The Emotions of Color in Marketing

As marketers, we see it all the time… BIG RED LETTERS on landing pages to grab our attention. Different colors make people act differently. RED is usually seen as a “danger” or “warning” color… while BLUE or GREEN is more “soothing” and “trusted“. An excellent example of this was how in Star Wars, Darth Maul is RED and BLACK (representing his evil), and Yoda was GREEN… showing his “stability” and “safety”.

In today’s post I wanted to focus on all of the main colors and how they should be represented in your advertising efforts. Believe it or not, the colors you place on your landing pages or web sites can drastically change your overall conversions and the user’s thinking process. Below is a break down from HP, on the main colors we use for marketing and how they are often looked at by others.

Primary Colors:

Red is a very emotionally charged color. It tends to increase the respiration rate and can even raise your blood pressure. It creates excitement and can be associated with danger, war, power, strength passion, desire and love. It can even increase your appetite.

Yellow is the happy color… it is the color of sunshine. It creates a sense of cheerfulness and helps to stimulate mental activity. When yellow is very bright, it can attract attention. It can also provide a very sharp contrast to dark colors. Yellow can have the appearance of being brighter than white if over used and can be disturbing if used too much.

Blue is a trusted color. It can provide a sense of tranquility and security. It tends to symbolize loyalty, wisdom, trust, faith, confidence, and intelligence. While red can help to increase the appetite, blue tends to have the opposite affect and can actually suppress the appetite.

Secondary Colors:

Orange is the combination of the happiness of yellow and the energy and strength of red. It symbolizes creativity, determination, enthusiasm and success. In addition orange indicates affordability. Because of its similarity to red, it is great to promote food.

Green tends to suggest endurance and stability. It represents harmony, growth and freshness. Green indicates safety. Obviously, it is associated with money and wealth. With the interest in “green” products, it is the only color that can promote organic foods and products effectively.

Violet or purple combines the energy and strength of red with the stability of blue. It represents nobility, ambition, power and luxury. It symbolizes extravagance and wealth and is often associated with dignity, independence, wisdom and magic.

Others:

White is purity, goodness, light and innocence. It is considered perfection. White is generally positive and simple. Often it is the color of charitable organizations, low-fat foods and dairy products.

Black is elegant, powerful and formal, but can also be associated with death. In marketing, it is dignified. In certain contexts, black is very negative (blacklist, black humor, etc). It can also denote prestige.

Next time you are working on your landing page or new web site, step back and look at your color scheme and see how your colors are targeting your audience.

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From Super Affiliate… to Super Lazy!

Over the past several months, I’ve found myself working on new projects and focusing my efforts elsewhere… and slightly moving away from what I know makes the most money and what I should be working on. It’s not completely a matter of being lazy… it’s more about where I would much rather spend my time, and lately, that’s been playing 2-4 hours of basketball several days a week. While it’s great to get out and occasionally set yourself apart from your business, you need to keep things in perspective, and do what’s necessary.

My average day is waking up sometime between 8am and 10am, then working on the computer till around 3pm. Around 3-4pm I usually head over to the gym and run basketball til around 6:30pm. If I don’t hit the gym up that day, then I will probably be working online til around 6… so the week evens out a bit.

It really is quite amazing how much time you can spend online, and how little work you can get done. Between keeping an eye on Twitter, chatting with others on AIM, looking at stats reports and going over new ideas… some days just fly by and it feels like you have accomplished nothing. All too often we hear from others, that they get so much more work done when they simply turn everything off and just work!

In addition to better time management, when you are focusing your full efforts on work, make sure you are working on what matters and what will actually make you money. I’m sure when you are spending time setting up new FaceBook campaigns, or setting up landing pages for a new ppc campaign, it’s probably not top priority on your list of fun things to do… but it will make you money and give you more time down the road to do whatever you want.

Not only am I possibly preaching to the choir, but I am also preaching to myself. I must better self manage my time and efforts in the right areas. I have a lot of ideas and project that I want to work on, and that have become half completed and “sitting” projects for months or even years. Focus your efforts on your main income producing ideas and you will succeed that much more.

Are you currently making money online, and know you could make “that much more” if you just started to focus your full efforts in one area… and not half ass everything?

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Do You Like Affiliate Networks Using DirectTrack?

DirectTrack has been the powerhouse management software behind many successful affiliate networks since 1997. The software now powers over 300 ad networks and serves over 12.5 BILLION ads each month. With such a strong following and numbers crushing any competition in management software, why have some affiliates and networks moved away from the DirectTrack system. Let’s take a look at a few of the networks currently running off DirectTrack, which networks have their own platforms and other opinions of DirectTrack in the affiliate space.

First, let’s take a look at a number of well known affiliate networks currently running off the DirectTrack system.

As you can see from the list above, some of the best networks out there are currently using DirectTrack to manage their company. With such a following of networks running the DirectTrack system, it not only makes it convient for networks to swap and share offers between each other and manage their own system, but it also cuts down the learning curve for new affiliates. As affiliates join any of these networks, and learn the system, they will have a good understanding of how to run all the same reports and processes across other DirectTrack run networks.

In addition to networks running off the DirectTrack system, let’s note some big networks which took their management systems into their own hands.

A comparison between the two lists, clearly shows that running your network with DirectTrack or with your own management system, it will not “make or break” your network. In both lists we see some of the best and largest affiliate networks out there. Now let’s take a look at some of the PROS and CONS to running your network off DirectTrack vs. a custom backend.

PROS to Using DirectTrack:
- From a network standpoint, the ability to go live and setup your own network is relatively “cheap” ($10k+ area) and everything is already available to you.
- The DirectTrack affiliate interface has become somewhat of a standard among affiliates to get used to.
- Limitations on customizations for your own network.

CONS to Using DirectTrack:
- Once you login to a network using the DirectTrack system, it’s pretty obvious. While some networks have done a lot more than others to make it look custom, it’s always easy to tell which are running the DirectTrack system.
- SUBID tracking is poor and annoying. Instead of having to submit a sub id, click submit then get a new code, you should have the ability to just enter a sub id and it will go at the end of the url. Many networks not running DirectTrack (like NeverBlueAds and Hydra Network), make SUBID tracking very simple.
- Usually when a network is run off their own management system, they will have a lot more to offer. Better tracking options, reports/charts and offer layouts.
- Self reliant on the DirectTrack system, while paying their monthly hosting/management costs.
- Others have discussed their complaints around the internet on Direct Track as well.

Whether you like DirectTrack, or hate them… they are one of the prime reasons why there are so many affiliate networks today. Never before was it so easy to throw some cash together and have the ability to go live with your own affiliate network. Since their release of the software in the late 90s, the company has since teamed up Digital River and continues to power a great majority of ad networks today.

I laid out the foundation, but I want to hear your opinion. What are your thoughts and comments on the DirectTrack system and networks running it?

[This post is covering part one of the “Five Reasons Your Affiliate Program Sucks” series, and is focusing on “Networks Running Off DirectTrack“.]

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Get Your Affiliate Payments Faster

Fast cars, fast internet and fast food… like everything else, we want it fast, and if your affiliate network isn’t delivering fast monthly (or weekly) payouts… they are way behind. While many affiliate networks are just starting to offer payment methods outside of the traditional checks by mail, many others have been sending faster payments through paypal, Direct Deposit and wire transfer for a while now. Like many affiliate networks, big programs like Google Adsense and Yahoo Publisher Network, both offer payments by Direct Deposit. There are several advantages to receiving your earnings by direct deposit or paypal vs. waiting on your monthly check. Here are a few reasons why…

Payment by Direct Deposit / Wire Transfers
- It sounds simple enough… and it is! Provide your affiliate network with your bank account information and instead of receiving a check each month, the company will directly deposit your payment every week or month depending on the programs.
PROS: No waiting for checks and having to deposit them at the bank.
CONS: Some banks charge a fee for direct deposits and wire transfers. However, if you have a contact or a big enough account at the bank, you can usually have these fees waived.

Payment by PayPal
- Even though paypal has been around for years and used by millions, it still isn’t accepted or used by all affiliate networks. Payment through paypal is instant, but as the receiver of money, you will have to lose a percentage to use their service.
PROS: Instant money. From paypal you can send the payment directly to your bank account, or send it to another advertiser or location of choice.
CONS: If you are going to accept large earnings through paypal, you are almost better off waiting for a check looking for an alternative method for payment. Premiere Business paypal accounts are charged around 1.9% to 2.9% + $0.30 USD per transaction.

Direct Deposit and wire transfers may seem like the bets options for affiliates, but it doesn’t come with out a cost. Most affiliate networks will only pay out on a weekly/monthly basis through direct deposit, if you are pushing some nice volume through their network. Here are a few of the networks minimums for wire transfers.

What type of experience have you had with affiliate networks and making the change over from CHECKS to Direct Deposits and Wire Transfers?

[This post is covering part one of the “Five Reasons Your Affiliate Program Sucks” series, and is focusing on “Direct Deposit / Wire Transfer & Paypal“.]

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Affiliate Network Offer Sharing and Cutting Margins

It’s one thing for an affiliate network to have the same offers as other networks, but for them to be one of the lower paying affiliate networks, it’s pretty sad. Fortunately, some of the best affiliate networks out there don’t just rely on “public” and “general” offers and actually start to create their own. Today’s post will focus on affiliate networks that provide their own affiliate offers and not just swap offers with all of the other networks.

Where did my Margins Go?
As more networks tend to swap and share offers, this usually means the best margins on the offers are thinning out. If the main affiliate network that brokered the offer, is getting $50 per lead (and paying affiliates $35), then brokering that same offer to another affiliate network (who then pushes it to their affiliates for $30 per lead, so they can make $5 profit per lead), you are getting the crappy deal by going with any network besides the one brokering direct. An offer can only be brokered and margined down so many times… not to mention, if the offer is available on so many networks, it may get over saturated by affiliates very quickly.

DirectTrack Makes Swapping Easy!
For those of you that don’t already know, many of the affiliate networks are run off a network called system “DirectTrack“. Years ago when I played around with idea of running my own network, I remember seeing the function to swap and share offers from one DirectTrack offer to another. While this isn’t a horrible thing, it’s just good to note that you may see the swapping or sharing of offers more often through DirectTrack run networks, just because of the simplicity of tracking and management. (If you wanted to start your own network up, essentially you could get a DirectTrack account, then just grab all the “shared” offers from other DirectTrack networks. This would drastically cut margins, but you would not have to broker any deals direct, as it would all be tracked through DirectTrack.)

Where are the Exclusive Offers?
The majority of big affiliates networks have their own “exclusive” offers available. By offering exclusives, networks are able to pull in affiliates to promote offers that aren’t available on other networks. Popular exclusive leads are usually for weight loss, debt consolidation or lead type offers. Networks usually also have a boat load of custom or unique ZIP/EMAIL submit offers. Here is a break down on a few affiliate networks with exclusive offers and their numbers.

From an affiliate stand point, the worst thing you can do as an affiliate network (besides fraud and non-payment), is to have a new affiliate login to your system and see nearly all of the offers available, listed on a bunch of other networks as well. The ONLY way that you can successfully pull this off, is by paying more than the other networks. In most cases, the networks that do the most swapping and sharing of offers, are the smaller guys that can’t compete and get the big advertiser deals themselves. While this may seem alright to the network, it won’t be when the affiliate finds another network paying a decent amount more on offers they have been promoting for months now.

[This post is covering part one of the “Five Reasons Your Affiliate Program Sucks” series, and is focusing on “Same Offers as other Networks“.]

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