Blogging Tips: Getting Started with Integrate.com

Affiliate Marketing: Integrate.com

When you want to start earning an income with your blog, the first step for most people is to get started with Affiliate Marketing. {To learn more about the basics of Affiliate Marketing, read Earning an Income with Your Blog} And many of us get started with the same affiliates, like Escalate Media, MySavings Media, and Logical Media. All three of these companies are really similar – once you learn how to use one site, you can easily use the others. But logging into Integrate for the first time can be a bit intimidating! It’s VERY different than most of the other affiliate companies that I’ve worked with in the past – but once you learn the basics, you’ll see that those differences are what make it awesome.

Getting Started: Your Integrate Dashboard

If you’re not signed up with Integrate.com yet, you can get started here – Integrate Sign Up. Go on and get started – I’ll wait.

Ok, now that we’re all members – Let’s log in! You’ll find the log-in button on the top right side; there are options to log-in as a Buyer or a Seller – Buyers are companies that are paying for campaigns, Sellers are you – people who are sharing those campaigns for earnings. Now you’re in your Dashboard, which is the most important part of the site for you, and the main thing that you need to learn about. There is a lot of info on Integrate, but I’m only going to cover the basics of what you need to start earning, deal? If you want to learn more, contact your affiliate manager {find their contact info on the bottom portion of your Dashboard}, or read the FAQ page.

Messaging:

This is pretty obvious – these are your messages. Click Notifications to see a list of campaigns. Click a campaign, and you’ll see some options pop up – “View Campaign” shows you more info about that offer. “View Profile” shows you info about that company. Then you have “Agree” and “Counter” – this is where you can agree to accept that campaign, or counter by asking for a higher payout. Or, just remove it altogether if it’s not something you’ll run. Sometimes you’ll also see unread messages in this tab – these are from companies running campaigns, sharing info or asking you a question.

Campaigns:

This is the most important tab. Click it to see your Active, Pending, and Inactive campaigns. When you sign up at Integrate, you’ll give some info about your blog. Integrate then uses this info to automatically match you with campaigns that they think you’ll do well with – these will show up in your Active Campaigns. Click on a campaign name to see the Payout {how much you’ll earn per click or conversion}, your allocation {the max you’re allowed to paid for}, and the description. On the left you’ll see a link for campaign creatives – this is where you can find banner codes to place on your site. Pending campaigns are offers that are awaiting approval – Click “Start Negotiations” to make a deal on price and allocation with the Buyer, so you can start running those campaigns.

Helpful Tip: Once you are matched with a campaign, you have 48 hours to either accept it or begin negotiation with the Buyer. If you do not take some sort of action within 48 hours, the match will expire.

You can also Browse Campaigns – this is where you find new campaigns to run in addition to the ones that have been automatically matched to you. If you find something that you like, click the Request box, and enter the info you want to send to the Buyer – how much you want to earn, and the allocation – which means, how many leads do you think you’ll send their way? Leave a personal message if you want, and send it. If they accept it, you’ll see it soon in your active campaigns!

Accounting: 

You can click this tab to see your monthly statements, to view your earnings. You can also view your earnings by going back to your main Dashboard, and checking out the Quick Stats chart – The first box lets you view by clicks, conversions, or earnings, and the second box lets you view by month, week, or day.

Campaign Fulfillment:

This is another fun tool – the little pie chart on your dashboard. It gives you a visual of what percent of your earnings are coming from each offer that you’re running. I love it.

Great Campaigns to Run:

I’ve had a few people ask me which campaigns I’ve had success with so far, so here are a few you can search for if you’re having trouble finding campaigns that you like:

• CID: 6965, Baby to Bee – $1.32 per conversion
• CID: 6531, Bake Pops – $7.82 per conversion
• CID: 5782, HomeSav – $2.04 per conversion
• CID: 4498 Disney Movie Club – $16.02 per conversion
• CID: 6632, Food on the Table – .75 per conversion
• CID: 5995, Fooz Kids – $18 per conversion

Negotiations:

This is one of the really cool features that sets Integrate apart from other affiliate companies – you can negotiate for higher payouts! If you’re doing well with a campaign, you can ask the Buyer for a higher payout, since you’re driving them so much traffic. Or, if they’ve only given you a small allocation, and you’re bringing way more traffic than that – ask them to give you a higher allocation! You have to be reasonable, and have respect for the Buyers budgets – but it’s very cool to have that ability to contact them. Integrate is more of the “middle man” – they aren’t paying us, they’re connecting us with Buyers who want to pay us, collecting those payments, and then lumping it together into one check for us.

More questions?

If you have any questions that I didn’t cover, feel free to leave a comment, and I’ll do my best to answer you! If you’ve signed up with Integrate, and it’s been more than a week or two, and you haven’t heard anything yet, email me and I can forward your info to someone to help you out. And if you’re already using Integrate, I highly recommend that you schedule a quick call with your account manager, and they’ll walk you through it all. I think once you get the hang of it, you’ll LOVE it as much as I do!