hello everyone marco montemagno here
digital domination summit 2013 and the
guest today is Alisha Navarro from
everything right it’s cool because I was
thinking you before to talk about
digital monetization and all this tech
stuff and business things I was thinking
I’m an Italian living in UK you I think
originally from Australia your mum is
from Spain you live in between us UK is
unbelievable how you know we all and
it’s like that also for digital business
so that this is the interesting topic
you have so many companies so many
people all over the world not only in
the US or in Europe now is Asia or so
many places and everyone very interested
to understand how they could improve
their business online basically and
today with you I would like to focus on
how to monetize your your your content
and it’s very interesting and about
Skimlinks in in 30 seconds for people
who don’t know Skimlinks yet from I tell
you my explanation you tell me if I’m
basically if you think guys about
affiliation okay the affiliation Ward
you put a link on your website and with
a link to an Amazon product and you get
money every time that people buy their
product on Amazon but during these years
all us entrepreneurs or people do stuff
online we understood how tough is
handling all the affiliation because
maybe you have I don’t know hundreds of
different companies offering products
and so Skimlinks
I think solved this problem because in
only one dashboard give you the
opportunity to on one side to make it
more automatic the links creation and on
the other side to handle a lot of
affiliation so that’s why I think is so
interesting but tell me if I save some
stupid things no yeah I mean it’s
simplest we automate the affiliate
marketing process on behalf of
publishers so that rather than having to
join lot to differ
affiliate networks work with lots and
lots of different retailers affiliate
programs manually create an update
affiliate links and then do manual
optimization one account with Skimlinks
gives you immediate access and approval
to every single affiliate program and
our technology will automatically turn
existing retailer links on your site
into their equivalent affiliate link the
way you make money from affiliate
marketing without you having to do
anything yourself right that’s super
cool just to give you an example if you
maybe your company has got a four-room
which has got a lot of users I think
about that or I was launching a blog
network and I all got also an exit from
it both with I don’t know three million
unique visitors a month if I got
Skimlinks I would have been adding
additional revenues without worrying
about creating all the links so if you
publish content what else you think
would be helpful schema schema Cummings
works particularly well with forums and
other user-generated content so if
you’ve got content anything from a blog
to a social shopping site to a forum to
an editorial sites I mean really
anything that includes content wait
where your community or your editors are
creating content about products and
services and that includes links to
different retailers scream acts as a way
that you can make money straightaway you
know it’s particularly exciting for
forums especially if they have a lot of
archival context because literally in a
few seconds you can copy and paste line
of code on your footer and years worth
of archival content can now be monetized
straight away without affecting user
experience before Alicia to go straight
to the to the tips about how to monetize
and so on can you give us just the
numbers of Skimlinks 2013 I mean what
kind of numbers scheme links is doing
what kind of amount of users you reach
how many clicks you you generate every
month just to give you an idea of the of
the Skimlinks level and quantity also
yeah I say at the moment we process
about
quicks a month through our service and
that generates last year was about two
hundred and fifty million dollars worth
of transactions that happen to the
platform and that’s through about one
hundred forty four thousand different
websites and again once it can be in a
tiny blog all the way up to Pinterest
yeah but yeah it’s it’s become
incredibly common and ubiquitous now in
the same way that you know there’s all
these technologies and services that
help optimize other forms of online
advertising like SEO or search engine
marketing or banner advertising
Skimlinks is kind of the next generation
of advertising optimization that
actually adds the optimizations layer to
this form of monetization and what it
means the publisher is now you know they
can add affiliate marketing to the
revenue mix without having to trainee
people change your business processes
it’s quite a liberating job but that’s
super interesting Alicia because most of
the time I think still maybe people who
are not so deep inside affiliation word
think that you know affiliation
marketing is for I don’t know in for
products only a little bit you know
award with small numbers or something
like that
and yes there is Amazon or Ebay they do
the generate big numbers but here I
think once you let’s say democratize
that the possibility of easily using you
know affiliation for your content then
you get a lot of people a lot of
companies who could add revenue today so
that’s why I think is so interesting
yeah when we first started six years ago
you know affiliate marketing was not
really well known at all and you’re
absolutely right it was very much the
domain of you know ebook promoters the
dark side of the web weird health
product kind of stuff you know one long
page informational infographic stuff it
was you know it had an unfortunate
reputation and I think what
exciting for us as a company is to
change the way that people knew this
moral monetization and to make it
professional and something that you know
mainstream websites not only think about
doing that it’s a default additional
element to their revenue mix right and
it’s wonderful and I think what’s also
being very gratifying if to say that
retailers really start to understand the
benefit you know you can start to pay
publishers for the role workday that
this content is fine in creating intent
and not just creating sailing or
creating brand awareness and familiarity
and loyalty you know it’s really
starting to change the way that the
content creation occurs as their work so
we have to be always well what are your
tips in I mean in 2013 in this moment
you know we’re also you were talking
about SEO so is Google is changing a lot
of things everyone talked about creating
content quality content so if you create
quality content then you can add the
affiliation to to to monetize it but
what’s your tip I mean okay
using scheme list could be obviously a
great tip but are there any particular
suggestions to companies who start with
affiliation to do it properly and to get
it in the right way yeah what we tend to
do suggest is and it very much depends
on the site that you have the kind of
community that you have within your site
what we tend to recommend is that you’re
very open about it if there’s nothing to
be ashamed about or secretive about and
the sites that do particularly well are
the ones where they put either in there
about us or in their kind of disclosure
post the back there you know on top of
traditional banner advertising we also
use a service to help us get paid
commissions from sales that we work from
outside it doesn’t interrupt the user
experience and it helps us continue to
offer this service to you for free so
it’s just a simple message like that is
so well-received by the majority abuses
so well appreciated it means you’re in
line with
of international disclosure requirements
so we generally recommend that you do
that that publishers do that and the
sites that have done that we’ve seen
some really beautiful examples of it
that are well received and appreciated
by the community and then in terms of
using it we’ve also seen a lot of sites
really think very cleverly about how to
introduce this role of monetization that
to its greatest effect but in a way that
actually enhances the quality of the
content that they offer so for instance
in the case of forums when we first
started with a lot of forums they used
to have policies whereby they did not
commit any out loud linking two
different retailers because it kind of
drove people away from their site what
we saw is that as soon as you start off
this kind of monetization these sites
start to change their policies obviously
it still requires a degree of moderation
and some kind of forum rules to make
sure that it doesn’t turn into a spam
fest but for the most part it’s a
fantastic revenue stream you can do
things like add sections to your site
which your forum where you encourage
discussions around certain products or
certain product verticals no instance in
the case of mothering sites like have a
section where people discuss their
favorite products have a section where
in the fashion side people recommend
where you can buy certain new
fashionable items so this is like a
fantastic service to the community
really great content but it also
monetizes incredibly well and so
scalable because your community its
culture also I was thinking Leisha were
you who were explaining you know the way
to monetize it if I think for my last 15
years online I’ve been suggesting so
many services and products
not because I was affiliated just
because I thought wow this is a
supercool product just check it out and
I will think if I got you know an
affiliation system for all the products
and services I’ll be richer than these
guys because I mean every day been you
know submitting and yeah and then I
think about it like you don’t want to be
making that recommendation thinking oh
I’m gonna make lots of money you want
that suggestion to be pure and sincere
and what’s nice about using this kind of
monetization
like Skimlinks is that the monetization
happens after you’ve made the best
foundation so you make a recommendation
with all your integrity and then the
customer makes ones on the content after
you’ve published it it works out what it
can monetize at other times is that if
they can so it just means that you’re
not there going what I’m going to make
this recommendation and I better go more
into Commission Junction I work out how
to create an affiliate link and
hard-code that into my side it just that
somehow pollutes the purity of that
suggestion whereas just publishing it
out there including the link to where
the item can be purchased and knowing
that if it’s possible to be monetized in
once producer it just makes the
editorial process a lot more yeah couple
of question more than I let you go that
I I know that you’re super busy the
amount of revenue that in your
experience a company could generate it
depends more by let’s say the quantity
of the of the products that they suggest
or the service that they suggest that
our affiliate Abal okay that they could
have a link to be to generate affiliate
revenue or the quality so if I for
instance I have a section about video
cameras HD video cameras or very
expensive stuff that you know the price
is very high so my Commission could be
very high by default I will get more
more revenue focusing on this kind of
stuff or is a mix of of the both what’s
your experience about that it is it is a
mixture and explain a really fun
challenge to try to do things like
estimate what a site is gonna earn ahead
of time because it’s a combination of a
lot of factors certainly traffic helps
look if you don’t have any traffic
you’re not going to make any money
laughing but other factors that make a
difference of things like the kind of
products you’re talking about and how
how much a source of information your
community views your site so forums for
example tend to convert much higher up
so user because people go to foreigners
specifically to research and get
recommendations on products they should
buy and so they tend to convert at a
higher rate than traditional blogs and
other editorial sites
and similarly if the products that
you’re talking about are require value
things they tend to do very well or if
they are to retailers that tend to have
high margins so for example we work with
forums that talk about high-end
audio-visual equipment okay that tends
but some of that higher end stuff has to
be quite high margin so those sliced you
very well fashion tends to be higher
margin so they pay higher commissions
whereas for instance travel is much
lower large in a bit or is less deals to
be made there but really what we find is
if you’re if you have a community that
loves coming to your site for
recommendations they know it and they
trust the recommendations of the
community members
there the fact they tend to do best yeah
how much money I mean could a website
generate just a range I mean from from
from a minimum to a maximum is there you
know an average amount of money that you
saw in those ears honestly there is that
we’ve got so I could end paintings and
then sites that have earned you know
over six figures a month okay yeah
generally if you’ve got a site that you
know is reasonable traffic reasonable
recommendations reasonable amount of
blames you know you’re looking at you
know at least a few hundred a month okay
and that’s for a small site all right
well it’s your last question three
business apps or website that you
absolutely would recommend to anyone
doing online business that you I don’t
know used to work with with people
productivity but whatever you like this
is always very interesting to know who
is using what on your mobile or online
yo alright I have my three so first is
TripIt I travel a great deal for work
and to have one a trip it fantastic you
forward it all your travel confirmation
emails and that all mopin scrapes the
emails have consolidated into one app
that I can access by Mac computer cool
such a kind live without it
second is Evernote I love them I
everything from like taking in meetings
to reminding myself of certain things
that’s miscible my lotion my team use it
and I love Yama we use it as a company
communication tools and particularly our
office it’s very distributed and also
our culture is incredibly important to
us a tool like younger helps us all
closer together spell us the last one
Yama Yama Yama Yama all right you see my
my Italian accent you know I could have
yah myself well I never never yes I got
it I’m sorry I get it excellent Alicia
thank you so much alicia navarro founder
of Skimlinks and good luck for really
everything like weirdest thing in my face
digital domination summit 2013 and the
guest today is Alisha Navarro from
everything right it’s cool because I was
thinking you before to talk about
digital monetization and all this tech
stuff and business things I was thinking
I’m an Italian living in UK you I think
originally from Australia your mum is
from Spain you live in between us UK is
unbelievable how you know we all and
it’s like that also for digital business
so that this is the interesting topic
you have so many companies so many
people all over the world not only in
the US or in Europe now is Asia or so
many places and everyone very interested
to understand how they could improve
their business online basically and
today with you I would like to focus on
how to monetize your your your content
and it’s very interesting and about
Skimlinks in in 30 seconds for people
who don’t know Skimlinks yet from I tell
you my explanation you tell me if I’m
basically if you think guys about
affiliation okay the affiliation Ward
you put a link on your website and with
a link to an Amazon product and you get
money every time that people buy their
product on Amazon but during these years
all us entrepreneurs or people do stuff
online we understood how tough is
handling all the affiliation because
maybe you have I don’t know hundreds of
different companies offering products
and so Skimlinks
I think solved this problem because in
only one dashboard give you the
opportunity to on one side to make it
more automatic the links creation and on
the other side to handle a lot of
affiliation so that’s why I think is so
interesting but tell me if I save some
stupid things no yeah I mean it’s
simplest we automate the affiliate
marketing process on behalf of
publishers so that rather than having to
join lot to differ
affiliate networks work with lots and
lots of different retailers affiliate
programs manually create an update
affiliate links and then do manual
optimization one account with Skimlinks
gives you immediate access and approval
to every single affiliate program and
our technology will automatically turn
existing retailer links on your site
into their equivalent affiliate link the
way you make money from affiliate
marketing without you having to do
anything yourself right that’s super
cool just to give you an example if you
maybe your company has got a four-room
which has got a lot of users I think
about that or I was launching a blog
network and I all got also an exit from
it both with I don’t know three million
unique visitors a month if I got
Skimlinks I would have been adding
additional revenues without worrying
about creating all the links so if you
publish content what else you think
would be helpful schema schema Cummings
works particularly well with forums and
other user-generated content so if
you’ve got content anything from a blog
to a social shopping site to a forum to
an editorial sites I mean really
anything that includes content wait
where your community or your editors are
creating content about products and
services and that includes links to
different retailers scream acts as a way
that you can make money straightaway you
know it’s particularly exciting for
forums especially if they have a lot of
archival context because literally in a
few seconds you can copy and paste line
of code on your footer and years worth
of archival content can now be monetized
straight away without affecting user
experience before Alicia to go straight
to the to the tips about how to monetize
and so on can you give us just the
numbers of Skimlinks 2013 I mean what
kind of numbers scheme links is doing
what kind of amount of users you reach
how many clicks you you generate every
month just to give you an idea of the of
the Skimlinks level and quantity also
yeah I say at the moment we process
about
quicks a month through our service and
that generates last year was about two
hundred and fifty million dollars worth
of transactions that happen to the
platform and that’s through about one
hundred forty four thousand different
websites and again once it can be in a
tiny blog all the way up to Pinterest
yeah but yeah it’s it’s become
incredibly common and ubiquitous now in
the same way that you know there’s all
these technologies and services that
help optimize other forms of online
advertising like SEO or search engine
marketing or banner advertising
Skimlinks is kind of the next generation
of advertising optimization that
actually adds the optimizations layer to
this form of monetization and what it
means the publisher is now you know they
can add affiliate marketing to the
revenue mix without having to trainee
people change your business processes
it’s quite a liberating job but that’s
super interesting Alicia because most of
the time I think still maybe people who
are not so deep inside affiliation word
think that you know affiliation
marketing is for I don’t know in for
products only a little bit you know
award with small numbers or something
like that
and yes there is Amazon or Ebay they do
the generate big numbers but here I
think once you let’s say democratize
that the possibility of easily using you
know affiliation for your content then
you get a lot of people a lot of
companies who could add revenue today so
that’s why I think is so interesting
yeah when we first started six years ago
you know affiliate marketing was not
really well known at all and you’re
absolutely right it was very much the
domain of you know ebook promoters the
dark side of the web weird health
product kind of stuff you know one long
page informational infographic stuff it
was you know it had an unfortunate
reputation and I think what
exciting for us as a company is to
change the way that people knew this
moral monetization and to make it
professional and something that you know
mainstream websites not only think about
doing that it’s a default additional
element to their revenue mix right and
it’s wonderful and I think what’s also
being very gratifying if to say that
retailers really start to understand the
benefit you know you can start to pay
publishers for the role workday that
this content is fine in creating intent
and not just creating sailing or
creating brand awareness and familiarity
and loyalty you know it’s really
starting to change the way that the
content creation occurs as their work so
we have to be always well what are your
tips in I mean in 2013 in this moment
you know we’re also you were talking
about SEO so is Google is changing a lot
of things everyone talked about creating
content quality content so if you create
quality content then you can add the
affiliation to to to monetize it but
what’s your tip I mean okay
using scheme list could be obviously a
great tip but are there any particular
suggestions to companies who start with
affiliation to do it properly and to get
it in the right way yeah what we tend to
do suggest is and it very much depends
on the site that you have the kind of
community that you have within your site
what we tend to recommend is that you’re
very open about it if there’s nothing to
be ashamed about or secretive about and
the sites that do particularly well are
the ones where they put either in there
about us or in their kind of disclosure
post the back there you know on top of
traditional banner advertising we also
use a service to help us get paid
commissions from sales that we work from
outside it doesn’t interrupt the user
experience and it helps us continue to
offer this service to you for free so
it’s just a simple message like that is
so well-received by the majority abuses
so well appreciated it means you’re in
line with
of international disclosure requirements
so we generally recommend that you do
that that publishers do that and the
sites that have done that we’ve seen
some really beautiful examples of it
that are well received and appreciated
by the community and then in terms of
using it we’ve also seen a lot of sites
really think very cleverly about how to
introduce this role of monetization that
to its greatest effect but in a way that
actually enhances the quality of the
content that they offer so for instance
in the case of forums when we first
started with a lot of forums they used
to have policies whereby they did not
commit any out loud linking two
different retailers because it kind of
drove people away from their site what
we saw is that as soon as you start off
this kind of monetization these sites
start to change their policies obviously
it still requires a degree of moderation
and some kind of forum rules to make
sure that it doesn’t turn into a spam
fest but for the most part it’s a
fantastic revenue stream you can do
things like add sections to your site
which your forum where you encourage
discussions around certain products or
certain product verticals no instance in
the case of mothering sites like have a
section where people discuss their
favorite products have a section where
in the fashion side people recommend
where you can buy certain new
fashionable items so this is like a
fantastic service to the community
really great content but it also
monetizes incredibly well and so
scalable because your community its
culture also I was thinking Leisha were
you who were explaining you know the way
to monetize it if I think for my last 15
years online I’ve been suggesting so
many services and products
not because I was affiliated just
because I thought wow this is a
supercool product just check it out and
I will think if I got you know an
affiliation system for all the products
and services I’ll be richer than these
guys because I mean every day been you
know submitting and yeah and then I
think about it like you don’t want to be
making that recommendation thinking oh
I’m gonna make lots of money you want
that suggestion to be pure and sincere
and what’s nice about using this kind of
monetization
like Skimlinks is that the monetization
happens after you’ve made the best
foundation so you make a recommendation
with all your integrity and then the
customer makes ones on the content after
you’ve published it it works out what it
can monetize at other times is that if
they can so it just means that you’re
not there going what I’m going to make
this recommendation and I better go more
into Commission Junction I work out how
to create an affiliate link and
hard-code that into my side it just that
somehow pollutes the purity of that
suggestion whereas just publishing it
out there including the link to where
the item can be purchased and knowing
that if it’s possible to be monetized in
once producer it just makes the
editorial process a lot more yeah couple
of question more than I let you go that
I I know that you’re super busy the
amount of revenue that in your
experience a company could generate it
depends more by let’s say the quantity
of the of the products that they suggest
or the service that they suggest that
our affiliate Abal okay that they could
have a link to be to generate affiliate
revenue or the quality so if I for
instance I have a section about video
cameras HD video cameras or very
expensive stuff that you know the price
is very high so my Commission could be
very high by default I will get more
more revenue focusing on this kind of
stuff or is a mix of of the both what’s
your experience about that it is it is a
mixture and explain a really fun
challenge to try to do things like
estimate what a site is gonna earn ahead
of time because it’s a combination of a
lot of factors certainly traffic helps
look if you don’t have any traffic
you’re not going to make any money
laughing but other factors that make a
difference of things like the kind of
products you’re talking about and how
how much a source of information your
community views your site so forums for
example tend to convert much higher up
so user because people go to foreigners
specifically to research and get
recommendations on products they should
buy and so they tend to convert at a
higher rate than traditional blogs and
other editorial sites
and similarly if the products that
you’re talking about are require value
things they tend to do very well or if
they are to retailers that tend to have
high margins so for example we work with
forums that talk about high-end
audio-visual equipment okay that tends
but some of that higher end stuff has to
be quite high margin so those sliced you
very well fashion tends to be higher
margin so they pay higher commissions
whereas for instance travel is much
lower large in a bit or is less deals to
be made there but really what we find is
if you’re if you have a community that
loves coming to your site for
recommendations they know it and they
trust the recommendations of the
community members
there the fact they tend to do best yeah
how much money I mean could a website
generate just a range I mean from from
from a minimum to a maximum is there you
know an average amount of money that you
saw in those ears honestly there is that
we’ve got so I could end paintings and
then sites that have earned you know
over six figures a month okay yeah
generally if you’ve got a site that you
know is reasonable traffic reasonable
recommendations reasonable amount of
blames you know you’re looking at you
know at least a few hundred a month okay
and that’s for a small site all right
well it’s your last question three
business apps or website that you
absolutely would recommend to anyone
doing online business that you I don’t
know used to work with with people
productivity but whatever you like this
is always very interesting to know who
is using what on your mobile or online
yo alright I have my three so first is
TripIt I travel a great deal for work
and to have one a trip it fantastic you
forward it all your travel confirmation
emails and that all mopin scrapes the
emails have consolidated into one app
that I can access by Mac computer cool
such a kind live without it
second is Evernote I love them I
everything from like taking in meetings
to reminding myself of certain things
that’s miscible my lotion my team use it
and I love Yama we use it as a company
communication tools and particularly our
office it’s very distributed and also
our culture is incredibly important to
us a tool like younger helps us all
closer together spell us the last one
Yama Yama Yama Yama all right you see my
my Italian accent you know I could have
yah myself well I never never yes I got
it I’m sorry I get it excellent Alicia
thank you so much alicia navarro founder
of Skimlinks and good luck for really
everything like weirdest thing in my face
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