Affiliate marketing news and opinion from Shawn Collins, co-founder of Affiliate Summit.
Watch I Love Affiliate Video Bloggers in Educational | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
Mark Wielgus, who blogs and video blogs at 45n5.com (no longer active), has created a genius of a music video in tribute to affiliate video bloggers.
I’ve got to agree with Mark – I love watching the affiliate videos, too. Keep them coming everybody!
Check out the 45n5 magic: I Love Affiliate Video Bloggers.
Maybe we can persuade Mark to bring his guitar to Affiliate Summit this summer.
I just got back the professional photos from Affiliate Summit 2008 West (630 of them!) and they are now up on Flickr.
Here is a shot of the Affiliate Meet Market on Sunday, February 24, 2008:
Check out the Affiliate Summit 2008 West pictures.
Feel free to download and post any of the photos on your blog, newsletter, etc. But please link back to the Affiliate Summit photo page on Flickr.
What are you waiting for? Go in there and add comments to the pictures.
Q: In terms of revenue and profit generated, what sort of affiliate site is ideal to set up for a first venture?
A: It depends on your capabilities and whether or not you have any capital. I’d say the quickest and easiest way to enter the market is to go with a blog.
I would recommend going with a WordPress blog using LivingDot as the hosting.
It’s a very easy place to get setup, as they will install the blog software for you, whether you prefer MovableType or WordPress.
After that, you just use one of the pre-made templates, also known as a theme in WordPress.
You can get going quick that way – in the case of WordPress (and many other blog platforms), there is an option to write the blog posts in a WYSIWYG environment.
When you have the technical part out of the way, start building content for this new site on whatever topic that interests you.
Then join relevant affiliate programs.
Bear in mind that it’s not going to be a really quick turnaround to see the cash flowing.
It takes some time to make money. You must be patient and put in the time, energy and resources to make this happen, and eventually it will.
Q: I have an in-house affiliate program that pays on a cost per lead and a revenue share. Also, my company has an in-house search marketing team that advertisers via Google AdWords. I am losing some affiliates, because they are leaving the program to promote the same offer in AdWords. I can’t exactly go to the SEM team and ask them to turn off the content advertising or reduce their spend, as they are getting a healthy ROI. What can I do?
A: I faced a similar thing many years ago… I guess eight years ago when I was running the affiliate program at ClubMom.com.
I had a very successful affiliate program, and I started noticing that some of my biggest affiliates were disappearing.
It turned out that the woman doing media buys (one desk in front of me in the same department!) got the go-ahead to pay these people twice the amount I was able to pay them per lead without my knowing about it.
Meanwhile, I was routinely turned down when requesting more budget to increase the affiliate rates.
I’d say it’s really just a matter of getting the search and affiliate teams together to talk about it. If the market dictates that affiliates are working at your existing commissions, it just doesn’t make sense that the search crew is inflating the market.
Sure, they’re getting a nice ROI, but it would be better if they weren’t overspending.
I started playing around as an affiliate in early 1997. At the time, I was working on the business side of magazine publishing (crunching circulation numbers at Ziff-Davis), and I desperately craved a job I didn’t dread.
My regular ritual was to devour the help wanted ads in the New York Times in search of a new opportunity, and it finally arrived later that year in the shape of a new startup, MedSite.com.
One of the reasons I was able to get a job in their marketing department, despite zero marketing experience, was that I was an affiliate myself, and they wanted to launch an affiliate program.
That was my first entry into the startup world, which was a crazy circus back in late 90’s NYC.
So I was interested to read what Jason Calacanis had to say when I saw a post on his blog, “How to save money running a startup (17 really good tips).”
I thought that he offered up some excellent advice there on most of the points. So I was surprised to read Duncan Riley’s hatchet job on TechCrunch.
Michael Arrington later characterized Riley’s comments as a humorous approach, but I think that was damage control over a misguided rant.
Lot’s of useful information for start-ups in Arrington’s post, too.
Anyhow, the final point in Calacanis’ initial post resonated with me, because it reminded me a lot of affiliate marketers.
“Outsource to middle America: There are tons of brilliant people living between San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York who don’t live in a $4,000 one bedroom apartment and pay $8 to dry clean a shirt–hire them!”
This is exactly what everybody from Mom & Pops to the largest online retailers have been doing since the mid-90’s.
But they don’t call it outsourcing, they call it affiliate marketing.
Maybe it should be called “bestsourced marketing”, since some affiliate marketers aren’t crazy about being called affiliates.
Anyhow, back to the beginning, my first affiliate manager job with with a startup, as was my second (with ClubMom.com).
In both cases, we successfully bestsourced marketing efforts to middle America and everywhere else via affiliate programs.
Something to consider for those startups looking to optimize every dollar.
And for anybody who didn’t experience the whole startup culture back in the day, check out Startup.com, a documentary covering the creation of a startup from 1990’s NYC.
It’s a cringe-filled trip down memory lane.
Q: I have a multitude of keyword affiliate domains (i.e. bookaffiliates, sportswearaffiliates). Would I be better off developing these domains as niche directories for businesses looking for affiliates in these areas, or should I try to find buyers for the domains?
A: Neither option really falls into affiliate marketing, per se.
I would discourage you from developing these domains as directories, as I am guessing that with the multitude of domains, whether they be in the dozens or hundreds, you are not going to build real sites.
These directories will not serve any need, in my opinion.
I’d love for you to prove me wrong, but I am doubtful that you’d be willing to sustain even ten sites of this time for any period of time.
I think you’re better off trying to sell the domain names if there is a market for them.
Otherwise, the wisest move may be to never make a move. Just let them expire.
If you really love some of them, create authentic sites that solve a problem for people. Provide a unique value proposition with your sites – don’t look for the quick hit.
We just recently wrapped up Affiliate Summit 2008 West in Las Vegas and the keynote speaker was Jason Calacanis.
One thing that Jason touched on was that there are two groups in affiliate marketing. We’ve got the white hat folks, who are doing things right. And then there are the black hat affiliates, “thin affiliates”, people that are scamming and giving the industry a bad name.
Jason mentioned in his speech that the affiliate networks deserve some of the blame in this situation, and I’d love to see them address it.
Here is an excerpt of the keynote from Jason Calacanis:
“The affiliate companies have some culpability here.
The affiliate companies are creating the infrastructure that allows people to make the profit while poisoning the well and polluting the river.
And the affiliate companies have blinders on. They don’t police stuff.”
My thought is that we certainly need to do something here. One thing I was thinking about was how the affiliate networks might adapt something that a UK affiliate network, Affiliate Window, does to fight fraud.
A few years back, Affiliate Window began requiring affiliates to pay a fee of £5 to apply to the network, and this amount would be added into the affiliate’s account upon acceptance to the network.
Initially, I wasn’t too high on this method, but in reflection I think it could be quite useful in qualifying affiliates and cutting out some of the junk.
Perhaps affiliate networks could start using this strategy to identify affiliates and certify them to a degree as legitimate, white hat affiliates.
This wouldn’t screen out all of the scammers, but it could be a start. The important thing is to get some more ideas on the table and fix what is broken about affiliate marketing.
What do you think?
Q: I’ve been searching around for affiliate programs to monetize a .mobi address, but I haven’t found any. I know about AdMob, but how about something with a revenue share, like selling concert tickets?
A: Unfortunately, outside of AdMob, which I use myself through the mobile plugin for WordPress to make a mobile version of my blog, the only other option on my radar is Google AdSense for Mobile.
However, that doesn’t solve your problem, because it is also based on clicks.
I am not aware of any of the affiliate networks doing anything currently, and I’d love to hear from them if I missed anything.