Shawn Collins' Blog

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

Archives for June 2010

Split Commissions for Affiliates

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The typical affiliate program pays out commission to the last referrer and nobody else. While this is great for the last site to touch the customer, it doesn’t account for any previous affiliates that played a role in closing the sale.

But what if there were a way to spread the commission across some or all affiliates that played some role in the ultimate transaction?

As far as I know, this hasn’t been an option to date, but that is changing with the launch of a split commissions feature by UK affiliate network MoreNiche on June 14.

MoreNiche will enable merchants to pay on first referrer, last referrer, everyone in the middle or a combination of all three.

Initially, they are rolling out with one merchant, Proactol, who will continue to offer their current commission of 30% for the last referrer, but now they will also offer a bonus £3.50/$5.00 for the first referrer.

More details coming soon at http://www.moreniche.com/.

I wonder if we’ll see this innovation cross the Atlantic sometime soon.

Affiliate Summit unConference Almost Sold Out

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The Affiliate Summit unConference, brought to you by SeaWorld, is taking place Monday, September 27 in Orlando, FL and tickets are almost sold out.

As of June 8, there are just 55 passes remaining.

Event passes are just $10.00 per person and include access to sessions, networking, lunch and coffee breaks.

More details on the unConference, hotel group rate, and more at http://www.affiliatesummit.com/unconference/.

Why Don’t Affiliate Marketers Share Knowledge?

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Q: I have read many articles regarding Affiliate Marketing, but NONE have really answered or refuse to SHARE their knowledge. My question is WHY don’t marketers talk about the “HOW” of affiliate Marketing? They talk about everything else but!

Ask Shawn CollinsA: I guess the problem could be that you’re not looking in the right places. There are a number of recent guides that I read and thought they’d be useful to folks new to affiliate marketing.

Affiliate Jonathan Volk has created a free guide called Affiliate Marketing 101, and another affiliate, Nicholas (NickyCakes) Koscianski created an Affiliate Marketing Newbie Guide.

Both of these are fairly brief and easy to understand guides on getting started in affiliate marketing. And they’re free.

If you’ve got some money to invest in learning materials, check out the ShoeMoney System from affiliate Jeremy Schoemaker.

This is a video training program that walks affiliates through the steps to make money online, based on what Schoemaker did to achieve success.

Also, I have a short overview for affiliate newbies on my blog to get started in the business.

The “HOW” is out there.

Video: Why Don’t Affiliate Marketers Share Knowledge?

Host a Local TweetUp and Benefit Charity

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Jeremy “ShoeMoney” Schoemaker launched a useful service today called tweetUp Theme for anybody looking to run TweetUps and make some money (building a series of TweetUps where people are willing to pay to attend).

The tweetUp Theme is a WordPress theme that enables quick setup for hosting a local TweetUp with a nice list of features and a lower price tag than meetup.com.

It integrates with the Twitter API, so users can register and ReTweet, as well as with the Google Maps API.

And it’s great to see that Jeremy is giving 100% of the proceeds he makes from tweetUp Theme to a charity – the Lincoln City People’s Mission, which he has raised over 30k for in the last year.

Get more details on the tweetUp Theme.

I’m on Team Dell

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I got my first computer back in 1994 – it was an Acer with a 9600 baud modem, if I remember correctly. My next one was a Dell, and I’ve been a fan of the brand ever since.

Unboxed my new Dell Studio XPS 13

So, I was excited to get an invite for an event in Austin at the Dell headquarters next week called Dell CAP Days (Customer Advisory Panel).

The good folks at Dell are flying me out and taking care of the hotel for me. I’ll have an opportunity to get a tour, see some new products, share my feedback on Dell products, and what I think of the brand.

Anyhow, I update laptops and desktops fairly often, and I don’t really know how many I’ve purchased at this point, but I went around my house to see what I’ve got here currently for myself, my wife, and kids.

Updates to the Affiliate Summit laptops before shipping to Vegas

  • Dell Studio XPS 435MT (my current desktop)
  • Dell Studio XPS 1340 (my current laptop)
  • Dell Mini (netbook)
  • Dell Vostro 1400 (previous laptop)
  • Dell Vostro 200 (my wife’s desktop)
  • Dell Latitude D810 (old laptop I gave to my kids)
  • Dell XPS 410 (old desktop I gave to my kids)
  • Dell Dimension 2400 (old desktop I gave to my kids)
  • Dell Inspiron 910 (4 of them for Affiliate Summit session presentations)
  • Dell Inspiron B130 (4 of them for Affiliate Summit registration staff)

After my older Dells have been phased out, I’ve removed the hard drives and sent them on to computer heaven.

Two computers I am retiring

Curbside Computers

I’m anxious to see what new things they have in store because I’m probably due for some upgrades by the end of this year.

Picking Sessions to Attend at Affiliate Summit East 2010

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We receive requests for various types of tracks for sessions every time we collect feedback on Affiliate Summit, and we’ve tinkered with tracks focused on experience level and topic.

But the realization we keep coming to is that the industry is so multi-dimensional that a handful of tracks don’t handle the topics covered.

So, we’ve enhanced the agenda to include the experience level, target audience, and niche/vertical being covered in each breakout session.

Be sure to have a look at this information when deciding which sessions to attend at Affiliate Summit East 2010.

Finding Similar Sites

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I often look for similar sites when I am searching for affiliate programs to promote, so I can get the best commission, and compare other elements of the affiliate programs.

Typically, I use Google to search out sites, but I came across SimilarSites.com, which makes the process more efficient, since it enables me to enter a domain and get results of similar sites.

The queries are not limited to searching the domains themselves. For instance, I searched the URL for the Amazon affiliate program, and the results included CJ.com, ClickBank, LinkShare, eBay Partner Network, AzoogleAds, ShareASale, and Google AdSense.

This could be a good tool for affiliate managers to find similar niche sites, too.

And if you’re using Google Chrome, there is a Similar Sites add-on.

Check out Similar Sites.

Affiliates Prefer Commissions by Direct Deposit

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Affiliates were asked “What is your preferred method of commission payment?” for the latest Affiliate Summit AffStat Report.

It doesn’t come as much of a surprise to me that more than 60% of affiliates prefer to have their commissions delivered via direct deposit. It seems the paper check is on the way to extinction for affiliates.

After all, just as many affiliates (17%) prefer PayPal as those who still like to get checks. I would expect debit cards to be on the rise as affiliate compensation in the coming years.

One option that wasn’t represented that I like with Amazon is store credit. I shop there regularly and enjoy getting my monthly email with a code for credit with Amazon.

Over eleven-hundred and fifty affiliates were surveyed on their methods, preferences, and strategies for the 2010 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report.

More details on AffStat at http://affstat.com/.

Traffic Sources

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Q: What are your main traffic sources?

Shawn CollinsA: My traffic sources won’t reveal any big surprises, as I rely on pretty mainstream sources for my traffic.

For anybody who is not familiar, traffic sources are simply the places that refer traffic to my site.

The traffic I get is organic, for the most part, and here are my primary traffic sources in no particular order:

  • Google
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • StumbleUpon
  • YouTube
  • eZineArticles
  • NetworkedBlogs
  • Yahoo

With the exception of NetworkedBlogs, where I have a premium account, so I can get faster placement of my posts to Facebook, these traffic sources are free.

In my case, it’s really just a matter of churning out content and getting it indexed in various places. With StumbleUpon, I manually submit the content.

No big mysteries or revelations here. Sure, I’ve got lots of others in the long tail, but these are the bigger traffic sources.