Affiliate marketing news and opinion from Shawn Collins, co-founder of Affiliate Summit.
The Affiliate Summit group rate of $69/night at the Riviera Hotel ends on Monday, May 23.
When booking your room at the Riviera Hotel for Affiliate Summit 2005, please be sure to mention group code: AFFIL05.
You can book by calling toll free to Riviera Reservations at 800-634-6753 or online at http://www.rivierahotel.com/resnet/roomres.asp?ID=82
After 5/23, there is no guarantee on room price or availability.
The following is what Nicole Russell had to say in response the the question, What is wrong with affiliate marketing and how can it be improved?
The one thing that I feel can be improved with affiliate marketing is communication.
There are now so many affiliate programs, and most affiliate marketers are working with dozens of them at once, that it’s hard to know what is going on at each one without communication.
If I’m a member of your affiliate program, I want to hear from you on a regular basis. I’d love to hear from an affiliate manager weekly, at least monthly.
I want to know what is going on at that program. I want to know about the current promotions, coupons, new creatives you have, any changes that have been made, etc.
You can use email, direct mail, and/or phone calls. The more I hear from an affiliate program, the better I am able to promote them. We have a common goal and we should be working together as a team!
Regular communication makes that possible and both parties will benefit greatly from it.
The Affiliate Summit 2005 conference, taking place June 13-14 in Las Vegas, sold out last Friday. There are 450 people registered to attend the event.
Since then, we’ve been working to secure larger meeting spaces to enable more folks to register.
In the meantime, there are nearly 70 people on the waitlist for tickets, as of 10:10 EST today.
Over the last day, at least one eBay auction has popped up to capitalize on the demand.
The auction has a starting bid of $1,495 (the regular cost of a registration for Affiliate Summit 2005).
For anybody that has purchased a pass and cannot attend, feel free to resell your registration. If you do so, just contact Missy Ward or Shawn Collins with the winner’s full name, company and email address, so we can finalize their registration.
The following is what Rexanne Mancini of Rexanne.com had to say in response the the question, What is wrong with affiliate marketing and how can it be improved?
My biggest gripe about affiliate marketing is that as affiliates, we are basically stuck with trusting the tracking and integrity of merchants.
While I’m assuming the majority of online merchants are honorable, I have seen firsthand how, when switching from a large, usually corporate non-performing merchant to a smaller, mama-papa merchant, sales increase overnight.
This has left me wary of most big corporate online merchants. Without the ability to track our own traffic and clicks to sales ratio, we are at the mercy of merchant integrity and potentially corrupt software.
In a brief stint as an affiliate manager, I’ve seen how easily affiliate tracking software can break down and stop tracking correctly.
Whether this is the problem or less than honorable merchants is the problem, it still remains a thorn in my side to have to accept having so little control over these statistics.
How would you answer the question, What is wrong with affiliate marketing and how can it be improved? There are no right or wrong answers – just opinions that can help improve the industry.
The author of any response that is published at affiliatetip.com or affiliatesummit.com will receive a limited edition “It’s an affiliate thing, you wouldn’t understand.” t-shirt.
Share your thoughts now at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=56601070891
Affiliate marketers have been taking a victory lap to celebrate the vitality of affiliate marketing lately.
After all, the industry shows great signs of life with the Affiliate Summit conference selling out with 450 attendees (nearly double the attendance of last year’s show).
But when is a sell out not really a sell out? Well, on paper there are 450 spots accounted for at this point, but it’s not as simple as that.
You see, there are actually 7 spots left. The thing is that they are tied to sponsorships of pens and lunches on day 1 and day 2.
These three Affiliate Summit sponsorships are still available, and folks can still register for the conference by picking up these sponsor slots.
However, the registrations are still otherwise sold out (there is a wait list being formed in the event a larger meeting space can be secured).
One of the biggest challenges for an affiliate is to determine which affiliate programs to push and when.
You can guess and speculate, but that sort of scatter shot promotional effort will likely result in poor returns.
One of the keys to identifying and capitalizing on trends is to watch the headlines and leverage their coverage.
You will want to know when there is good news about a company, so you can put more marketing muscle behind them.
Likewise, if there is something damaging being published about a company that currently receives top real estate on your site, you’ll want to reconsider their placement.
One easy and free way to monitor the companies you promote is to set up Google Alerts to receive a notice whenever the company is in the news.
Google Alerts is the web’s leading solution for monitoring your professional interests online. This service enables you to track the entire web for your topics and receive new results by daily email. They have a free version, as well as some paid versions that have bells and whistles.
Come join the PartnerWeekly team for a Hawaiian Happy Hour! Enjoy a great networking environment with the look and feel of paradise! FREE top shelf drinks, gourmet food and a chance to win great prizes!
Join the festivities June 13th, 2005 after the Affiliate Summit show!
Riviera Hotel & Casino – Capri Room 102 from 5:00pm – 7:30pm
Please RSVP at http://www.partnerweekly.com/tikiparty1/
The following is what Chris Park of Blair.com had to say in response the the question, What is wrong with affiliate marketing and how can it be improved?
No need to touch on the standards. You know… the topics on every board and in every e-zine. I’m talking about spyware, BHO’s, spam, cookie stuffing and commission stealing.
All can easily be considered problems in affiliate marketing. But, I feel there’s an even bigger problem. A problem that is often fueled by, and even a contributor to, the problems mentioned above.
I’m talking about the adversarial relationship between affiliates and merchants — two groups that prefer to call each other “partners”.
Too often, a merchant will immediately suspend an affiliate for activities that haven’t been witnessed… only read about on a message board. And… how many times has an affiliate posted that a merchant “needs” them as an affiliate and threatens to replace links with those of a competitor if he doesn’t get what he’s asking for?
Accusations. Threats. Flames. Promises of lawsuits. Definitely not the best ways for business partners to work together toward a common goal. And yes! There is one common goal – the payable action the partnership is based on.
How has this happened, and what can be done? How it happened is easy. Email and IM’ing have robbed us of the personal relationships and leave us with one website dealing with another. It’s much harder to respect and admire a dot com than it is a human being.
For change to happen, we need to get back to dealing with each other as individuals. Pick up the phone. Attend conferences and make a point to find and meet those people you have partnerships with.
And finally… go back to one of the first lessons we all learned in grade school… “Treat others the way you wish to be treated!â€
How would you answer the question, What is wrong with affiliate marketing and how can it be improved? There are no right or wrong answers – just opinions that can help improve the industry.
The author of any response that is published at affiliatetip.com or affiliatesummit.com will receive a limited edition “It’s an affiliate thing, you wouldn’t understand.” t-shirt.
Share your thoughts now at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=56601070891
We are currently mechants with Tradedoubler in the UK and Linkshare in the USA. We are a UK based company and we have just launched a site in Germany. I have heard that affiliate marketing in Germany is particularly strong but I cannot seem to find a list of any affiliate programs the we can become mechants with. Do you have any tips on how to find these programs?
There is an affiliate marketing resource site in German that has been around for many years at http://www.partnerprogramme.com/.
I can’t say for sure what is there, or how current it is, because I can’t read German. But if I recall correctly, it’s an affiliate program directory.
Another resource, which I believe to be current is http://www.affiliate.de/
This site is operated by a gentleman named Stefan Zwanzger. From what I can make out there, the site has lots of interviews, articles, news, a list of top affiliate programs and more.
Tschüs!
Most any affiliate marketer has tried to explain to family and friends what they do for a living, and they inevitably are met with blank stares.
I suppose the uniqueness of this space plays a role in the various tight knit online communities for affiliate marketers. Nobody else knows what we’re talking about.
So anyway, I’ve created a limited edition t-shirt to celebrate affiliate marketing. It reads: It’s an Affiliate Thing, You Wouldn’t Understand.
You can’t buy this well appointed, 100% cotton, preshrunk fashion must-have.
But you can get one for sharing a little knowledge. I just want your opinion on what is wrong with affiliate marketing and how can it be improved?
There are no right or wrong answers – just opinions that can help improve the industry.
The author of any response that is published at affiliatetip.com or affiliatesummit.com will receive a limited edition “It’s an affiliate thing, you wouldn’t understand.” t-shirt.
By submitting your essay (200 to 1000 words), you give permission for the written material (including your name) to be published at affiliatetip.com and/or affiliatesummit.com
Share your thoughts now at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=56601070891
Show your write!