Archives for January 2005

What do affiliates think of adware (and affiliate programs that permit adware affiliates)? Well, I asked a bunch of them, and here are some of the responses:

‘Most merchants do not care who gets paid – it’s about the sale. Only a few go after and remove commission stealing web sites.

I have seen them give kudos and rewards to top affiliates, who are known to use Adware and ParasiteWareâ„¢. A few places are starting to be pro-active, but I think I loose 20-40% in commissions every month.

How else can you explain sales conversion rates dropping 60 – 80% on the same type of traffic? It’s very annoying that most merchants don’t care.’

———-

‘I’m tired of affiliate managers wanting me to promote their program when they are working with parasite companies.

I have several companies who contact me for better positioning on my sites, yet I recently discovered when a visitor comes to my site that company’s website pops over mine, because of WhenU and other scamware taking away any commission that I might have received. I refuse to work with any company that advertises in that way.’

———-

‘I would much prefer not to do business with companies that play with the bad boys (Ebates, WhenU – God I hate them, gator, etc. and the email Spammers) but have a couple of problems. First, it’s hard to keep track or find out who is sleeping with whom, and companies will lie about it (Amazon leaps to mind). Secondly, as a one-woman shop with niche sites, sometimes I have few choices as to who to promote if I want to make sales. It would be great if all companies publicly stated their policies and stuck to it. It would be great if we could continue to pressure them on these issues.’

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‘Affiliate managers need to look at how affiliates are promoting their site. Spamming search engines with multiple look-alike pages with keyword stuffed, no content pages. Some people do a good job at product presentation; others do crap. Weed out the ones that are crap. Avoid the BHO (Parasites) like the plague.’

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‘Merchants who dump parasites and maintain active communication and fair cookie durations will get exposure regardless of other factors.’

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‘If a program allows BHO’s as affiliates, at least admit that it is an injustice to the rest of us. I hate the “what’s the big deal?” response from merchants. Merchants should think about their brand requirements before opening an affiliate program so that affiliates can get a clear picture right away of what is allowable with that merchant. Major changes afterwards can cause communication and trust problems.’

———-

‘They should all provide decent data feeds & links and kill BHO’s!’

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The comments above are excerpts from the AffStat 2004 Report, which includes candid comments from affiliates on a variety of issues.

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I mentioned earlier this month that I was going to be donating 100% of the affiliate program commissions from my site, BabyLounge.com, to the tsunami relief effort for Janaury 2005.

For the first ten days of the month, the donation to the tsunami victims is currently at $824.28.

Please – if you are going to shop online this month, do it at http://shopping.babylounge.com and the commissions I earn will all go to those poor folks out there in south Asia.

At this pace, it looks like we’ll hit $2,500 or so – any affiliates (or anybody else) willing to match what I give?

The Hilton Hotels affiliate program has launched, and it is being managed by myself and the rest of the Converseon affiliate program management team.

Commissions start at 3% for consumed commissionable bookings. Hilton Hotels affiliate commission rates increase with volume of bookings referred.

The Hilton Hotels portfolio includes Hilton®, Conrad®, Doubletree®, Embassy Suites Hotels®, Hampton Inn®, Hampton Inn & Suites®, Hilton Garden Inn®, Hilton Grand Vacations Club® and Homewood Suites by Hilton®.

Affiliate program commissions are on the total net sales on all the room nights consumed (some limitations apply) which are commissionable. Commissions are paid monthly with no monthly minimum threshold.

More information about the Hilton Affiliate Program at http://www.hiltondistribution.com

Join at Kolimbo or http://www.hiltondistribution.com

Back in the fall of 1997, I was fed up with working in the magazine circulation game. So I answered an NY Times Help Wanted ad for a company called Medsite.

They were a start-up that was looking for a marketing guy, and I was looking for a way to become a marketing guy.

I had learned HTML and was messing around as an Amazon affiliate with my horrible looking first shot at a site. Amazingly, that helped get me the job.

Basically, I was running the affiliate program (using a homemade tracking system) and a bunch of other marketing tasks. The main product for Medsite was a large inventory of medical books via their MedBookStore.com site.

My target affiliates were pre-med and med-school students that had Web sites. It was a grind back then to find affiliates, but it was a fun challenge.

Fast forward to Monday, February 8, 1999 – I was taking the NJ Transit train for my daily commute into New York City for my job at Medsite.

As I was paging through the Newark Star-Ledger, I hit the business section. On the front page, the main article was “Temporary Gig: Harvard grad uses his media company as a steppingstone to nirvana.”

The article was all about James Marciano, who had founded the first affiliate program directory, Refer-it.com, to help fund another project of his.

At the end of 1997, revenue-sharing programs were becoming popular among Web merchants. In those programs, a retailer, like Amazon.com, the pioneer of so-called “affiliate” programs, allows anyone with a Web site to set up an online store – an “affiliate” – and receive a commission on sales. A cat lover can set up a site to sell cat-related books. Or established organizations, from magazines to nonprofits, cam set up stores to sell anything from clothes to CDs.

Marciano knew about affiliate programs firsthand. In search of revenue, he would scour indsutry publications for details on affiliate programs. The information wasn’t always easy to find. What was needed was a search engine for affiliate programs, with ratings and details.

With the money he had left, he decided to build such a search engine, calling it Refer-it.com. “There was no business plan,” he admits. “I just felt it was a good idea.”

Now, a year later, Refer-it.com has become a popular stop for Web entrepreneurs interested in revenue-sharing programs. The site lists 420 programs, rates, them, and offers a “top 10” list. – Star-Ledger

I was ecstatic to see that there was somebody else into affiliate marketing, because I had never heard anybody else talking about it at that point.

So I shot James an email and we made plans for me to meet him at his office. When I got there, he asked me for my resume. I didn’t want to look like a clown and say I just wanted to meet him and talk about affiliate stuff. So I printed out a copy of my resume that I had on my Web site.

We went on talking, and by the end of the conversation, I was shocked to have a job offer. Unfortunately, at the time, Refer-it was a very boot-strapped start-up, and the salary was peanuts. No go.

The next month, Refer-it was throwing the first affiliate marketing conference, Affiliate Solutions NYC 1999, on March 26, 1999. I was wishing I’d taken his offer. All of the players in the industry were getting together for the first time.

After the conference received great press, and skyrocketing ad revenue from affiliate programs trying to recruit affiliates, Alan Meckler, then CEO of internet.com, took notice.

Soon after, Refer-it was acquired by internet.com. With the influx of cash, I touched base again, and a couple weeks later, I was working at Refer-it.