partners will see their publisher base quickly diminish and will not likely see good conversion rates among their consumers who call.
4. Ghost Calls- This hurdle is indeed something that mobile marketers are seeing, but the reality is it doesn’t have anything to do with pay-per-call. In fact it is another case of an industry problem that pay-per-call actually exposes and overcomes. With Pay-Per-Call our platform and all of our partners only track and bill on actual phone calls placed. The way the leading Mobile Ad Networks operate is slightly different and this is where some of the confusion comes into play. Mobile Ad Networks measure clicks on a phone number and not the call. So if a mobile phone user clicks on a phone number intentionally or by accident and opts not to go through with the call, the Mobile Ad Network will track that as a call and bill for it. With pay-per-call advertisers only pay for actual calls, not clicks that don’t result in a call. With our tracking capabilities, advertisers can see the true performance of their marketing efforts and drill into each call that connects and converts. Advertisers only pay for actual calls that meet their criteria.
5. Standard Landing Pages- In the pay-per-call platform, advertisers can upload practically any type of creative asset you can imagine from banner ads to text ads to video. Our platform creates transparency between advertiser and publisher that allows publishers to reach out directly to advertisers to request additional types of creative. Our goal is to empower advertisers and publishers to communicate and create high-impact campaigns and we give them the tools to make it easy.
Our partner’s pay-per-call programs are continuing to grow with new advertisers and publishers signing on each week. With pay-per-call gaining momentum, visibility and adoption in the market place we see the hurdles that Mr. Viener presents as opportunities to communicate best practices and to illustrate how pay-per-call can help to overcome many of the challenges advertisers and publishers faced with traditional online marketing.
Have you tested the pay-per-call waters? What has your experience been? We’d love to hear from you and get your feedback!
Want to stay up to date on all the latest news? Subscribe to our blog by email or RSS. Or get monthly updates by subscribing to our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/ucnR.
RingRevenue
by admin on August 20, 2010
Many of our customers report feeling confused about products that are “green” or organic. We like to make sure that if a manufacturer says that their product is organic that it really is. There are many variables that determine whether or not a product is organic, so we depend on certification from internationally recognized organizations when we buy organic products. Here are three that we rely on.
GOTS Certified Organics.
The Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) is a standard used around the world that guarantees the organic products you bring into your home are healthy and safe for you and the environment – and provide a fair and just working environment for those who manufacture them.
The aim of GOTS is to be a credible resource for consumers looking for textiles that produced in an environmentally and socially responsible method. Not only are these fabrics free of harmful chemicals, the results of the production pose no threat to the environment or the communities in which they are produced. This universal standard assures that no harmful or toxic chemicals are used from harvest to manufacture, including the dyeing, washing, and finishing processes. The standard even examines the disposal of waste and wastewater treatment. Strict guidelines have to met in working conditions as well; companies must provide a safe a hygienic environment, with livable wages, appropriate working hours, and absolutely no child labor. www.global-standard.org.
Oeko-Tex Standard
The Oeko-Tex Standard 100, developed by a group of European textile institutes, is a global testing and accreditation program for the screening of harmful substances in consumer textiles. Products with the Okeo-Tex label are tested and guaranteed to be free of all harmful substances, including toxins and irritants.
What’s the difference between the Oeko-Tex certification and the GOTS certification? Both certify textiles to be free of all harmful chemicals, but GOTS takes it a step further and certifies that no harmful chemicals were used from harvest through manufacture, waste is disposed of responsibly, and fair labor practices are enforced. www/oeko-tex.com.
SKAL
Control Union World Group, formerly called SKAL, surveys the organic production by means of inspection and certification. Inspections consist of visits to farms, processing and importing units, but also examination of soil, crop or tissue samples and administrative assessments. Their certification process includes the entire process of growing the cotton, spinning the fibers, and storing the yarns at the production site. Certification is issued periodically, once the manufacturing site has been checked and process is established. These controls and checks are ongoing. www.controlunion.com.
Products that are called “natural” don’t have to go though a verification process to use the term. Typically, organic sheets are more expensive than comparable products that are not organic, almost twice as much in some cases.
As a consumer, what do you think, is buying organic bedding worth the extra cost?
From The Linen Doctor
by admin on August 19, 2010
We’ve revamped our web site to enhance our customers’ online experience. We’ve always been committed to providing an outstanding customer service as customers shop for the finest linens from around the world. Now we have enhanced our customers’ online shopping experience to make it even easier for them to find what they want.
We now have four times as many products on our web site, www.scheuerlinens.com, and offer free shipping on orders over $100. Our web site enhancements include improved product order screens, a user-friendly search function, and suggested items for cross-merchandising on many product pages, as well as improved product information on fabrics and fabric care for on each product. Free swatches are always available for any of our bedding products.
Since our inception in 1935, we have been committed to carrying the finest and most luxurious linens from around the world. In 1953, we opened our first stand-alone store in San Francisco and moved to our current location near Union Square 16 years ago.
Customers can still call the store on our toll free number,
800-762-3950, for information or to receive expert advice from our experienced staff in creating unique, fashionable ensembles for any décor or style.
From The Linen Doctor
by admin on August 19, 2010
by admin on August 18, 2010
Ronnie James Dio (July 10, 1942 – May 16, 2010) was a legendary heavy metal vocalist and songwriter for the bands Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, and, most importantly his own band Dio. Ronnie James Dio was well known for being one of the most powerful heavy metal singers of all time, and has been hailed as a god in the heavy metal scene. Which is where the name Dio came from, which means “God” in Italian.
He was born Ronald James Padavona in Portsmouth, N.H., and raised in New York. He started his career with local bands such as the Vegas Kings.
His career started in 1975 when he joined Rainbow. Dio had been playing with Elf, a band originally called the Electric Elves, which has members of Deep Purple.
Dio joined Black Sabbath when he replaced Ozzy Osbourne in 1979. His first album with Sabbath, “Heaven and Hell,” sold more than 1 million copies. 2 years later Dio left the band after the release of “Mob Rules” in 1981 to form Dio.
He returned to Black Sabbath briefly in the 1990s and more recently had formed Heaven & Hell, basically a version of the band without Osbourne.
Two of Dio’s most memorable songs are “Heaven and Hell” and “Holy Diver”
News of his diagnosis of stomach cancer shook the entire heavy metal community. Fans dutifully supported him in his plight. Including reaching out, via internet, starting groups on facebook like, “Get Better Dio” and many more similar tribute pages.
The entire metal community grieved The death of Ronnie James Dio. First spawning as an viral internet rumor, fans heatedly debated, and kept their fingers crossed for the better health of Ronnie James. On May 16, 2010 the metal scenes worst nightmare came true. Ronnie James Dio was pronounced dead at 7:45am from metastasized stomach cancer.
Ronnie James Dio was a very powerful heavy metal icon, and he will be sorely missed by all of his fans.
RIP DIO 1942-2010
From Starmarks.com
by admin on August 17, 2010
The best part of using VigLink is that it saves you time and makes an otherwise difficult and error prone process completely simple. Now we are making it even easier. We offer plugins for some of the most popular platforms on the web including WordPress and vBulletin. We also have detailed visual instructions for Blogger, TypePad, and phpBB, Tumblr and we are adding more all the time. Head over to the install page to find the latest plugins.
We are also ready to help you sort through any questions you might have about disclosing your affiliate relationships to comply with FTC regulations. We encourage all publishers to abide by FTC guidelines and disclose their affiliate relationships, but we also make it very easy to do. Check out our disclosure page to read more and to select from one of six disclosure badges we provide for you. The disclosure badges will bring your readers back to the disclosure page if they click through, providing them brief explanation and links to all the information they might want to know about the FTC ruling.
Adding a disclosure badge is also the easiest way to participate in our referral program. If anyone clicks on your badge and signs up, you can earn extra money!
Galen Thompson
Relationship Manager, VigLink
Viglink
by admin on August 17, 2010
The best part of using VigLink is that it saves you time and makes an otherwise difficult and error prone process completely simple. Now we are making it even easier. We offer plugins for some of the most popular platforms on the web including WordPress and vBulletin. We also have detailed visual instructions for Blogger, TypePad, and phpBB, Tumblr and we are adding more all the time. Head over to the install page to find the latest plugins.
We are also ready to help you sort through any questions you might have about disclosing your affiliate relationships to comply with FTC regulations. We encourage all publishers to abide by FTC guidelines and disclose their affiliate relationships, but we also make it very easy to do. Check out our disclosure page to read more and to select from one of six disclosure badges we provide for you. The disclosure badges will bring your readers back to the disclosure page if they click through, providing them brief explanation and links to all the information they might want to know about the FTC ruling.
Adding a disclosure badge is also the easiest way to participate in our referral program. If anyone clicks on your badge and signs up, you can earn extra money!
Galen Thompson
Relationship Manager, VigLink
Viglink
