Shawn Collins' Blog

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

Archives for November 2006

Introduction to Affiliate Marketing for Merchants

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Introduction to Affiliate Marketing for Merchants, a panel session moderated by Forrest Schaaf at Affiliate Summit 2006 East, is now available as a transcript.

Forrest Schaaf is a Partner at Schaaf Consulting, an Internet marketing and outsourced affiliate program management agency.

The session was an overview of topline issues that impact merchants getting into affiliate marketing with the following panelists:

  • Dan Chiss, Director, Affiliate Strategy, Performics
  • Peter Figueredo, CEO and Co-Founder, NETexponent
  • Rob Key, CEO, Converseon
  • John Tomaszewski, Vice President of Legal Policy and Compliance, TRUSTe

Issues covered by the speakers were affiliate segmentation, outsourced affiliate program management, search engine optimization, and adware.

Ask Shawn Collins: Outsourced Affiliate Recruiting

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Q: Our company is looking to hire a company to help us recruit new super affiliates. We were looking at CJ, but after reading a ton of negative reviews online, we are back to ground zero. Can you recommend a trustworthy company to help us recruit affiliates?

Shawn CollinsA: I haven’t seen any reviews regarding the performance of Commission Junction in recruiting affiliates.

Not knowing the source of the reviews you read, I’d have to say to take them with a grain of salt and encourage you to have your own conversation with CJ about their pricing and services.

Also, get in touch with outsourced program managers to find out what they can do for you.

Syntryx offers affiliate recruiting services, as well as their service if you want to identify and contact the top players on your own.

If you decide to keep it in-house, there are some affiliate recruiting tools I like, such as ARELIS, Internet Success Spider, and Link Capture.

ValueClick on Affiliate Marketing

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ValueClick, Inc. (Nasdaq: VCLK) had their Q3 2006 Earnings Call on November 1, 2006 and there were some interesting comments about the affiliate marketing piece of their business.

According to James R. Zarley, Chairman of the Board, President, Chief Executive Officer for ValueClick, “Affiliate marketing had worldwide product revenue growth of 14% year-over-year in the quarter. As we have said in prior calls, growth trends in this business are still very good because of some anomalies in our 2005 growth; the comps for 2006 are tougher.”

“We anticipate growth trends to normalize next year and we continue to have record numbers of sign-ups. It takes three to six months for new clients to reach full scale,” continued Zarley.

James R. Zarley also commented that ValueClick’s CJU (Commission Junction University) was completely sold out with 600 advertisers and publishers in attendance.

Samuel J. Paisley, Chief Administrative Officer of ValueClick, added that “affiliate marketing revenue increased 12% to $21.2 million in the third quarter of 2006, compared to $19 million in 2005. Inter-company revenue in these amounts was approximately $2.2 million in Q3 2006 and $1.7 million in Q3 2005. Affiliate marketing segment revenue does not include international affiliate marketing revenue, which for SEC purposes is part of our media reporting segment.”

Paisley added, “Including international revenues, worldwide affiliate marketing product revenue grew 14% year-over-year in Q3 2006. Affiliate marketing segment gross margins were 87.3% in the third quarter of 2006 compared to 88.5% in 2005.”

Read the Q&A from the ValueClick Q3 2006 Earnings Call at http://internet.seekingalpha.com/article/14792.

Want to Reprint Affiliate Marketing Articles for Free?

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Articles from AffiliateTip.com on affiliate marketing are now available for reprint.

The content you can reprint is targeted towards affiliates and affiliate managers and it’s exclusively available through EzineArticles.com.

EzineArticles.com has terms of service for the use of the articles. So long as you follow those guidelines, you’re welcome to use the material as you see fit.

If there’s an article of mine you would like to reprint that isn’t showing there, let me know and I’ll add it.

Visit http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Shawn_Collins to choose from articles to reprint and then follow the process at EzineArticles.com to use the material for free.

Ask Shawn Collins: Affiliate Activation Strategies

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Q: My affiliate sales haven’t been what they usually are. I keep them informed with relevant product/site updates, and I offer incentives each month, too. I’m always available and try to answer any question promptly and professionally. What can I do to entice affiliates to feature us on their pages and bring us more clicks?

Shawn CollinsA: Woody Allen once said, “80% of success is showing up.” It sounds like you have that covered, but how about the other 20%?

Most affiliate managers think it’s sufficient to rely solely on e-mail to communicate and they send the same canned messages to all affiliates.

If you’re part of that camp, there are two things you ought to start doing today: send direct mail to activate affiliates AND follow up with phone calls to make a case for premium placement of your affiliate links.

Also, open up the lines of communication more by starting a blog for the affiliate program. Then affiliates will have the option of subscribing to your RSS feed to receive updates.

Start up a resource site for your affiliate program, too. This site can be a home to your newsletter archive, resources, tools, tips, etc. to help your affiliates succeed.

When you do send e-mail to the affiliates, don’t take the one size fits all approach. Devise a communication plan for your different types of affiliates.

Your affiliates have different needs, so figure those out and message your affiliates appropriately.

Additionally, give your affiliates the tools they need to best promote you. Create a sales guide that gives a background on your company, target demographic, and other information relevant to people that are representing you.

Last of all, ask your affiliates what they want and need. And if at all possible, give it to them. They may ask for custom creative, exceptions to rules, placement fees, etc. Work with them – they are your partners.

Follow this advice and I think you’ll see that other 20%.