Affiliate marketing and other stuff from Shawn Collins, co-founder of Affiliate Summit.
Affiliate Summit East 2010 is taking place August 15-17, 2010 in New York City. We’ll be returning to the Hilton New York.
This will be the 15th Affiliate Summit and it is expected to be the largest east Affiliate Summit to date.
More details to come shortly. Registration will open in January 2010.
See http://www.affiliatesummit.com/about/ for the history and growth of the premier affiliate marketing conference.
ShareASale has set up a simple form where affiliates can anonymously submit things that need fixing on ShareASale.
The feedback goes straight to Brian Littleton, President and CEO of ShareASale.
Share your feedback for changes and improvements to ShareASale at http://www.shareasale.com/fixit/.
Some of the fixes will be posted to the ShareASale blog, as well as their Twitter account.
The eighth issue of FeedFront Magazine is out and landing in mail boxes right now, so we’re on to issue 9.
The next issue of FeedFront will be coming out in January 2010, and the deadline for articles for issue 9 of FeedFront is November 23, 2009.
If you are interested in writing an article, go to the FeedFront proposal form to submit a one sentence summary on what you’d like to cover.
Articles are a maximum of 500 words – no exceptions. Anything longer will not be considered.
Do not submit a complete article – just a one sentence summary.
Seeds to Stalks: Cultivating your Affiliate Program presentation from Affiliate Summit East 2006, which took place July 9-11, 2006 in Orlando, FL.
The vast majority of us do not manage affiliate programs for multi-billion dollar companies. Our monthly advertising budgets might, in a good month, break into four digits.
We know the names of way too many of our affiliates and how much they made last month without having to look it up. We walk to a co-worker’s office to ask a question because we can.
With careful management and organization we still successfully compete on the highest level with Household Name Companies for the attention of affiliates; and they love us.
The basic principle for running a small affiliate program is controlling only what you can and ignoring the rest. You can control your conversion rates, your payouts, where you find affiliates and how they feel about you–so control the heck out of them.
From October 2005 through March 2006 we have been (are) running six simultaneous studies to answer six questions that are key to not only our company but any other small/medium sized affiliate program.
We have a 1200 member in-house affiliate program that we’ve been developing since 2003. The leads they provide supply about 20% of the leads we process.
Note: the companies and positions listed above were current as of the time of the conference. Some of this information may have changed since then.
Co-Opetition, Comparison Sites and Conversion: Lessons Learned From The Adult Online Playbook presentation from Affiliate Summit East 2006, which took place July 9-11, 2006 in Orlando, FL.
98% of people who visit your site do NOT buy from you! Let them go? Hell No!
Co-opetition is a strategy derived from an adult industry practice of leading non-buying visitors to competitor’s offers and profiting in the process.
This session will explore how brands, merchants and affiliates can effectively use online co-opetition strategies to improve their edge over their competition, get paid for doing market and optimization research and lead to additional revenue generating opportunities.
The second half of the session will explore the Comparison Site Strategy in which a merchant or affiliate employs a “ranking and rating” Web site to dramatically improve PPC and organic search campaign conversion percentages.
First used in online adult affiliate circles, merchants and affiliates in almost any niche can benefit from using a Comparison Site model to entice users to convert to customers with fantastic success.
WARNING: Prolonged use of these high level strategies will lead to intense profits.
Note: the companies and positions listed above were current as of the time of the conference. Some of this information may have changed since then.
The eighth issue of FeedFront, the official magazine of Affiliate Summit, is at the printer and it will be hitting mailboxes in early October 2009.
Issue eight of FeedFront will also be distributed at ad:tech New York, Blog World Expo, and PubCon.
This issue of FeedFront Magazine includes a recap of Affiliate Summit East 2009, as well as articles on auditing affiliate programs, productivity, pro digital video camera formats, PPC, email, advertising tax, and the death of an affiliate network.
Plus, interviews with Loren Feldman of 1938 Media and Joel Bauer from the “Your Business Card is CRAP” video.
Issue 8 of FeedFront can now be viewed online, downloaded, and printed from Scribd.
Get the FeedFront RSS if you’d like to get all of the articles as they are published to the feed.
If you haven’t subscribed, you can get the magazine for free at http://feedfront.com/free-subscription/.
Also, become a fan of FeedFront on Facebook to see past issues, covers, etc.
Benchmarking presentation from Affiliate Summit East 2006, which took place July 9-11, 2006 in Orlando, FL.
Advertisers are always asking how their program is doing relative others and we know that affiliates compare programs with other advertisers. “How can we benchmark our progress” is a very common phrase uttered by marketers.
Performics is currently compiling research and metrics that will truly enable advertisers and affiliates to conduct critical “benchMarketing” or better marketing through benchmarking.
Chris will present data, case studies and best practices around how merchants can and should benchmark their programs.
Note: the companies and positions listed above were current as of the time of the conference. Some of this information may have changed since then.
Benefits and Liabilities of Coupon Affiliates panel from Affiliate Summit East 2006, which took place July 9-11, 2006 in Orlando, FL.
This is a moderated debate on the pros and cons of coupon affiliates for an affiliate program.
Note: the companies and positions listed above were current as of the time of the conference. Some of this information may have changed since then.
Building a Multi-Brand Niche Affiliate Program presentation from Affiliate Summit East 2006, which took place July 9-11, 2006 in Orlando, FL.
Science Kit, a 50 year old catalog company was running a niche affiliate program for their Edmund Scientifics brand (science and hobby products) on one of the major affiliate networks, but they wanted more.
They have a number of other niche sites in the science, education and hobby arena and in 2005 they predicted that if they could expand their product offering through affiliates to include more of their sites, they could not only grow their original Scientifics affiliate program, but also boost sales for their other sites as well.
The problem: not all of the sites have enough volume to warrant individual affiliate programs, in terms of technology or management.
The solution: Science Kit, who was already partnered with affiliate management agency Converseon, decided to move away from the network and build an in-house program where all of their brands could live together in a “mini-network,” the Science and Education Affiliate Network (SEAN).
Converseon transitioned the Edmund Scientifics program onto a platform that they customized for Science Kit and SEAN, and brought four (soon to be five) niche sites together with one login for affiliates. From SEAN, affiliates can promote a wide variety of products across all of the Science Kit sites from one place, through banners, text links, data feeds and PPC marketing. Costs for managing the SEAN program are now shared across all of the participating Science Kit sites, which enables great flexibility with regards to affiliate commissions, bonuses, and incentives.
The program was fully launched with four sites in November 2005. Sales for November were up 100% from the previous year, and December was up 356%; January continued the trend with 421% growth. Affiliates love the new program: the wide variety of products available, the tools and creative, the exceptional customer service, and the enhanced commissions levels and bonus programs.
This case study will provide solid examples of what to do (and what not to do) when promoting a niche program and building a multi-brand program, including all of the affiliate tools and resources used for SEAN, recruiting tips, communications materials, and stats and conversion rates.
Note: the companies and positions listed above were current as of the time of the conference. Some of this information may have changed since then.
Introduction to Affiliate Marketing for Merchants panel from Affiliate Summit East 2006, which took place July 9-11, 2006 in Orlando, FL.
Note: the companies and positions listed above were current as of the time of the conference. Some of this information may have changed since then.