Time for a new feature again!

This is yet another step to make Click2Sell system friendlier to 3rd party software, scripts, automated services and so on. Perhaps the first major step in this area was an introduction of Click2Sell API service which allowed merchants to automate important parts of their business or just make them more flexible.

Now let’s talk about the fresh feature which definately will help you to increase your sales – Click2Sell Marketplace XML feed! Click2Sell marketplace already has about one thousand products. We are very pleased that there are more and more products. However, quite many people asked for some way which would allow them to easily take the content of the marketplace. Being able to get such information easily let various 3rd party software, scripts or services to make various things. Just some examples of what they can do:

• Deep analysis of the marketplace. Using such service allows affiliates easily find out the best affiliate programs;
• Remote usage of the marketplace in any 3rd party software. This let users quickly do their things without browsing the marketplace in their browsers.
• "Adsense-style" text ads. Some scripts can automatically create text ads with embedded affiliate link according to webpage content (thus making an ad very relevant).
• Lots of other things…

As you already see, all such products/services essentially need easily accessible summary of marketplace.

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Lately we’ve been talking about new Click2Sell features/tweaks and general affiliate marketing. So it’s a good time to talk about already existing things in Click2Sell system. Let me tell you some things about one of the core things of the system: Click2Sell Buy-Now Buttons! There are some tricks and tips about them and you might find them useful.

1. Custom Click2Sell Buy-Now buttons image.
   This is one of several different default images:

   

   Of course, it is perfectly fine to add such image into your product’s sales-page. Many merchants are using such default image and don’t face any problem in their sales. However, we strongly recommend you to use your own custom image. Your own "buy-now" button (created specifically for your product’s website) increases the integrity of your sales-page. You know, our default image might just not suit your sales-page style.

   So how could you use your custom image instead of ours?
   Let’s take a look on "buy-now" button code. There is an example one (code lines are very long, so they are breaking in the middle):

   <a id="c2s_bn_lnk_3692" href="https://www.click2sell.eu/buy?testerespa" ><img src="http://www.click2sell.eu/images/paynow_v3_5.png" border="0" title="Buy now!" alt="Buy now!" ></a>

   [script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.click2sell.eu/js/buy_now_butt_v2.js"></script>
   [script type="text/javascript">c2s_bn_initializeBuyNowLink(‘www.click2sell.eu’, ‘3692’);</script>
    

   I won’t waste your time with analyzing the whole content of the code, let’s just see which part is responsible for showing button’s image. As you might already sensed, that’s the bolded part. As you see, that part is just a simple URL to image’s location in the Internet. So if your custom image is located in http://www.someserver.com/mycustomimage.jpg, you just need to replace that bolded URL with your own picture’s URL (just be careful not to remove any other symbol accidentally).
   The result of your modification would look like:

   <a id="c2s_bn_lnk_3692" href="https://www.click2sell.eu/buy?testerespa" ><img src="http://www.someserver.com/mycustomimage.jpg" border="0" title="Buy now!" alt="Buy now!" ></a>

   [script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.click2sell.eu/js/buy_now_butt_v2.js"></script>
   [script type="text/javascript">c2s_bn_initializeBuyNowLink(‘www.click2sell.eu’, ‘3692’);</script>

    
   After this change you will have a fully working "buy-now" button with your own custom image.
   Let me caution you not to make any single other modification in the code (like altering spacing to make it look more "compact").
    

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Affiliates help you to sell your product or service to your customers all over the world. Hence it is very important that you increase the number of affiliates and also retain the existing ones. Its very important to know how to manage affiliates successfully and implement this knowledge in your daily job. This article gives you seven great tips to manage affiliates successfully.

• Reward your affiliates in a way so they would feel that your product is worth being promoted! The most difficult decision to take in affiliate program is choosing correct amount of commissions for the affiliates. If you pay very little then your affiliates will lose interest in promoting your business. On the other hand if you pay more you might end up in loss. So, the ideal condition is to pay varying commission rates to different affiliates depending on their performance. In most cases you can have a test and see yourself. Offer your affiliates for example 50% of affiliate commissions if you sell digital products online. Run such affiliate program for a few months and see the response. Then increase your affiliate commission more – to 75% and see if that attracts more affiliates or makes them more ‘loyal’. Always test and see for yourself. The thing is that you have to offer your affiliates as much affiliate commissions as possible, this way they will reward you with more sales.
   
• As a general rule set a default commission rate which you can afford to pay on your profits for your affiliates. From time to time give some offers, promotions and bonus and distribute around 25% more of the allotted sum. You can bump another 25% during holidays or when your sales go down. Using Click2Sell affiliate marketing network you can set default commission rate (for example 50%) for products you sell and then run advertising campaign to recruit affiliates with "Special offer" – for example "Members who sign up to promote my products will get 75% commission instead of 50%!" This or similar message may attract attention of very good and active affiliates. From your Click2Sell acocunt you will be able to manage affiliates successfully by contacting them, changing affiliate commissions, banning unwanted affiliates (for example spammers), etc. Believe me, it is really very effective. This technique will encourage the affiliates to great extent, it is better than giving the entire money as general affiliate commission.
   
• You should have an affiliate approval and banning mechanisms. It should be one of the basic features of your used affiliate marketing system because if an affiliate has been using unethical means to drive traffic to your site it will not help you to enhance your sales and moreover it can damage your reputation. You should be able to ban such unwanted affiliates.
   
• Always be in contact with your affiliate, it will make them feel that you are friendly, cooperative and will work for you happily. Being in contact with your affiliate would help you to receive feedback from them both good and bad, which can help you improve your affiliate program and the product or service that you offer because affiliates usually provide good tips that help you make your affiliate program more attractive and successful. So, why not to ask them?
   
• It will be very useful if you trace out from where your affiliates are bringing in traffic to your site. If a particular affiliate is performing well then make sure that you trace out the traffic source. Your affiliate network (such as Click2Sell.EU) should allow you to trace all the traffic that comes to your products sales page and try to find where all the buyers are coming from. This information can help you to focus on those areas and get more profit out of it.
   
• Training the affiliates can produce better results for you. No matter how best your affiliates were, providing regular trainings can improve their performance to significant level. Provide them the training materials and educate about your product or service. Also, tell them how to improve sales in order to gain more commission, what are the benefits offered to them, etc. If possible try to give them support and needed help.
   
• There are lots of tools and promotion methods available. It is recommended that you try to offer many methods and tips to promote your business. For this you can use attractive banners, articles, examples of selling letters, blogs and lots more. Good promotion tool and method will definitely drive quality traffic to your site and this will convert into sales.

These seven tips will really boost your site’s traffic and product sales. You can try all these tips with slight modification according to your business needs and performance to gain the cutting edge over your competitors. But remember – only knowing how to manage affiliates successfully but doing nothing will drive you nowhere. So, log in to Click2Sell account (or Sign up if you don’t have one) and upload all tools for affiliates which you have. Start to manage affiliates!