Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at
4:52 pm
This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins
Affiliate Summit East 2010 – Save the Date
Affiliate Summit East 2010 is taking place August 15-17, 2010 in New York City. We’ll be returning to the Hilton New York.
This will be the 15th Affiliate Summit and it is expected to be the largest east Affiliate Summit to date.
More details to come shortly. Registration will open in January 2010.
See http://www.affiliatesummit.com/about/ for the history and growth of the premier affiliate marketing conference.
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at
2:40 pm
This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins
The Affiliate PPC Direct Linking Debate
Internet Retailer posted an interesting article, Amazon takes a stand: No more non-stop links from affiliates’ paid search terms, about Amazon instituting a policy that prohibits paid search affiliates from direct linking to Amazon.
When Amazon.com Inc. in April announced it would stop paying commission fees for traffic sent directly to Amazon from paid search ads that affiliates purchased, a practice called direct-linking, it was the latest round in a long-standing industry debate over the role of so-called “paid search affiliates” in merchants’ affiliate programs. But it was the first time the Internet’s largest retailer had stuck a flag in the sand over this particular issue.
Here’s an example of what Amazon doesn’t pay affiliates for under the new policy: An affiliate buys an ad with the header “low-cost blender” and a few lines of text describing electric blenders. The ad displays a URL for searchers to click on, supposedly to go to the site selling blenders—say, “Cheapblenders.com.” But when the shopper clicks on the ad, a redirect that the affiliate places in the ad sends the shopper to an Amazon product page offering blenders, though Amazon’s name appears nowhere in the search ad.
Personally, I think the affiliate term makes sense, as I see the value from the affiliates being dubious in cases of direct linking, unless the merchant isn’t running any ppc campaigns themselves.
Read the complete article at http://www.internetretailer.com/article.asp?id=31972.
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at
10:08 am
This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins
Affiliate Summit West 2007 Keynote: Michael Sanchez
The keynote address at Affiliate Summit West 2007 was delivered by Michael Sanchez, CEO and Co-founder of CafeMom (CMI Marketing).
Video: Affiliate Summit West 2007 Keynote – Michael Sanchez
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at
1:49 pm
This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins
Red Phone to the President of ShareASale
ShareASale has set up a simple form where affiliates can anonymously submit things that need fixing on ShareASale.
The feedback goes straight to Brian Littleton, President and CEO of ShareASale.
Share your feedback for changes and improvements to ShareASale at http://www.shareasale.com/fixit/.
Some of the fixes will be posted to the ShareASale blog, as well as their Twitter account.
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at
9:23 am
This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins
Contribute to Issue 9 of FeedFront Magazine
The eighth issue of FeedFront Magazine is out and landing in mail boxes right now, so we’re on to issue 9.
The next issue of FeedFront will be coming out in January 2010, and the deadline for articles for issue 9 of FeedFront is November 23, 2009.
If you are interested in writing an article, go to the FeedFront proposal form to submit a one sentence summary on what you’d like to cover.
Articles are a maximum of 500 words – no exceptions. Anything longer will not be considered.
Do not submit a complete article – just a one sentence summary.
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at
6:38 am
This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins
Seeds to Stalks: Cultivating your Affiliate Program
Seeds to Stalks: Cultivating your Affiliate Program presentation from Affiliate Summit East 2006, which took place July 9-11, 2006 in Orlando, FL.
- Mike Catania, Vice President of Business Development, America One Funding
The vast majority of us do not manage affiliate programs for multi-billion dollar companies. Our monthly advertising budgets might, in a good month, break into four digits.
We know the names of way too many of our affiliates and how much they made last month without having to look it up. We walk to a co-worker’s office to ask a question because we can.
With careful management and organization we still successfully compete on the highest level with Household Name Companies for the attention of affiliates; and they love us.
The basic principle for running a small affiliate program is controlling only what you can and ignoring the rest. You can control your conversion rates, your payouts, where you find affiliates and how they feel about you–so control the heck out of them.
From October 2005 through March 2006 we have been (are) running six simultaneous studies to answer six questions that are key to not only our company but any other small/medium sized affiliate program.
- Showing them the money: Does raising the payouts really increase affiliate signups? Is “the magic formula” for determining the dollar-value accurate?
- The Map of Doom: What do you do when something is broke and you can’t fix it?
- SEO versus Affiliate Managers: Do more affiliates signup because you’re in the top 5 for their keyword or because one of your affiliate managers contacted them personally?
- Custom Landing Pages: Personnel costs versus amount of revenue from affiliates with custom pages. Is it worth the trouble? What about affiliate-hosted forms? Can you trust the affiliates?
- Transparency: How did we screw up when affiliates weren’t paid or tracked accurately? How can we fix it and ensure it wouldn’t happen again? What can you do to prove your trustworthiness in the often-deceitful world of affiliate marketing?
We have a 1200 member in-house affiliate program that we’ve been developing since 2003. The leads they provide supply about 20% of the leads we process.
Note: the companies and positions listed above were current as of the time of the conference. Some of this information may have changed since then.
Video: Seeds to Stalks: Cultivating your Affiliate Program
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at
5:28 am
This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins
Sponsored Tweets, Affiliate Charity, and a New FeedFront Magazine
Download audio file (affiliatething-092809.mp3)
This week on the Affiliate Thing podcast, Shawn Collins and Lisa Picarille talked about the money affiliate marketers donated to Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City, upcoming conferences, and how more women can get speaking slots at conferences.
Also, issue 8 of FeedFront Magazine is out, Jim Lillig put together a report on the State of CPA, and Lisa is on another affiliate marketing podcast called AffPlan.
Plus, the controversy around LinkConnector and their affiliate site, Sponsored Tweets, and the GrowSmart Biz conference.
Show Links
Subscribe to the Affiliate Thing RSS feed or listen on iTunes. You can also send a blank e-mail to affiliatething@aweber.com to get each podcast delivered by e-mail.
Monday, September 28th, 2009 at
2:04 pm
This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins
Co-Opetition, Comparison Sites and Conversion: Lessons Learned From The Adult Online Playbook
Co-Opetition, Comparison Sites and Conversion: Lessons Learned From The Adult Online Playbook presentation from Affiliate Summit East 2006, which took place July 9-11, 2006 in Orlando, FL.
- Jim Lillig, Dir. Business Development, LobsterGram International
98% of people who visit your site do NOT buy from you! Let them go? Hell No!
Co-opetition is a strategy derived from an adult industry practice of leading non-buying visitors to competitor’s offers and profiting in the process.
This session will explore how brands, merchants and affiliates can effectively use online co-opetition strategies to improve their edge over their competition, get paid for doing market and optimization research and lead to additional revenue generating opportunities.
The second half of the session will explore the Comparison Site Strategy in which a merchant or affiliate employs a “ranking and rating” Web site to dramatically improve PPC and organic search campaign conversion percentages.
First used in online adult affiliate circles, merchants and affiliates in almost any niche can benefit from using a Comparison Site model to entice users to convert to customers with fantastic success.
WARNING: Prolonged use of these high level strategies will lead to intense profits.
Note: the companies and positions listed above were current as of the time of the conference. Some of this information may have changed since then.
Video: Co-Opetition, Comparison Sites and Conversion: Lessons Learned From The Adult Online Playbook
Monday, September 28th, 2009 at
8:18 am
This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins
GrowSmart Biz Conference Live Stream
The GrowSmart Biz Conference, taking place September 29 in Washington, DC, will be live streamed.
The keynote is Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine and author of Free: The Future of a Radical Price and The Long Tail. Plus, there is a nice roster of speakers and panels focusing on overcoming the challenges of small businesses on the GrowSmart Biz agenda.
The Twitter stream for the conference is at http://twubs.com/growsmartbiz/.
Visit http://livestream.com/networksolutions on September 29 to watch the live stream.
Monday, September 28th, 2009 at
5:07 am
This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins
FeedFront Magazine Issue 8 Now Available
The eighth issue of FeedFront, the official magazine of Affiliate Summit, is at the printer and it will be hitting mailboxes in early October 2009.
Issue eight of FeedFront will also be distributed at ad:tech New York, Blog World Expo, and PubCon.
This issue of FeedFront Magazine includes a recap of Affiliate Summit East 2009, as well as articles on auditing affiliate programs, productivity, pro digital video camera formats, PPC, email, advertising tax, and the death of an affiliate network.
Plus, interviews with Loren Feldman of 1938 Media and Joel Bauer from the “Your Business Card is CRAP” video.
Issue 8 of FeedFront can now be viewed online, downloaded, and printed from Scribd.
Get the FeedFront RSS if you’d like to get all of the articles as they are published to the feed.
If you haven’t subscribed, you can get the magazine for free at http://feedfront.com/free-subscription/.
Also, become a fan of FeedFront on Facebook to see past issues, covers, etc.
FeedFront Magazine, Issue 8
