How Do Multiple Browser Tabs Affect Affiliate Marketing?

A large part of being successful in affiliate marketing is attempting to get into the mind of the consumer you are trying to sell to. If you are able to gauge consumer behaviour, you will have a greater chance or marketing a product or an offer successfully.

One aspect of consumer behaviour that is directly connected to pay per click advertising and is often overlooked is the use of multiple browser tabs and their effect on affiliate marketing. All modern web browsers offer the ability to open tabs so that a user can see multiple websites in one session and switch between them with a single click of a mouse.

Consider that a marketer promoting an affiliate offer on Google will pay for pay per click advertisements which will appear (usually 3 or 4 ads above the main organic search results, with several additional paid ads displaying vertically down the side of the SERPs) and a user interested in a particular product will potentially open multiple tabs working down the PPC ads and the organic SERPs for their given search.

A user may have a browser session with several tabs open that are essentially marketing the same (affiliate) product. The tabs will have been launched in the order that they were clicked which when taking PPC ads as an example, the ads that cost the advertisers the most will be at the top, therefore, in early position in the users browser tab session.

Now, if a user works their way through their browser tabs from first through to last clicking on the respective links within the web pages, then the tabs that are towards the end of the tab range will have the links clicked last. This is the important point because if the final links that were clicked were affiliate links then the last click will drop the cookie that will overwrite any previous affiliate cookies.

Logically if a user went through their browser tabs from first to last, then the affiliate advertiser that was paying the most on PPC advertising will have had their affiliate cookie dropped first and consequently overwritten first when the user works their way along their browser tabs clicking (affiliate) links. Obviously the scenario is muddied somewhat when you consider that not all links are affiliate links and not all webpages will be affiliate advertisers, but if all advertisers were affiliates and all user tabs were opened via PPC ads, then an advertiser needs to consider which position they want their ad to appear in order to maximise the chances that their affiliate cookie is dropped last assuming that the user goes onto a purchase in the same session.

Furthermore, an assumption has been made that when users open browser tab windows, they work from left to right sequentially. This is what I do, but am I the exception or the rule – or do users open tabs randomly or select tabs based on preference?

I’ve yet to see any research on how multiple browser tabs effect marketing (or affiliate marketing specifically) so if anyone can point me in the direction of any research conducted please feel free.

Obviously having run PPC campaigns for several years myself I have past tests that show optimum PPC placement, matching, etc, but the aspect of multiple browser tabs seems to be a variable that doesn’t seem to figure highly enough in the minds of many marketers.

Nominet To Release 1 and 2 Letter Domain Names

Nominet, the registry for .uk domain names, has finally announced that they are going to be releasing the vast majority of the remaining reserved domain names on their register. To you and me that means 1 and 2 letter (and number) .uk domains.

Historically, there was a small number of 1 and 2 letter .uk domains registered prior to the formation of Nominet when the .uk domain space was administered largely by academics, domains such as bt.co.uk, etc. Once Nominet was formed in the 1990′s they disallowed any 1 or 2 letter domain registrations and continued to ignore requests to open up the domain space entirely – until now.

The full list of co.uk, .org.uk, .net.uk and .me.uk domains that will be released have been published by Nominet.

I Want One of Those!

Before you start to get excited about getting hold of a piece of extremely valuable domain name real estate, let me warn you that it will be extremely difficult.

You will not only be competing with individuals and companies in the UK to get hold of one or more of the new domains, but every interested party in the world. The .uk domain type is unrestricted so anyone attempting to register one of the newly released domains will be up against a raft of very experienced and extremely well funded groups of people that specialise in these types of scenarios.

How It Should Work

Initially there will be a registration phase known as a sunrise period. This is a period where entities that believe that they hold trademark rights in a string are given the opportunity to apply for that string in the .uk domain extension of their choice and an Intellectual Property specialise will evaluate the claims and make the award of the domain to the recipient that has the correct documentation.

Nominet state on their website the following with regards to sunrise qualification –

“The Registered Rights Sunrise phase is for the holders of registered trademarks enforceable in the UK exactly matching the short domain being made available (excluding the suffix co.uk, org.uk etc) and in force as of 1 January 2008 AND who can provide evidence of bona fide use in the UK on or before 1 January 2008, to the satisfaction of an independent IP rights validation assessor.”

If the IP documentation that was sent in conjunction with the domain application is correct and the domain name is uncontested, the domain will be awarded to the successful applicant. If there are multiple applicants, the domain will then go to auction between all of the parties that have been deemed to have rights to the domain.

The remainder of the domains that are left will be launched in open registration during a landrush period.

How It Will Likely Work

I’ve been involved in working out operational strategy with domain name launches from an ICANN registrar perspective on many occasions and I’ve seen numerous sunrise periods at first hand so I’m extremely familiar with some of the nuances involved and most of the problems that Nominet will be facing with this launch, and let me tell you it will be an absolute minefield.

Every single sunrise period I have been involved with has included some form of loophole in the registry terms and conditions for registration that can be exploited by potential registrants – I doubt this sunrise period will be any different regardless of all the good intentions in the world from Nominet.

I would say that every single string in .co.uk and .org.uk will be contested in the sunrise period. This is not to say that there will be correct supporting documentation for every string, rather it will be a case that people will simply apply regardless and try their luck. Nominet state that the IP verification fee will be £37 (+ VAT). This is a tiny amount when considered what a 1 or 2 character .uk domain would be worth in the sales after market to a successful applicant.

Due to the likely huge numbers of bogus applications, the sunrise period will likely continue longer than planned and there will certainly be a large number of legal challenged from disgruntled unsuccessful applicants.

By the time that the landrush comes for open registration, I would be surprised if there are more than a handful of domain names in .co.uk or .org.uk left for punters to register. The domains that are available will have been noted by all of the specialist domain catchers well in advance and orders will have been placed for themselves and/or their customers so that within seconds of the registry releasing the domains, they will all become registered (providing that the registry software doesn’t fall over due to the load placed upon it, which I have seen a few times at other registries, naming no names).

We’ll keep you informed how things progress…

Retargeting in the Affiliate Sector

If you’re an affiliate based in the UK you will no doubt have come across the recent furore over retargetting.

In a nutshell, the retargeting technology that is currently being debated so vociferously by affiliates is the mechanism for a merchant or third party contracted by the merchant to distinguish customers that have abandoned a shopping cart partway through the sales process on the merchants website and the facility to email the customer with a “sales pitch” aimed at converting the customer to a sale.

This form of marketing has been in operation by some of the largest ecommerce sites for some time and theoretically retargeting a customer that has already shown enough willing to part complete a purchase should provide decent conversion results.

However, the problem that has been highlighted in the affiliates4u thread stems from the fact that a merchant (in this case Kiddicare) contracted with a retargeting company on a CPA basis. In other words to offset the cost of having to acquire or license the retargeting technology, the merchant decided to give the retargeting company a slice of all traffic they managed to convert on a CPA basis. The problem with this was that Kiddicare also ran an affiliate program. Therefore any traffic that was sent by an affiliate but did not convert fully, the retargeting company would try to convert the traffic and in doing so that would overwrite the original affiliate cookie and take the commission from the affiliate that originally introduced the customer.

So What’s The Problem?

Obviously given the situation as described, this represents a problem for the affiliate marketer. Essentially the affiliate has done the hard work by sending the customer to the merchant only to have their cookie potentially overwritten if the customer decides part way through a sales transaction to abandon the process to complete later if the retargeting is successful.

Clearly the issue at hand is the overwriting of cookies. Yes, there are similar concerns when it comes to brand bidding, but just because it is a problem in that instance, it doesn’t mean that the industry should muddy the waters further by introducing retargeting techniques such as these.

The Outcome

The good news is that after the outcry by affiliates, the merchant, network and retargeting technology provider got together and resolved that no prior affiliate cookies would be overwritten by the retargeting process. The retargeting company still get to take a cut of any business that they manage to convert online; just not business that was referred by affiliates. Retargeting will still take place for customers sent by affiliates that do not complete a sales transaction, but no cookies will be overwritten which means affiliate conversion rates should actually increase.

Retargeting is fairly new in terms of the affiliate sector, but given the potential upside for affiliates (given the correct implementation) it should be welcomed with open arms.

Website Preview Screenshots in Google SERPS

It seems that Google have introduced the option to see a snapshot of a web page by clicking on a small magnifying glass icon next to the title of any SERP result, or just hovering over the SERP.

I saw this on a limited basis the other day but it seems to be a general rollout now, certainly on google.co.uk anyway. Click on the magnifying glass and hover over the SERP and you get a full image of the webpage before having to click on the SERP link itself.

What Does This Mean For Online Marketing?

Apart from being a nice gimmick, it largely depends on the click through data as to whether it will make a difference to how users approach search results pages. Will people ignore it, or choose to click on prettier looking websites even if they are lower down the SERPs.

Objectively it can have some practical uses. If you’re searching in a bad neighbourhood it could be quite useful to get a quick visual summary of what you are about to click on before doing so.

Will it mean an emphasis on prettier web designs getting a higher click through rate? Among less savvy web users that could be the case. It will be interesting to see how this one pans out. Are Google trying to give the nod to webmasters that take design seriously and try to oust the ugly scraper sites that get thrown up with no consideration for design or quality? Using site images in SERPs is a nice way to try to introduce a weighting factor in terms of site design into the ranking algorithm based on using traditional historical click through data based on SERP position versus click through data based on search position using the new sites images feature. Interesting…

And Finally…

It seems that Wikipedia not only get a snapshot of their page, they also get a definition thrown in. Nice.