Shawn Collins' Blog

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

Archives for December 2009

Pinnacle Awards Finalists at Affiliate Summit West 2010

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The fourth annual Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards will be presented on Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at Affiliate Summit West 2010, taking place at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

The Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards are affiliate marketing’s most prestigious, competitive honor for the leaders in the space. Award winners are recognized because they are innovative leaders with vision and influence.

Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards

Here are the finalists for the Pinnacle Awards at Affiliate Summit West 2010:

Affiliate of the Year

  • Nicholas Koscianski
  • Eric Nagel
  • Kim Rowley

Affiliate Manager of the Year

  • Jamie Birch
  • Stephanie Harris
  • Matt McWilliams

Exceptional Merchant

  • Amazon.com
  • BowlingShirt.com
  • eBay Partner Network

Affiliate Marketing Advocate

  • Angel Djambazov
  • Karen Garcia
  • Rebecca Madigan

Best Blogger

  • Murray Newlands
  • Geno Prussakov
  • Jeremy Schoemaker

Affiliate Marketing Legend

  • Scott Jangro
  • Heather Paulson
  • Brad Waller

The Pinnacle Awards are open to all attendees of Affiliate Summit West 2010.

Video: Affiliate Summit West 2009 Pinnacle Awards

Origins of Affiliate Summit

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I was interviewed recently by longtime affiliate and friend, James Martell, and we chatted about the origins of Affiliate Summit for his Coffee Talk podcast.

We also talked about the early days of affiliate marketing, and how each of us found our way into the industry.

James Martell and Shawn Collins

Additionally, we covered what is in store for attendees at Affiliate Summit West 2010.

James has created videos of many of the past Affiliate Summits – check out the video recap of Affiliate Summit 2004, which took place on a cruise ship from New York City to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Listen to the podcast at jamesmartell.com/industry-events/shawn-collins-affiliate-summit.

Inside the ShoeMoney Copyright Lawsuit

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Earlier this week, Jeremy “ShoeMoney” Schoemaker filed suit against David Sullivan/Big Blue Dots for copyright infringement and other “causes of action”. According to the complaint, the defendent used Schoemaker’s “Adsense check for 132,994.97” copyrighted photo without permission for commercial gain.

ShoeMoney and the Google AdSense Check

I was curious about how this suit came to be and asked Jeremy some questions about it. Here is a short interview with him about the lawsuit…

Shawn: How did you come across the David Sullivan and his use of your picture?

Jeremy: We were notified via our contact form on the blog and email by several people who saw the ad.

Shawn: Did David Sullivan ever contact you to request permission to use the picture?

Jeremy: No

Shawn: Do you know if the FTC is pursuing David Sullivan for the way he went about his business?

Jeremy: I do not know if the FTC is currently pursuing him.

Shawn: Do you hope to set a precedent with this case to empower others who have experienced the same thing?

Jeremy: I hope to encourage any company to protect their copyrights and trademarks. I have spent 6+ years building a brand that is well trusted in the space of making money on the internet legitimately. When someone like David Sullivan uses my face with malice and forthought to promote his fake news website that leads to Google Scams… that keeps me up at night.

Shawn: Is Google pursuing David Sullivan with their lawsuit against Google scammers?

Jeremy: I have no knowledge of Google pursuing David currently.

Thanks for your time, Jeremy.

Read the court documents from Case No. 8:09cv441 – Jeremy Schoemaker vs. David Sullivan d/b/a Big Blue Dots

Affiliate Quotas

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Q: What constitutes a healthy composition of an affiliate workforce (i.e. percentage of search affiliates, percentage of email marketers, percentage of Web site publishers)?

Shawn CollinsA: In my opinion, such a thing does not exist. I think it would be silly to base the affiliate recruitment in your affiliate program on any sort of quotas.

You would be limiting the affiliate program by doing this sort of thing.

The healthy composition of affiliates in your affiliate program is whichever breakdown of affiliate types enables you to have the most active and productive affiliates.

Obsessing about having 20% of one type of affiliate and 20% of another type of affiliate won’t accomplish anything for you.

Certain affiliate programs tend to attract specific types of affiliates, based on the products and services available through them.

So focus on the types of affiliates that are performing well for you now and try to recruit more in that area.

Anne Kadet Knows the PS3 Like She Knows Affiliate Marketing

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I was just reading A Grinch’s Gift Guide on Yahoo! Finance, and I was surprised by the odd advice given for not buying a PS3.

Anne Kadet

Sony PlayStation 3
It’s all fun and games until the rechargeable battery dies. Unlike its competitors, which use replaceable AA batteries, the PS3’s remote control is screwed shut. When the battery goes, Sony customers have to blow $55 on a new controller. Sony says there’s an “environmental benefit” since gamers don’t have to toss their batteries on a regular basis, but Isidor Buchmann, president of battery-equipment maker Cadex Electronics, says captive batteries are becoming common because it’s cheaper for companies to eliminate the battery housing and hatch.

That’s a pretty ridiculous argument, since it’s rechargeable, and the controller would likely last years. I think the console itself is likely to be obsolete before the controller stops taking a charge. The same “argument” could be made against the iPod and any other number of devices.

And there is no need to continually replace disposable batteries.

I was using the throw away batteries for a while on my Wii, and then I finally picked up add-ons to the controller to recharge them. I would have preferred if the Wii just came with rechargeable batteries.

Anyhow, after reading the article, I noticed the author was Anne Kadet, and the name sounded familiar.

Then, I remembered Anne Kadet was the same person that covered the Jason Calacanis keynote at Affiliate Summit a couple years back, and wrote up a confused rant that reeked of yellow journalism.

Video: Anne Kadet

Affiliate Traffic from PPC to Merchants

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Q: I recently viewed your clip / critique of the Affiliate Millions book by Anthony Borelli. I am about halfway through this book. As you know, the premise of the book is for the affiliate to have the ability to “cut to the chase” so to speak by allowing the customer to link directly to a vendor and thus sell via search engine. What is your opinion of this practice? Is “search marketing” currently an integral part of your overall strategy?

Shawn CollinsA: Just to give a little perspective and frame the matter a bit, I reviewed Affiliate Millions back in 2007, and I didn’t have a lot of positive things to say about it.

To be honest, I was disappointed in the book. While the book promises the reader they can “Make a Fortune Using Search Marketing on Google and Beyond,” the approach was elementary. Not the sort of level that’s going to bring somebody their affiliate millions.

The premise of the book is that affiliates can use paid search to drive traffic through affiliate links. Not really a novel concept for experienced affiliates.

I mentioned in my original review of the book that there are pitfalls with this approach, such as trademark violations when using product names in paid search copy, as well as the terms and conditions of affiliate programs, some of which forbid this practice.

In my opinion, affiliates that link directly to merchants from paid search aren’t really bringing any value to the table. But rather, they are insinuating themselves into a process that is already underway.

You could do it through long-tail keywords, but that’s not really the path to millions. The way to make money quickly is what many affiliate programs forbid – using their branded terms to grab the targeted traffic and slap some affiliate tracking on it.

Personally, I don’t do this sort of thing – I funnel my paid and organic traffic to my sites and work to pre-sell from there. In other words, I work to bring value to the consumer, rather than just riding on their back.

Breaking in as a Gambling Affiliate

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Q: What would be the single, most important thing for me to be successful in the poker/casino affiliate market?

A: I will have to give you some general advice, because I am not particularly familiar with the gaming affiliate area.

I know it’s a hyper-competitive segment, so you’ll have to be really aggressive.

Also, you need to know your “product” – if you’re promoting it, I’d say you should be a consumer of it when possible.

You need to know your market, and which players are the best to promote. So participate in forums and read blogs for the vertical and test offers for the leaders in the space.

Video: Breaking in as a Gambling Affiliate

Shawn Collins on Affiliate Video

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I was interviewed recently by Grant Crowell for ReelSEO on “Online Video in Affiliate Marketing – The Vast, Untapped Domain?”.

In the interview, we discussed opportunities for affiliate marketers in video, how video is being used by affiliates, as well as mistakes, challenges, and legal issues with video.

Shawn Collins on YouTube

We also talked about how I got into video myself. It’s been three years since I shot and edited my first video and put it up on YouTube.

Back in late 2006, I decided I wanted to learn how to edit video, so I forced myself. (You can watch it below.) When I wrote the copy for my business Christmas cards, I included a note for people to go to a link to see a special video message. That gave me about a week to figure out video and get a video posted to put on that page. I ended up purchasing Sony Vegas video editing software for the PC and having a completed video inside of a couple hours – just from looking at a couple tutorials. Also, whenever I’ve gotten stuck, I’ve found that there are tons of videos on YouTube on how to do things with video editing software.

You can see my hundreds of videos related to affiliate marketing at youtube.com/affiliatetip.