Internet Marketing Links

My favorite websites for Internet Marketing advice

These guys are all about sales. They are especially good with copy. They sometimes distract onto esoteric things, but they are smart and know what they are doing selling online.
http://www.grokdotcom.com/ and particularly this article about copy http://www.grokdotcom.com/2007/10/29/copywriting-101/ or this one with links to free web resources http://www.grokdotcom.com/2008/11/13/33-free-tools-to-make-your-website-better/ or go to http://www.grokdotcom.com/archives/ and search for "top 10 online retailers by conversion rate" to get articles with monthly listings as well as some benchmarks.

Ralph Wilson (the owner, author and very good guy) gives very practical tips. Not overly sophisticated, but good advice and very practical because of that.
http://www.wilsonweb.com/

Jared Spool gives pretty good stuff out though mostly usability focused and not online Marketing per se
http://www.uie.com/

Jakob Nielson is the father of web usability. He has a lot of studies and things that are useful. He's a geek and his info is pretty good.
http://www.useit.com/

Another usability character involved with early Apple days has this list of bugs I like.
http://www.asktog.com/Bughouse/10MostWantedDesignBugs.html

Random, some articles are good and some are less important, but there are a broad list of topics
http://courtneytuttle.com/2007/10/08/internet-marketers-united-group-writing-...

This blog gives as good perspective of affiliate programs from a publishers perspective and I try to use it as my proxy to keep in tune with what publishers REALLY are thinking (I already know and accept that they are just using me, but it is mutual so I don't mind).
http://www.affiliatewatcher.com/

The classic Search site started by Danny Sullivan (but later sold I think)
http://searchenginewatch.com/

Classic association of online marketers. The DMA for online.
http://www.iab.net

Another search site from Jill Whalen who has been in the search space for a long time. http://www.highrankings.com/

Coupons.com PR, stories, etc

Coupon Codes is the new site

Coupons.com has been very fortunate to get a lot of free press about clipping coupons and printable coupons. Here are some of my favorite links to various articles. Few people know that we are also behind Coupon Suzy as well as Safeway coupons and Kroger coupons. Regardless, here are some of my favorite stories about Coupons and coupons.com.

A recent press round started big in the San Jose Mercury News

Coupons.com is in the Wall Street Journal

And the NY Times

Heather Dougherty from Hitwise did a tight mention at the e-metrics optimization conference

Brandcaster in the San Jose Mercury News too

Steven declares a recession on cnn.com :p

The big one, Steven on the Today show

Here's a new one citing Internet Coupon Usage up 83% and listing some good statistics and demographics on general coupon usage in the US

This is my favorite so far. Some poor frustrated newspaper guy from Pennsylvania (right near where I used to live actually), rips on Steven after his Today Show appearance, saying that Steven "doesn't look much older than my golf shoes." Hahahahahaha. Oh bummer, I don't think this is a good link any more.

I like this simple article running through different coupon websites. Nothing earth shattering, but original work from a local, which is cool to see.

MSNBC television show with coupons.com mention

There are a ton more, but many derive from these in some form. These are my faves for now I guess :-)

It's funny that a prevalent theme is that the online coupon traffic increase is a sign the economy is sucking. But if the economy was broadly sucking, wouldn't coupon usage be up 83% in other channels as well? Hitwise gets the closest to seeing what's up by at least noticing that Coupons.com growth is a LOT of the growth for this sector online, but they don't go so far as to notice that many of the other sites experiencing growth are partners "powered by" coupons.com like Coupon Suzy, the television face of coupons.com and the others in the space are perhaps in the coupons.com wake ???