Shawn Collins' Blog

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

Archives for October 2005

Fresh Creative and Better Landing Pages Needed in Affiliate Marketing

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

I feel that in some ways affiliate marketing (as is) is depreciating the advertising inventory that publishers have on their site.

It also does not take into consideration the HUGE Branding that comes along with the display of a coporate Logo by affiliates on targeted websites.

By passing their online marketing down to affiliates these corporations are reducing their marketing budgets and gaining powerful branding of their products and company at the expense of the affilaite, in turn reducing a publishers opportunity for paid cpm/cpc advertising.

I think the Affiliate Marketing can be improved if Corporations develop better creative – keeping it fresh AND if they would provide landing pages optimized for conversion.

Combined with different marketing campaigns (creative) to reach unique audiences so affiliates can better optimize the results of their campigns.

This change along with some recongnition of the branding benifits of the hard work affiliates provide could improve afiliate 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

Shrink Your Affiliate Links

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Affiliate links are often long, which makes them difficult to include in text e-mails. Also, many affiliates like to cloak their links.

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Neil Shearing, creator of the Internet Success Spider, has created a free tool called the Desktop URL Shrinker that enables you to shrink long URLs and hide your affiliate links right from your desktop.

There are many uses of this tool. In addition to helping you as an affiliate, when it’s time to send a long URL to a friend, this tool creates a shorter version for you, so it won’t break and fail to work in your friend’s e-mail client.

As far as uses for affiliates, when you refer your newsletter readers to a product or service where you’re getting paid, it will lend credibility to your referral if you hide your hide your affiliate link?

When you’re ready to send or refer a short URL, simply start your Desktop URL Shrinker application, and in a few seconds you have a short link replacement. This new shortened link can be sent away through e-mail, in newsletters or ezines, posted on forums or in ebooks – anywhere a link can be clicked.

Kanye to MC Affiliate Summit 2006?

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I had a nightmare last night about the kickoff of Affiliate Summit West 2006. Once again, crowd favorite Corey Newhouse will be back as the MC, and that’s where my dream started.

We were talking over the agenda for the conference when I had a brainstorm. I thought it would be a great idea for Corey to assume the name Kanye East (a take on Kanye West), and I would write a rap song for him that lampooned the players in affiliate marketing.

It was going to be this grand production in the spirit of the opening ceremonies of the Oscars when Billy Crystal used to do a song and dance about the big movies.

No need to tell me that it’s a ridiculously bad idea – I know, it was a nightmare.

I know this is a bit off topic, but I needed to exorcise it from my mind, and I figured if I streamed it onto my keyboard, I could get rid of it.

Rest assured, Corey’s MC work will continue to be his hallmark comedic stylings laced with references to Vegas, fatherhood, and affiliate marketing.

But if I have my way, he’ll enter the stage to the tune of Gold Digger. Good song.

Affilipedia, the Affiliate Marketing Encyclopedia, Launches

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The Affilipedia is an open resource for the affiliate marketing community. Contribute your articles and other information on affiliate marketing there. But do not submit the writing of others without their permission.

In addition to submitting new information on affiliate marketing, feel free to edit the existing pages in the affiliate marketing encyclopedia. Do you think the explanations of affiliate, merchant, commission or other affiliate marketing terms are incomplete? Don’t complain – make edits.

Are there affiliate marketing related issues not defined there? Help out the community and make an information contribution.

Affilipedia was created to define all things associated with affiliate marketing and affiliate programs. If you’re looking for a definition of affiliate marketing or any other related term, just use the search box on the left side of the page.

Some of the areas of affiliate marketing that are covered here are affiliate program, data feeds, RSS, two-tiers, blogs, and affiliate solution provider.

Check out Affilipedia at http://www.affilipedia.com

Join Affiliate Programs for Companies Consumers Respect

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The Customer Respect Group, an international research and consulting firm that focuses on how corporations treat their online customers, has published the findings from its Third Quarter 2005 Online Customer Respect Study of Retailers.

Leading affiliate programs, including Amazon.com, L.L. Bean, Payless ShoeSource, and Wal-Mart were among the top ten retailers in customer respect.

This study presents a measure (Customer Respect Index or CRI rating for each company) for analysis of corporate performance from an online customer’s perspective. The Customer Respect Index is a qualitative and quantitative in-depth analysis and independent measure of a customer’s experience when interacting via the Internet.

When researching which affiliate programs to join, this is a very useful resource to glean which companies are earning the respect of their customers.

After all, companies with happy customers are bound to have less chargebacks and returns.

The Customer Respect Group interviewed a representative sample of the adult Internet population, and then analyzed and categorizing more than 2,000 corporate websites across a spectrum of industries to identify the attributes that together measure the online customer experience.

This report analyzed 53 major retail websites to obtain a good sample of the sector. The top-scoring retailers were…

  1. Payless Shoe Source
  2. CVS Corporation
  3. L.L. Bean
  4. Liz Claiborne, Inc.
  5. Blockbuster
  6. dvd-empire
  7. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
  8. Nike
  9. Amazon.com
  10. Barnes & Noble

The report is available at http://www.customerrespect.com/upload/retailindustrytable.pdf and also includes lists of retail industries by select segments: Accessories and Apparel, Books and Discs, Food and Drug Stores, General Merchandisers, and Home and Office.

Ask Shawn Collins: Migrating an Affiliate Program

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Q: Our company is considering using a third party network to help grow our affiliate program. We’ve had our program in place for over a year now with our own tracking tools. What do companies typically do with their existing systems when they sign on with a network? Do they completely convert to the network’s system? What happens to the existing affiliates we already have?

Shawn CollinsA: Keep the in-house program, if you have a good reason to do so.

The first thing you’ll want to address is whether the contract with your future network permits you to continue running the in-house program concurrently with the network affiliate program. Ask about this, and also examine the contract to confirm this information.

Assuming you are free to run both programs, then you should establish a strategy for running both programs.

Are your current top performers willing to stay on the home grown platform, or are you moving to a network at the request of your super affiliates?

Financially, the preferred course would be to keep your best affiliates running at the in-house program to save money on affiliate network costs. Then, you can use the network as a tool to recruit new affiliates.

If the affiliates that traditionally generated the most volume for your affiliate program do not wish to stay in-house, it’s probably not worth the effort to keep that program going.

Either way, devise a plan to notify the affiliates and migrate them over to the network version of your program. If you are going to close the in-house program, wait until you’ve communicated the move to your affiliates and give them a chance to convert their links. Have an overlap of 60 days or so.

Better Incentives Needed on Affiliate Street

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

I feel that affiliate marketing has become very close to spam.

Those who do manage the managers only want a single avenue of continuum. I think to make affiliate marketing better, there should be a certain amount of freedom for the affiliate marketer.

How about putting together better incentive programs, instead of the usual ‘here is your $20 card from Amazon’?

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: I Want to Monetize My Forum

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How do most forums make their money if affiliate links are not allowed? Is it only through Google ads and such? I just created a forum website and will list the best deals, steals, freebies, coupons, e-discounts, & penny pinching tips & secrets. How do you advise I best monetize on my new forum?

Who says affiliate links are not allowed? It’s your forum, so you call the shots.

You can edit the forum to add in some banners to rotate to your visitors. Also, you can customize all of the e-mails that go to your members when they join, notifications of replies to certain threads, etc. to promote your affiliate links.

Also, whenever you post a new deal yourself, just include your affiliate links. You can also send out a weekly e-mail, generated through your forum (phpBB in your case) that highlights the best deals with your affiliate links.

phpBB also enables you to promote your forum via RSS feeds. Get that going, and you’ll have even more distribution of your affiliate links.

Blogging to Recruit and Retain Affiliates

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eComXpo kicked off today with over 4,000 attendees. The virtual conference is running through October 8, and I am giving a presentation on October 7 called Blogging to Recruit and Retain Affiliates.

The presentation is taking place at 9:45 EST, and I will be covering why an affiliate program should have a blog, what to post in it, how to promote it, plus helpful tools and resources.

If you don’t already have a pass, you can register for free through http://tinyurl.com/cj9y5

Colorado Web Solutions launches Affiliadd Solutions

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Arvada, Colorado – Colorado Web Solutions launched their newest online tool this week, the Affiliadd. The Affiliadd (http://www.affiliadd.com) was designed to help merchants provide more robust and dynamic tools for affiliates and their marketing initiatives. The Affiliadd currently offers two major tools, one is the Advanced Product Generator (APG) and the second tool launched this week is the Dynamic Coupon Generator (DCG).

Colorado Web Solutions set out to create a “better” tool for affiliates and has archived that goal. Colorado Web Solutions CEO Matt Sampson said, “We have seen some run-of-the-mill tools out there and we’re committed to providing the next generation of tools for Affiliates.” He goes on to point out that the Affiliadd is the first Product Generator tool to include not only JavaScript output, but PHP and HTML outputs as well. “While JavaScript is neat, it doesn’t help the affiliates at all. Search Engines can’t read it, it’s only for visitors. Our tool will be perfect for both” says Sampson.

In addition to the Advanced Product Generator, Colorado Web Solutions added the Dynamic Coupon Generator for affiliates. “We’ve heard numerous complains from Merchants and Affiliates alike that Coupon Management is a nightmare. Our tool changes that. It’s one line of code and you’re done. Your Coupon is up to date every minute of every day. It’s really amazing actually” says Sampson.

The tools won’t stop at these two either. Colorado Web Solutions refuses to “let the cat out of the bag” on the tools now in development, but promises that both Affiliates and Merchants will be thrilled.

Beta testing began this week with one merchant (AllMountainSports.com) and once the full testing is complete, Colorado Web Solutions will offer the Affiliadd Suite to other merchants for a monthly fee. The tool is free to affiliates.

About Colorado Web Solutions:
Colorado Web Solutions has been designing websites since 1997. Their primary focus for years has been redesigning Yahoo Stores and has expanded their offerings in the last year to virtually any programming needed. Their Affiliate Marketing tools are designed to bring Merchants, Affiliates and Consumers together in one simple solution.

Contact Info:
Matt Sampson
Colorado Web Solutions
msampson@ColoradoWebSolutions
(303) 517-7694

8302 Beech Street
Arvada CO, 80005