Shawn Collins' Blog

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

Archives for September 2005

Ask Shawn Collins: Affiliates for a Company Where They Work

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Q: I wanted to know how do you manage internal affiliates? People working in house for your company can have the possibility of making more money with their work as an affiliate that what they do working in the company. How can you deal with this?

A: If I understand you correctly, I think you asking what sort of policy should be in plane for employees to be affiliates for the company where they work.

That sort of practice ought to be forbidden in the affiliate program terms and conditions to avoid any conflict of interest.

An affiliate that worked at the company would potentially have access to the statistics of the affiliate program, including the performance data for individual affiliates.

If an employee is confident that they can make more as an affiliate, without using inside knowledge of the affiliate program, they ought to give two weeks notice and take a shot.

But they should be aware that as an affiliate, they don’t get any benefits or holidays. And their next paycheck is only as good as their last month’s performance. In other words, it’s not easy.

Affiliate Summit Optional Workshop: Explode Your Business with Blogging!

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Affiliate Summit 2006 will include 2+ days of sessions, networking and event this year, plus optional workshops before and after the conference.

One of the optional workshops, which will cost an additional $399 to attend is Explode Your Business with Blogging!, which will be run by top-rated business blogger , Dave Taylor.

Below is a description of this session, which will take place from 2:30 PM to 6:30 PM on Sunday, January 8 at Bally’s Las Vegas:

Learn from a top-rated business blogger exactly what the blogging phenomenon is all about and how a weblog can help you gain control of your Web content, improve your search engine ranking and sales. This workshop will help you identify topics you should write about on your blog, how to identify and interact with other bloggers in your market segment, and how to write smart, effective blog entries and comments on other weblogs that will gain you attention and links. You’ll learn about all of the following:

  • Why is your home page obsolete?
  • The real definitions of RSS, Ping, Trackback, and the Blogosphere
  • How you can use blogs for customer and market intelligence
  • Blogging as a guerilla marketing and PR strategy
  • Improving customer loyalty
  • Casting a wider net in your marketplace
  • Creating a sustainable differentiator for your company
  • The cornerstones of blogging: credibility and expertise
  • Comparing blogging tools and solutions
  • Writing a simple blog entry
  • Must-Know Blogging Techniques and Pitfalls
  • The future of findability

    And much more, including dozens of blogging insider tips and techniques that will help you transform your business into a powerhouse in the new, content-based Web.

    • Ask Shawn Collins: How to Sell Affiliate Marketing

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    Q: Rather than making money as an affiliate of different programs, I have been thinking of other ways to try to make money by encouraging merchants to set up affiliate programs, as I am sure there are many whose business would benefit that don’t yet have affiliate programs. This is just a seed of an idea, however I don’t have the knowledge to set myself up as an ‘expert’ and how to structure a deal to ensure that I got paid a % of sales, instead of just having the merchant set up a program for a one off fee, after which I would not stand to gain anything. I understand your expertise is advising how companies can set up affiliate programs, which is very relevant to what I am thinking, however do you have any advice how I could set up as a ‘broker’ etc, who would perform this task for them.

    A: Honestly, I think you’d be better served to approach existing affiliate programs that are poorly structured and managed, where you can make a pitch to fix them.

    There is not necessarily going to be any financial reward for you to effectively act as a sales person for one of the affiliate tracking technologies. So you may find that you educate merchants on why they need an affiliate program, but who is going to pay you?

    If you really want to do this sort of thing, try contacting the sales teams at the various affiliate tracking technologies to see if they would be interested in working with you.

    After the merchants are sold on the concept, then you’d have a chance to pitch your services on an hourly basis, a percent of the sales generated through the affiliates, a monthly retainer or some sort of hybrid compensation.

    Affiliate Summit Optional Workshop: Multiplying Your Google AdSense Income!

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    Affiliate Summit 2006 will include 2+ days of sessions, networking and event this year, plus optional workshops before and after the conference.

    One of the optional workshops, which will cost an additional $199 to attend is Multiplying Your Google AdSense Income!, which will be run by noted Google AdSense authority, Joel Comm.

    Below is a description of this session, which will take place from noon to 2 PM on Sunday, January 8 at Bally’s Las Vegas:

    Learn from the web’s leading AdSense expert the strategies to doubling, tripling or quadrupling your AdSense revenue. This workshop will help you discover how to use the tools provided by Google to optimize your AdSense ads for maximum benefit and how to go beyond Google to apply tools and resources that will increase your AdSense revenue. You will:

    • Learn how to optimize your site for high-paying clicks
    • Discover which ad block sizes and formats deliver the highest CPM
    • Find out how to select the best-performing colors for your ads
    • Learn how to position your ads for maximum response
    • Discover how to display more ads by adding thousands of pages of free content to your site
    • Learn about other pay-per-click programs you need to keep your eyes open for
    • Find out which ads are making you the most money
    • Learn how to apply the new AdLink units for greatest response
    • Discover how to turn your blog, forum or internet community into a gold mine

    You’ll also see example after example of real-life case studies that will help you see how to acquire a larger piece of the AdSense advertising pie. A special time of questions and answers will help you target specific needs for your web site. If you already are an AdSense publisher or if you are looking for ways to better monetize your web site(s), this content-packed workship is for you!

    Kolimbo Coupon Manager Launching

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    MyAP merchants with a program on Kolimbo can now access a new tool to distribute coupons and/or promotions to affiliates. The tool will launch to affiliates in a couple weeks.

    Merchants can login to the Kolimbo Coupon Manager at http://kolimbo.com/coupons/index.asp with their MyAP username and password.

    The Kolimbo Coupon Manager is an interface to add or edit coupons codes and promotions merchants would like to offer to their affiliates. After the system launches, all coupons submitted will be instantly available in the Kolimbo interface for affiliates to retrieve.

    A count of the clicks for those coupon links will also be displayed next to each coupon a merchant offers to their affiliates.

    No, I am Not Suing 180Solutions

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    On Tuesday, ZDNet reported that “a class action complaint against adware company 180solutions was filed today in an Illinois United States District Court by attorneys Shawn M. Collins and David J. Fish.”

    The Chicago Tribune, Jeff Molander, NewMedia Report and others also spread the news.

    That led to a number of e-mails, phone calls and IMs to me about this fantastic lawsuit that I’d filed against 180solutions.

    The only problem was that it wasn’t me, Shawn B. Collins. It was Shawn M. Collins, an Illinois attorney.

    Good luck, Shawn Collins.

    The Rich Jerk Revealed

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    I was doing a periodic check of who is bidding on certain phrases unique to me the other day and noticed that search results for affiliatesummit and affiliatetip were displaying the following ad in Google:

    Affiliate Programs Suck
    My affiliate program makes
    millionaires. The rest are useless.
    www.TheRichJerk.com

    I’ve been reading about The Rich Jerk in forums, and his/her bidding on my names got me curious.

    I read through the copy on The Rich Jerk site and found it a little entertaining that this character was employing a strategy of insulting potential customers and affiliates.

    Apparently, being a foul mouthed tout is lucrative. The affiliate program for The Rich Jerk e-book on ClickBank is ranked #1 in the Money and Employment category.

    The whole premise of The Rich Jerk is that the author “has made over $13 million dollars online in the past 6 years, mostly as an affiliate marketer.”

    And they are willing to impart their hard gained knowledge to you if you buy The Rich Jerk e-book for $97, but do it quick, because the price could go to $197 at any time.

    The site for The Rich Jerk is one of those mile long sales letters, complete with highlighted words and testimonials. I don’t know who is falling for those things, but all of the “gurus” use them, so they must be working well.

    Anyhow, despite the over the top claims, the annoying sales letter, and my better judgment, I went ahead and purchased The Rich Jerk.

    It’s a quick read of about 40 pages, and it has some good information. Nothing new there for me, but I would recommend it to anybody who is not a big reader of marketing message boards and newsletters.

    Rent a Coder

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    I’ve often labored over the creation of forms and designing images for my sites. I eventually get it done, but if often takes an extended amount of time for these projects.

    Those days are gone for me. A friend mentioned Rent a Coder to me the other day. Rent a coder is an International marketplace where people who need custom software or graphics created can hire coders and designers.

    Buyers can pick from a pool of more than 100,000 people to create their project or graphic. With all of the overseas talent to tap into, the rates can be extremely low for quality output.

    The way it works is that you can post your request on the Rent a Coder web site, along with a maximum amount that you are willing to pay for it. Your listing is then bid on by people across the globe – their bids include their resume, certifications and previous work history on the site.

    When you find somebody you like, they can hire them on the spot. To make the transaction a safe one, you do not pay the coder directly, but rather escrow the funds into a special Rent A Coder account. This guarantees to the worker that you are credit-worthy, and also reassures you as the worker receives no money until the work is completed.

    When the work (or pre-agreed on portion of the work) is completed, you release the funds to the person you’ve hired. When the work is completed, both parties rate the other party to help future buyers and coders/designers on the site.

    I put up the specs for a job creating a few animated banners, and within an hour, I had dozens of people bidding for the work – many sending samples of what I’d asked for in my request.

    I ended up getting same day delivery on the banners for a nice price from a guy in Russia. I’ll definitely be using this service again, so I can focus my time on marketing.

    Ask Shawn Collins: Legal Resources for Consultants

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    Q: I am going to be setting up an affiliate program for a client. Do you know of any good resources in which to find information on legal aspects of acting as a consultant? Are there any good resources for contracts and what is included in the consultant affiliate mangager – merchant agreement? For example, if I set this up for the client, who owns the affiliate program? Do I or the merchant? Who owns the affiliates? Questions like these. I searched high and low on your site as well as the internet and could not find anything on it.

    Shawn CollinsA: In my own business, I met with a local lawyer and they constructed a contract for me, based on the issues I asked them to cover. I take this boilerplate contract and customize it for each new client.

    As far as the content of the contract, my opinion is that the merchant should own the affiliate program and any creative assets created for the affiliate program.

    Who owns the affiliates? This is a touchy question. First of all, affiliates don’t want to be “owned” by anybody. That aside, it will depend on which technology is powering the affiliate program – some networks will insist that they own the relationship. In other cases, the merchant will have a more direct relationship.

    You will have your own relationships with affiliates, which can be seen as an asset to potential clients, but you don’t own anything.

    Ultimately, it’s a typical consulting contract that you will need, but with varying customizations depending on the client. Since I am not a lawyer, I purposely avoid posting detailed legal resources on my site.