Shawn Collins' Blog

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

Archives for August 2007

Age of Ingenuity in Affiliate Marketing

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I just got back from Chicago, where DoubleClick Performics hosted more than 300 advertisers and publishers at the Ritz-Carlton Chicago for their Age of Ingenuity Client Summit, which ran August 13-14.

The Performics event featured a packed schedule of presentations, panels, and networking, including a compelling keynote by bestselling author of Freakonomics, Dr. Steven D. Levitt.

“The attendance at our summit by more than 300 of our clients is a testament to the passion that these marketers have for digital media and their commitment to the online channel,” said Stuart Frankel, president of DoubleClick Performics. “Attendees include many new clients, and content includes important best practices, new services and ingenious trends in online marketing.”

Here’s a shot of Connie Berg of Flamingo World, me, and Stephanie Agresta of Stephanie Agresta Consulting at the Performics Client Summit…

Connie Berg, Shawn Collins, and Stephanie Agresta

And picture of the Age of Ingenuity Panel at the Performics Client Summit…

Performics Client Summit

Great event, and I even came away with the recipe for the lunch today: Herb Grilled Chicken Breast and Whole Roast Baby Fingerling Potatoes with Tangy Lemon-Basil Aioli.

More details at http://www.performics.com/clientsummit/.

The Clickable Video Affiliate Project

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Missy Ward and myself are about to launch a new affiliate site centered around video and affiliate programs.

The site will center on each of us creating videos reviews of products and services we use and like.

We’ll be powered by the Qoof technology, and plan to review pretty much anything that touches our lives, such as Web hosting companies, coffee makers, mobile phones, and shoes.

If you’re interested providing your product or service for review, contact us to let us know what you’ve got and which one of us you’d like to review it.

Stay tuned for more details.

Watch Affiliate Summit 2007 East Videos – FREE!

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The videos from sessions at Affiliate Summit 2007 East, which took place July 8-10, 2007 in Miami, are now available to all.

Take a look at the Affiliate Summit agenda to see details on each of the educational sessions.

The videos cover a wide array of topics, including analytics, blogs, communities, contextual ads, Internet law, PPC, SEO, UK Affiliate Marketing, video, viral marketing, Web 2.0, and much more.

The Desire to Acquire

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I got the latest issue (July/August 2007) of Revenue magazine the other day, and finally had a chance to page through and read the articles.

The cover story, “The Desire to Acquire,” touched on the recent mania of companies to buy interactive agencies, ad networks and other sites to round out their online marketing portfolios.

Nice recap of what’s been happening with all these acquisitions.

Interesting story by Alexandra Wharton on the convergence of Web 2.0 and e-mail campaigns.

Also, there is a good piece by Eric Reyes on balancing health issues and family issues. My wife insisted on a correction for one part of this article, where it said I work only from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm.

She reminded me that I usually work a second shift from around 10:00 pm until 1:00 or 2:00 am. Oops, uh, can I get a correction? 🙂

Anyhow, some helpful information on maintaining a balance.

An entertaining profile on 15 year old affiliate, Harrison Gevritz, and a number of other articles, stats, and tidbits round out the issue.

Yahoo! Offers PayPal for Commissions

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The Yahoo! Publisher Network now offers the option to receive commissions via PayPal.

Yahoo! Pays with PayPalThis payment option requires a minimum earning of only $50, instead of $100, so affiliates don’t have to wait as long for their paydays.

Yahoo! touts same-day payments and no-fee transfers as other good reasons to switch to PayPal:

In order for Yahoo! Publisher Network affiliates to switch to PayPal, they just need to do the following:

  • Log into their Yahoo! Publisher Network account
  • Go to the Payment Options section
  • Click on the PayPal button
  • Click on the Submit button

Affiliates that choose the PayPal option for commissions will be issued the commissions on predetermined days throughout the calendar year, provided they have the $50 minimum in their account.

No word on whether they will be adding Google Checkout as an option in the future.

MC Kukral and Speaker Submissions for Affiliate Summit

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Jim Kukral is going to be the MC for Affiliate Summit 2008 West, taking place February 24-26, 2008 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

We’re excited to have Jim Kukral on board, and we look forward to an interesting kick-off to Affiliate Summit next January.

And we share the sentiments of Sam Harrelson…

I look forward to a Steve Ballmer like performance from Jim in Las Vegas.

Also, speaker proposals are now being accepted for Affiliate Summit 2008 West. The submission deadline is October 26, 2007.

More details at http://blog.affiliatesummit.com/2007/08/09/speaker-submissions-for-affiliate-summit-2008-east/.

Squatters, Toilet Paper, and Stuff Hits the Fan in Florida

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Lisa Picarille and myself welcomed Heather Paulson, affiliate marketing veteran and Director of Online Marketing for KUE Digital Inc.

Crazy guyTopics discussed included affiliate approval guidelines, recruiting affiliates via blogs, and beating ad blockers.

We also discussed the explosion of Facebook applications in affiliate marketing, creeps squatting on domains, investigations by the Attorney General of Florida, toilet paper by subscription from Amazon, mobile marketing growth, and the new issue of Revenue magazine.

Affiliate Facebook Apps

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Facebook applications, small programs within Facebook that interact with Facebook users, are catching on in affiliate marketing among merchants and affiliates.

Zappos has one that enables you to “share your favorite products and brands from Zappos.com with all of your friends.”

I read in the Amazon Web Services Developer Connection Newsletter yesterday where Amazon is encouraging Amazon ECS developers to try their hand at creating Facebook applications.

If you are an Amazon ECS developer, the more Facebook users that choose your application and use it in a way that sends traffic to Amazon, the more money you can earn at rates up to 10% by participating in the Amazon Associates Program.

Some examples of applications built for Facebook by developers using Amazon Associates and ECS (note that you’ll need to be logged into Facebook to view these):

  • iRead: Uses the ECS Search and List APIs to allow users to display their Amazon.com wishlist on their Facebook profile pages
  • Amazing Giftbox: Uses the ECS Search API to allow Facebook users to send any product on Amazon.com as a virtual gift to their friends
  • Amazing Wishlist: Uses the ECS Wishlist API to allow users to display Amazon.com wishlists on their Facebook profiles

Last week, on the Affiliate Thing show, super affiliate Connie Berg talked about plans to get a Facebook app going.

And I’ve come across some other affiliates that are already running affiliate Facebook apps, including CheapCheapCheap.org Deals and Shopaneer.

Last, but not least, there is a new Facebook app from Affiliate Summit. But it comes at things from a different, more benevolent angle.

The purpose is to bring awareness to the scourge of badware. Get your Affiliate Summit Badware Protection at http://www.badware.com.

Florida Attorney General Investigates Affiliate Marketers

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I just came across some “Active Public Consumer-Related Investigations” by the Economic Crimes Unit of the Office of the Attorney General in Florida.

The following affiliate marketing related companies are being investigated:

Intermark Media Inc.
Case Number: L07-3-1058
Allegation or issue being investigated: Affiliate network using deceptive ads to enroll consumers into monthly subscription plans.

Media Breakaway, LLC
Case Number: L07-3-1055
Allegation or issue being investigated: Affiliate network using deceptive ads to enroll consumers into monthly subscription plans.

Think Partnership Inc.
Case Number: L07-3-1059
Allegation or issue being investigated: Affiliate network using deceptive ads to enroll consumers into monthly subscription plans.

Traffix, Inc.
Case Number: L07-3-1057
Allegation or issue being investigated: Affiliate network using deceptive co-registration paths to enroll consumers into monthly subscription plans.

W3i, LLC
Case Number: L07-3-1056
Allegation or issue being investigated: Online marketer using deceptive co-registration paths to enroll consumers into monthly subscription plans.

Please note – the existence of an investigation does not constitute proof of any violation of law.

Amazon Flexible Payments Service (Amazon FPS) Announced

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Last week, TechCrunch revealed that Amazon had rolled out the Beta of a new online payment service to rival PayPal and Google Checkout.

The new service was announced today in the Amazon Web Services Developer Connection Newsletter:

Last week, Amazon Web Services began a limited beta program for Amazon Flexible Payments Service (Amazon FPS). Amazon FPS is the first payments service designed from the ground up specifically for developers. The set of web services APIs allows the movement of money between any two entities, humans or computers. It is built on top of Amazon’s reliable and scalable payment infrastructure.

Use of the Amazon FPS developer sandbox is free and unlimited, and we encourage you to use the sandbox to begin building and testing your payment applications. As Amazon FPS is in a limited beta at this stage, we are accepting just a small number of payment applications to run in our production environment. To learn more and get started with the sandbox, please take a look at the resources below to start exploring Amazon FPS.

More details are available on the Amazon FPS Detail Page.