Shawn Collins' Blog

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

Archives for August 2005

Willie, Mickey and the Duke – Affiliate Style

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The second annual Performics Client Summit was a delightful mix of affiliate marketing, baseball, and search engine marketing.

The event kicked off on the afternoon of August 22 with some pre-conference sessions on best practices and using Connect Commerce (the Performics ASP), and a happy hour at the Performics offices.

This was followed by the best thing ever for an affiliate/baseball geek – watching a Cubs game from the 3639 Wrigley Rooftop while chatting up the affiliates, merchants, search engine reps and Performics folks.

3639.jpg
View from the Performics Wrigleyville Rooftop Party

The actual Performics Client Summit was kicked off by Stuart Frankel, Senior Vice President of DoubleClick and General Manager of Performics.

Mr. Frankel reminisced about how so many pundits called for the death of online advertising in the recent past, and how they were sorely wrong.

He also touched on the Performics mission, which is…

To be the best online services and technology provider as measured by:

  • The satisfaction of our employees, clients and publishers;
  • An ability to meet and exceed the goals of our clients and publishers; and
  • Our reputation for being easy to work with

The keynote speaker, Seth Godin, followed with a rousing talk based on his current book, All Marketers are Liars.

The central theme of the keynote was that we, as marketers, must make something worth talking about. It’s all about the story, and if consumers aren’t talking about your products, they are essentially invisible.

Lots of entertaining narrative in the keynote – I’d suggest grabbing a copy of the book.

The morning was rounded out by a panel, moderated by John Joseph, Vice President of Affiliate Marketing at Performics, on the Future of Affiliate Marketing; and a capsule of a Decade on Online Advertising from Lynee Tornabene, Vice President of Marketing for DoubleClick.

After lunch, there was a search engine panel moderated by Gary Stein, Senior Analyst at JupiterResearch.

This panel featured representatives from Google, MSN Search and Yahoo!, and they discussed search engine issues of the day, as well as the ways search engines impact affiliate marketing, such as click fraud.

My personal favorite part of the day was the Networking Discussions/Roundtables. Performics lined up 12 topics and moderators to lead discussions including the process of making matches of affiliates and merchants, improving search copy, and whether affiliate marketing is an acquisition or retention channel or both?

These interactive sessions are always tops, as they give a chance to meet lots of people in a quick burst, and learn a couple or three things in the process.

Performics is growing their staff, making upgrades to their technology, and focusing on the satisfaction of their clients and affiliates.

Things are looking good for affiliate marketing in Chicago. If only the Cubs could have won the game.

Ask Shawn Collins: Running an Online Sweepstakes

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Q: How do you go about running a contest or drawing online for shoppers? Are there certain legal requirements you must follow?

Shawn CollinsA: Before I answer your question, I want to be extremely clear that my response should not be construed as legal advice. Please see an attorney for clarification on the current laws and the type of promotion you wish to hold.

That said, there are many laws in the United States regarding sweepstakes and contests, and being on the Internet, you’ll have to consider whether you want to open it up internationally and dealing with laws of other countries.

Federal laws in the U.S. prohibit illegal lotteries, defined as contests involving the elements of prize, chance, and consideration (money or something of value).

When you don’t charge money and the winner is selected randomly, it is not a lottery.

You have probably seen sweepstakes rules that include the provision, “void in Florida and New York.” The reason for this is that those states have specific laws relating to contests and sweepstakes.

In Florida and New York, promoters are required to register and post a bond if the prize pool is valued at $5,000 or more.

Again, be sure to consult with an attorney who has a background in sweepstakes and contests before running one yourself.

Facelift for the Performics ConnectCommerce (CC)

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Performics has collected feedback from ConnectCommerce users over the past several months, and they’ve improved the system to include several new features and a new look and feel.

On August 29, ConnectCommerce will re-launch, and some of the new features include:

  • All Dressed Up (New Look and Feel) – more intuitive navigation and a better organized workflow
  • Parlez Vous Français? (Language Specific Interface) – introducing four new languages: French, German, Italian and Spanish
  • Help Me, Rhonda (Online Help) – topic specific help with a comprehensive help index available throughout the site

I’ll be heading to the Performics Client Summit the next two days and hope to get a sneak peek.

Get in to Affiliate Marketing for the Long Haul

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The following is what Vikram Vora of shaadi.com had to say in response the the question, What is wrong with affiliate marketing and how can it be improved?

The thing that is wrong with Affiliate Marketing is that it is perceived as a short term venture.

Affiliates view Affiliate Marketing as a means of earning a quick buck. Affiliate Marketing has to be perceived as owning a business, without any costs.

The first two three months normally dont result in revenues (in the case of an online matrimony / dating site), they get discouraged and stop performing.

Affiliate Marketing has to viewed with a long term perspective, as their is no ceiling on how much you can earn in Affiliate Marketing.

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

Ask Shawn Collins: The Affiliate Without a Web Site

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Q: If I don’t have a Web site, can I make money in the affiliate business, and if so, how?

Shawn CollinsA: The short answer is yes. However, there is one basic thing that may trip you up as you get started.

Affiliate managers are conditioned to expect that an affiliate applying to their affiliate program is going to have an active Web site.

In the cases where affiliate managers have their program set to manually approve affiliates, they will likely reject you, because you don’t have a site.

However, one thing you can do is to purchase a domain, and put a brief not on that domain explaining that you will be promoting the company in such and such fashion.

One common reason for not having a Web site is when an affiliate is focused on driving traffic straight through their affiliate link from the pay per click search engines, such as Google and Yahoo.

Also, if you happened to develop an opt-in e-mail list through a Web site you used to run, you could send out newsletters or solo e-mails to that list.

You could also promote affiliate programs offline in various ways (flyers, business cards, etc.).

Be creative about it – but first, run it by the affiliate manager of each affiliate program you wish to promote, so you can be sure you are abiding by their terms and conditions.

Action Without Thought in Affiliate Marketing Breeds Chaos

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The following is what Hokuto Kasai of the JAPAN.AffiliateSogo.com had to say in response the the question, What is wrong with affiliate marketing and how can it be improved?

My answer is that there are so many people who do NOT care about what is wrong, or what is right with affiliate marketing.

Win-Win relationship is considered as one of the most important attributes of affiliate program, but in this real world, how many of affiliates and EC merchants are trying to build real Win-Win relationship?

In Japan, most affiliates focus on how to maximize their income, and most EC merchants focus on how to maximize their profit.

Their thoughts are understandable, but how to maximize the number does not lead to the success of affiliate market.

If they focus only on their own benefit, market does not bloom. Merchants need to understand what affiliates want from them, and affiliates need to understand what merchants want.

They need to understand the reality.

Affiliates try to increase their commissions by taking many actions, but some of their actions bring troubles, not sales, to merchants.

Merchants take actions to grow their affiliates, but some actions are just waste of the time. Why this happens? It’s because many of affiliates and merchants give up learning the affiliate program.

They do what THEY think right. Although there are affiliate pioneers, who teach us a lot, many affiliates and merchants ignore their existence.

Learning from pioneers, listening from partners, studying the market, forecasting the future, all these actions take time, and, cannot be measured by ROI.

Web-marketing is based on numbers. Without the numbers, on-line business cannot reach its goal.

However, affiliate marketing is not based only on numbers. There are various foundations contributing the growth of the market.

This is the time people need to think about what is wrong and what is right about affiliate market, and discuss about how to improve it.

Thinking leads actions. Actions without thought lead chaos.

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

Keyword Research Guide from Wordtracker

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Wordtracker just published a Keyword Research Guide to help people get the most from Wordtracker.

The 75-page guide features leading experts in the SEO industry and asks them to provide keyword advice to a fictional company.

They created a fictional company, Virginia Veg and asked experts to provide real answers to the problems facing its CEO Susan Webster.

The result is an e-book packed with insight, tips, and techniques on keyword research that you can apply easily to your own website.

Contributors include:

  • Bryan Eisenberg – Convert more traffic using Wordtracker
  • B. L. Ochman – Understand your customer’s real motivations
  • Kevin Lee – Combine thousands of phrases for an effective PPC campaign
  • Stephen Mahaney – Use Wordtracker to find the size of the market
  • Ken McGaffin – Discover the most important sites in your marketplace
  • John Alexander – Find inspiration in Wordtracker’s top 1000 words report
  • Neil Davidson – Learn how an Ad Agency uses keyword research to position a client
  • Robin Good – Use Wordtracker to identify niche opportunities
  • Nick Usborne – Incorporate keywords into your content and copy

The guide is available at
www.wordtracker.com/keyword-research-guide.html.

Recommended reading for affiliates and affiliate managers.

Ask Shawn Collins: Hiring an Affiliate Manager

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Q: How can I best recruit talent to run an affiliate program for me, and what skills should I look for in that person?

Shawn CollinsA: There are some important factors that will influence your ability to recruit an experienced affiliate manager: competitive pay, brand name and reputation of your company, reputation of your affiliate program (if it already exists), etc.

The reality is that in the current job market, there are not really many, if any, experienced affiliate managers that are looking for work.

Years ago, every HR director had a stack of affiliate manager resumes on their desk, but times have changed. There is simply more demand than supply as the young industry continues to grow.

As far as the skill set you should be looking for, I would suggest focusing on bringing in a people person over a fancy pedigree.

The affiliate manager position is all about somebody who can establish and maintain relationships. You certainly want somebody with marketing experience, but that should be balanced with personality and some technical ability (it’s a plus to bring somebody in who knows their way around HTML code).

Below is the skeleton of an affiliate manager job description that you can customize. In addition to the traditional job boards, you can post affiliate marketing jobs on my affiliate manager forum.

Job Description
The candidate will be in charge of the selection of an affiliate tracking technology, affiliate relationships, and representing our brand and interests through the affiliates. He/she will work with cross-functional teams including Customer Service, Sales, Technology and Administration to achieve Business Development departmental objectives.

Primary Responsibilities

  • Reporting and forecasting revenue
  • Tracking actual progress toward forecasts
  • Primary point of contact for affiliate relationships
  • Strategic development and management of affiliate initiatives
  • Managing related internal technical and creative processes
  • Document affiliate processes and procedures
  • Identify, target, and recruit new affiliates
  • Develop communication and support follow-up requests from affiliates
  • Educate affiliates on all marketing and promotion initiatives

Job Qualifications

  • BA/BS or equivalent
  • 3 years of on-line marketing experience (prior experience managing affiliate programs preferred)
  • Applications experience (Microsoft Word, Excel, etc.)
  • Attention to detail
  • Ability to understand contracts and implications for communications and opportunities with partners
  • Strong business and analytical skills
  • Organizational and problem solving skills
  • Aptitude to function within deadlines, while working both independently and as part of a team
  • Experience with Commission Junction, DirectTrack, LinkShare, MYAP, and/or Performics, Shareasale management interfaces preferred
  • Practical experience as an affiliate

If you would prefer to outsource the affiliate program management, there are a number of affiliate program consultants out there.

Be sure to do your research and check references before contracting with any outsourced management companies.

Feedster Top 500 Most Interesting and Important Blogs in the U.S.

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top500-2005-08.gifFeedster, a search engine and ad network for blogs and RSS feeds, has annouced the launch of the Feedster Top 500, a new ranking of “the most interesting and important blogs in the U.S.”

According to MediaBuyerPlanner, “the ranking is based on number of inbound links over time and whether the blog has been updated recently, among other factors.”

The Feedster Top 500 will be updated each month.

I’m honored to have the Affiliate Program Tip Blog ranked as number 312 in the August 2005 list.

Opt-in E-mail Incentives

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You’ve got an e-mail newsletter for your site, and it grows from day to day, but you want to see more people subscribe.

It’s a common problem with an uncommon solution. Sure, you could tweak the newsletter, add distribution by RSS, increase or decrease the frequency, but those things are not going to move the needle so much (actually, RSS might).

The key to increasing your opt-in e-mail circulation is to have some added value that your competition does not have when people subscribe.

What you should do is provide an incentive for people to opt-in to your e-mail newsletter. One good, low-cost incentive is to provide a free, relevant e-book to people when they subscribe.

What you should do is provide an incentive for people to opt-in to your e-mail newsletter. One good, low-cost incentive is to provide a free, relevant e-book to people when they subscribe.

You can compose your own e-book, or ask permission to distribute an existing e-book that makes sense for your audience.

For instance, Joel Comm has written one called Internet Safety Secrets, which he makes available for affiliates to give away to incent their newsletters.

Search around for who has written an e-book in your niche and contact them about permission (don’t give away somebodies e-book without permission!).