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Archives for September 2005

Ask Shawn Collins: The Mystery of the Invisible Affiliate Link

September 29, 2005 by Shawn Collins

Q: I have recevied many requests for joining our affiliate program. After I accept them, I hardly find my link on their site in most of cases. I don’t understand why?

Shawn CollinsA: I think part of the problem is that you’re asking me, instead of asking your affiliates. If you are typical of most affiliate managers, you are not conducting any sort of activation initiative for your affiliates.

They apply, you accept them into your affiliate program… now what? There are some affiliates that will take the initiative to login, pick up their affiliate code, and promote your affiliate program.

But most affiliates aren’t going to do anything. That is, they won’t do anything if you just sit and wait for them to activate.

You have to reach out to them in any variety of ways: e-mail, phone, direct mail, etc. to encourage them to get active with your affiliate program. Ask them what you have to do to make your program more attractive – different sizes/types of creative, direct product links, new landing pages, etc.

Affiliates join dozens, if not hundreds of affiliate programs. What are you doing to stand out and merit real estate on their sites or in their newsletters?

If the answer is nothing, then it’s time to change.

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Filed Under: Ask Shawn Collins

Internet Retailer: Affiliate Marketing is an Effective Strategy

September 28, 2005 by Shawn Collins

Though its not as big a part of their overall sales and marketing program as paid search or e-mail, affiliate marketing is an effective strategy to build broader brand awareness and drive motivated buyers to business-to-consumer e-commerce sites, say web retailers participating in the latest Internet Retailer survey.

Most web retailers have already made a multi-year investment in affiliate marketing and count on a network of several thousand affiliates to drive visitor traffic, according to the latest Internet Retailer survey. For instance, 43.2% of web merchants taking part in the survey indicate that their affiliate marketing program is at least 4 years old, compared with 23.2% who say theyve had a program in place for 2-3 years, 10.5% with programs only about a year old and 23.2% with programs in operation less than a year.

Complete article at http://internetretailer.com/article.asp?id=16248

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Filed Under: Affiliate News

Ask Shawn Collins: Affiliate Manager Training

September 26, 2005 by Shawn Collins

Q: I just found out that I am going to be managing the affiliate program for my company, and I don’t know a thing about affiliate marketing. Is there a training course to teach me to run an affiliate program?

Affiliate Manager Bootcamp

A: In the past, I ran an Affiliate Manager Boot Camp with Beth Kirsch to provide this sort of training. Currently, we do not have another one scheduled.

Also, Anik Singal, the CEO of Affiliate Classroom, picked up where we left off with his own take on the Affiliate Manager Boot Camp.

And Geno Prussakov has been running the AM Days conference for years.

If you are looking for a quick and cheap alternative, I wrote a book called Affiliate Manager Boot Camp, too.

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Filed Under: Ask Shawn Collins

Affiliates Should Tell Merchants What They Want

September 25, 2005 by Shawn Collins

The following is what Cheryl Smith of Money Mechanic had to say in response the the question, What is wrong with affiliate marketing and how can it be improved?

Communication is Vital in Affiliate Marketing. If affilaites feel the merchants are not delivering, then work with the merchant to better conversions.

Affiliates know their market the best and if they feel the home page is not good enough, ask for a landing page that will give the affiliate’s target market the correct information.

It is often too easy to sit back and say they never converted, but if you don’t work together to better it, no one will make money.


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

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Filed Under: Affiliate News

New Affiliate Site Builder, synthaSite, Coming in October

September 24, 2005 by Shawn Collins

I ran into Vinny Lingham last week at CJU, and he gave me an overview of his new product, synthaSite.

Vinny LinghamsynthaSite is a data feed driven tool that enables affiliates to promote “more than 100 million products available through multiple affiliate networks.” One concern among affiliate marketers with this sort of tool is that it won’t be search engine friendly.

But according to Vinny, the visual RSS builder and auto-metadata generator ensure SEO-friendly sites from synthaSite. It is an ASP and Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 is required for the development environment. The final site will run on any xhtml/css compliant browser.

There are some Flash tutorial movies for synthaSite to get a better idea about how the whole thing works.

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Filed Under: Affiliate Resources

Cydoor Launches New CPA Network: Oridian

September 23, 2005 by Shawn Collins

The folks behind Cydoor Desktop Media have launched a new CPA network, Oridian. I would expect that industry watchdogs have their eyes on this move.

According to SpywareGuide, Cydoor is classified as a minimal threat, but “Removal is hard.”

And Broadband Reports published a note from Cydoor asking the site to stop referring to Cydoor as spyware. Cydoor requested that they be referred to as “a mild adware.”

According to the Oridian site, “Spun out from Cydoor Desktop Media in September 2005, Oridian is a completely separate entity. Offering prime online media solutions, Oridian is firmly based on the professional foundation established by Cydoor.”

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Filed Under: Affiliate News

Unnatural Disaster in Affiliate Marketing

September 21, 2005 by Shawn Collins

There was an interesting session at CJU this past Monday. The session, ‘Online Persuasion: Increasing the Size of the Deal’ featured panelists Roshan Mendis (Travelocity), Dan Murray (Ravenwood Marketing), Jeremy Palmer (Quit Your Day Job), and Terrence Thomas (Citigroup).

It was a compelling panel that covered the perspectives of both affiliates and merchants, and what each one can do to establish a more profitable and beneficial relationship.

As the session moved to Q&A, Paul Schroader, President of PS Web Solutions brought up a long simmering complaint among CJ merchants. The issue at hand was the ability, or lack thereof, for a merchant to communicate with their base of affiliates.

Paul put forth a timely example where he wanted to be able to communicate a mission critical message to his affiliates recently, and was not able to get through to a great number of them, since he didn’t have access to their phone numbers and e-mail addresses.

His client, the Oreck Corporation, had their corporate offices based in New Orleans and their manufacturing plant in Gulfport, MS. When Hurricane Katrina hit, it became impossible for Oreck to keep Oreck.com running for a period of time, as there was no way to fulfill orders.

This put the affiliate program in a position where they wanted to ask affiliates to pause any promotions that were costing them money (PPC campaigns, e-mails, and pretty much any other method being used to promote the company).

Unfortunately, they could not do so in cases where affiliates did not check their internal e-mail accounts on CJ or opt-in to Oreck mailings in their CJ accounts.

Hopefully, this example will be the impetus needed for CJ to provide more affiliate contact information to the merchants. When the lines of communications are wide open, more affiliates and merchants can increase the size of the deal, and everybody wins.

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Filed Under: Affiliate News

Affiliates: I Want My EPC

September 20, 2005 by Shawn Collins

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

All affiliate programs should provide EPC data, instead of wasting our time promoting products that they have not optimized to sell themselves.

So they use affiliates to get a few sales.

CJ EPC data is nice, but not accurate. There is something wrong in the system. I can see it in my own EPC numbers – they are way higher then what I actually make.

I have been asking for these numbers since the 2000 Miami Affililate Force conference.

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Filed Under: Affiliate News

Ask Shawn Collins: Starting an Affiliate Program

September 19, 2005 by Shawn Collins

Q: We are in the beginning stage of managing an affiliate program, can you advise me where to start?

Shawn CollinsA: I don’t know what you have done so far, but I suspect that the affiliate program has launched if you are already managing it.

As far as where to start, if you haven’t done so, begin gathering competitive research on the like affiliate programs. Be sure that your affiliate program has a payout that is in lie with the competition. And try joining those companies as an affiliate to learn a bit about their communications, conversion rates, etc.

Once your affiliate program is fine tuned, start recruiting affiliates. If you are going to solicit affiliates via e-mail, be sure that your communications are CAN-SPAM compliant.

I would suggest using advertising, phone calls, direct mail, and face to face interaction at affiliate marketing conferences to recruit affiliates.

When the affiliates have started joining your affiliate program, you should then also start focusing on a communications plan to activate and retain your affiliates.

One of the best ways to make affiliates happy is to come out and ask what they want – and then give it to them.

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Filed Under: Ask Shawn Collins

Affiliate Marketing has a Big Barrier to Entry

September 18, 2005 by Shawn Collins

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

I am an affiliate newbie and the only thing I can see wrong with affiliate marketing is that it has a big barrier to entry, not because you need alot of capital to get started, but because you need to expertly wear many hats just to get started.

It also doesn’t help that the ones who know the topics well are busy making money and not that available to help you out.

Affiliate marketing is a business that a great amount of potential with many companies doing things their own way.

To improve things I would like to see a centralized entity come up with things like data-feed standards, curriculum to tech us newbies, and reasonably priced access to folks that can help us when we need it.

You are right it must be an affiliate thing…

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Filed Under: Affiliate News

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