Advertising mogul David Ogilvy called direct response advertising “my secret weapon.” And you can bet it made him more than just a pretty penny over the course of his illustrious career. In fact it was so good to him, he built an entire advertising empire on it. Curious about direct response marketing yet? Here’s some of that golden wisdom straight from the old silverback himself…

Direct marketing, more than any other method, is all about testing and quantifying consumer responses. The advantage that online direct marketing has over its offline cousin is that the responses generated online (click-throughs, conversions, sign-ups, etc.) are likely to get measured, tested and improved upon more rapidly. The Internet is a giant data recording machine, so it has naturally taken David Ogilvy’s founding principles of “testing, testing, testing” to the next level of awesomeness.

Definition of Online Direct Response: The process of generating a lead, sale or other similar action directly from an Internet ad. Online direct response is measured through click through rates (CTR) and conversion rates (CR). Cookies and special tags are used to track which ads, landing pages and paths deliver the most conversions. This type of tracking is also used for cost-per-action (CPA), where the advertiser pays for a pre-specified action (e.g. sale, sign-up, etc.).

Probably one of the most underused online direct response techniques is email. This personalized, targeted and simple tool can boost average conversion rates into the stellar range (e.g., STOPzilla’s emails convert at an astonishing 10%), far higher than other affiliate methods such as PPC. Affiliates should definitely look into using email as part of their campaigns. (Stay tuned for more articles on this subject!)

Direct-response is a powerful strategic tool for affiliates. Do you actively use direct-response techniques in your affiliate campaigns? If so, which ones? How successful are they? We’d love to hear what you think!