Is it Possible to Maximize PR and SEO with Affiliate Offers?

[00:00:48] Hello, welcome to the Profitable Performance Marketing Podcast. My name is Jamie Birch. And if you’ve been listening, you know, you already know what I’m going to say. I am the host of the Profitable Performance Marketing Podcast. I’m also the founder of JEBCommerce, an award winning affiliate management agency.

[00:01:07] And you know, we are celebrating our 19th year in business heading into our 20th year in October. We’ve actually been doing this quite a long time, managing all sorts of programs over that 10 year. I’ve been actually doing affiliate marketing since 1999. Almost near the very, very beginning of our industry.

[00:01:29] Before we get into today’s episode, just want to let you know, if you are looking for affiliate management services, we have openings right now. You can contact Jake@JEBCommerce.com, he will answer all your questions and we have five packages available for you to choose from. So contact Jake at Jake@JEBCommerce.com and he will get back to you and answer all your questions about our services.

[00:01:56] So season three is in full effect. We are interviewing guests and still looking for guests. So if you’d like to be on, or you know someone who should be on, please let us know,

[00:02:05] But today’s a solo podcast. You just got me and you, and a question from a prospective client. So what is that question? Now, I have not seen this question. I’m not prepared. So we’re going to do this off the cuff today. I’ll give you the best knowledge and information that I have. So the question is, “are there ways we can leverage our PR teams, editorial placement, or SEO efforts with specific offers, text links and anything else?”

[00:02:31] Great question. You know, there has been a huge shift in the affiliate channel since COVID started. And one of those big things is a lot of PR agencies getting into affiliate management and seeing the value of it. Something that us that have been in the channel since the beginning, or at least the last decade have been shouting from the rooftops and every chance we can get that there are huge things every company can be doing with affiliate.

[00:03:00] This well beyond just your coupon sites or what whatever views you may have about affiliate marketing. So the short answer is yes, there are a ton of things that you can do to to augment that. One of the big things that PR agencies and PR teams are finding out right now is there’s a desire and a need.

[00:03:22] And a requirement from their advertising clients, their PR clients, that they measure the results, the direct sales results of these campaigns. And not just in terms of reach and visibility and eyeballs, but how do they actually do in selling?

[00:03:41] Well, welcome to affiliate marketing, that is what we do folks. What a lot of people are doing right now is they are supplying their PR teams with links for each of those media buys or inclusions and articles or article writing that they do. So this requires a lot more working together between PR teams and affiliate teams.

[00:04:10] And we’ve seen a ton of that this year. We work with many PR teams with our clients. So they let us know who the partner is. What the content is the audience the message, the theme. And then we go out and we create, select manufacturer links that fit within that article and provide it to that team.

[00:04:30] So did you know that? Did you know your affiliate team can provide specific links for those PR initiatives? While they can, that’s probably the easiest way that we can do that. Monetize those links. A lot of the publishers, the media companies that typically work through PR agencies, they have content teams and they have commerce teams.

[00:04:56] Sometimes they work together. Sometimes they don’t, but there’s a shift now. They have these two teams commerce and content are now working together. So content creates the piece and then says to the commerce team, ” here it is, how can you monetize that?” And that is really where your affiliate team comes in. So one, if your PR team doesn’t know, you have an affiliate team then you should introduce them. If they do know, are they working together? Because often that’s not what they do.

[00:05:26] Thank you for listening to the profitable performance marketing podcast. Hopefully you are finding this episode as intriguing as we have. Now, one of the things we are talking about a lot at JEBCommerce is the merging of public relations and affiliate marketing. Maybe you’ve seen this happening. Maybe you’re a PR agency trying to figure out what all this is and how you can take advantage of it.

[00:05:51] Well, if you’re a brand, you’re an affiliate, or you’re a PR agency trying to figure out what this new world looks like we’ve got a ton of content for you. You can go to jebcommerce.com/pr, and there you’ll find podcast episodes that walk us through this new change, as well as a ton of content talking about the technology that’s available, what the similarities between pitching for PR and recruiting affiliates are, and really what you should be doing to take advantage of this exciting new change.

[00:06:21] So go to jebcommerce.com/pr. And if you need any help deciphering and figuring out your next step, then please contact us at gethelp@jebcommerce.com, and we will jump on a call and walk you through the whole process.

[00:06:37] And then what we can do for PR agencies and brands to take advantage of this. We actually have a service level for each of you and we can help you track, acquire new customers, increase your reach, and adapt to things very, very quickly.

[00:06:53] So check that out at jebcommerce.com/pr and email us gethelp@jebcommerce.com now back to our episode.

[00:07:05] You know, in the marketing and the digital world, there is a lot of silo protection, channel protection. So a lot of these different channels, they don’t want to play together, especially agencies.

[00:07:17] Now, Affiliate Marketing is all about working together. It’s all about relationship building. It’s all about monetizing and maximizing every channel that you’re working in. For the PR teams that are listening, it’s what the affiliate team does. All the things that you’re doing, the affiliates have been doing for a very long time, and they’ve been monetizing it.

[00:07:38] They know how to monetize it, and they’re used to monetizing it. That’s what affiliate marketing is. So all of that is trackable through links. If you’re listening and you don’t know how that’s done, those media companies and those publishers that you’re trying to work with, they either have accounts within the network that the advertiser has an affiliate program in, or you go create one for them and then you create the links. You can also create an account, an affiliate account, that is just for your PR initiatives, and you can supply each partner you work with and each campaign with a very specific link that you can track sales to.

[00:08:17] That gets delivered to your media partner to be included in the piece that maybe you wrote for them or you contributed to and it can be a link to the homepage. It can be a link to clearance. It can be a link to any page on the website. You can actually create a page just for that media company. Upload that link, create that link within the affiliate platform, the technology platform, and provide your media partner with that link as well as all the other creative you’re supplying them, and that link will get everything back.

[00:08:47] So that’s a bit 101-ish, but I can go into even more 101 detail, but basically it’s all trackable through that link. The media publisher will get a commission, but most of all, you’ll be able to track what sales come directly from that initiative.

[00:09:02] And that’s really how you augment those SEO campaigns and your PR campaigns. Now you can go a step beyond that. You can provide them a specific offer to consumers that they can say, “Hey, and if you click on this, get 10% off blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” Now you have a link to track with, but you also have a coupon or a discount code that you can track with as well. So that provides an added bit of leverage.

[00:09:25] Now, Google analytics is doing a lot of changes, so you want to make sure you have as many ways to track these sales as you can. A couple of things to think about all those media partners, if they start using affiliate links, the FTC has certain guidelines.

[00:09:41] I would go to our industry group and find out what exactly the FTC has going on, but they have to declare. They have to say that this is a paid thing. We’re getting compensated if you click links. There’s some really short things you can put in there that you’ve got to be sure the publisher does.

[00:10:01] And to find out exactly what that is, just go to the Performance Marketing Association, ThePMA.org, search through for their FTC issues. I believe it’s it was on the blog the last time that came out and they go to really specific what the FTC has to say. So that’s probably the biggest gotcha to remember when you’re talking about how to leverage these things.

[00:10:22] If the partner isn’t real savvy on this, the FTC will go after them and they will go after you and your PR team. So make sure that there are those disclosures. And maybe we would do a podcast just on FTC disclosures. But that is the one thing.

[00:10:37] So yes, there are ways you can leverage this. And right now it’s a link now, again, to reiterate, if that publisher you’re working with, the media company you’re working with, if they have an affiliate account at the networks, they’ll be able to grab that link themselves, but I would go create one specific link for that piece of content, send that, make sure they get that link, and then you can track for that partner for that campaign by running a link report, a link success report that they’re commonly called in all the networks.

[00:11:10] And then you’ll be able to use that link to track it in GA. And like I said, GA is getting a little funny with the redirects and things that are coming out. So you want to make sure you have multiple ways. But you can use special offers, you can use those text links. It’s very easy to do. So was that helpful?

[00:11:25] Do you have any more questions on that? Cause I can go off on this quite for quite some time. But that is generally how it’s done. If you are a seasoned affiliate marketer, you’re listening to this and going this is pretty basic, Jamie. And you are 100 percent right. If you’re new to this, and maybe you’re on the PR side, or maybe you’re new to it in general, hopefully this was really helpful.

[00:11:45] There are a few gotchas to avoid but anyway, that is how you can leverage your PR teams or your SEO items to generate sales. And it really is about all your channels working together. So take a look. If you use multiple agencies, are they working together? Do they know who each other is?

[00:12:04] I have noticed whenever we work with SEO, SEM, or PR agencies their view of affiliate marketing is usually skewed. So they don’t understand what it is. There’s often not a lot of respect from those agencies to affiliate management teams, managers, and agencies. And it takes a little bit of time for for them to trust, respect, and understand.

[00:12:26] And that’s okay. We do that a lot with JEB and usually our first couple of weeks is just education, relationship building, making sure that they understand, look, we’re not here to take your business. But we have ways that are very easy for us to do a very simple for us to do that we’ve been doing for 24 years.

[00:12:45] I started in this space in 1999 and it started before I did. And we’ve been monetizing campaigns of all sorts for that entire time. So a lot of times it’s just educating and we do that quite a bit. Usually our first couple of weeks are like that. And we do one campaign and we build on that.

[00:13:01] We are not trying to take that business from them. We’re just trying to augment it and help get what the clients want. They’re demanding different things now. And they want they want numbers. They want to know success beyond eyeballs and views of those PR campaigns and through our text links and creative and the linking structure provided by those networks is very easy to do.

[00:13:22] So anyway, I hope this was helpful. There’s a shorter one today. Again, thank you for listening. My name is Jamie Birch, the founder of JEBCommerce Affiliate Marketing Agency, your host on the podcast. If you found this episode helpful, please go and share it. Send it to a friend who may be working through this subject right now.

[00:13:40] Share it on your socials, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, all of those. And what would really help us out, if you found value here, we would love a five star review at Apple Podcast, Spotify, or any podcast player you have, and tell us what you think.

[00:13:54] We’re still in the throes of figuring out season three, a podcast guests. So please just let us know if you want to be a guest or you know someone who should email us at gethelp@jebcommerce.com. And if you have a question, and you’re like, “I want you to answer this. This is my question about affiliate marketing.” Man, I would love to turn that around and make an episode for you and answer that. So you can email those questions at gethelp@jebcommerce.com as well.

[00:14:22] I’m so thankful that you listened to this podcast and you’re listening to season three. And again, if you need affiliate management help, JEBCommerce is your team. We’ve been doing this for almost 19 years, entering into our 20th year of business, and we would love to help.

[00:14:39] You can just email all those types of questions to gethelp@jebcommerce.com. Thank you.