Shawn Collins' Blog

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

Archives for July 2007

Affiliate Summit Redux

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Our camera crew went around on the exhibit hall floor and spoke to attendees at Affiliate Summit 2007 East to get their opinions on the affiliate conference.

Hear what the following folks had to say…

  • Jay Berkowitz, Ten Golden Rules
  • Brian Littleton, ShareASale
  • Brandy Shapiro-Babin, Webmaster Radio
  • Audrey Berheney, AzoogleAds
  • John Engler, UnsubCentral
  • Todd Crawford, oneNetworkDirect
  • Victor Pitts, Moniker
  • The Pepperjam Crew
  • Tara McCommons, LinkConnector
  • Paula Carlson, Avanquest Software

Save the Affiliate Summit video to view locally on iTunes.

Team Affiliate Marketing Fights Breast Cancer

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Missy Ward (Affiliate Summit) and Connie Berg of (Flamingo World) have joined forces to fight breast cancer as Team Affiliate Marketing. Missy and Connie are going to be participating in the Twin Cities Breast Cancer 3-Day, taking place August 24-26, 2007.

The Twin Cities Breast Cancer 3-Day is a 60-mile walk where teams are committing to raise a minimum of $2,200 to benefit the Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the National Philanthropic Trust Breast Cancer Fund.

“The 60-miles definitely seems monumental on paper, but I know several people that have lost their lives to breast cancer. I can’t think of a better cause to support or a more challenging goal to take on.” – Missy Ward.

“There is no other walk longer than this one. It’s great that we’re doing this as a team because we’ll be a strong support system for each other. Representing Affiliate Marketing in this walk is an added bonus.” – Connie Berg.

If you would like to make a contribution, visit Team Affiliate Marketing’s site at 60-milewalk.com. If you donate $1,000 or more, you will be entitled to your company logo placed on the team’s shirts. Missy and Connie plan to take lots of photos and video, and blog the experience over the three days of the walk.

Affiliate Summit is matching all donations up to $5,000 to support Team Affiliate Marketing.

More details at http://affiliatetip.com/news/article001341.php.

Submitting Affiliate Links to Search Engines

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Is it possible to submit affiliate links to search engines and have those links turn up in the search engine results?

I guess anything is possible. But I don’t think the search engines or their users want these sorts of results coming up.

In my opinion, it’s not a good practice, as you are not adding value anywhere.

Since you wouldn’t actually be serving a role with this strategy, but rather just gaming the system, I can’t see how you’d think you’d even be entitled to a commission.

You’d be insinuating yourself into a process where you are not providing anything.

I would suggest going back to the drawing board and devise a way you can add value to the process, rather than trying to capitalize on a situation where you are not providing anything.

The Podcasts on My iPod

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I used to try to listen to Podcasts on my computer as I worked, but I realized that I wasn’t really paying attention with the phone ringing, e-mail flowing in, and a big inbox in front of me.

So I finally picked up an iPod a few months back, and made it a habit to get out of the office to get fresh air and listen to podcasts.

There are still some distractions, as my Blackberry tempts me into some e-mail action while walking around, but I’m mostly able to focus on the shows, and I find a great amount of value in them.

Here are the shows I have loaded in my iPod:

So, am I missing out on any good shows?

Am I Too Old for Facebook?

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I created my account on Facebook about a year ago. I joined because I had a curiosity as a marketer. I’m in there to play around and experience the environment, and to contrast it to the opportunities with MySpace.

FacebookLately, I’ve gotten more into testing the applications on Facebook with an eye towards conceiving some of my own, and with the avalanche of colleagues joining, it’s become a good place to network.

Recently, I read an article on the Huffington Post, “When Worlds Collide: Facebook in Business,” that got me thinking about the generational clash going on at Facebook.

Author Megan Berry, a 20-year-old junior at Stanford, laments…

As a 20-year-old junior at Stanford I am both an everyday Facebook user and a summer intern at a software company. What I didn’t realize is how Facebook and my work would collide. Facebook seems to be the current obsession of the business world with thirty-something business users joining all the time.

It seems these business users are joining Facebook not because everyone is on it, but because the cool people are on it. For these older users having a Facebook account actually has little to do with convenience, but instead it is a symbol, communicating to others that you keep up with the latest Internet trends. Yet the “cool people” on Facebook are, for the most part, college students. Why are these thirty-something web users rushing to keep up with college students?

Perhaps that’s the intention of some of my old people peers, but I don’t think that’s the case for my Facebook “friends”. We’re all just looking to get different things out of it, including networking, research, re-connecting, discovering ways to monetize it, etc.

Jared Sandberg of the Wall Street Journal discusses the generational divide within Facebook in his article, “OMG — My Boss Wants to ‘Friend’ Me On My Online Profile.”

So the college students don’t like us old interlopers coming around where they hang out.

Deal with it. You’re not that cool, and we’re not going anywhere.

LinkShare Announces Showcase Offer Access

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LinkShare’s Showcase Ad Network has announced a new service for merchants to distribute coupons and special offers through MSN.

Through Showcase Offer Access, LinkShare will distribute merchant offers to the MSN shopping site, as well as MSN’s syndication partners, such as Facebook.

Here’s how the LinkShare announcement explains it all…

How Showcase Offer Access Works
Showcase Offer Access will apply to your program as a publisher. After you accept us as a publisher, we will pull coupons and other offers from your site and push them to MSN to fill open inventory on their site properties and syndication partner sites.

Partner with Showcase Offer Access
Participation in Showcase Offer Access is easy to implement and free to all LinkShare advertisers. If you are interested in participating in this program and gaining additional exposure to MSN consumers, follow the steps below:

  1. Accept Showcase Offer Access into your program or have your primary LinkShare contact accept us as a publisher.
  2. All creative for this campaign must be 120 x 600 banners and be categorized for “Showcase Offer Access.”
  3. Once we are approved into your program and you have updated your creative, we will start pushing your coupons and other offers to MSN.
  4. Since Showcase Offer Access will be a publisher in your program, there is nothing special for you to do for reporting or payments.

For more details on the partnership with LinkShare Showcase Ad Network and MSN, get in touch with your primary LinkShare contact.

The First Affiliate Marketing Conference in Europe

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I was thinking the other day how exciting it is that Affiliate Summit will be going to the UK as the first affiliate marketing specific conference to take place in Europe.

But then it occurred to me that Affiliate Solutions, a conference run by Refer-it and Internet.com, took place in April 2000 in London.

Affiliate Solutions in London

Not sure how that slipped me mind, since I worked for Refer-it back in 1999-2000, and I helped put together the Affiliate Solutions shows in New York and San Francisco.

I left the company two months before their London affiliate conference to go and start the ClubMom.com affiliate program.

After looking over the agenda from Affiliate Solutions London, I realized that we have a connection to that pioneering show. Todd Crawford, who was then VP of Sales for CJ, was a speaker at Affiliate Solutions.

And this coming September, Todd, who is now the VP Sales & Business Development for Digital River’s oneNetworkDirect, will be moderating a panel of super affiliates at Affiliate Summit London.

I guess we’ll have to settle for the Gold medal. But I’m still very excited.

Affiliate Network TradeDoubler Acquires The Search Works

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Pan-European affiliate network TradeDoubler has acquired all shares in the Interactive Marketing Works Ltd and its subsidiaries (‘The IMW Group’), which includes The Search Works and those companies trading as The Technology Works.

The purchase price for The IMW Group was £56 million.

TradeDoublerThe IMW Group consists of two trading entities, ‘The Search Works’, a search engine marketing agency and ‘The Technology Works’, a technology provider for search engine marketing, whose products include ‘BidBuddy’ – a search management technology.

The acquisition complements and expands TradeDoubler’s existing performance-based product portfolio which includes affiliate marketing, online advertising campaigns, pay-per-call and an online tracking and ad-serving technology.

“Product expansion and further internationalisation are key components in TradeDoubler’s growth strategy. The acquisition addresses both these areas by rolling out The Search Works and The Technology Works throughout Europe and by utilising The Technology Works’ Asian foothold to assess the roll out of TradeDoubler’s product offerings into Asian markets.” says William Cooper, CEO, TradeDoubler.

TradeDoubler also released its second quarter financial results today. Revenues for the period from April to June 2007 increased by 27.9%, compared to the same period in 2006, to reach SEK 512.6 million (approx €56m) and gross profit was up 25.4% to SEK 143 million (approx €15.5)

Visit TradeDoubler at http://www.tradedoubler.com.

iPhone Affiliate Creative Unleashed

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iPhone creative is now available through the Apple affiliate program on CJ.

Apple StoreThey’ve got five text links and seven banners (100×100, 120×240, 120×60, 120×90, 160×600, 300×250, and 468×60).

In additional to text and banners to sell the iPhone, some of the creative keys in on accessories, cables, docks, etc.

The commission is a sickly 1%, but if you can drive volume, there is a decent opportunity here.

The keyword “iPhone” still tops the Top Electronics and Gadget Searches on AOL, and it’s #21 in the Lycos 50.

Note – this is as of right now. No need to tell me it’s not there if you read this a couple weeks, months, or years from now.

According to PC Magazine, “Apple sold 270,000 iPhones during the first 30 hours the phone was on sale and expects to sell its one-millionth iPhone by the end of its first full quarter of sales.”

That’s compared to Apple taking nearly two years to move 1,000,000 iPods. So yes, there is potential here for affiliates with the right audience.

The British Invasion: Affiliate Style

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UKLisa Picarille and myself welcomed Malcolm Cowley of buy.at. Topics discussed included differences between the UK and US affiliate markets, and challenges of affiliate networks from Europe and the US in entering the UK.

We also discussed the podcasts that are loaded into our iPods, an effective video from PopShops, Facebook applications, and results from a survey on booth babes.