Sears PartsDirect, the premier provider of repair parts and accessories for all major brand appliances, electronics, and garden equipment, and more, has launched a new affiliate program with global performance network, buy.at. As a division of the Sears Home Services brand, Sears PartsDirect offers an extensive online product collection of more than 7million parts and accessories from 450 manufacturers including nationally recognized brands such as Crafstman, GE, Kenmore, Kitchenaid, Maytag, and Whirlpool. According to Affstat, brand awareness is the most important factor for 34% of US affiliates when choosing an advertiser to promote.

With an average order value of $48.00, a live product feed with over 200,000 products, and nationwide shipping available to anywhere in the US, the Sears PartsDirect program provides affiliates with a wealth of opportunities to maximize exposure, drive targeted traffic and increase revenues. buy.at provides unrivalled tools and technology, a robust reporting suite to measure performance and ROI, coupled with an award winning team including 2012 Pinnacle award winner, Kim Salvino. Read the rest of this entry »

buy.at is pleased to announce the launch of the Lonely Planet affiliate program which coincides with the program re-launch in the UK with our partner network Affiliate Window.

For almost 40 years Lonely Planet has been the world’s leading travel publisher, renowned for its first-hand approach and commitment to providing the best information for travelers. In addition to around 500 trustworthy and inspiring books, Lonely Planet produces an award-winning website and a range of innovative digital products.

Now Lonely Planet has chosen buy.at as their exclusive network in the US!

Benefits for Affiliates
• 15% commission on print and digital books
• 30 day cookie
• Range of creative with custom creative available upon request
• Datafeed will be announced in Spring, 2012
• Regular offers (3-for-2, % discounts, BOGO)
• Free delivery for orders over $40

Loyalty, coupon and email affiliates are welcome (sorry, no PPC).

Special Launch Bonus – Double commission on 1st sale AND 20% commission on all sales through April 30, 2012.

Join the Lonely Planet affiliate program today, and start cashing in on one of the hottest travel affiliate programs ever!

Last week, Jeannine Crooks, Account Manager for buy.at US led an Affiliate Summit Webinar: Affiliate Marketing 101.

Check it out here:

According to the most recent affiliate census, health, sport and fitness is the most popularly promoted sector within the performance marketing channel, with 41% of affiliates promoting advertisers within the vertical.* Additionally, the latest figures from the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index revealed that the online health and beauty sector has seen a 29% year-on-year growth from January 2011 to January 2012 attributing the strong performance in the sector to the idea that although consumers are being more vigilant with high-ticket items, they are still willing to treat themselves to lower-priced products especially when it comes to health, beauty and personal well-being.

Global performance marketing network, buy.at has experienced a healthy increase in the number of advertisers within the health and beauty sector incorporating performance marketing into their overall online strategies. These retailers are leveraging the strengths of the affiliate channel to increase brand recognition, acquire and retain new and loyal customers, establish new business relationships with online publishers, and to generate additional revenue. Read the rest of this entry »

Leading performance marketing agency, Affiliate Traction has joined forces with global affiliate network, buy.at to offer strategic affiliate marketing solutions for advertisers. Through the partnership, high profile brands including Sketchers, Spencer’s Gifts, Mattel Shop, SOCCER.com and Precious Moments™ are now available to buy.at affiliates. Bringing together market-leading tools and technology, as well as unrivalled levels of account management, the agency and network will collaborate to maximize online presence and ROI for clients.

With over a decade of industry experience and through long-term relationships directly with top internet retailers, many of which fall within the Internet Retailer Top 500, Affiliate Traction and buy.at provide online publishers with a range of opportunities through the performance channel. buy.at’s global reach and proprietary tools coupled with Affiliate Traction’s all-inclusive affiliate management services will focus on delivering results, building long-term strategic partnerships with key publishers, and introducing new, relevant niche sites within specific verticals for advertisers to engage with. Read the rest of this entry »

Merchant ABCs hosts Deborah Carney, Vinny O’Hare and Amy Ely joined Kim Salvino of buy.at and Liz Fogg of Team Loxly to answer a fundamental question for affiliate managers: What key steps should I take when launching (or relaunching) an affiliate program?

Key Steps Include:

Review the affiliate list – check your program’s placement on the site, understand how they’re promoting your program (and make sure they’re compliant with your PPC policy), ask industry contacts about their reputation, consult your network or OPM, review forums and search online for any positive or negative feedback about the affiliate

Evaluate the program terms – make sure you have program-specific terms in addition to network terms, ensure they’re clear and consistent, outline search policies on using brand name in the display URL, misspellings, brand + term bidding, and consider including terms for coupon affiliates to set expectations

Assess the creative – include a wide variety of fresh text link and banner creative in IAB standard sizes, create deep text links (deep linking should be a requirement!!), offer a well categorized, regularly updated data feed and provide content for affiliates to use on their site

Understand the competitive landscape – is your commission structure, cookie length, conversion rate and creative suite competitive?

Develop a communication plan – send out an introductory newsletter to affiliates and an announcement post in forums and social media, consider including a survey to ask what they need, determine when you’ll send newsletters and if you’ll echo communications through social media, provide your full contact details and be approachable, genuine, and responsive to affiliates

Walk through the affiliate’s shoes – sign up to the program an affiliate, identify how long it takes for network approval, understand the process for pulling creative, viewing reports, and more so you can identify pain points that may deter affiliates and consumers

Test, test, test – test your shopping cart in all major browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome), complete a test purchase to ensure tracking and reporting are working as expected, confirm that affiliate transactions across different networks track properly

Download the full podcast here or click here to simply open the podcast in a new window.

Your brand is a hit in your home country and your website is starting to draw sales from across the pond, proving there is an interest in your product range. You add on shipping costs for your new market and display the price of your products with the local currency text identifier (USD/GBP). Traffic is increasing off the back of the SEO you’ve implemented and you’ve launched a PPC campaign, but conversion rates remain stubbornly low.

Here are 10 basic steps, and one golden rule, to optimize the conversion rates of your new territory traffic. Read the rest of this entry »

A research study conducted by the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) reported that the online fashion retail industry demonstrated exponential growth – an astonishing 2,000% – from 2001 to 2011. Additionally, Forrester published statistics indicating that US online retail sales grew 12.6% in 2010 to reach $176.2 billion, with the ecommerce market expected to reach $278.9 billion in 2015. As more consumers shop online, performance marketing is becoming an increasingly attractive channel for fashion advertisers, where a broad range of online partnership opportunities exist, each providing clear and measureable results.

Global affiliate network, buy.at has seen a steady increase in the number of fashion retailers integrating affiliate campaigns into their online marketing strategies, with an aim to increase brand awareness, acquire new customers, and generate additional revenue. These include well-known global brands such as Accessorize, Lindsay Phillips, and T.M. Lewin. There are several factors that continue to drive double-digit growth for clothing retailers, including the emergence of new online shopping models such as flash sales and group-buying websites, both of which have displayed rapid growth and continue to drive consumer interest. Read the rest of this entry »

This week saw another successful Affiliate Summit conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Beginning on January 8th, Caesars Palace played host to the 19th summit where for the first time, more than 5000 digital marketing professionals gathered together for a jam-packed three days of informative industry presentations, extensive networking, and of course, the infamous summit parties with old friends within the industry.

Affiliates, agencies, vendors, advertisers, and networks of all shapes and sizes were in attendance, hoping to forge new business relationships within the performance marketing channel. Several of our advertisers spent time at the buy.at booth –meeting and mingling with existing partners and potential prospects.

Here’s a list of the advertisers who joined us:

Samir El-Alami (Badoo)
Erica Barry (VA Mortgage)
Greg Hoffman (SubscriptionAgent.com)
John Lobrutto (TripAlertz)
Alicia Iveson, Ketan Thanki & Elizabeth Chung (British Airways)
Jen Ward (myOptumHealth Store)
Heather Blackburn (Girly Checks)
Jeannette Saliba (BargainStation.com)

We also hosted another fun and engaging ‘Twitter-a-Winner’ contest for all publishers, with a range of fantastic prizes from several brands including CafePress, Designers Guild, Ghirardelli, Girly Checks, Veer, Whittard of Chelsea, Goldstar, TripAlertz, Value Pet Supplies and the grand prize of a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 from BargainStation.com.

The definitive highlight of the show was on Tuesday the 10th when our very own Head of Publishers, Kim Salvino was awarded the prestigious Pinnacle Award for Affiliate Manager of the Year. After being nominated for three consecutive years, Kim finally took home the well-deserved trophy and we couldn’t be more excited and proud. We’ll be doing a detailed interview with Kim on the blog next week so make sure to check it out.

Thank you to everyone who made an effort to speak with us at the conference and to all of the buy.at team for another exceptional affiliate summit. Looking forward to ASE 2012 in New York.

Photos from ASW2012 can be seen here.

Lisa Chaikin
PR Manager – UK & US