Archives for March 2005

I’ve heard a very low buzz that there is a new affiliate network on the way. Not a lot of detail to report so far, except that the project is well-funded by a public company and the top management will be composed of expatriates from the affiliate networks.

It seems the folks behind this endeavor plan to take on the leading affiliate networks.

And it’s not a CPA network – it’s an affiliate network that is quietly courting many big brands. My contact didn’t name names, but they claim to have deals in place with a handful of very well known affiliate programs.

Also, they say there are some BIG affiliates on board to help with the architecture of the technology. This is for battling adware, cookie erasers, ad blockers, etc., as well as having the most affiliate friendly user interface.

It seems they are flirting with a tagline in the spirit of “The Network Created by Affiliates for Affiliates.”

How do I know these things? Can’t say, but I am not part of Affiliate Network X – just reporting on it.

Congratulations to Mark Southgate for getting the correct answer to the question, according to the Amazon.com Associate Program FAQ, how many Associates are in their program?

Mark wins a free pass to Affiliate Summit 2005 for his correct answer. Affiliate Summit 2005 is taking place June 13-14 in Las Vegas. Flights and hotel rooms are cheap, but the content is rich!

The correct answer, according to the Amazon Associates FAQ is “over half a million” affiliates in the Amazon affiliate program.

Stay tuned for the next affiliate marketing trivia question, where I will be giving away another free pass to Affiliate Summit 2005 to the first person that answers correctly.

I was just reading the Digital Moses Confidential newsletter, and I came across the Tip of the Week from Jason Wolfe, head honcho at Direct Response Technologies.

He had this to say:

“Seems like CGI Holdings, aka Think Partnership has been aggressively acquiring firms in our space. It reminds me of the days when others did the same and then collapsed in the late 90’s and early 2000. When considering being acquired, you might want to consider the ability of the leadership to take you to the promised land. Consider carefully before jumping – you might be better off keeping your feet on solid ground, your solid ground.”

I hope his tongue was firmly planted in his cheek there, since CGI Holdings, aka Think Partnership acquired one of his chief competitors, as well as one of his clients.

Otherwise, that “advice” might come across as sour grapes. Come on, Jason – it’s St. Patty’s Day – relax and smile.

We are pleased to announce the release of a new store generator script called DySE::InstrumentPro that is designed to display products based on the InstrumentPro.com datafeed.

InstrumentPro.com (http://www.InstrumentPro.com) offers approximately 7,000 musical instruments and accessories. InstrumentPro.com pays affiliate commissions of 7%. If these types of products are a good match for your website or if you’re planning to create a new website for these types of products, we encourage you to use our DySE::InstrumentPro script. The InstrumentPro.com affiliate program is managed by Shawn Collins who is well known and respected in the affiliate industry.

A live example website that uses DySE::InstrumentPro is http://www.EverythingInstruments.com

Use of our DySE::InstrumentPro script is free to our sub-affiliates of InstrumentPro.com (if you’re not signed up, you can do so via our sub-affiliate link). The script comes with several pre-defined template sets to save you time. And it uses our new “Dynamic Store Engine” DySE(tm) technology that provides the following benefits:

– automatically downloads datafeed from merchant.
– no HTML files to create; uses properietary database.
– store builder can be run via web browser or SSH.
– template changes appear online immediately; no rebuilding.
– builder is 5-10 times faster than our previous scripts.
– uses less disk than our previous scripts.
– no created HTML files to upload.
– uses mod_rewrite (requires linux/unix server).
– reduced learning curve; all DySE scripts work the same way.

To learn more about DySE::InstrumentPro, visit http://www.c3scripts.com/instrumentpro/

If you have any questions or problems with DySE::InstrumentPro, do not hesitate to contact us. Also, visit our discussion forum at http://www.c3scripts.com/forum

For a list of all our current scripts, visit http://www.c3scripts.com

Thank you for using our scripts.

Yours truly,
CUSIMANO.COM CORPORATION
per: David Cusimano

I was reading through the March 2005 issue of Internet Retailer and was glad to see a few full page ads from companies engaged in affiliate marketing.

Since I’m a subscriber to Internet Retailer, as well as an affiliate and merchant, I figure each of these ads is targeted at me to varying degrees.

Here are my impressions on the effectiveness of each ad. Click any of the advertisements to enlarge.

Performics
p. 13
The Performics ad plays to the situation facing many retailers with lots of skus. I’ve got a data feed, now what do I do with it. The ad is a take on the “This is Your Brain – This is Your Brain on Drugs” campaign.

It definitely got my attention, though the abundance of Performics orange was sort of reminiscent of The Gates that recently graced Central Park in NYC.

The ad touts that they are “Introducing Performics’ Feedlab technology,” but from the ad, I have no idea what makes this technology a reason for working with Performics.

Also, the contact information and url are in a tiny font at the bottom of the page, and there isn’t any sort of mechanism for tracking the ad, as far as I can tell.

NETexponent
p.17
NETexponent ran an ad that looks like a solicitation letter that’s been marked up by a potential client, complete with a Post-it urging a colleague to check out NETexponent.com.

I like how the letter includes a trackable email (GetResults@NETexponent.com) and url (http://www.netexponent.com/ir), as well as the direct line for CEO, Peter Figueredo.

In addition to the hand written comments on the letter, there are sections that are highlighted, including a part about “affiliates bidding on search terms.” This ad ran opposite from an article, “Affiliates, marketers wrestle over trademark use under new Google ad policy.”

Talk about contextual advertising!

LinkShare
p. 53
The LinkShare ad had an elegant look and a very straightforward call to action: The 2005 Second Annual LinkShare Golden Link Awards: Call for Nominations.

The ad urges readers to “Make a nomination today at www.linkshare.com/goldenlink,” and a list of the various awards that will be given out at the event.

I cannot really tell from the photo in the ad, but it appears that these awards are golden bowling pins?

I’m left wondering if Joan Rivers and Star Jones will be working the red carpet at this gala event. Anyway, I’m off to make some nominations.

I came across this funny tool called Google Fight, where you can compare the number of results for two competing keywords. So I figured I would stage some fights among the affiliate program solution providers to see who would come out on top.

Let’s get ready to rumble affiliate style!

After a bloody showdown where Commission Junction, Direct Track, LinkShare, My Affiliate Program, Performics, and Shareasale faced each other in the ring, one fighter was left standing.

And the heavy weight champion of the Affiliate Program Google Fights is LinkShare in a TKO over Shareasale.

Each contender fought all of the other affiliate program solution providers one time each. Below are the standings:

The results here are just for fun – don’t get bent out of shape if your company of choice got beat up in the fights.