LinkShare Blog

Would you like to know how your website is like a restaurant? I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.

Celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsay has a popular show on the BBC (and on American channels) called “Kitchen Nightmares.” I’m a big fan of the show. It’s one of the few shows that merits space on my DVR (I prefer the BBC version). Others have pointed out that Chef Ramsay offers great management lessons woven into the fabric of the shows. An SEO consultant mentioned that Chef Ramsay’s formula could be applied to website user experiences as well. That started me thinking. . .

For example, in one show he took on a restaurant that was 50 meters from seaside and didn’t serve the local, abundant fresh fish. Instead, they served opened (dead) mussels to customers—which is unforgivable. He had to convince the owner to visit the local fish market, build relationships with the vendors and create his menu around the local seafood  his guests were accustomed to. He took the owner/chef out on the street to give away free samples and meet locals where they were walking around. The table turns and cost per person were scrutinized and optimized to make the restaurant profitable.

I’ve boiled down the major concepts I’ve learned from Chef Ramsay’s show into these three axioms of good service. I’d love to hear what you think about it too:

1.  Create the perfect “menu”–offer fresh, high-quality dishes that the locals and visitors are looking for.

2.  Attract “guests” to enjoy it!–go out to the places where people are hanging out and let them sample your goods, see others liking your offerings,  and get comfortable with you.

3.  Mind the “numbers”–keep your eye on the daily visitors, time they’re spending at your site, how much they’re buying, how much it’s costing you, and how often they return.

You can follow these guidelines to make your website more successful, too.

Find out more about how to do this at our free webinar:

“SEO for Business Results—Wake Up From a Kitchen Nightmare”

Wednesday, July 14 at 12 noon EST

Borrowing a theme from Chef Gordon Ramsay’s TV show, Kitchen Nightmares, see how your website is a lot like a restaurant. In this free LinkShare webinar I’m hosting, you’ll take away quick pointers on how to turn your website into an attractive, profitable, and visitor-friendly place that guests want to return to frequently. You’ll also get the recipe for “SEO Secret Sauce for 2010”.

Plus, three LinkShare clients who attend the webinar will be selected to receive a complimentary SEO Assessment and a one-hour SEO consultation after the webinar.

Here’s the link to the webinar registration page.  Don’t forget to receive updates via LinkShare’s Facebook Page and Twitter Profile!

For more information on future webinars, please visit LinkShare University Online.

Hope to see you there!

If you want to see him in action, here’s a clip of Chef Ramsay,” The Screaming Chef”, with David Letterman:

Bon appétit!

–by Sally Anne Dishong,  SEO + Social Media Content Editor

With the Advertiser Search Web Service, you can retrieve a list of all your advertisers and their MIDs or simply a single advertiser’s MID in the blink of an eye — without logging into the Publisher Dashboard! This is especially useful if you utilize any of LinkShare’s Web Services in which MID is an important parameter.

• To get a list of all your advertisers and their MIDs, simply append your Web Services token to the token= parameter of this query:

http://feed.linksynergy.com/merchantsearch?token=[your Web Services token]

Your Web Services token can be found here.

• To retrieve the MID of a single advertiser, append the parameter merchantname= after your Web Services token. Here’s a sample query:

http://feed.linksynergy.com/merchantsearch?token=[your Web Services token]&merchantname=tigerdirect

Please note:  if the name of the advertiser you are searching for includes one or more words, include spaces between the words in your query.

The Advertiser Search API only returns advertisers whose programs you have been approved for. It is similar to the Consolidated Advertiser Report, available on the Publisher Dashboard, but since you don’t have to log into the dashboard to get a list of your advertisers or just a single advertiser, you can use it with other LinkShare Web Services.

For example, let’s say you want to see if one of your advertisers has links to mp3 players. Run an Advertiser Search query with the advertiser name to find the MID of the advertiser whose products you want to search. Then use the Merchandiser Query Tool to see if this advertiser has links for mp3 players.

For info on Merchandiser Query Tool, please see this article.

Advertisers and publishers signed up for the LinkShare pay-per-call platform are seeing compelling results, including double-digit increases in lead production across a variety of media channels. LinkShare’s new platform offers both advertisers and publishers an entry into call-based performance campaigns both online and off, providing unprecedented access to billions of dollars in traditional media budgets and a much broader audience.

LinkShare advertiser ServiceMagic.com, an online source for locating home improvement professionals, launched pay-per-call services in February, alerting publishers to high-value services to promote, such as flooring or electrical installations. By March, requests for quotes climbed 23 percent, while requests for high-value services jumped an average of 506 percent. Calls are converting at a rate of 72 percent, far higher than online conversion rates that typically range from 1 to 3 percent.

For more you can also read the complete pay-per-call case study.

Here’s how the LinkShare Pay-Per-Call program works:

1. Create Pay-Per-Call campaigns with LinkShare platform
2. Apply to campaigns via LinkShare platform and select phone numbers
3. Run phone promotions using LinkShare platform (Both online or offline)
4. Consumer sees specific custom phone number and calls
5. LinkShare tracks consumer call
6. Call connected to Advertiser through LinkShare
7. Call Quality Received / Call Criteria Met
8. Commission Earned!

ADVERTISER BENEFITS

• Increase sales while reducing customer acquisition costs
• Seamless integration with your existing
affiliate program
• Offer more high-end products and services through
your affiliate channel
• Learn more about customers through richer data
• Attract a larger and more diverse publisher
base — both online and offline

PUBLISHER BENEFITS
• Explore new online and offline promotional methods
• Reliable tracking — get paid for your phone leads
• Earn higher commissions
• Increase your conversion rates, even upstream
• Add lift to click-based campaigns
• Reap rewards by selling high-ticket products
and services

If you’re a LinkShare Advertiser or Publisher and haven’t yet started promoting pay-per-call campaigns, it’s easy to get started. Simply sign up here or email us at PayPerCall@Linkshare.com.

We’ve updated our Dealfeed plug-in for WordPress to include Coupons from the Coupon Web Service!  You can now stream the latest deals from  LinkShare Advertisers on your WordPress site sidebar, after a quick and easy set-up.

Once you’ve installed the plug-in, configure it in the Settings section of the Admin interface. You’ll need to input your Web Services token, and choose an Advertiser to display coupons from:

Once you’ve configured the plug-in, the most recent deals will show up on your WordPress site:

You can install DealFeed here or by searching for “LinkShare” from your WordPress admin console in the plug-in section.  You’ll need to add a snippet of code to your WordPress theme – detailed instructions here.

Please note you have to be approved to access the Coupon Web Service in order to use the new feature – apply here.

Ian Rosenwach, Product Manager

The Advertiser and Publisher Choice Awards ballots are now live! 

The Advertiser and Publisher choice award finalists are determined by popular vote by Advertisers and Publishers in the LinkShare Network.   Advertisers should vote for their favorite Publisher (among those nominated) that has consistently helped them drive sales and reached objectives.  Publishers should vote for their favorite Affiliate Marketing program in the LinkShare Network that has consistently offered strong incentives and promotions that earn commissions.

Even if you are unable to attend Symposium East you can still vote!  Vote today!

Sara Gorlick
Tradeshow and Events Manager