CreamGlobal.com

Alicia Navarro (Opinion)  |  26th August, 2010  |  VIEW ENTIRE ARTICLE

Brands have always struggled with the challenge of getting their message heard in the ‘Big Conversation’ that is the Internet. New communication channels seem to only add to this frustration, as the plethora of social media and user-generated platforms mean that there is no shortage of opinion – good or bad, on anything from world events to the neighborhood restaurant but also, on any given product or service.

Niche bloggers have become authorities, forums; a thriving discussion that can go on for days about one single product, Twitter and Facebook, allow online publishers to share and spread their content, and with increased usage of tools such as Tweetdeck and Hootsuite, many users have their social media streams as a constant throughout their day, giving further reach and more opportunities to get in front of readers.

Startups.co.uk

August 26th, 2010 | VIEW ENTIRE ARTICLE

Alicia appeared on our last Startups 100 list with Skimbit, an online collaboration tool for friends and family to arrange things such as holidays or flat hunting. However, the business’ focus has now shifted, and thrived as a result.

Skimlinks allows online publishers to convert normal links to retailer sites into affiliate links that earn revenue. The service gives publishers access to more than 6,000 affiliate programmes without having to deal with the administration of the process themselves, giving them an effective method of earning extra revenue for their sites. The service has seen month-on-month growth of 30% throughout the downturn and recently secured a $1.5m funding round led by Sussex Place Ventures.

EU.Techcrunch.com

Steve O’Hear  |  June 28th, 2010  |  VIEW ENTIRE ARTICLE

Affiliate marketing platform Skimlinks  has launched its latest product that aims to make it even easier for publishers to place revenue generating affiliate links in their content.

Dubbed SkimWords, the feature, which is currently in beta, differs slightly from the company’s main offering. Rather than simply converting existing retailer links to affiliate links on-the-fly, it looks at the page’s content and converts any references to known products into fairly non-obtrusive geo-targeted links to retailer sites where the item can be purchased.

The fact that these links are location-aware – at the country level – is perhaps noteworthy since it accommodates a site’s international traffic and therefore hopefully doesn’t leave much money on the table.

AffiliateTip

Shawn Collins  |  June 25th, 2010  |  VIEW ENTIRE ARTICLE

Skimlinks, winner of the Technology Genius Award at the recent 2010 LinkShare Golden Link Awards, has announced the beta of a new offering called SkimWords.
SkimWords works off mentions of products, model numbers, brand names, etc and adds a geo-targeted link to the best performing ecommerce merchant.

VentureBeat

Kim-Mai Cutler  |  June 25th, 2010  |  VIEW ENTIRE ARTICLE

Skimlinks, a U.K.-based startup that tries to make it dead-simple for publishers to earn a cut of every product sale they drive, launched a product that automatically turns all product references in stories into affiliate links.

Publishers and bloggers typically earn advertising revenue through one of two ways — from the number of times an ad is exposed or the number of times that a visitor clicks on an ad.

But there’s also a third way. Publishers that happen to write about goods and services for sale can earn advertising revenue through affiliate links, which offer them a cut of every sale on Amazon they drive, for example. That commission can range from 4 to 15 percent of the price of the product.

New Media Age

Gina Lovett  |  June 25th, 2010  |   VIEW ENTIRE ARTICLE

Electronic goods user forums AVForums and ITProPortal have become the first publishers to use Skimwords, a geo-targeting ad platform from performance marketing specialist Skimlinks.

LONDON, UK – World-leading content monetization firm Skimlinks, today launched its latest product SkimWords. SkimWords, in beta version, is an exciting new way to help publishers extract more value from their content, by automating the process of adding revenue-generating product links into content, with no advertising pop-ups.

SkimWords complements and extends the SkimLinks product and brings fresh innovation into the in-text monetization market. While SkimLinks turns existing retailer links into affiliate links on-the-fly, SkimWords creates new links by converting product references in editorial and user-generated content into geo-targeted links to where the item can be purchased.

Skimlinks has been working with existing clients including, ITProPortal, AV Forums and Anglersnet over the past month to develop the product and features that will allow SkimWords to serve a broader group of customers. In initial publisher trials, SkimWords has increased the number of pages that can generate revenue by 300 per cent.

The SkimWords Beta is now open for application from existing SkimLinks publishers and other content rich sites in the technology/electronics, sport/lifestyle, automotive and fashion verticals.

Skimlinks CEO and co-founder Alicia Navarro, says: “Being non-intrusive, transparent and relevant is key to the future of monetising content. We designed SkimWords to benefit all parts of the value chain: publishers effortlessly earn significantly increased revenues, users are presented with relevant and helpful links, and retailers generate incremental sales from links added to in-text references to their own products.”

“This is a beta version and early results indicate this will be a revolutionary entrant into the in-text monetization market,” concluded Alicia.

Stuart Wright, owner of AVForums, commented: “The fact that SkimWords does not interfere with our readers’ experience with annoying pop-up ads is so important. It also helps us automatically make the most from our international traffic via its geo-targeting technology. So far, we are delighted with how SkimWords is working and the revenue it is generating.”

“We’ve been really excited to be part of the pilot launch of SkimWords. Working with Skimlinks ensures we remain on the cutting edge of the innovation taking place in the in-text monetization market,” says ITProPortal commercial manager, Martin Beauchamp.

If you’d like to join the limited external beta, please visit http://www.skimlinks.com/skimwords for more information.

CenterNetworks

Allen Stern  |  June 25th, 2010  |  VIEW ENTIRE ARTICLE

London-based Skimlinks announced today the beta release of their latest service, SkimWords.

We’ve covered SkimLinks several times before but if you are new to the service, here’s a simple description from my earlier post. Skimlinks provides a way to instantly turn all of your product links into affiliate links with no changes to individual content. You add one line of Javascript to your template and then, where Skimlinks has a relationship, the links automatically become affiliate links.

The first Skimlinks Smart Monetization Series webinar is over, but if you missed it, we’ve got all the good stuff here; the video of the presentation you can view at your leisure, and we’ll also give you a quick guide to some of the main points covered in the presentation.

Thanks again to those who attended, and to our fantastic sponsors:
House of Fraser, eBay Outlet, and Red Letter Days.

And to our guest panelist, Jess Markwood, editorial director for Aigua Media.

To give you a taster, here are the top points covered in the webinar:

Driving Traffic

Share your expertise – Don’t be precious with your knowledge and opinions; take a look outside your site, and comment on other blogs where you can offer a valid opinion, or look to connect with sites bigger than your own to provide them with a guest post – ensuring they give you that all important link back to your site!

Increasing User Interaction

Offer incentives for interaction – Retailers love giving away products for a mention on your site. Use the prize to get interaction from your users; ask that they follow you on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook to be in the draw, or ask them to post a comment to enter.

Increasing Clickthroughs and Conversions

Always deeplink – Have you ever clicked on a link in a story about some clogs at Topshop, and found yourself on the homepage? It happens all the time, and it leaves you searching around the site to find the product you were orginally interested in. Always deeplink, send you users to the product page, and make it painless for them to buy.

Make the Most of Social Media

Use product links – While social media is great for community and interaction, it can also become a revenue stream. You can use our Skimlinks URL Shortener to monetize any product link you mention – if a follower clicks through and purchases the item you mentioned, you’ll get a commission!

And here’s the video of the webinar:

Jess Markwood is the Editorial Director for Aigua Media – a publishing house based in the UK with 13 online titles including OSOYOU.com and Catwalk Queen.tv. She knows first hand the keys to awesome user interaction, and she’ll be sharing her knowledge on June 16th for the SmartMonetizationSeries: Fashion and Beauty Webinar…

Join Jess for a live and interactive online event made especially for fashion and beauty publishers and bloggers.

Register here to secure your spot now!