Affiliate marketing is an industry that keeps changing. It is imperative that you keep on top of what is going on as it can greatly impact your business.

One such change that happens often on the CPA side of the industry is the constant modifications to advertiser’s landing pages. These types of alterations can damage your business, especially after the affiliate properly targeted and optimized their jump page variables to make the offer convert.

The worst part is that in all probability, the affiliate will never get notified by the advertiser or the affiliate network that they are working with. It is very likely that the affiliate will find out simply by noticing a drop in conversions. Unfortunately, by that point, it comes with a loss of income.

Luckily there are some sites out there that will help you be proactive with a problem such as this.

InternetOwl.com is a desktop application. You simply tell it which Web page to watch and it will check for changes periodically. If it detects a change either by HTML or text, Internet Owl will send you an email when the page changes.

The best part about this desktop application is when Internet Owl finds some changes, it can display the changes for you to see.

ChangeDetection.com is a Web-based service which also detects changes and sends you a notification via email. Change Detection creates a log for the page or in this case, the affiliate offer. When it detects a change, it notifies you.

Change Detection currently only monitors text changes and not HTML changes. For example, if an image has changed, you are not notified of the image change – only the change in the body of the text.

While these services have been around for a while, they are definitely being underutilized by affiliates.

Keeping on top of your offers and campaigns can be the best thing you can do if the network or advertiser does not detect it first.

Ian Fernando is the Founder of IANternet Media LLC and Blogger/Affiliate Marketer at IanFernando.com.

Download the entire FeedFront issue 10 here – http://www.scribd.com/doc/29057000/FeedFront-Magazine-Issue-10
FeedFront issue 10 articles can be found here as well: http://feedfront.com/archives/article00date/2010/04

Minimize your risks and maximize your returns in paid search arbitrage

Our business is paid search arbitrage and most of the time we send traffic to the merchant’s landing page directly from search engines. That means we live and die by the conversion rate of the merchant’s page and we have to very carefully evaluate a landing page before we begin working with a new merchant.

In this article, I’ll outline some of the things we look out for when it comes to landing pages.

Toll-free phone number on the landing page

In most cases, when a prospect calls the merchant’s phone number, the affiliate will not get credit if there is a sale. So when a merchant puts their phone number on the landing page, especially in a prominent location, that can serve to “siphon” legitimate commissions away from the affiliate.

Recently, I was assessing a landing page for a weight loss merchant through a major affiliate network. When I tested the landing page link, a huge popup window appeared, that was half the size of the entire screen, obscuring almost everything else and urging the visitor to call the company’s 800 number. Needless to say, this is not an affiliate-friendly practice.

Advertising for other merchants or products on the landing page

As a paid search affiliate, when I send highly qualified traffic to a landing page, my intention is obviously to drive a sale of the product featured on the page.

When merchants place banner ads for other companies on the page, which can bleed away our precious traffic and decreases the potential to close sales and earn commissions.

Is there navigation on the page for other parts of the website or other products from the merchant?

Since we are trying to drive orders by bringing highly targeted traffic to a merchant’s sales page, if the visitor starts wandering around to unrelated parts of the site, we can often lose the sale.

In some cases, however, the prospect does need to visit some other pages to make a purchase (to check product specifications, for instance). Be sure the merchant’s landing page only links to other pages that are mission-critical for making the sale.

Pop-up windows on the landing page

I don’t think there’s anything more distracting than visiting a landing page for a product and seeing a pop-up window that advertises something completely unrelated to the product featured on the page.

If you see this practice, be sure to talk to the merchant and either ask to share in the revenue they receive from the pop-up window or, better yet, request that they kill the pop-up.

Targeted content on the landing page for the product you are selling

If you are promoting, say, “men’s Nike running shoes,” be sure the landing page is specifically geared to that product.

Any more general page — for, say, running shoes, or Nike shoes or men’s running shoes will not perform nearly as well as a page geared exactly to men’s Nike running shoes. If your merchant doesn’t offer these deep-linking landing pages, request that they be created.

Dan Murray is Internet Marketing Strategist and Founder of Ravenwood Marketing, Inc., a high-volume paid search firm based in Boulder, CO.

Download issue 1 of FeedFront at http://feedfront.com/feedfront-issue1.pdf.

We’ve wrapped up the first issue of FeedFront magazine and we’re sending it to the printer.

Issues will be mailed in June 2008. Here are the articles in the first issue:

• Editors Note: Missy Ward & Shawn Collins
• Five Ways to Evaluate a Merchant’s Landing Page: Dan Murray
• Pros & Cons of Utilizing Multiple Networks: Brian Littleton
• Twitter Grabs Attention: Lisa Picarille
• GTD in Affiliate Marketing with Web 2.0: Sam Harrelson
• Affiliate Marketers Give Back: Missy Ward
• Online Video Advertising: Tim Carter
• Nobody Would Use a Search Engine with Paid Results: Dan Gray
• Building Profitable Customer Relationships by Following These Simple Email Axioms: Tom Kulzer
• Are You the Next Super Affiliate Blogger?: Zac Johnson
• Ad Networks, Vertical Ad Networks, and Affiliate Networks: Peter Figueredo
• Affiliate Manager Compensation: Shawn Collins
• My 3 Favorite Blogs You May Not Visit: Wil Reynolds
• My 3 Favorite Tools You May Not be Using: Wil Reynolds
• Get Off Your Butt and Start Making Videos: Jim Kukral

Visit http://feedfront.com/free-subscription/ for details on getting your free subscription.