The Best Time for Social?
When should you share your content on social media for the most traction? bit.ly has released new data on social sharing that shows posts get the most views on a Monday between 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. ET. The worst time? After 8:00 p.m., as well as after 3:00 p.m. on Fridays.

Online Sales per Capita on the Rise
Since 2009, the average amount US internet users spent annually shopping online has increased roughly $100 per year. The US and Canada are expected to spend record amounts on B2C ecommerce in 2012.

Mobile Luxury Goods Shopping on the Up
The Luxury Institute and Plastic Mobile have done a study of US consumers with an annual income of at least $150,000 regarding their mobile luxury brand shopping. Interesting stuff as online luxury goods purchases continue to rise.

Google Blog Update on Search Engine Changes
Google is making changes to their algorithm to return higher quality sites, catch spelling errors in search terms, and more. (Be sure to click the “zurg rush” link in the article!)

Companies Shifting Focus and Dollars from Advertising to Content
It’s clear that the growing dominance of social media is forcing companies to find new and better ways of interacting with their customers and the public. Advertisers can look to PR for advice on adjusting to these new forms of marketing and brand building.

Nike Takes Gamification to the Next Level
Nike is “running” a new promotion in which Nike + users can use their “sweat” as currency. Track your workouts to build points and enter auctions and contests.

Barbara Somlai is our User Experience & Design Manager, and she’s here to help us design the best experiences for our users. We chatted with Barbara to learn more about what she does at Skimlinks and what she’s like outside of Skim HQ.

Illinois Nexus Law Ruled Unconstitutional via Business Insider- A Chicago Judge has overturned a 2011 Nexus law, finding it unconstitutional… Will other states follow this precedent? Check out what happened when the Illinois law was first passed, a neat little documentary about deal site FatWallet.com

Image used under creative commons by Flickr user  jaci XIII

As many of you are aware (particularly our European publishers), on May 26th, the EU is beginning to enforce their Privacy Directive, a.k.a. the ‘Cookie Law,’ which is designed to help users gain a better understanding into how websites use cookies to track their behavior.

In order to make sure our publishers are aware of the new law and are compliant with it, we’ve updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service, highlighted what publishers need to do, and shared answers to the FAQs we’ve gotten on the topic:

What is a cookie?
noun; the new EU legislation applies to the 2nd definition below.
1. A delicious circle of cake, often found with chocolate chips inside.
2. “A computer cookie, also referred to as an “HTTP cookie,” is a small text file that contains a unique ID tag, placed on the user’s computer by a website. In this file, various information can be stored, from pages visited on the site, to information voluntarily given to the site. These tiny files provide practical benefits to both users and website operators, and generally make surfing the net a smoother experience than it otherwise would be.” (source: WiseGeek.com).

What is the EU Privacy Directive?
The EU Privacy Directive is a piece of privacy legislation designed to make consumers aware of how information about them is collected online. The law says that websites must get permission from visitors to store or retrieve any information on their computers or other devices. Full information can be found at the Information Commissioner’s office website here.

Why the need for a law? Are cookies scary?
Cookies are not scary, but many people are unaware of what information they are sharing on the web, and this is likely what the EU is trying to address. As a company, the bigger the role that we can play in helping educate people about how websites (particularly good ones) use cookies, the better!

Does it affect Me?
In short, yes. 92% of websites use cookies, and cookies are involved in all types of web activity including speeding up login pages and using programs like Google Analytics to understand where visitors to your website have come from. The vast majority of cookies are beneficial to users, and are often used to help provide a more personalized experience for online users. Cookies are used by all sites across the web including Google, Facebook, YouTube and more to enhance the online experience. So, as a Publisher, you need to be aware of the cookies that are on your own site and how those cookies affect your users.

What is the ICO’s stance on the directive, as it relates to UK publishers?
We’ve met with folks from the Information Commissioner’s Office (the regulatory body for data and privacy laws in the UK), to gain an understanding that the focus for UK publishers should be on “informed consent.” This means that you should take steps to let your publishers know what types of cookies you use on your site. (A handy and practical guide from the ICO can be found here).

As a Skimlinks’ publisher in Europe, how can I be sure I’m compliant?
It’s actually pretty simple. It is important that you appropriately disclose how you and your partners use cookies, and give your users the ability to opt out of being tracked, if they wish. An easy way to do this in regards to disclosing your use of Skimlinks, if you haven’t already, is to:

• Let your users know you use Skimlinks for your affiliate marketing. Updating your own privacy policy with info about Skimlinks, including links to the Users section of our Privacy Policy and our User Cookies page is a really great place to start.

If I am a Skimlinks publisher based outside of Europe, what should I do?
While the EU cookie law applies to publishers with web traffic in Europe, we always think that the right thing to do is to be open and honest with your users about how you use cookies on your site. It’s also great to be transparent about how you make money, so you should proudly disclose that you use Skimlinks for your affiliate marketing. We’re such big believers in this that we put our money where our mouth is with our referral program (learn more about the Skimlinks referral program).

Do I need to get an explicit opt-in regarding cookies from each user on my site?
Based on conversations with the ICO, the recommended approach is one of informed consent rather than explicit opt-in. This means that informing your users the first time they arrive on your site that you use cookies and providing links to where they can find further information about those cookies and potentially opt-out is currently suitable. A really good video of the ICOs presentation on how to be compliant with the new laws, can be found here.

What changes is Skimlinks making?
We often talk about the importance of disclosure and transparency, so with the new EU Privacy Directive advising companies to describe how they use data collected by their service, we wanted to be open and honest about what we do with your data, and your users’ data. We have updated our Privacy Policy, describing exactly how we deal with all the data we collect in the process of offering our services. You can read the updated policy here.

What kind of cookies are involved when a publisher uses Skimlinks on their page?
If you are using Skimlinks on your site, there are various cookies that get dropped when a user clicks on a merchant link both by Skimlinks and the affiliate networks we partner with. The networks cookies are key for following a user’s click through to purchase and associating that back to you as the publisher. The Skimlinks cookie is for the optimisation of the experience across our publisher network. You can see the full list of cookies and get more information here.

How does Skimlinks use cookies on our own site? What is our plan for being compliant as we’re a publisher too?
Skimlinks uses cookies on our site to do things such as allow for quicker logins to our publisher interface and to analyse behavior on our site through programs like Google Analytics. We are approaching compliance for our own site in three phases: (1) doing an audit of all the cookies that our site uses and producing a visitor-focused cookie table, which you can see here; (2) updating our Privacy Policy to have a clear section for Visitors of our website (have a look here); and (3) having an informed consent solution implemented across our site for first time visitors. We are currently in the process of brainstorming and rolling out phase 3 for visitors to our sites.

Why is Skimlinks so open and honest about all of this stuff. Aren’t you worried about people getting scared by the word ‘cookies?’
We are big believers in being open and honest about everything we do, and think that the more we educate people, the better off they will be, the more they will understand the value cookies play, and the more they will trust Skimlinks!

What is Team Skimlinks’ favorite type of cookie (the kind you can eat)?  
We took a poll of Team Skimlinks on Yammer, and with about half of the team votes in, the survey saaaaaays… Chocolate Chip!!! We were all a bit shocked that Peanut Butter got zero votes, but we are really a Nutella first company when it comes to our cookie toppings.
To close on a serious note, we understand that laws can be complex and we are here to help. This is the start on our journey to compliance, and we want to work together with you, our publishers and merchants. We hope you’ve found this post useful, and remember that we are always here if you need further assistance.

All the best,
Team Skimlinks

Image under under Creative Commons by Flickr user Pete Prodoehl

Week of April 23, 2012

Adaptations help this little chameleon survive; entrepreneurs- take note!

In the fast-paced and ever changing tech realm, quick thinking and adaptability are important factors to success. New ideas are hatching faster than they can be built, and its a wonderful thing!

With all of these great ideas floating around, start-up leaders are finding, by trial and error, that some ideas are better than others. What happens when you come to this realization after you’ve already been plugging away on something else? You pivot!

Pivoting is a business term for changing something fundamental in your business model. For example, have you heard of Skimbit?

Skimbit was the company from which Skimlinks was derived. Our CEO and Co-Founder Alicia had been working on a social discovery and sharing site for two years when she realized that it was her monetization strategy that really caught the attention of potential customers. Skimbit quickly pivoted to become what we now know and love- Skimlinks!

Our co-founders Alicia and Joe recently sat down with Wired Magazine UK to tell them our own pivoting story and discuss “How to adapt your business model on the fly.” Click through for the full story!

Chameleon photo used under Creative Commons by Flickr user mouseshadows

Do you try to keep up with online advertising, affiliate marketing, and e-commerce news but don’t have the time to catch everything? With everything that’s happening in the digital monetization space, it can be overwhelming! But Skimlinks is here to help. Every Friday, we will share the highlights that we’ve found during the week. We hope that you find it helpful and welcome your submissions and feedback in the comments section. Let us know what’s most helpful!

Week of April 16, 2012
Google’s CPCs Drop As Facebook’s Rise 28%
As Google hunts for new display ad revenue, their CPC dropped 12% from last year. Meanwhile, Facebook’s CPCs are up 28%.

AdWords Gets A Spellcheck
Google says up to 7% of search queries include misspellings, and now Google AdWords will be using technology to automatically include misspellings in the advertiser’s keyword lists.

7 Reasons You Need To Be In China
China is going through a technology revolution and Ad Age Digital Conference Speaker Lau Seng Lee gave some interesting facts to back up why you should be advertising in China. For example; “Approximately 1.3 billion hours are spent online every day in China.”

Tumblr’s First Foray into Paid Advertising
Microblogging platform Tumblr announced their first attempt at using paid advertising. Starting May 2nd, they will begin offering the ”Radar” post that appears on a Tumblr user’s dashboard, as an ad unit. So far they’ve been making money by selling custom blog themes.

[Note: fresh on the heels of Google's recent announcement that they are launching the Google Affiliate Network in Europe, we are excited to share a case study that the Google team recently put together that discusses how we work together. Congratulations to our friends at the Google Affiliate Network on the continued success and the launch - We wish you the best!]

Google’s cost-per-action advertising solution, the Google Affiliate Network, offers publishers the ability to connect with well known and trusted brands. Skimlinks’ tremendous growth with the Google Affiliate Network, (337% year over year growth last year!), is thanks in large part to our tightly controlled approval process, our strong relationship with the Google Affiliate Network team, and the scalable platform and access to quality publishers that GAN offers.

We are thrilled to announce that as a result of the above, we’ve been promoted to VIP status! As Skimlinks Merchant Manager, Jenny Williams puts it: ““Being a VIP with Google Affiliate Network is a great advantage to our publishers. They get put under our VIP belt, which advertisers trust to signify that a publisher has unique, high-quality content and a proven history of driving conversions.”

Read on to learn more! (You can also download a pdf copy here if you’d like).

Background

Skimlinks provides a platform for publishers to monetize and enrich the unique content on their site by looking “beyond banner ads.” Their technology automatically converts words and links referencing a product or brand on a publisher site into affiliate links, enabling the publisher to earn a performance fee for driving sales. Skimlinks has over 20,000 unique, high-quality publishers in their network promoting over 750 Google Affiliate Network advertisers. Learn how Skimlinks has partnered with Google Affiliate Network to grow their business rapidly.

Approach

• Partner with trusted brands
  Skimlinks relies on a variety of strong, trusted brands in Google Affiliate Network to attract new publishers. Jenny Williams, Merchant Manager at Skimlinks, explains, “Google Affiliate Network is constantly bringing on new, effective advertisers that our publishers can create purchase intent towards and be rewarded for driving conversions. They cover a wide range of businesses that suit our publishers, from large retailers to luxury brands and niche products.”
• Enhance relationships via account management
  Through partnership with Google Affiliate Network, Skimlinks is better able to communicate with advertisers. “Having a dedicated account manager is really helpful. We don’t get that with all affiliate networks, even though we’ve asked. It helps us grow our program more quickly and consistently. It keeps the communication open between us and advertisers. Not only can we reach more advertisers, but they can reach us as well.”
• Leverage interface speed to drive scale
  The Google Affiliate Network platform makes it easy for Skimlinks to drive efficiency and better understand their business. “The interface and reporting is fast. Being able to drill down to transactions and products is really useful. The interface is aesthetically pleasing and it’s easy to find what you want quickly.”
• Use VIP status to promote publisher quality
  “Being a VIP with Google Affiliate Network is a great advantage to our publishers. They get put under our VIP belt, which advertisers trust to signify that a publisher has unique, high-quality content and a proven history of driving conversions. We review all of our publishers manually and ensure that they deserve to have VIP status. As a network, our VIP status definitely helps us attract more publishers and grow our base.”
• Foster transparency through Google network quality
  Skimlinks maintains their VIP status by hand-selecting the publishers they approve to their network. “We reject up to 60% of publisher applications. We’re all about high-quality publishers with unique content on the site and a real person behind that site.” In addition, they work closely with Google Affiliate Network’s network quality team to ensure that any policy violations and complaints are addressed quickly.

Results

The above approach was jointly undertaken by Skimlinks and Google Affiliate Network and has led to tremendous growth, resulting in:

•  337% YoY growth for Skimlinks’ overall revenue from Google Affiliate Network
•  Promotion to VIP status

Social sites, whether they are discovery platforms, blogs, or forums, are tight knit communities built on trust. These communities can understandably be sensitive to advertising.

However, even the most buzz-worthy social media darlings need revenue to fuel their growth and help fund administration, support and development. Without revenue (or the potential of revenue for investors), there would be no community.

Luckily, monetization efforts don’t have to be at odds with your user base. If you implement your monetization strategy with care, it’s possible to maximize revenue potential and keep members happy. My personal concern with this problem led me to found Skimlinks, so this is an area near and dear to my heart.

Whether you use sponsorships, ads, affiliate marketing, premium memberships or a combination of these strategies, the following tips will help you monetize your forum or social site.

1. Disclose

Let members know about your monetization plans before you roll them out, so no one is caught off guard. It’s best to explain why you’re doing this, i.e. “we need to earn enough in order to provide all the services people enjoy now and add even more down the road.”

Disclosure is often required to comply with FTC guidelines that state: “The post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement.” Whether you’re legally obligated or not, full transparency is the nice thing to do, and it will help you maintain the goodwill you’ve worked hard to build.

At a minimum, include disclosure text in the “About us” or “Privacy” section of your site. Even better, add a link in the footer or navigation bar to a dedicated disclosure page or acknowledgement of monetization. For example, NPR.org explains that the links on their shopping site are affiliate links and that the money they make from these links helps fund their service.

2. Don’t intrude on the user experience

While ads may play a role in your business plan, be sure to think about how intrusive monetization schemes, such as glaring ads, will impact the aesthetic of your site and ultimately your user experience. If possible, try to place relevant ads so that they add to the experience, rather than take away.

Google AdWords is a good model. Sponsored links appear next to Google search results. Ads are related to the searches taking place, so they are often of interest to users. Because of this, people aren’t as bothered by the ads, and they’re more likely to click and make a purchase. This creates a win-win solution for Google and a business model that pays them big time — 96 percent of Google’s $37.9 billion in revenue in 2011 came from advertising.

If you choose to monetize in a way that complements the style of your site, you should be in good shape. Facebook has done very well with a clean interface and ads that are more social in nature. Contrast this to MySpace, which was a bit chaotic and overwhelming in their ad presentation.

When implemented thoughtfully, affiliate marketing can be a win-win-win for the marketplace, with sites making money from content, merchants making money from sales, and consumers finding new products, as well as enjoying free services with minimal intrusion.

3. Consider rolling out changes gradually 

If you sense that your community is particularly sensitive to advertising, introduce it in stages and test it first with different groups. 

By implementing your monetization strategy in stages, you can monitor user reactions and identify any issues prior to a full-scale launch. Creative solutions include using only affiliated links and showing ads to non-logged in users, or perhaps only doing so on older posts.

When you roll monetization to a wider community base, encourage users to give constructive feedback, both positive and negative. Then tweak settings as necessary. If you’re monetizing a forum, make sure the moderators fully understand your plans and intentions ahead of time. When questions arise within the community, moderators can respond quickly and provide support for your decision to monetize.

4. Engage, but don’t react

Inevitably, a handful of users will be opposed to any monetization in the community, and it’s important to resist the temptation to react emotionally to a small number of complaints.

Instead, inform your community that you are actively listening to all their feedback and reiterate the importance of monetization to your ability to provide — and enhance — the services they love. Be careful to not let a tiny but vocal handful of individuals affect your company’s decisions.

5. Let members opt out 

If applicable or possible, you should allow members to opt out of certain monetization programs. For example, if you’re using affiliate links in your community, give members the ability to disable links if they prefer. Announce this capability to everyone in your disclosure or privately communicate it to members with complaints.

Often, it’s only a handful of members who object to monetization and giving them an opportunity to opt out can diffuse potential issues. At the end of the day, monetization — whether by advertising, affiliate marketing, or subscription fees — is the only way a site can afford to provide peoples’ favorite services.

If you roll out a solution that allows you to monetize without changing the user experience or compromising editorial integrity, your community will likely accept your decision — as long as you keep them in the loop.

Alicia Navarro is CEO and co-founder of Skimlinks. She tweets at @AliciaNavarro.

It wasn’t so long ago when crafting a marketing budget was a simpler endeavor — you contended with a range of print publications, radio/TV spots, and tradeshows. Those were the good old times, when it was easy to look your boss in the eye and guarantee your marketing spend would come in at budget because you bought as much media as you could with the money they gave you.

Nowadays, we are lucky to have performance-marketing channels like online advertising and affiliate marketing to lean on. As business shifts to the web, marketers have been given a wonderful gift: the ability to monitor the success of their programs down to each individual sale.

However, it still seems like performance marketing is creating a bigger set of headaches for CMOs and marketing managers, rather than making their lives easier.

For instance, performance marketing is harder to budget because it comes from a different cost center due to its cost-per-acquisition nature. So, payment comes after successful sales.

In addition, when things are trackable, it means that you can optimize and improve performance. Tracking and optimization take energy and dedication, and setting aside time to learn new programs like Google AdWords, Skimlinks, etc. It also means that you might find data suggesting things aren’t going well.

Moreover, marketing managers are often told to “use their budget or lose it,” and it’s significantly more time consuming to manage performance-marketing budgets given the above, so some opt for the easy way out, which is avoidance.

While these are legitimate points, they can all be addressed with a proactive plan and clear discussions with your team on what you are looking to achieve. Don’t be pulled off task by other daily demands of your attention. A marketing model that guarantees you only spend money if you are getting more money back should definitely be getting more of your attention.

Determine your goals and strategy for achieving them before breaking down your budget

Across industries, it’s common to see an 80/20 split when it comes to budget allocation, with 80 percent reserved for brand marketing and the other 20 percent for performance-based activities like online advertising and affiliate marketing.

Following a set template might be a comfortable way to ease into the world of performance marketing, but is it the most effective?

Rather than follow arbitrary guidelines, step back and consider the marketing budget within the overall context of your company’s goals and growth stage.

What are your company’s primary objectives? Gaining market share? Demonstrating profitability pre-IPO? Acquiring new customers or retaining old ones? Building a strong brand? Most likely, it’s some combination of the above that will vary based on the stage of growth your company is in, but determining your priorities is the first step.

After determining your company’s top goals, it’s time to assess if and how performance marketing can help you achieve your strategy for getting there. This will help determine if the 20/80 allocation is right for your business (it’s probably not). There are a few common scenarios in which increasing the focus on performance marketing makes sense.

The growth phase

When you’re just coming out of the gates, there’s pressure to move products and develop a following. At this stage, turning up the dial on performance marketing drives lead generation. Without your own strong brand recognition, affiliates can help get your name and products out there.

In addition, performance marketing represents the best real-world focus group. With virtually immediate feedback, you can quickly see how you’re being received in the marketplace. Play around with different offers and messages, and see what offers the greatest impact.

Bear in mind that at this stage, you’ll need to work hard to convince affiliates to invest their time in you. Affiliates are driven by their returns, and you’ll need to sweeten the deal with strong offers, enticing promotions, and higher commissions. Make sure to factor these costs into your ROI calculations.

Building your brand

Putting more resources behind performance marketing doesn’t necessarily come at the expense of your branding efforts. Contrary to conventional wisdom, performance marketing can contribute to your overall branding, as affiliates represent your brand throughout the social web.

While there’s always a fear of the “rogue affiliate” that weakens your brand with low-value practices, a little proactive management and monitoring go a long way to protecting your brand. Set strict promotional guidelines from the start, and continually monitor your affiliate partners to ensure they’re complying.

As your company grows, the affiliate program takes on a whole new personality. When your company gathers momentum and your brand gains clout, you can expect and demand more from your affiliates. Recognizing the strength of your brand, affiliates will be willing to work with you for less and will be more conscientious in following your brand guidelines.

In short, the stronger your brand, the easier it will be to manage brand issues with your affiliates. Similarly, with online ads, the stronger the brand, the less compelling the discount needs to be. Especially in retail, it’s always wise to have clear calls to action and incentives for people to buy now.

Supporting complex sales processes

Selling certain goods — for example, B2B software or a high-end digital camera — entails a more intricate sales process. With these types of sales, customers aren’t going to be impulse buying, but doing their due diligence and weighing the options carefully.

If you really believe that customers are likely to settle on your product after evaluating the field, it makes sense to increase your performance-marketing budget (and if you don’t believe it, it might make even more sense to increase).

Each affiliate impression or online ad is another signpost pointing the customer directly to you. Each click to your website will bring the customer that much closer to a final decision and purchase. It’s said that humans need to hear things three times for it to resonate, and performance marketing is a great way to make that happen.

Reaching profitability

When your company’s key goal is demonstrating profitability, either to shareholders or potential investors, your marketing approach and budget narrow. In this case, performance marketing plays a key role, as the return on marketing investment is more important than ever. By tying each cost to a specific action and/or end result, affiliate marketing offers less risk and lets you keep a close eye on what you actually get for each expense.

Final words

Performance marketing doesn’t always fit neatly into traditional budget planning. There’s a perceived unpredictability associated as costs vary month to month based on results. For this reason, marketing managers often play it safe and put less into affiliate marketing and online advertising than they should.

Ultimately, the best interests of the company should drive your spend and time allocation, not what fits into a neat little box. Anyone who’s dealt with the “use it or lose it” budget rules at large companies understands the frustration when budgetary decisions seem to go against the grain of what’s best for the company. Be proactive, and explain that you are budgeting in accordance with your marketing strategy, which is designed to help the company achieve its goals. If you were bootstrapping the company, and every dollar you spent was your own, would you still buy that TV ad?

Actual budgeting should come down to which efforts work for your business. By continually tracking your key performance indicator metrics, you can modify your budget allocations as needed. If performance marketing is performing well, more money should be allocated to fuel the momentum. If affiliate-marketing costs come under budget one month, there’s no reason to arbitrarily pump more money in until you determine where you can be most effective.

Budget wisely.

On Twitter? Follow iMedia Connection at @iMediaTweet. Also check out @Skimlinks and @TheRealWeissman

“Software package box word” image via Shutterstock.