I sat down with eCommerce expert Sabir Semerkant to talk about creating and growing an affiliate program. We talked about some of the leading vendors out there, how he chose his affiliate vendor for his social commerce start-up focused on the vitamin industry, and strategies for attracting new affiliates.

Vendors mentioned include Commission Junction, Google Affiliate Network, Linkshare, and PepperJam, the company Vitamin Creek ultimately selected.

We also talked about Ad retargeting.

What is Ad retargeting?

Ad retargeting is a growing trend within the online display advertising world. It’s a highly effective advertising tactic, and especially valuable to eCommerce companies.

Imagine a consumer visits an eCommerce Web site, browses through its product inventory, puts a few things in her shopping cart and then….leaves the site before finishing the transaction. In other words, she abandons the shopping cart. Retargeting is all about staying in front of that consumer in the minutes, hours and days immediately following her visit to the Web site. For example, she leaves the eCommerce site and goes straight to People.com to read the latest celebrity gossip. With retargeting, the online retailer can put a display ad on the page right next to the article. Often times, the retailer can dynamically create the Ad to display the same product(s) she left in her shopping cart. So imagine she sees an Ad that shows the shoes she looked at, with a call to action to “Come back now and enjoy free shipping”.

The goal, especially in the hours after the consumer visited the e-commerce site, is to drive the consumer back to the site to complete the purchase. The sooner the ad is displayed relative to when the site visit occurred, the more likely the consumer is to return. Show the advertisement three months from now and its probably not as effective as showing it a few hours after the consumer left the site.

Below is an example of a retargeting advertisement from Vitamin Creek that I see from time to time after a visit to the Vitamin Creek Web site to prepare for the video interview above.

iDeeli is an eCommerce company that has an office in our building. About three months ago, I was curious to learn about our new neighbor and checked out their Web site. Since then, an iDeeli retargeting advertisement follows me everywhere I go on the Internet, kind of like my online shadow. I think I’ve seen about 200+ iDeeli ads since that one day I visited their Web site.

Here iDeeli and I are hanging out together on the Boston.com sports section, checking out the latest Celtics news. iDeeli ads are turning into my online security blanket – they go everywhere with me.

With retargeting, an advertiser can control things like how long it wants to stay in front of the consumer after she leaves the advertiser’s Web site – up to one hour, one day, one week, one month, one year…forever. And how frequently does the advertiser want to show an ad to that same consumer? Probably more frequently in the hours after the site visit, gradually reducing to almost never after a few weeks.

iDeeli seems to have both levers on full throttle. Keep showing ads to this person forever. And show about 10 ads per day, also forever. If someone at iDeeli is reading this, you may want to change that :-)

Retargeting vendors mentioned in the interview include adroll, Fetchback, and Criteo.