Affiliate Marketing Blog

Affiliate marketing news and opinion from Shawn Collins, co-founder of Affiliate Summit.

  • Home
  • About Shawn
  • Contact
  • Learn Affiliate Marketing
  • Disclosure
  • Archives

Archives for April 2007

Ask Shawn Collins: Affiliate Manager Monitoring Secret

April 15, 2007 by Shawn Collins

Q: I just got an email from a merchant stating that a bunch of affiliates are violating their bid cap policies on both Google AdWords and Yahoo! Sponsored Search. How could they determine that without the bidder’s permission and without violating privacy policies of the PPC accounts?

Shawn CollinsA: I’m not sure what this particular merchant is doing, but I’m still using the same old, unscientific approach of checking to see whether affiliates are ranking higher than me.

In general, when I’ve had this rule in effect, I’d bid a penny higher than the bid cap, so if affiliates were turning up higher I’d give them a call to say, “What’s up?”

Presumably, the affiliate is bidding higher than the bid cap.

While this method may not be foolproof, it’s an indicator. If any affiliate manager has a more involved way to do it, I’m not aware of it.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Reddit

Filed Under: Ask Shawn Collins

Ask Shawn Collins: Self-Replicating Web Sites

April 11, 2007 by Shawn Collins

Q: I have a question about self-replicating Web sites… how effective are they?

Shawn CollinsA: My recommendation would be to avoid self-replicating Web sites. For the most part, I’ve seen them offered through Multi-Level Marketing schemes, rather than affiliate programs.

However, there are certainly some affiliate programs that do have them.

Anyhow, these self-replicating Web sites are geared towards people who don’t have an ability to create a Web site or any sort of presence online themselves to promote affiliate links.

These sites are so homogenized and non-unique that I would say to stray away from them.

Instead, build up your own unique experience online to sell whatever product or service it is that you are promoting. I think you’ll find that this approach is more lucrative for you.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Reddit

Filed Under: Ask Shawn Collins

Ask Shawn Collins: Selective Policing of Ringtone Scammers

April 9, 2007 by Shawn Collins

Q: You have called out some of the “free ringtone” scammers, but the guy that runs Elite Retreat is the worst of all. Look at his forum at sprintusers.com/forum. Those sponsored ringtones are not free – why haven’t you called him out? Is he your friend? Is what he’s doing OK? Because if it is I want to do it.

Shawn CollinsA: “Janet” – I replied to the e-mail you used to submit your question to try and get more details, but it was fake and bounced back to me.

Anyhow, I’ve reported on folks that were bidding on terms related to free ringtones after some cursory searches in Google and Yahoo! There are most assuredly many more people breaking the rules than I’ve come across. I didn’t look too deep to find my examples.

As far as Lee Dodd’s SprintUsers.com forum, I am guessing you are referring to the Google AdSense ads near the top of the page, as they are focused on ringtones. If that’s the case, it’s Google who determines the ads served.

I have AdSense on the AffiliateTip.com homepage (where my latest blog headlines are featured) and there may well have been free ringtone ads displayed there at times – triggered by the content of my headlines.

As far as why I haven’t “called him out”, I am not aware of anything forbidden on his part.

Is he your friend?

Yes.

Is what he’s doing OK?

As far as I can tell.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Reddit

Filed Under: Ask Shawn Collins

Ask Shawn Collins: Best British Band

April 8, 2007 by Shawn Collins

Q: With the Affiliate Summit coming up in London, I’m curious as to which British band is your favorite?

Shawn CollinsA: That’s a sort of random, non-affiliate marketing question, but I’m game. I am still living in the 80’s when it comes to a lot of my favorite music – stuff I picked up on from the old MTV show, 120 Minutes (Sundays at midnight back in the day).

I would say the Smiths are/were my favorite group. Not just among British bands, but all over. Now don’t mistake that with being a Morrissey enthusiast. He’s had some good singles as a solo act, but it was all about his voice with Johnny Marr’s guitar.

Now if I could go with an individual, I’d say Billy Bragg. Whether it’s the early 80’s folk-punk, the more rootsy Woody Guthrie stuff or whatever, Billy is just fantastic.

Anyhow, since the door was left open here, I felt compelled to give a brief performance of each. For your listening pleasure, I’ve belted out “Greetings to the New Brunette” from Billy Bragg and “Bigmouth Strikes Again” by the Smiths.

And I do have an affiliate marketing tie-in here to bring it all on home. Back at Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas, I got a gift from Liz Angus, Affiliate Marketing Manager at Studeo. It was the American Idol Singer’s Advantage kit.

It’s a vocal home study course to help mold raw talent like myself into the likes of Sanjaya Malakar. They’ve got an affiliate program for it at IdolAffiliates.com – promote it while it’s red hot in the ratings.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Reddit

Filed Under: Ask Shawn Collins

Tara Hunt on Affiliate Thing

April 7, 2007 by Shawn Collins

The next installment of the Affiliate Thing show will feature an interview with Tara Hunt, Co-Founder & Chief Trouble Maker of Citizen Agency.

Tara, also known as Miss Rogue, defines herself as a customer first, marketer second. In 2005, Tara became the marketing director at Riya, where her community marketing theories resulted in huge gains, such as national news mentions before launch and over one million photos uploaded within 24 hours of launch.

She doesn’t believe in PR, only in the power of building relationships with a community. She co-founded Citizen Agency in 2006 with the mission of teaching her clients how to work more effectively with the communities they serve.

Tara has over seven years experience in non-traditional marketing planning, and she maintains a successful blog over at HorsePigCow.

Join us for a chat about one of Tara’s passions, Pinko Marketing, and her perspectives on community, PR, etc.
More Affiliate Thing shows at GeekCast.fm.

Subscribe to the Affiliate Thing RSS feed or send a blank e-mail to affiliatething@aweber.com to get each podcast delivered by e-mail.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Reddit

Filed Under: Affiliate News

Ask Shawn Collins: Bloggers as Affiliates

April 6, 2007 by Shawn Collins

Q: Is the use of blogs considered one of the better ways to succeed in affiliate marketing?

Shawn CollinsA: There isn’t really a single answer here. It really depends on what topic you’re covering and what products or services you hope to sell.

I’d say you should go with blogging as an affiliate if you don’t have an ability to design a Web site. You can get setup with WordPress and install a theme to get a look and feel that works for you.

If you plan to write content that would include recommendations, I think a blog would be an ideal venue for you.

Otherwise, there are a wide variety of affiliate types out there that work in varying degrees depending on the vertical you’re focused on.

There are traditional content sites, as well as comparison shopping, coupons, rewards, etc.

Successful affiliates are also using e-mail and pay per click search engines. And there are a variety of ways you can leverage Web 2.0 as an affiliate, such as social networks, podcasts, and video.

I would say that you should go with the method that is most comfortable for you, as it will be more likely for you to stick with it if you like what you’re doing, whether it be a blog, social network, e-mail list, or whatever else.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Reddit

Filed Under: Ask Shawn Collins

To Catch a Parasite: ShareASale Star Thingy

April 5, 2007 by Shawn Collins

ShareASale is running a contest where they are trying to get their affiliates and merchants to submit videos explaining the purpose of their “ShareASale Star Thingys,” which are sponge-like, yellow stars left over from their booth at the last Affiliate Summit.

Just for entering the ShareASale contest, they will pay you $10, and then another $50 if your entry is used in their collaborative video project at the end.

One of the requirements for the contest is that you are a current ShareASale affiliate or merchant. My entry, “To Catch a Parasite: ShareASale Star Thingy,” shows a consumer, taped by hidden camera, as he attempts to make a purchase on the Internet.

His transaction appears to be tainted by the Devil Shopper shopping companion until the ShareASale Badware Buster (my interpretation of the purpose of the Star Thingy) saves the day.

This video is a parody of Dateline NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” – any likeness to the devil or Chris Hanson is purely unintentional and coincidental.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Reddit

Filed Under: Affiliate News

John Chow, Affiliate Neanderthal

April 4, 2007 by Shawn Collins

I was just reading John Chow’s blog, where he steered a whole bunch of affiliates in the wrong direction.

Cave painting of primitive hunt

In the post, “Evil Affiliate Marketing Trick Of The day,” John expresses a frustration he has with affiliate marketing…

The concept of affiliate marketing is pretty straight forward: send a reader to the reseller site with your affiliate ID and earn a cut of the resulting sales. The problem is sometimes a reader won’t click on the affiliate link right away. However, instead of coming back to your blog to find the affiliate link, they just directly enter the URL of the reseller and buy the product. The reseller made a sale but you just lost an affiliate commission.

His solution to this problem? Embedding his affiliate cookies via an iframe. An iframe is an inline frame that contains another document – in this case, an affiliate cookie, so visitors to his site are automatically cookied by him, regardless of whether they click on his affiliate link. This is known as cookie stuffing and it’s a worst practice in affiliate marketing.

John boasts in the post that he has cookied all who are reading his blog with his AuctionAds cookie. I hope ShoeMoney keeps every cent of the purloined commissions generated by Chow.

Hey John – there’s nothing novel about that method of cheating. As an affiliate manager, I’ve been on the lookout for it since I heard about it from some casino affiliates at AffiliateFORCE 2001.

Evil tricks do not make for a sustainable business model.

For more information on cookie stuffing, have a look at Ben Edelman’s overview: Cookie-Stuffing Targeting Major Affiliate Merchants.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Reddit

Filed Under: Affiliate News

« Previous Page

Social

  • View shawncollins’s profile on Facebook
  • View shawncollins’s profile on Twitter
  • View shawncollinsatx’s profile on Instagram
  • View affiliatetip’s profile on Pinterest
  • View shawncollins’s profile on LinkedIn
  • View affiliatetip’s profile on YouTube

Blogroll

  • Affiliate Manager
  • Austin FC
  • Austin, TX Airbnb
  • Bose Hearing Aids
  • Extra Money Answer
  • Movies That Affected My Life
  • This is Affiliate Marketing

Return to top of page

Copyright © · Shawn Collins Consulting ·

 

Loading Comments...