What better way to start off OfferWatch than with a special offer for the holidays that is sure to be a huge success!  December is one of the best months for affiliate marketing, so don’t delay–start taking advantage of holiday shoppers!

1) The Offer

• Name: Photoworks Under $15 Picture Gifts
• Base Payout: $8.75
• Details:  So far everything about this offer seems to be great.  It accepts unlimited volume, the company’s default landing page is fine, and it’s open to virtually all types of traffic.  These types of offers always do quite well around the holidays if you know how to market them, so stay tuned for more information.  The demographic is split roughly equally between two main age segments:  20-26/30-40.  For the younger crowd, they are likely interested in cheaper gifts since it’s affordable but they don’t want anything too tacky–this is clearly the perfect offer for them as they convert quite highly.  The 30-40 year olds are likely looking for something small to send to various relatives/acquantances in place of the usual “family-picture christmas card.”  Market a little more conservatively to this segment and emphasize the personalization aspect over the price and you will get a great conversion rate.

2) Creatives

• This offer has worked extremely well with both banner as well as text ads.  Obviously you will want to shift your strategy slightly when dealing with the two major age ranges however below is one of my highest converting banner ads that worked extremely well with the 20-30 crowd.

High converting banner for ages 30-40

3) Landing Pages

Thankfully this advertiser already has a great landing page to work with, so for social media you will definitely want to direct link the offer (Page).  If you are interested in running this offer on search however, a great idea would be to create a site for people who want to buy ‘cheaper’ gifts this holiday season.  Since most are feeling the strain of the recession, capitalize on the fact that Photoworks offers ‘gifts at a low price that still show your loved ones that you care.’  You could even grab their product catalog and throw up a few articles about ideas for customization.  Be sure to grab emails and market to them all the way up until ~December 24th for the residual value as well as the ability to catch those last-minute shoppers.

4) Recommended Advertising Mediums

For this offer, search campaigns on Google work great as well as various social networks.  Surprisingly, MSN, Yahoo, and Ask are the best possible choices for the 30-40 year olds, however Google and social networks worked much better for the younger crowd.  As long as you keep your demographic in mind, you should be fine wherever you decide to market this offer.

5) Insider’s Tip

Instead of separating your campaign by “themes,” put together one campaign for each main age group.  Create one ad group for each project, and be sure to bid on the product name with ‘personalized’ at the end for phrase match.  You’ll get a higher conversion rate and lower bids.  Also, the keyword “americangreetings” worked quite well for me so be sure to add that on your list.