Optimize for Q4: A Publisher’s Guide

Are you ready for the upcoming holiday season? With Q4 upon us and just 52 days until Black Friday, it's time to start thinking about how to best optimize this quarter with your top Advertisers. For a large number of Publishers, Advertiser offers and placements are critical to boosting performance. Maximize revenue potential by following these tips to manage Advertiser offers and placements.

Offers help drive traffic, increase conversion, and close a sale during the purchase decision process. According to CJ's Coupon White Paper, over half of survey respondents "strongly agree" that coupons have made the difference when they were unsure about a purchase, and over half also "strongly agree" that receiving or finding a coupon has resulted in an unplanned purchase.

If you post offers—whether coupon, free shipping, or discount—on your site, be sure you are receiving them from Advertisers in a timely, efficient manner best suited to your needs.

Find offers here:

• Weekly Newsletters

  Includes top-performing offers and/or products. Ask Advertisers to include you on distribution lists for these newsletters.

• CJAM "Links" Tab

  Manually search for different promos by keyword, link type, promotion type, date, category, events, serviceable area, and more. Helpful for a targeted search such as last minute free shipping offers for guaranteed holiday delivery.

Or, receive offers via CJ's automated methods:

• Promotional Link Report

  Delivered via a method of your choice (i.e. email, CJ's FTP/HTTP, or your FTP/SFTP/HTTP), schedule to receive it daily, weekly, or monthly, and in a variety of file formats (e.g. tab, pipe, Quoted CSV, Standard CSV, XML, or Excel).

• Link Search Service API

  This API (application program interface) enables developers to find and retrieve links in CJ based on desired criteria. Developers may search for links by any number of criteria, including: keywords, country, category, targeted area, link size, or link type.

• Learn More

  If you are interested in having a Promotional Links Report delivered to you, or would like to learn more about the Link Search Service API, please contact your Publisher team or Client Support.

Consider not only how you are receiving offers, but also what types of offers you want to promote and when. CJ's 2015 Holiday Intelligence Report found that coupon offers were higher converting throughout the season, averaging an 8 percent conversion rate compared to sale/discount and free shipping offers (7 percent and 5 percent, respectively).

However, despite a lower conversion rate, the report showed that people are more likely to use a free shipping offer during the first two weeks of December.

By receiving all pertinent Advertiser offers as soon as they are available, and posting the ones most likely to drive and convert sales, consumers will find relevant and timely offers on your site and will convert.

Placements

Many Advertisers seek to maximize their performance and heighten consumer brand awareness by participating in Publisher site and email placements, especially during Q4. Don't wait for them to reach out to you—be proactive in your communication with your top Advertisers to see if they are interested in placements.

When reaching out, consider the following best practices:

• Clarify the Advertiser's goals (e.g. new customer acquisition, ROAS, etc).

• Request their promotional calendar ahead of time so you are aware of key dates. Some Advertisers will be able to share it so you can coordinate placements.

• Provide anticipated performance to arm Advertisers with the information they may need to qualify any additional budget spend.

• Include a few proposal options based on the Advertiser's budget range.

By practicing these tips, you can send Advertisers a customized proposal that is tailored to their needs, in turn yielding higher likelihood of approval. This will increase your revenue potential, as well as help optimize your performance with your top Advertisers.

Here's to a successful Q4—happy optimizing!

**In a few short weeks, we will be unveiling a new end to end solution that will meet all your Paid Placement needs. Stay tuned!**