Shawn Collins' Blog

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

Archives for September 2006

Ask Shawn Collins: Promoting a New Affiliate Program

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Q: We just launched our affiliate program, but affiliates don’t usually visit our site. After launching the affiliate program, where would you announce the program?

Shawn CollinsA: You’ll want to promote your affiliate program where affiliates are looking, so I’m glad to hear you acknowledge that they are not coming to you.

Affiliates look for affiliate programs to promote in a variety of places, including affiliate forums, blogs, and affiliate program directories.

The affiliates are also looking in the search engines, so bid on relevant terms through paid search and work on getting your affiliate program indexed in the natural search listings.

One effective method for getting your affiliate program indexed in the search engines is to create an affiliate resource site. This site will generally be rich in the keywords that matter for your affiliate program.

Also, be sure to have a presence at the affiliate marketing events. Nothing beats face to face interaction for creating new relationships.

CPA Empire Numbers are Plummeting

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I was just reading on the CPAEmpire.com Blog that big changes are in store, and affiliates are getting worked up over a big anticipated drop in numbers for Q4.

Don’t fret – the big action at CPA Empire has nothing to do with their campaigns. It’s a weighty contest called the Breakaway Fitness Challenge.

Two contestants, Jenny Frederick (Manager of Special Projects) and Scott Richter (CEO) are engaged in a battle royal from now through December 25, 2006 to lose 30 pounds.

If Jenny wins, Scott will pay her $1,000. But if Scott wins, Jenny will have to cut her long, glamorous hair down to a maximum length of 2 inches.

As you might expect, affiliates can get in on the action. Affiliates will have the opportunity to guess the combined weight that Jenny and Scott will lose during the contest for a chance to win $1,000.

More details at http://www.breakawayfitnesschallenge.com/

Ask Shawn Collins: Rules for Dumping Affiliates

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Q: I’ve got a affiliate program that has a lead and sale component. Essentially, we payout an x amount for the lead and an additional y amount for the sale. Obviously, the important part is the sale. The lead is there to attract and help the affiliate as he optimizes his program. But then, there are some affiliates who are getting leads and zero sales. These guys might be hacks or they just might not be good. So my question is: a) can you terminate these affiliates from your program? b) on what grounds? and c) is it ethical?

Shawn CollinsA: I think the answer here is simple and complex at the same time. Simple because if you’ve got a partnership with somebody that’s not working out, then you should end it.

But it’s complex as well, because there is a right way and a wrong way to deal with affiliate numbers that are not panning out for you.

I would suggest touching base with the affiliates who aren’t producing sales to see if you can work together to improve the numbers.

In the end, it’s all about relationships, and sometimes a small degree of outreach and education can result in great strides for your affiliate program.

If you determine that some affiliates simply are not working out, there is one ultimate authority that determines whether you can terminate the affiliate and on what grounds. And that’s your affiliate agreement.

The affiliate agreed to those terms when joining your affiliate program, so you are simply bound to act according to the agreement. It’s not a matter of ethics, as you both entered the agreement.

I can’t speak to the language in your affiliate agreement – you should speak with your lawyer about the ground rules for terminating affiliates.

In general, the affiliate agreements I’ve seen enable you to terminate affiliates without a specific reason, and affiliates can drop your program just the same.

Commission Junction Announces 2006 Horizon Award Winners

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ValueClick, Inc.’s (Nasdaq:VCLK) Commission Junction has announced the 2006 Horizon Award recipients at Commission Junction University (CJU) 2006, its eighth annual client conference.

Commission Junction’s 2006 award recipients were recognized for excellence in four categories: People, Greatness, Innovation and Global Vision.

The winners by category were as follows:

Horizon Award – People: The award for People is presented to an advertiser and publisher who have shown an enthusiastic commitment to pay-for-performance marketing. They are market leaders and are dedicated to building a strong community among online marketers.

Advertiser: Wynn Las Vegas
Publisher: Vesdia/Schoolpop

Horizon Award – Greatness: The award for Greatness is presented to an advertiser and publisher who have proven to have exceptional performance increases over the previous year and who inspire greatness in others.

Advertiser: Snapfish by HP (managed by Shawn Collins Consulting!)
Publisher: CreditCards.com

Horizon Award – Innovation: The award for innovation is presented to clients in appreciation for their support to Commission Junction and to ongoing pay-for-performance educational outreach. This award represents the company’s or individual’s commitment to people in the industry.

Advertiser: Yahoo!
Publisher: David Lewis

Horizon Award – Global Vision: The award for global vision is presented to one client, either advertiser or publisher, whose action, strategy and initiatives best reflect a commitment to realizing the global potential of affiliate marketing.

Publisher: Clicks2Customers

eBay Affiliate Link Migration Begins

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eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) has launched the final phase of Project Rover, their new affiliate linking infrastructure.

eBay is asking that their affiliates migrate all of their affiliate links from Commission Junction before November 15th, 2006. During the migration, both the Commission Junction tracking and the new Rover systems will run in parallel.

All Rover URLs will use the same server name, rover.ebay.com, regardless of the target destination domain or eBay site. The general form for Rover links is as follows:

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/PlacementID/1?SID=KEYWORD&AID=XXXXXX&PID=XXXXXX&loc=TARGET ENCODED URL

The PlacementID and AID pair is a country and tool specific value that associates the click with the correct eBay Affiliate Campaign.

Other variables in the URL:

  • PID: Publisher Site ID available in the Commission Junction Interface.
  • SID: Shopper ID (SID) is an affiliate defined variable used to monitor the specific link that produced each transaction. The SID can be up to 64 characters and is URL-encoded (%20 for a space, %2E for a comma, etc).
  • loc: Target URL or landing page where user will be directed and must be URL-encoded (ex: http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2F).

The eBay Flexible Destination Tool and Keyword Linking Tool now output updated Rover links.

Additionally, no action is needed if affiliates are using the eBay Editor Kit, Product Kit, RSS Feed Generator or API – links will be automatically updated.

Visit the eBay affiliate discussion board for more details on working with Project Rover and Commission Junction.

Affiliate Summit Establishes Advisory Board

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Affiliate Summit has announced the formation of an advisory board as part of the company’s strategy to expand and further develop the conference series.

The think tank will serve as an ongoing sounding board for Affiliate Summit’s planned growth and will collect candid feedback, and offer their expertise and advice on matters such as content deliverables, featured speakers, etc.

Members appointed to serve on the Affiliate Summit Advisory Board so far include:

  • Mike Allen, Shopping-Bargains.com, LLC
  • Ryan Burt, Marchex
  • Todd Crawford, Digital River, Inc.
  • Angel Djambazov, Onlineshoes.com
  • Marty Fahncke, Conference Call University
  • John Grosshandler, eComXpo
  • Kristin Hall, Performics
  • Charles Kilmer, PPC Marketing
  • Chris Kramer, NETexponent
  • Vinny Lingham, incuBeta
  • Brian Littleton, ShareASale
  • Mike Mackin, Web Traffic Management
  • Tricia Meyer, Sunshine Rewards
  • Jonathan Miller, Forge Corporation Limited
  • Michael Nunez, Suluta Corp
  • Heather Paulson, PartnerCentric
  • Lisa Picarille, Revenue Magazine
  • Elena Potoupa, Wow-Coupons.com
  • Lisa Riolo, formerly with Commission Junction
  • Brook Schaaf, Schaaf Consulting
  • Stephanie Schwab, Converseon
  • Joshua Sloan, 1&1 Internet, Inc.
  • Terrence Thomas, eLearners.com
  • Michael Vorel, VastPlanet Corporation

The next Affiliate Summit is taking place January 21-23, 2007 in Las Vegas.

Early bird registrations for this conference are good through September 30. Prices go up October 1 for full conference registrations (from $949 to $1,449) and and booths ($3,995 to $4,995).

Affiliate Summit Agenda is Up

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The agenda for Affiliate Summit 2007 West is up on the site.

The sessions are laid out, and more speakers are being added each day as speakers are confirmed.

This time around, we’ve increased to four breakout sessions, so there will be 24 breakouts, plus roundtable sessions, and a number of networking events.

Michael Sanchez, CEO and Co-founder of ClubMom, will be the Keynote Speaker for Affiliate Summit 2007 West.

There are some new things going on this time around, including the Affiliate Jam Session and Sing-a-Long and the Affiliate Summit Awards.

New Chief Executive for UK Affiliate Network buy.at

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buy.at, the largest independent affiliate network in the UK, has announced Kevin Cornils as its new Chief Executive. 

Cornils joins buy.at from Match.com, LP (a subsidiary of InteractiveCorp), where he was Managing Director. 

Steve Brown, co-founder Chief Executive of buy.at since 1999, will now take the position of Chief Operating Officer. Brown commented, “I am delighted to welcome Kevin as Chief Executive as we continue to strengthen our management team.”

“I look forward to working with him as I continue to be very much involved in the development and future of the businesses and the clients we serve, continued Brown”

More information on the buy.at affiliate network at http://www.buy.at/ 

Ask Shawn Collins: Pay Per View Affiliate Videos

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Q: I heard on the Shoemoney show that Affiliate Summit videos were available pay per view, but can’t find them. Where are they?

Shawn CollinsA: I think you must be talking about his recent Net Income show where Shoemoney had Richard Jenkins from Affiliate TV on.

I re-listened to the show, because I didn’t recall hearing that the first time around, and I am guessing you are talking about this quote from Richard Jenkins…

“There are people running two to three day events which are mostly for educating affiliates. They obviously don’t want to cannibalize the attendance of their conferences. So they’re looking to video those conferences and after the conference it is a revenue opportunity for them to put that video or those seminars up online as a pay per view.”

Anyhow, we did film all of the sessions at the last Affiliate Summit, but they are not available for purchase.

We filmed them for the attendees, who got access after the show (if you attended and didn’t get the e-mail, contact me), because we wanted to accommodate people who had to choose between two good sessions, a session or a meeting, etc.

But no video is available pay per view for Affiliate Summit on AffiliateTV or any other site.

Are Affiliates Auctioning Off Your Brand?

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Affiliates want to make the sale, but do they care about the customer experience? Some do for sure – there are lots of affiliates that do a great job in providing a seamless flow to merchants. CashKickBack.com is not one of them.

This affiliate uses a unique means to drive traffic through their affiliate links. They run auctions touting coupons for brand names.

For instance, they’ve got an auction for a FootSmart coupon with the title “Foot Smart Shoes Socks Sandals Boots Coupons Discount.”

Consumers can get the “Footsmart dot com Coupon – 6% – 6.5% Off Discount” for $0.01.

They bill the deal as follows:

Coupon Details:

  • You will get the discount off ANYTHING at the above store (only valid online and cannot be used for purchasing gift cards and ipods).
  • This discount can be applied on top of ANY other coupon/discount guaranteed!
  • This coupon is valid for 1 month after purchase.

What You Will Get:

  • You are bidding on the time it takes us to send you the email. The discount will be included for free as a gift.
  • Within 24 hours you will receive an email with the details for your discount.

So what happens when somebody buys one of these “coupons”? Well, I decided to invest my penny in the name of research.

Oddly enough, I didn’t get a coupon. Instead I got the following:

Hello!
Thank you for your interest in our ebay coupons!
To receive your discount you must follow these 3 simple steps below:

1) When you are ready to shop, go to www.cashkickback.com (DO NOT SIGN UP AS A MEMBER!!!) and browse to the store you want to shop at by clicking on the category and then on the store’s link on that page.

2) Shop like normal and make your purchase at the store (your discount will NOT appear).

3) Then send an email to xxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.com with:
the amount of money you spent at the store, the store’s name, and your paypal email address.

…And within 48-72 hours (after we verify your purchase with the store) you will receive your percent off discount in your PayPal account from us!

Clever and innovative, maybe. Deceptive? No doubt. In my opinion, it’s a lousy customer experience that counts on consumers not jumping through hoops to get their “coupon” redeemed.

No worries for the affiliate, but detrimental to the many brands being leveraged in this way.

You know what time it is? Time for affiliate managers to audit their affiliate programs and clean house.