Shawn Collins' Blog

Affiliate marketing and other stuff from Shawn Collins, co-founder of Affiliate Summit.

Archives for January 2005

What is affiliate marketing?

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I just came across an amusing site called Googlism, where you can find out what Google.com thinks of you, your co-workers, your industry, etc.

I was curious about what Google thinks of affiliate marketing. Here’s a sampling of the the answer…

affiliate marketing is old hat… so now what?
affiliate marketing is a referral program
affiliate marketing is a revolutionary marketing tool
affiliate marketing is powerful for internet marketing
affiliate marketing is one of the hottest trends on the web
affiliate marketing is alive and very well
affiliate marketing is taking off big time
affiliate marketing is gaining popularity as an advertising tool
affiliate marketing is new to you
affiliate marketing is about top program recommendations
affiliate marketing is an easy and “hands off” business
affiliate marketing is a very effective way for a merchant to increase sales
affiliate marketing is still widely misunderstood
affiliate marketing is not a silver bullet
affiliate marketing is a win
affiliate marketing is a concept unique to the web
affiliate marketing is not pretty
affiliate marketing is one of the most cost effective way to advertise and market your product
affiliate marketing is a great tool for website promotion and increase website traffic
affiliate marketing is not a get rich quick scheme
affiliate marketing is young and vibrant industry which is retracing the blueprint for doing business on the ‘net
affiliate marketing is all about building solid business relationships
affiliate marketing is also known or defined as network marketing
affiliate marketing is the future
affiliate marketing is a booming segment
affiliate marketing is a great way to make cash off of your site
affiliate marketing is placing the ad and then evaluating how well it has done based on real world statistics
affiliate marketing is a performance
affiliate marketing is a referral
affiliate marketing is number one in effectiveness
affiliate marketing is all about finding leads for the company selling the product
affiliate marketing is alive and very well
affiliate marketing is an essential component of any online marketing strategy
affiliate marketing is hot
affiliate marketing is a good deal for everyone involved
affiliate marketing is an excellent means of online marketing where the fundamental principle is to have many third party websites promoting your business
affiliate marketing is when a company offers the opportunity for others to sell the company’s products from their host websites in return for
affiliate marketing is right for your business?
affiliate marketing is one answer
affiliate marketing is suited to organisations that need to increase their volume of web site transactions
affiliate marketing is a planned referral system that targets customers by putting storefronts in the form of banners
affiliate marketing is effective
affiliate marketing is one of the best online marketing programs available for small businesses
affiliate marketing is the most cost effective form of customer acquisition and lead generation available
affiliate marketing is a form of online advertising where a marketer pays for results rather than paying to reach a particular audience
affiliate marketing is good news for affiliates too
affiliate marketing is a preoccupation of mine
affiliate marketing is an increasingly popular technique for customer acquisition and sales
affiliate marketing is especially useful in ecommerce sites
affiliate marketing is simple
affiliate marketing is one of the fastest growing ways to make money on the internet
affiliate marketing is one of the most effective online marketing tools a merchant can use
affiliate marketing is spectacular because it is almost cost free until it starts to pay off
affiliate marketing is nothing more than offering a “reward” for specific performance
affiliate marketing is making only a select few affiliates richer and richer
affiliate marketing is een prestatie gebaseerde marketing tool
affiliate marketing is different from traditional media advertising affiliate marketing is a major driving force in web commerce today
affiliate marketing is het opzetten van deals om aanwezig te zijn op interessante websites

Ask Shawn Collins: Monetizing RSS

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Q: Could you discuss the use of RSS feeds within affiliate marketing? How are merchants applying this technology for their affiliate programs? And how are affiliates using RSS to generate commissions and traffic? It seems everyone is really excited about RSS but no one has quite found a use for it outside of the blog world.

Shawn CollinsA: There are a handful of merchants using RSS feeds with their affiliates right now – I’ve been compiling any that come across my radar in the affiliate marketing blog area of DMOZ.

About a year ago, I noticed Chris Sanderson discussing the use of RSS feeds in the programs his company manages. Since then, he’s rolled out feeds for a number of affiliate programs. As far as I can see, he’s been a leader in this area.

One basic use of the feeds for merchants is to use them as an extra touchpoint with affiliates – one that enables them to communicate with affiliates in ways that were not previously available.

For instance, merchants can use FeedBurner to syndicate the RSS feeds of their blogs and deliver their feeds to the My Yahoo accounts of their affiliates.

This sort of reach is great, because it’s getting increasingly difficult to reach affiliates, due to over zealous spam filters, spam itself, and other factors.

There are some neat tools like News Gator that enable the end user to receive the RSS feeds into Outlook – just like email, but not hindered by the spam filters.

Anyhow, in addition to enabling merchants to communicate in a new way, RSS feeds enable them to provide real time announcements about special bonuses, time sensitive offers, new coupons, tips, updates, top ten product lists, etc. Sometimes email systems hold email from merchants to affiliates in a queue for days.

In addition to reaching affiliates in their My Yahoo accounts or in Outlook via News Gator, there are many RSS Readers that affiliates can download and install for free. A search on Google for RSS Reader will turn up lots of options.

As far as affiliates leveraging RSS to make money and traffic, there are plenty of opportunities out there. One prime example of the synergy of RSS and affiliates is an option offered by FeedBurner.

FeedBurner enables people to integrate Amazon affiliate links into their feeds. FeedBurner then leverages the latest release of Amazon Web Services to match the posts to relevant Amazon content for that store, and FeedBurner transforms that link and content from Amazon Web Services into a simple linked GIF tied to the feed item.

I expect to see more of this sort of integration from FeedBurner, since I think it’s a great idea, and I also noticed that FeedBurner will be involved with the upcoming eComXpo, an online tradeshow for affiliate marketers.

Another way for affiliates to drive traffic and earn commissions on affiliate links is to write content (with relevant keywords hyperlinked to affiliate links) and submit this content to sites like Article Agents.

Simply submit your article(s) to Article Agents, with your affiliate program links (text links only) in place, and they will review and publish the article in their database for free. You keep the all of the commission you earn through these articles.

The way that Article Agents makes out in this relationship is that they run Google AdSense ads with your articles.

As far as affiliates getting more traffic from RSS feeds, it’s really a matter of churning out original, compelling content. The more often you post to a blog, naturally the more content is going to be there, and the more opportunities for you to be listed in search engines.

Plus, there are lots of blog and RSS search engines, and you can “ping” them (notify them that you’ve published new content) each time you post. This will help to syndicate your RSS feeds.

I expect that many more options will be coming along to tie affiliate marketing and RSS feeds together in the near future, and this will be one of the topics on the agenda at the upcoming Affiliate Summit 2005 conference on June 13-14 in Las Vegas.

Affiliate Summit 2005 Keynote Speakers

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The keynote speakers for Affiliate Summit 2005 will have been announced. On the first day of the conference (June 13, 2005), Declan Dunn, CEO & Founder of the Dunn Direct Group and lead generation guru, will present the keynote.

The keynote address for day two (June 14, 2005) of Affiliate Summit 2005 will be Fredrick Marckini, CEO & Founder of iProspect and search engine marketing expert.

Registration is now open for Affiliate Summit 2005 at http://www.affiliatesummit.com

What do affiliates think?

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What do you think about the state of affiliate marketing? What is right or wrong these days?

I am compiling opinions, ideas, complaints, suggestions and whatever else is on the minds of affiliates (through 2/28/05). Share your input for this report – it will be published in March and will be made free to all.

No need to censor yourself – tell everybody what you truly think.

If you are interested, you can also include your name and URL(s) – but that’s totally optional. You can choose to be anonymous.

Have your say at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=51586820368

I reserve the right to edit submissions for length, grammar and spelling. However, I will do my best to preserve the original’s style and intent.

Arbitrage Affiliates Punk’d by Google

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I think it’s safe to say that we’ll all remember where we were when we heard the news. I was tapping away at my keyboard back on that fateful day of January 6, 2005 when an email hit my inbox with the ominous subject: Google AdWords Announcement: Affiliate Policy Change.

The announcement began “In January 2005, Google will incorporate a new affiliate advertising policy that is designed to provide a better user and advertiser experience.”

Fair enough, I figured. But I noticed that the statement didn’t include anything about the betterment of the affiliate experience, just the user and advertiser.

The Google notice continued, “With this new affiliate policy, we’ll only display one ad per search query for affiliates and parent companies sharing the same URL. This way, users will have a more diverse sampling of advertisements to choose from. As always, your ad will be displayed based on its Ad Rank for given searches, which is determined by a combination of your ad’s maximum cost-per-click (price) and click-through rate (performance).”

I felt my heart sink. Had the Four Horses of the Apocalypse arrived for affiliate marketing?

Complete article at http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/4929.asp

LinkShare Announces Consolidated Checks

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Today at the LinkShare Executive Marketing Summit, Stephen Messer, Chairman and CEO of LinkShare, made an announcement that affiliates have been waiting to hear for a long time… affiliates will be able to get consolidated checks and ACH (Automated Clearing House aka Direct Deposit).

Here’s a timeline of events for the rollout of the consolidated payments and ACH:

January 18
The big announcement.

February 28 through April
“Athena” launches, which will be an initiative where all LinkShare affiliates will have to re-register with LinkShare to confirm that they pass OFAC, and are indeed who they claim to be.

This is a very interesting and commendable development. OFAC is administered and enforced by the US Department of the Treasury, and it’s a process for determining whether somebody applying to be an affiliate is violating economic and trade sanctions based on US foreign policy and national security goals against targeted foreign countries, terrorists, international narcotics traffickers, and those engaged in activities related to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

January through March
Implementation of “Athena” and merchant rollout.

April
The launch of consolidated checks for affiliates with a threshold of $1.

May
The first consolidated checks mailed.

Note, the consolidated checks are not required for all merchants. They are an option, at least for now.

Google on New Listing Guidelines

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By Kevin M. Ryan

Don’t say I didn’t warn you about this. Google launched a whole new way to treat (or mistreat, depending on who you talk to) search marketers last Wednesday. Of course, the blogosphere was abuzz with speculation in how the new interaction will take place between user, paid placement search results, and oh yes, affiliates.

If it weren’t for brands with a case of affiliate search Schadenfreude (read: laugh while someone else pays to send possibly qualified traffic into my Web site), maybe this would not have happened. Maybe people just got really tired of seeing too many listings for the same site, or maybe there’s some fallout happening from brand “confusion” litigation discussions.

In any case, I decided to get it straight from the horse’s mouth. I caught up with Salar Kamangar, Google’s director of product management, to discuss the big change at Google and what’s on the horizon for advertisers.

Go to http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/4915.asp for the complete article.

Pen is Mightier Than Web

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We get a bit one dimensional with the way we promote affiliate sites at times. Sure, affiliates come in all shapes and sizes.

Woman writer

You’ve got pay per click search engine arbitrage players, coupon/rebate sites, reward/loyalty sites, search engine optimizers, comparison shopping sites, content sites, e-mailers, data-feed sites, and blogs.

But these affiliates all have one thing in common – they are all online. In order to break through the clutter and get your site noticed, you’ve got to embrace the dirt world and test out some old school promotional methods.

One low cost way to spread the word about your site is to get some promotional pens printed up. There are tons of vendors online that offer a variety of customized pens.

Then there is the distribution methods. Think about the places in your town where people are always looking for a spare pen… the bank, the post office, etc.

Also, if your site has a certain theme, try asking the managers of local stores that pertain to your theme, and ask if you can leave some of the pens at the counter. And, of course, leave one every time you need to sign your name or write something in public.

Crash Course in RSS

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Back in October, I spoke with Rok Hrastnik, manager and Editor in Chief of MarketingStudies.net, about RSS & Blogs and Affiliate Marketing.

Since then, he’s been working on a new ebook, Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS that provides a great primer on RSS and how it can benefit your business.

If you’re not familiar with RSS, it’s short for Really Simple Syndication, and it is a lightweight XML format designed for sharing headlines and other Web content. RSS has evolved into a popular means of sharing content between sites (including CNN, Forbes, ZDNet, and more).

RSS (the way the AffiliateTip blog is syndicated) solves lots of problems site owners commonly face, such as increasing traffic, and gathering and distributing news. RSS can also be the basis for additional content distribution services.

So anyway, Rok has put out a great resource on RSS that covers the ins and outs of RSS in 550 pages, and he’ll be updating the ebook as necessary.

Visit marketingstudies.net for more details.

Ask Shawn Collins: Moving a Program In-house

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We’ve had an affiliate program for 4 years through a network. Up until now, it’s been a fairly passive project & we are now thinking of bringing it in-house and really trying to grow it. Can you give me any tips, resources or ideas on taking a program in-house?

Since you are already setup with a network, I’d urge you to try and make a go of your affiliate program with the network, at least through the conclusion of your current contract.

If you’ve been there for four years, you must have some relationships that are active and effective, even if they happened with the program on autopilot.

Otherwise, I cannot imagine for the life of me how you paid network fees for four years without examining the return (or lack of one) you were getting.

Anyhow, since your affiliate program is already there and just waiting to be managed, try growing it as is and then measure the returns.

It may well make sense for you to migrate it in-house, but I wouldn’t suggest doing that unless you really have to do it. It’s a fairly big task to move a program, and you’ll be losing all of the existing links with affiliates that don’t realize you made the move.

For instance, I moved the ClubMom program from Be Free to MYAP in January 2002. I just ran a search on Google for clubmom bfast, as I figured there might be somebody out there that never changed the links from over three years ago.

See http://www.iinfocenter.com/tseekframes/Family/Children/ – this person has been featuring ClubMom for over three years with a dead link.

Back when I made the switch, I wrote about the decision at http://www.affiliatemanager.net/article42.shtml – that might help provide some insight for you. Please note, the article is years old, so there are some outdated references.