Archives for June 2005

Today marks my final day as the affiliate manager for ClubMom. My tenure with ClubMom began on Valentine’s Day in 2000, and I launched the affiliate program on March 13, 2000.

The initial ClubMom affiliate program was launched as I staffed the exhibit booth for ClubMom at the Affiliate Force conference in Miami.

Along the way, I met a whole lot of great people, and learned all sorts of things from the affiliate marketers I’ve encountered.

But after 5+ years, it’s time to move on to some new challenges, like focusing on Affiliate Summit events and managing other affiliate programs.

So as of July 1, 2005, the affiliate management will be handled by Partnercentric, Inc. PartnerCentric has assigned Chris Cooper to be the Lead Manager on this account.

Chris joins the Clubmom team after successfully managing the OneStepAhead and LeapsAndBounds affiliate program since 2003.

He helped position and establish OneStepAhead as a merchant with a trusted, reputable affiliate program.

Chris enjoys the personal and professional relationships that skilled management develop in affiliate marketing and in helping all affiliates monetize their traffic, from the most experienced to the newest affiliates that join programs he manages.

Feel free to contact him with any questions or comments at affiliates@clubmom.com

Moving forward, the ClubMom affiliate resource site is located at http://www.partnercentric.com/clubmom/

Thanks to everybody that helped to grow ClubMom across all of these years.

What do the San Antonio Spurs, U2 and the Affiliate Summit conference have in common? Stumped? In the month of June 2005, scalpers sold tickets to all three on eBay. That’s right, Affiliate Summit 2005 passes went for as much as 50 percent over the face value of $1,495.

It’s certainly a healthy sign for affiliate marketers when the leading conference in the space more than doubles from the previous year, and 200-plus people were on a waitlist to attend.

Some people are saying that affiliate marketing is experiencing a Renaissance, but that suggests that there was a time when affiliate programs were not working. From where I sit, the affiliate landscape has been in a crescendo for 10 years.

Complete article at http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/6244.asp

Pittsburgh, PA – June 27, 2005 – Direct Response Technologies, Inc., (DRT) a leading provider of online media and technology solutions, announces settlement of its lawsuit with PrimaryAds, a client utilizing DirectTrack (Direct Response’s proprietary affiliate and ad serving technology) as the back bone for their network. PrimaryAds is a wholly owned subsidiary of Think Partnership, Inc. (AMEX – THK) a direct competitor of Direct Response Technologies, Inc.

The material terms of the settlement decree, entered by the Court with the parties’ consent, are as follows:

• DRT will provide PrimaryAds with a copy of the PrimaryAds’ business information and data on the DirectTrack network (which was never a contention by DRT), however the copy will not include any of DRT’s confidential and proprietary information;
• DRT will provide the Services for nine (9) months after providing PrimaryAds with a copy of its information and data, at which time DRT will terminate the Services;
• PrimaryAds must pay the “monthly customer” rates set forth on the current rate card for network clients published (despite PrimaryAds’ contention that it was not a monthly customer);
• PrimaryAds is prohibited from disclosing DRT’s ideas, trade secrets, procedures, methods, systems, concepts, or other confidential information to any party – including (but not limited to) any parent, subsidiary, affiliate, or representative of PrimaryAds; and
• PrimaryAds releases DRT from any liability relating to the lawsuit, including its claims for money damages.

“We are glad to have the litigation behind us,” said Jason Wolfe, the President and CEO of DRT. “We do not think the legal system is a place where public companies should use their financial might to bully smaller firms.”

Wolfe continues, “our primary concern was the level of access THK had
to the intellectual capital, embodied within our DirectTrack® system, and that this access would help their Kowabunga / MYAP subsidiary at our expense. Furthermore, we were concerned that PrimaryAds would acquire a legal position to provide a competitive solution to DirectTrack®. The Consent Decree and other binding legalese we have in place with PrimaryAds now provides us adequate protections to alleviate these concerns. PrimaryAds will be transitioned off of DirectTrack®, as we desired, and the extended time period set for this transition is yet another testament to the unique power that the DirectTrack® system provides”.

Mr. Wolfe stated that the settlement achieved DRT’s primary goals of protecting its proprietary information, transitioning PrimaryAds off of the DirectTrack network, and minimizing the costs of resolving the matter. “We were obligated and agreeable – even before the lawsuit was filed – to return PrimaryAds’ business information to it so that it could transition to another service provider. However, we refused to provide that information in a format which would have disclosed our proprietary data, infrastructure, design, and intelligence. We also had to defend PrimaryAds’ contention that we had no right to discontinue the Services under our contract, which we believed was clearly a month-to-month agreement”

Apart from the recent legal posturing, PrimaryAds has been a good client and we are sorry that they will no longer be a part of the DRT community of networks. Wolfe also emphasized that the settlement “will ensure that PrimaryAds is transitioned off of the DirectTrack network, despite its contention that DRT had no right to discontinue providing the DirectTrack services.” While its is sorry that DRT will not longer serve PrimaryAds in the future, Wolfe noted that “we wish PrimaryAds continued success. At the same time, however, we believe that the extended time period that PrimaryAds was granted in order to transition to Kowabunga – 9 whole months – is another testament to the unique power that the DirectTrack system provides.”

In the litigation, DRT was represented by attorneys David A. Gurwin and Gregory J. Krock of the firm Buchanan Ingersoll PC.

DirectTrack® currently powers 105 networks including affiliate networks, ad serving networks, and co-registration networks. The DirectTrack® ‘network of networks’ delivers roughly 11 billion ads per month, and over 65,000,000 clicks through its patent pending CrossPublication™ technology. DirectTrack® was launched as a low cost network platform for advertising and affiliate networks to get setup and launched quickly, and has proven that a company can grow rapidly utilizing the power of DirectTrack® and the network of networks.

About Direct Response Technologies, Inc.
Direct Response Technologies, Inc. founded in 1994, is a media and technology firm dedicated to delivering performance-based results and technology solutions to clients. Direct Response Technologies is a privately held company with offices in Pittsburgh, PA, and New York NY, owned in part by Jupiter Media (NASDAQ: JUPM). The company also operates an office in North Dakota in conjunction with the Department of Commerce of North Dakota.

Direct Response Technologies (http://www.directresponse.com) provides technology for (1) secure coupon delivery and tracking solutions through www.mycoupons.com ; (2) keyword tracking through www.keywordmax.com; (3) affiliate tracking through www.directtrack.com; and (4) gift certificates and gift card solutions through www.giftcards.com;

CONTACT:
Public Relations
Direct Response Technologies, Inc.
412-921-6881
pr@directresponse.com

Performics’ top tier advertisers are now available through the Dynamic Product Showcase Creator.

The Dynamic Product Showcase Creator, hosted by AffSolutions, provides an easy-to-use, web-based tool that creates affiliate link encoded product showcases with just one click.

You can use the Dynamic Product Showcase Creator through Performics to select items directly from an advertiser’s feed for dynamic rotation on your site.

You can select categories and keywords to generate a showcase for the advertisers in your program. You can customize the colors, sizes and selection of your showcase through the web-based tool. Since the feed is updated every 24 hours, showcases on your site will always have current offers, products and information.

The following advertisers are now available through the Dynamic Product Showcase Creator:

• HP Shopping
• Kohl’s
• Sears
• Eddie Bauer
• AutoAnything
• Blair
• Bose
• Red Envelope

In order to generate an advertiser PSC link you must be approved for that advertiser’s affiliate program.

Additional advertisers will be available in the coming weeks. Affiliates for individual programs will be notified by email when PSC links are available.

The following is what David Fortino of the NetLine Corporation had to say in response the the question, What is wrong with affiliate marketing and how can it be improved?

People. WE are what’s wrong with affiliate marketing.

Good old human nature continues to drive AM’s towards the easy cash without thinking about the larger opportunities.

The sum of the “little guys” if nurtured correctly and effeciently, can easily outperform the Super Affiliates we all pursue.

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

The following is what Richard Kohl had to say in response the the question, What is wrong with affiliate marketing and how can it be improved?

As a new publisher to Affiliate Marketing I would like to see a higher commission pay out.

With an Affiliate Program, the merchant does not need many other forms of Marketing, which take a considerable amount of capital. That capital amount should or could be passed onto the publisher via commissions.

It is hard to believe that I could promote a merchant and profit from a 5% commission. We have a policy not to accept any merchant who pays less than 10%.

Although we have made a few acceptions to that policy. Commissions are the life blood of a publisher. Which brings up another point and that is the payout period.

We find it hard to understand how a publisher would make it if all the merchants paid out quarterly. Payouts should be minimum monthly. Especially to that publisher who is producing sales.

For an affiliate program to work it must be a win, win for both sides.

You thought that Google was all about bots checking around to determine the quality of content on sites, didn’t you? Well, according to a report in the AssociatePrograms.com newsletter, Google employs people at a rate of $10 to $20 an hour to check search results at Google every day.

There is a criteria guide for the Google checkers called the Spam Recognition Guide for Raters. It’s available at http://www.searchbistro.com/spamguide.doc (for now).

It seems that a Google employee broke an NDA to share this report, so you may well hit a dead link in the near future. I’d suggest copying it to your hard drive for future reference.

The Spam Recognition Guide points out what they refer to as “Thin Affiliate Doorway Pages.”

They elaborate that they “differentiate between affiliates that produce extra service, value, or content, and those that simply are duplicates of other sites, set up to boost traffic to other sites and earn a commission for it.

The former ones are not Offensive and should be rated on the merits to the query. The latter ones are Offensive.”

Offensive meaning sites that are not fit to be in Google’s search results.

As far as I can tell, the guidelines are fair enough. They’re trying to rid their results of affiliate sites that offer no unique value proposition, as described in the following passage:

“Thin affiliate doorways are sites that usher people to a number of Affiliate programs, earning a commission for doing so, while providing little or no value-added content or service to the user. A site certainly has the right to try to earn income; we’re attempting to identify sites that do nothing but act as a commission-earning middleman.”

It almost reads like a Jeff Foxworthy skit. You might be a thin affiliate if…

“If the links are overwhelmingly leading you to one affiliate program, this is a strong signal that the site is a Thin Affiliate. If the pages on the site are homogenous, and the links go to one or more affiliate programs, this is also a strong candidate.”

The guide identifies a page that features links with any of the following domains as a possible Thin Affiliate: qksrv.net, bfast.com, myaffiliateprogram.com, webmasterplan.de, and zanox-affiliate.de

There is much more information in the guide that any affiliate marketing should consume and heed.

Lesson to be learned – if you don’t offer up unique content or some other kind of unique angle from your site, don’t expect to be in Google (for long).

The following is what Karen Stairs of USADATA had to say in response the the question, What is wrong with affiliate marketing and how can it be improved?

Introducing an affiliate program within a company with no existing marketing infrastructure is not easily accomplished.

USADATA is a successful company and has been for years, however there is no official marketing department.

So in starting the Affiliate Value Program, it was building from the ground up.

How many other companies are lax on the marketing but yet want a successful affiliate program? What many don’t realize is that building a community of affiliates is tough, but constructing a program with no existing support is takes a bit more time and resources.

A wise mentor once told me there were three things needed for successful business:

• Money — which is always available from somewhere
• People — can be found and trained
• Marketing — is the key element to a successful business, the most necessary component, and without marketing is doomed

It’s not that a non-marketing savvy company shouldn’t be involved in affiliate marketing, it’s just that without some type of structure, a successful program will take time to implement properly.

Companies need to realize this and not expect immediate satisfaction.

Doesn’t it generally take around three months for a program to get wings? Is this taking into account development time? And what sort of development schedule is necessary when starting from “scratch”?

Do companies realize that development and implementation are two very seperate things with two sets of tasks, issues and timeframes? My issue is with the expectations of a company that isn’t seasoned in the general marketing area.

Affiliate marketing is not just slapping up a registration form and paying for performance. It needs to be cared for, tended to and doted upon.

Many companies seem to think that with little work and resources they will have a profitable affiliate program.

Say what? Peace Out!

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