Shawn Collins' Blog

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

Archives for June 2008

Magnify.net Launches Unlimited Video File Storage

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There aren’t many options out there for storing long videos online. Many services, such as YouTube, restrict the upload size to 100 MB and length to ten minutes for most users.

We use Fliqz.com for Affiliate Summit to offer up the full conference sessions, which run 45-60 minutes. You can see an example of these videos at http://www.affiliatesummit.tv.

Anyhow, we were just talking about the lack of video vendors serving this market on the GeekCast show recently, and then Magnify.net comes out with an attractive solution.

Magnify.net’s new “Self-Serve CDN” (content delivery network) enables users to upload an unlimited number of uploads in sizes up to 500 MB each.

I think this will be a great solution for any affiliate and merchants looking to post longer, instructional videos.

More details at http://www.magnify.net/options/pro/cdn.

Blue Man Group at Affiliate Summit 2008 East

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The Blue Man Group, best known for their incredible shows that combine comedy, music, multi-media theatrics and of course, blue-painted skin, are going to be performing on the second day of Affiliate Summit 2008 East on Monday, August 11, 2008.

Blue Man Group coming to Affiliate SummitAffiliate Summit is running August 10-12, 2008 in Boston, and the Blue Man Group will entertain the crowd with a short performance before the keynote address.

Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, NJ, will be delivering the keynote address.

Check out the latest issue of Esquire Magazine for a feature article on Cory Booker at http://www.esquire.com/features/cory-booker-0708.

Emcee Jim Kukral will start it all up, and it’s going to be a top notch morning – don’t miss it.

Register now for Affiliate Summit before the conference sells out.

Get Issue 2 of FeedFront Magazine

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We are closing out issue 2 of FeedFront Magazine, so if you didn’t get a copy of the first one in the mail, and you want to get issue 2, subscribe now.

Anybody based on the U.S. who attended Affiliate Summit last year in Miami or this past February in Las Vegas should have received an issue of FeedFront in the mail by now.

If you didn’t get a copy, we must have an incorrect address on file for you.

You must get your subscription request in no later than June 30, 2008 to receive issue 2.

Subscribe now at http://feedfront.com/free-subscription/.

Download issue 1 of FeedFront at http://feedfront.com/feedfront-issue1.pdf.

Why Affiliate Marketers Should Care About Social Media

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I met up with Stephanie Agresta, aka Internet Geek Girl, at the recent LinkShare Symposium and she shared some thoughts about why affiliate marketers should care about social media.

Social media signs

“As you know, I am really passionate about social media, and I see that it has huge future potential for traffic and reach building.

Not only that, but I happen to think it is really fun.

I also think that affiliate marketers should care about the community that they can build within a social media world.

Using a best practices approach, being really authentic and transparent, you get to build reach and build community, and also have a good time while doing it.”

Affiliate Site Navigation

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Q: I have a site with over 500 pages with an average of three pages read per visitor. Now, I have a few products, which are equally good. My question is… should I promote one at a time, or should I spread it out on different pages, so that when a visitor goes to another page, they see a different product?

A: I would suggest setting up the site with a content management system, such as Drupal or WordPress, where you will have everything sorted into categories with a logical hierarchy.

And then, you can have a page dedicated to each product, and then as you categorize them, the category pages will update dynamically.

This will be similar to the structure of a data feed driven site, but it would have to be created manually.

You can see an example at WeViews.tv, which is an affiliate site created my my Affiliate Summit partner Missy Ward and me.

Each post is in one or more categories, so visitors reach the site by listings in the search engines for the individual posts, and they get there via categories or drill down from the home page.

Rotate Banner Ads on WordPress Blogs

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There is a new WordPress plugin called Max Banner Ads that enables affiliates to add and rotate banners in blogs without editing themes or monkeying with the codes.

I have been a user of OpenX to serve ads for quite some time, and I’m very happy with the OpenX hosted solution. But I’d say there are more bells and whistles than needed with OpenX for the average affiliate.

If you’re simply looking for a means to easily insert and rotate ads, as well as tracking impressions and clicks, Max Banner Ads looks like an ideal solution.

LinkShare Symposium 2008 Recap

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I was in New York yesterday for a whirlwind day at the annual LinkShare Symposium, which took place at Chelsea Piers.

Patti Freeman Evans at LinkShare Symposium 2008

I enjoyed the speakers at the event, which included James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds, and Patti Freeman Evans, Research Director for Jupiter Research.

And it was heartwarming to see the three finalists for LinkShare’s Performance Marketing’s Most Vocal Advocates award get together without any fisticuffs.

Congratulations to Lisa Picarille for winning the big honor.

Performance Marketing's Most Vocal Advocates
Lisa Picarille, Missy Ward, Scott Jangro, and Stephanie Agresta.

Recruiting Niche Affiliates

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Q: Do you know of any affiliate recruiting agencies? We are trying to find a more defined group of search affiliates that will focus on search and apparel.

Shawn CollinsA: I have heard of agencies that offer affiliate recruiting services, but there are none I would recommend.

If I were in your shoes, looking for these niche affiliates, I would do two things:

  1. If you are in an affiliate network, reach our to your representative and ask them to connect you with some of these affiliates.
  2. There are also some tools that can help in identifying prospective affiliates. If you have the budget, try Syntryx. Also, a more modest priced solution is Link Capture.

As you might have found, unless the search affiliates are redirecting traffic through their own domains, it is tough to identify them, but this can give you a start.

Either way, don’t bother with the recruiting services.

LinkShare Golden Link Award Results

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The LinkShare Golden Link Awards took place June 23, 2008 at The Plaza in New York City. The awards honored affiliate marketers in fourteen categories.

Susie Essman, who played Susie Greene on the HBO show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, was the special guest host.

Prior to the awards, Jim Kukral, Lisa Picarille, Sam Harrelson, and I shared our predictions for each category on the weekly GeekCast show.

Below are the picks each of us made, as well as the winners (in yellow).

  • Jim: 8 for 14
  • Lisa: 7 for 14
  • Sam: 9 for 14
  • Shawn: 5 for 14

LinkShare Golden Link Award Results

Congratulations to Lisa Picarille and all of the other winners.

More on the LinkShare Golden Link Awards at http://www.linkshare.com/events/golden_link_awards_2008/.

Online Video Fulfillment

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Q: What is the best way to sell video and not deliver it until it has been purchased? It is not a DVD, but a professionally done training video, and I would like to deliver it online. I don’t understand how to do the whole password thing. What software do I need to pull this off?

A: While there are a number of ways you could pull this off, one way I’ve done it myself to sell electronically delivered products has been to use PayLoadz.com.

With this service, you can upload your video to the site, and after somebody makes the purchase via PayPal, the video file will be made available for download via a link with an expiration date.

This vendor is quick and easy to setup, and it includes affiliate tracking, so you can set up an affiliate program with little extra effort.