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Archives for January 2007

Profiles in Courage: Affiliate Marketers Defined

January 30, 2007 by Shawn Collins

One late night at Affiliate Summit 2007 West, I stopped by the convenience store in Bally’s Las Vegas to pick up some munchies. I picked Fig Newtons and the cashier asked if I was part of the “marketing conference.”

news

I answered yes and asked why? It seems the folks from the marketing conference were buying Fig Newtons at an unprecedented rate.

Are affiliate marketers more likely than other citizens of the world to eat Fig Newtons? Who cares? But there are a lot of other interesting factoids that were revealed in a recent affiliate census.

The UK Affiliate Census Report was published by E-consultancy.com in association with Affiliate Program Advice.

E-consultancy is an online publisher of best practice internet marketing reports, research and how-to guides in the UK.

Affiliate Program Advice is primarily an affiliate marketing consultancy and affiliate program management agency with an emphasis upon research and development within the affiliate marketing industry.

The purpose of the UK Affiliate Census Report was to provide a better understanding of affiliates in terms of:

  • Their profile (e.g. who they are and where they live).
  • Their lifestyle as affiliates.
  • The nature of their affiliate activity / business.
  • Their relationship with networks and merchants.
  • Their opinions about key issues and market trends.

More than 1,500 affiliates took part in the survey at the end of 2006. Key findings from the Affiliate Census include:

  • The overwhelming majority of affiliates are male (83% of respondents)
  • 27% of affiliates say they do affiliate marketing as their day job (compared to 73% who do it in their spare time)
  • Half of all respondents (49%) earned less that £500 a year from affiliate marketing
  • Of those who do affiliate marketing as their day job, 61% earned at least £20,000 a year
  • 10% of day-job affiliates earned more than £750,000 in the last year from affiliate marketing
  • Only 26% of affiliates have done any marketing courses compared to 73% who have not
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is far and away the most commonly used method of promoting merchants & getting traffic. Organic search is used by 74% of affiliates compared to 38% who use Paid Search
  • Affiliates are typically signed up with multiple affiliate networks

The full UK Affiliate Census Report can be accessed by registered E-consultancy users at e-consultancy.com.

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Filed Under: Affiliate Resources

Affiliate Marketing by the Numbers

January 29, 2007 by Shawn Collins

There are lots of facts and figures with respect to affiliate marketing out there this month.

Internet Retailer covered the recently released AffStat 2007 Report of affiliate marketing benchmarks.

The article, “Online marketers using fewer affiliates, report says,” touches on the trend of smaller affiliate programs, as the title suggests.

Lots of other industry numbers are highlighted in the Internet Retailer piece.

Also, Performics commissioned and released some unique comScore research which provides a demographic profile of the typical affiliate shopper.

Findings of the Performics study include:

  • Affiliate shoppers are 17 percent more likely than the average Internet user to have average household income greater than $75,000
  • Affiliate shoppers skew older than the total Internet population
  • Affiliate shoppers are 4 percent more likely to have children in their households than the typical Internet shopper
  • Of those consumers who did purchase through the affiliate channel, their average online order value was higher than that of the general Internet user
  • Affiliate consumers are 43 percent more likely to convert into a sale than consumers directed by other referrals, which were defined as all activity that did not come directly to the merchant site or arrive via an affiliate link

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Filed Under: Affiliate Stats

Ask Shawn Collins: Rich Affiliate, Poor Affiliate

January 28, 2007 by Shawn Collins

Q: How do I get started in affiliate marketing without any money?

Shawn CollinsA: I don’t mean to dash your dreams, but that’s almost like asking how do I start my car with an empty gas tank. The answer, unfortunately, is that you don’t.

Just like a car, your affiliate business needs some money to fuel it.

You can get started with minimal investment by getting a domain name and web hosting for your new Web site.

Start up a site on a topic that interests you. Generate unique content with reviews, articles, etc. When you have some more money, start an account with an e-mail service provider, so you can start a newsletter and have visitors opt-in.

Also, start participating in affiliate forums and read affiliate blogs.

Lots of free education and opportunities to learn from the great minds in the industry that way.

When you start earning money as an affiliate, I’d urge you to re-invest it to grow your business.

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Filed Under: Ask Shawn Collins

Ask Shawn Collins: Outsourced Affiliate Management Pricing

January 27, 2007 by Shawn Collins

Q: How much does an affiliate marketing agency normally charge to run an affiliate program for a merchant: 15% or 20% of revenue, plus a flat fee?

Shawn CollinsA: The rates vary wildly depending on which company and/or affiliate manager is managing the affiliate program.

Outsourced affiliate program managers (OPMs) general charge a flat fee per month, and some also require a percent of the transactions referred by affiliates.

According to the latest data I collected for the AffStat 2007 Report, about 30% of OPMs charge a total of $4k or less per month and a similar group of approximately 30% of OPMs cost their clients over $10k with the remaining 40% or so ranging from $4k to $10k per month.

While you might be able to find affiliate managers who are willing to work strictly on performance, I’d urge you to take a good look at their background and get references.

Then again, do this for any prospective affiliate management firm.

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Filed Under: Ask Shawn Collins

Affiliate Summit Peaks at 2,079 Attendees

January 26, 2007 by Shawn Collins

Affiliate Summit has grown to new heights. We’ve finished adding in all of the onsite registrations from Las Vegas and have a final tally: 2,079 attendees.

Back in November 2003 for the first Affiliate Summit, there were 200 attendees. A little more than three years later, the crowd has grown to approximately 1,000% of the first show.

Affiliate Summit Attendee Numbers by Show

Registration is now open for the next Affiliate Summit taking place July 8-10 in Miami.

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Filed Under: Affiliate News

MySpace v. Scott Richter

January 25, 2007 by Shawn Collins

MySpace.com announced on January 22 that they filed suit against Scott Richter for violations of state and federal laws including the CAN-SPAM Act and California’s anti-spam statute.

No Spam!

The suit, filed in United States District Court in Los Angeles on Friday, seeks a permanent injunction barring Richter and his affiliated companies from the MySpace site in addition to unspecified monetary damages.

According to a press release from MySpace, their suit alleges that between July and December 2006, Richter and his associates arranged for millions of spam “bulletins” to be sent from MySpace users’ accounts without their knowledge.

The lawsuit further claims that Richter either phished MySpace accounts himself or acquired a list of phished accounts to launch spam campaigns.

Media Breakaway, LLC, where Scott Richter is CEO, has responded to the MySpace press release with their own announcement that they are retaining Pete Wellborn to represent the company with regard to the MySpace complaint

“We are very pleased that Pete Wellborn has agreed to represent Scott Richter and Media Breakaway in the lawsuit filed by MySpace,” said Steve Richter, President and General Counsel of Media Breakaway. “Pete’s substantial background in Internet law and extensive knowledge of the industry, including successful representation of several Internet Service Providers in cases against spammers, makes him the ideal person to represent the company in this matter.”

Steve Richter also stated, “At this time, the only information we have regarding this lawsuit comes from MySpace’s press release earlier this week. We obviously deny the allegations made in the press release.”

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Filed Under: Affiliate News

Affiliate Marketing Friends in Low Places

January 24, 2007 by Shawn Collins

Let the Affiliate Summit recaps begin. I’m getting close to leaving Las Vegas after the wrap up of Affiliate Summit 2007 West. It was the biggest show by far with around 2,000 affiliates, affiliate managers, and vendors.

Affiliate Summit WestOn the first day of the conference, we had the Affiliate Jam Session and Sing-a-Long, hosted by Shareasale.com. At this event, anybody could get up on stage and sing karaoke with a live band of affiliate marketing music all stars.

There was a parade of good and singers as affiliate marketers mingled and networked. Scott Hazard, who won the Affiliate of the Year award on the second night of Affiliate Summit, sang a rousing rendition of Friends in Low Places to close out the Affiliate Jam Session and Sing-a-Long. That’s Scott singing in the Affiliate Summit recap video.

Now it’s time to pack, shoot out to the airport, sleep on the plane, and get back to this crazy thing called affiliate marketing. A huge thanks to all who came out to Vegas and I look forward to seeing you in Miami.

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Filed Under: Affiliate Resources

Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Award Winners

January 23, 2007 by Shawn Collins

The Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards Show took place on Monday, January 22, 2007 during the Pure Imagination Party hosted by oneNetworkDirect and Wynn Las Vegas at TRYST the nightclub at Wynn Las Vegas.

There were six awards presented to recognize outstanding affiliate marketers.

Below are the winners for each category.

Affiliate of the Year: Scott Hazard
Affiliate Manager of the Year: Angel Djambazov
Exceptional Merchant: Amazon.com
Affiliate Marketing Advocate Award: Brian Littleton
Best Blogger: Jim Kukral
Wayne Porter Affiliate Marketing Legend: Todd Crawford

Congratulations to all of the winners and finalists of the Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards.

The next Affiliate Summit is taking place July 8-10, 2007 in Miami.

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Filed Under: Affiliate News

Roasted at the Affiliate Dinner

January 21, 2007 by Shawn Collins

The Affiliate Dinner on the eve of Affiliate Summit was a night to remember. The sold out affair combined an open bar, tasty cuisine, affiliate marketers and jokes.

affiliate-dinnerI was the surprised recipient of the First Ever Guest of Honor award(?) from AffiliateDinner.com. With the wily Brook Schaaf behind this event, it couldn’t be a mere honor. Rather it was a roast.

They presented me with a nice award and some class A ribbing.

Master of Ceremonies Corey Newhouse led things off and the jokesters lined up after him. Thanks to the Brook and Forrest Schaaf, Brian Littleton, Todd Crawford, Missy Ward and the whole crowd there.

Everybody sleep in Sunday – we’ve got a big schedule starting at 2 PM on Sunday for Affiliate Summit and it doesn’t stop until 7 PM on Tuesday.

Seriously though – what’s a swirlie?

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Filed Under: Affiliate News

A Conversation on Social Media Tools

January 19, 2007 by Shawn Collins

On January 29th at 8 PM EST, there will be a two hour special roundtable discussion on BlogTalkRadio about social media tools. 

The discussion will feature Scott Baradell from Media Orchard, Mandie Crawford from Roaring Women, Kami Huyse from Communication Overtones, Jim Kukral from ReveNews, and myself.

This installment of the Nut’s and Blog Bolts show is being hosted by Mike Sansone from Conversations and Wayne Hurlbert from Blog Business World. 

More details at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/hostpage.aspx?show_id=9852.

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Filed Under: Affiliate Resources

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