ARTICLE: SEVEN REASONS TO SWITCH TO RSS ADVERTISING

There are at least seven reasons for any marketer to at least consider testing RSS marketing. RSS is 100% opt-in, has a 100% delivery rate, and when delivered to a two-pane news aggregator, the feed has a 100% open rate.

When deciding to send email marketing messages in today’s climate, you need to be aware of at least these seven issues:

• Sender ID - The difficulty of verifying a sender’s identity.
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• CAN SPAM ACT - CAN-SPAM is an opt-out law.
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• Blacklists - Blacklisted IP addresses will not be allowed to send mail to a user trusting the blacklist.
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• Known Sender
  
• Email Filters
  
• Bonded Sender Program - Bonded Sender Program ensures legitimate email gets delivered.
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• Cost of Sending Email
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Thanks to Bill of Pheedo.com for this article. Pheedo creates tools that enable individuals, organizations and corporations to promote, analyze, and optimize their weblogs and content feeds with simple, yet robust software and services. Original article can be viewed at www.pheedo.info/archives/000156.html

DEFINITION OF THE MONTH

Spimming - Messaging spam, sometimes termed spim, makes use of instant messaging systems, such as AOL Instant Messenger or ICQ. Many IM systems offer a directory of users, including demographic information such as age and sex. Advertisers can gather this information, sign on to the system, and send unsolicited messages. Source

TOOL OF THE MONTH

Google PageRank Report - http://www.top25web.com/pagerank.php. This handy tool can return the PageRank of multiple sites at one time! Quite helpful when identifying potential websites to link to your website!

ASK AN ECOM EXPERT

Q: Katie asks: How important is click fraud in the SEM industry?

A: Let’s start by defining click fraud as it applies to Pay Per Click methods of advertising: Click Fraud is a scam involving setting up a website affiliated with a major search engine, displaying pay-per-click advertising from the search engine and then using various methods to fraudulently increase the number of clicks to the advertiser from the affiliate website. The affiliate website receives a portion of the money generated by the click throughs even though the clicks were not generated by genuine customers.

Each month we will feature a question from you - our readers! So send your burning SEM questions to: Ask an Expert (newsletter@ecomaccess.com). We will even provide a link to your website if you supply it!

How Can You Tell If You are a Victim of Click Fraud (or Click Spam)?
Tracking, tracking, tracking. Most PPC search engines will tell you how many impressions and clicks you have had but that is all they tell you. Using a third party tracking tool or your own traffic logs you can dig down a little deeper into your PPC campaign traffic to gather important data points for analysis. Important data points include visitor referral data, IP addresses, browser versions, click stream, etc. Click fraud may have occurred if you see the same IP address over and over again, same referrer information and there is no path through the website - the “visitor” merely clicked the ad and left the site upon arrival.

What to Do If You Have Been Click Spammed?
Arm yourself with evidence - traffic logs, screen shots, third party tracking information, etc. and report your findings to the PPC Search Engine. Everyone will have a different experience with the same search engine ranging from a refund to denial. Fight to be heard and take your case to the forums if you are sure that you have been click spammed and the search engine is not making good on it!

IN CLOSING

Spring is definitely in the air here in Montreal, even though we still have snow! Spring is always a great time for fresh ideas so we would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to Lisa Mac, Share Results new affiliate manager.

Lisa worked in the field of Affiliate Marketing for one of the largest affiliate networks in the world, Media Plazza, and managed many large brand clients. Lisa also ran her own entertainment sites and did creative direction and content management for several sites. Lisa's goal is to build up a successful network of key affiliates for Share Results merchants and to help these key affiliates be the best they can be.

If you would like to get in touch with Lisa, perhaps to find out how you can better promote a particular merchant, she can be reached via email: lisa@shareresults.com.

Till April,

The Ecom Access and Share Results Team

Have a question? Email us at newsletter@ecomaccess.com - we’d love to hear from you!