Shawn Collins' Blog

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

Archives for November 2006

Finalists for the Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards

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The finalists have been determined for the first annual Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards.

The Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards Show is taking place from 10:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. on Monday, January 22, 2007 during the Pure Imagination Party hosted by oneNetworkDirect and Wynn Las Vegas.

The Pure Imagination Party is taking place at TRYST the nightclub at Wynn Las Vegas.

Get your invitation at booth #116 or # 313 in the Affiliate Summit exhibit hall.

Here are the finalists for each category:

Affiliate of the Year

Anne Fognano
Michael Coley
Scott Hazard

Affiliate Manager of the Year

Jamie Birch
Angel Djambazov
Sam Osborn

Exceptional Merchant

Amazon
eBay
OnlineShoes.com

Affiliate Marketing Advocate Award

Linda Buquet
Ben Edelman
Brian Littleton

Best Blogger

Scott Jangro
Beth Kirsch
Jim Kukral

Wayne Porter Affiliate Marketing Legend

Todd Crawford
Haiko de Poel, Jr.
Brian Littleton

Congratulations to all who were nominated. We were excited to get such an abundance of nominations for these awards.

Does Second Life Matter to Affiliate Marketers?

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I’ve been hearing and reading about Second Life from some of the big minds in the business I respect, like Jeff Doak, Sam Harrelson and Wayne Porter. But is it something affiliate marketers should be getting in to (if they’re not already)?

If you’re not familiar with Second Life, it is “a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents.”

Second Life opened to the public in 2003. Since then, the population has grown to more than 1.7 million people around the world.

Businesses are flocking to Second Life to establish a presence. IBM is there. NBC and Reuters, too.

The media are all reporting how Anshe Chung is Second Life’s first millionaire.

Wayne Porter opined at ReveNews today about critics of the million dollar avatar:

“What I found the most ironic during some of my discussions is that people scoff at her “virtual empire” are the same ones who understood the the concept of “virtual real estate” like a website with a domain name attached about 15 years ago.”

I think that’s a reach. Then again, it’s probably worth affiliate marketers digging in to find out more about this whole thing.

I’ve heard some interesting ideas about how Second Life could be leveraged by affiliates – I’ll be watching and experimenting myself.

By the way, my Second Life persona is Wildebeest Amsterdam.

Ask Shawn Collins: Becoming an Outsourced Affiliate Manager

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Q: I am looking at offering my services as an affiliate marketer to small businesses. Where can I look for clients who are looking for people to run their affiliate programs and what would be the average salary expectations for a small business?

Shawn CollinsA: Rather than look for clients, I’d suggest making it easier for those potential clients to find you and learn about your Outsourced Program Manager (OPM) services.

It should go without saying, but you’ll need to have a Web site that details the services you provide in affiliate management. When that is done, advertise your services in the pay per click search engines.

Also consider becoming a sponsor or exhibitor at Affiliate Summit.

If you have relationships with any of the affiliate networks, ask them if they’d be willing to send some business your way. They get advertisers looking for an affiliate manager and you could help out be being a quality place to refer clients.

Lastly, check out the ads being posted online for affiliate managers at places like Craig’s List, HotJobs, and Monster. Those ads are generally looking for an in-house affiliate manager, but you might just get lucky when pitching your services to these companies.

As far as compensation, it varies widely depending on your experience, relationships, reputation, services, skills, etc.

In general, rates will start as low as $1,500 a month and go higher than $10,000 a month. If you’re looking exclusively as small businesses, you’ll skew towards the lower end.

In addition to a fixed monthly retainer, ask for performance incentives as part of your remuneration.

Get a lawyer to draft an agreement for you to provide to potential clients and always get everything in writing.

Don’t Call It a Comeback: AllAdvantage 2.0 Arrives as AGLOCO

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Once upon a time (1999), there was a Dot Com company based on the premise that it’s members would “Get Paid to Surf the Web.” That company was AllAdvantage, and it mercifully left us in 2001.

AGLOCO is a new iteration of AllAdvantage where users will be able to “Own the Internet.”

The former AllAdvantage Chairman and CEO, James Jorgensen, is on board with AGLOCO (A GLObal COmmunity), and Raymond Everett-Church is back as Chief Privacy Officer.

Most exciting of all – the concept is built around the AGLOCO Viewbar (if you could hear my voice, you’d note the Northeast sarcasm), currently in limited beta testing.

According to AGLOCO, their Viewbar is “a small software platform that allows users to capture the value they create on the Internet”, while they get paid to search under the watchful eye of AGLOCO corporate.

As reported in TechCrunch, the way AGLOCO is paying out users is by giving back a portion of affiliate fees earned from E-commerce sites when users make purchases.

I have no idea how this piece of software behaves, as it’s still in beta. I’d urge affiliate managers to educate themselves about it before accepting AGLOCO into their affiliate programs.

And despite some people referring to AGLOCO as an affiliate program, it is not.

It is a multi-level payout scheme wherein AGLOCO users can get portions of the fees generated by referred members, as well as new members that those people referred. This goes five levels deep, making it MLM or network marketing.

On an entertaining note, AllAdvantage was ranked #5 on The 25 Worst Web Sites list published by PC World in September 2006.

Ask Shawn Collins: Building a Downline

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Q: What is the best way for an affiliate to build a downline?

Shawn CollinsA: At the risk of sounding snarky, I’d say the best way to build a downline would be to understand that you’re engaging in multi-level marketing (MLM) or network marketing, and not affiliate marketing.

While there can certainly be legitimate MLM programs, the concept is often associated with illegal scams such as pyramid or Ponzi schemes.

As the name suggests, individuals are compensated based on their leads or sales, as well as the leads and sales achieved by those they bring into the business. The original referrer can be compensated for multi-levels of people recruited into the business, hence the name.

Anyhow, it’s something of a gray area, as affiliate programs sometimes have two tiers. But programs with more than two tiers, regardless of what they call themselves, are not affiliate programs.

Shop.org a Super Affiliate on Cyber Monday?

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Shop.org has launched an affiliate charity site, Cyber Monday: the online holiday shopping mall.

Cyber Monday, a term coined last year by Shop.org, represents a trend initially recognized a number of years ago, when many retailers saw spikes in sales and traffic as consumers went back to work after the Thanksgiving Day holiday.

CyberMonday.com features nearly 400 well-known online retailers who are promoting special savings and discounts for shoppers on Cyber Monday and the rest of the holiday season.

But this isn’t just another affiliate shopping mall – it’s got an admirable component to it.

All Shop.org proceeds from CyberMonday.com sales will be donated to the Ray M. Greenly Scholarship Fund, which provides scholarships for students interested in an eCommerce career.

Ray Greenly was a Vice President at Shop.org before passing away from cancer in 2005.

Visit the Cyber Monday site at http://www.cybermonday.com/.

Affiliates – Focus on the Big Shopping Days

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Every year around this time there are a deluge of studies and reports about the biggest shopping days for Christmas. The correct, big shopping dates are key for affiliates to maximize their revenue potential this time of year.

cyber-monday

You hear a lot of jibber jabber about Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but are these really the gargantuan shopping days on the Internet?

Not so, according to a report from Internet News. On the contrary, while Cyber Monday is expected to see the highest traffic of the season, CoreMetrics predicts sales on the following Monday (December 4th) will be 19 percent higher than Cyber Monday.

That stat is based largely on data from last year when sales on the second Monday after Thanksgiving were up to 22 percent higher than Cyber Monday.

Further, a new study by MasterCard Worldwide claims that neither Black Friday nor Cyber Monday ranks within the Top 5 busiest shopping days.

In fact, the MasterCard study found an increasing number of consumers are putting off the bulk of their Christmas shopping until the final week, and predicts that Dec. 23 will be the busiest shopping day of the year.

Two words: gift cards. Feature them on your site(s), drop a newsletter about them on December 23, do whatever you need to do to make them easy to buy through you.

By the way – in my inbox this morning: LinkShare has a page dedicated to holiday promotions and Amazon affiliates are now eligible to earn referral fees on Amazon.com Gift Certificates through December 31, 2006.

The great news: CoreMetrics is predicting that the 2006 overall holiday retail sales will increase 16 percent over last year’s holiday season.

Pass the eggnog!

10 Holiday Tips for Affiliates

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Performics and the e-tailing group have released ten tips for affiliates to maximize commissions during the holiday season.

Here are their Ten Ideas to Better Reach and Convert Holiday Shoppers:

  1. Centralize and prominently position free shipping offers: shoppers flock to these
  2. Create a sense of urgency: remind shoppers of the number of days until Christmas
  3. Create a suggestions page: provide gift recommendations segmented by price/recipient
  4. Inspire impulse holiday purchasing: showcase top sellers, editor’s favorites, etc.
  5. Make finding merchants and merchant offers simple: visibility leads to conversion
  6. Aggressively promote sale offers: segment deals by percentage/dollar off, just added sales, soon to expire sales, etc.
  7. Remember last minute shoppers: highlight gift certificates during final shopping days
  8. Ensure timely delivery: note stock status/shipping availability at merchant/product level
  9. Support the brand: provide shoppers with comprehensive contact information, including FAQ locations and store-based information
  10. Think long term: collect email opt-ins for future alerts, newsletters, etc.

This checklist is based on the e-commerce merchandising expertise of the e-tailing group and a review of 25 affiliate sites through a Performics sponsored study.

Manic Monday for Affiliate Marketers

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Black Friday is almost upon us – the day after Thanksgiving and one of the busiest retail shopping days of the year.

Being the big Bangles fan I am, it occurred to me that today is Manic Monday for affiliates – one of the few business days this week to set things up to optimize affiliate sites for Black Friday.

I got a timely e-mail from Performics today that helps my affiliate efforts during this crazy three day week.

The e-mail listed a few dozen Performics advertisers who offer commissions on gift cards, as well as the respective commissions for each advertiser.

Good thinking, and I’m surprised more merchants and networks didn’t spoon feed such useful information as we kickoff the Christmas shopping season.

Ask Shawn Collins: Tell a Company to Get an Affiliate Program

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Q: I see many companies in my industry that I want to promote, but they don’t have an affiliate mechanism in place. What is the best way to interface with them? In other words, what mechanism can I suggest to them to allow me to promote their product and make a commission, short of them actually signing up with an affiliate management company like ShareASale or CJ?

Shawn CollinsA: I can see where you’re coming from, but I think you’ve got a tough challenge in trying to sell companies on affiliate marketing just so you can promote them.

I think a more plausible scenario, though one that means cash out of your pocket, would be for you to start your own CPA network.

There are already a large volume of CPA networks out there, but if you were to create a niche CPA network, you might be on to something.

Essentially, you’d launch a network with the offers you want to run, and at the same time, you would make them available to others, which would be incremental income for you.

And rather than these companies having to be sold on affiliate marketing and then sold on shelling out money for the tracking, you could simplify things for them.

Quick and easy implementation for those companies and you would be able to provide them with reporting.

If you go this route and get some traction, you could also think about charging a setup fee to add one of the companies to your network.

It’s more risk on your part on the front end, but it would potentially bring multiple revenue streams (setup fees, affiliate commissions for your promotions, fees from the companies for transactions from other affiliates in your network, etc.) and greater returns than just being an affiliate with these companies.

Before you sign any deal to launch a CPA network, I’d urge you to make some phone calls with these companies you wish to promote to gauge their interest.