Shawn Collins' Blog

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

Archives for July 2011

Profitable Performance Marketing: More Money for You

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The Profitable Performance Marketing: More Money for You panel from Affiliate Summit East 2009, which took place August 9-11, 2009 in New York, NY.

Speaker:

  • Lisa Riolo, Consultant, LisaRiolo.com (Moderator)
  • Jason Oates, VP Media Services, Datran Media
  • Durk Price, President, eAccountableOPM
  • Chuck Hamrick, Affiliate Manager, AffiliateCrew

Presenting actionable items for 7 main topics, including social media, negotiating, points of sale opportunities, content that pulls, partnerships, prioritization, and the expense of inefficiency.

More details on Affiliate Summit at http://www.affiliatesummit.com/

Note: the company(ies) and position(s) listed above were current as of the time of the conference. Some of this information may have changed since then.

Video: Profitable Performance Marketing: More Money for You

If you liked this video, be sure to register for the next Affiliate Summit. The session videos aren’t made public until a year or more after each conference.

What Should We Do to Wrap Up Affiliate Summit East 2011?

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We had to juggle the agenda for Affiliate Summit East 2011, due to a keynote speaker being unable to make it, and now we’ve got some open time.

Let's Make Some LemonadeThe time slot from 3:30 to 4:30 on Tuesday, August 23, 2011 is open and we need your help to take this lemon and make some lemonade.

What would you like to see for the closing session at Affiliate Summit?

Some ideas we were throwing around…

  • Moderated panel that is a speed round with panelist having short, timed segments to share opinions on industry issues
  • Cocktail hour
  • Keynote tryouts where anybody can sign up for a five minute spot to speak for a chance as a keynote next January in Las Vegas

Got something better? We’re all ears. Share your feedback on the Affiliate Summit blog.

Becoming a Full-Time Affiliate Marketer

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Q: Shawn, I would first like to thank you for you willingness to share your experience and success, it’s much appreciated. You mentioned not to proceed with your Extra Money Answer blog if you’re looking to get rich, I get that, but I’m looking to reach the point where I can reduce myself to one job (short to medium term) and potentially see affiliate marketing as a full time business some day. Is that feasable? Or should I only expect to make an extra $50-$100 or so a month? I realize I have to put in the time and effort (your information is a great help).

Shawn CollinsA: There are quite a few people who are making their livelihood through affiliate marketing.

However, most people are not at that level, so I created Extra Money Answer to provide a realistic expectation of the potential for an affiliate marketer.

Most affiliates are making $25, $50 or $100 a month… if they’re making anything at all.

The possibility to support yourself with affiliate marketing as a career is out there, but don’t expect it to happen quick or easy.

I would suggest the path I took where I worked for many years at a full-time job and did my affiliate stuff on the side.

This was in addition to a number of other part-time jobs, including freelance Web design, managing some sites for companies, weekend editor of the sports section for NJ.com, etc. to supplement my income.

Eventually, I was able to grow the affiliate marketing activity to be a job by itself.

Video: Becoming a Full-Time Affiliate Marketer

5 Things That Really Matter in SEO

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Paul O’Brien of SEO’Brien.com spoke on “5 Things That Really Matter in SEO” at the Affiliate Summit Austin Meetup on July 26, 2011.

Affiliate Summit Austin Meetup July 2011

Paul discussed things such as how URLs matter, content is king, and the importance of links.

Plus, he did some live site reviews for folks in attendance.

Paul’s bio:

Paul runs marketing organizations for startups as SEO’Brien. Paul worked at Yahoo in the late nineties through 00s for about 5 years. Initially in Yahoo Shopping / Store, onboarding eCommerce companies, Paul shifted to advertising programs across the Yahoo properties after their acquisition of Overture. Left Yahoo to run online marketing for HP’s eCommerce business hpshopping.com. There, implemented HP’s search engine optimization program and rearchitected the shopping platform resulting in double digit organic growth of in a matter of months. More than SEO, Paul there ran a $15MM search marketing budget, affiliate program, email, etc. He joined local search engine Zvents.com to architect the optimization of their search platform and run marketing (You’d know zvents.com as Austin 360’s events calendar). Today, most event listings in Google are from sites on the Zvents’ platform; Paul led the adoption of their platform by over 400 local media properties, each indexed by Google. Leaving Zvents, Paul led marketing for Outright.com and there, developed a community platform to drive user generated content, social marketing, etc. on behalf of their accounting platform. Through both startups, Paul drove investments from Vantage Point Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, First Round Capital, and Nokia. For much of the past year, Paul has been working as a fractional CMO for startups including FoxTranslate, IP Commerce, and Fliptop.

Follow Paul on Twitter at @seobrien

Presentation: 5 Things That Really Matter in SEO

See affiliatesummit.com/meetups for details on future Affiliate Summit Meetups.

Sweet Branding

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I recently got a neat sample from Deb Carney (Team Loxly Affiliate Management) from her client, Giftmoto, who make personalized gifts and themed party favors.

Partybeans

Giftmoto doesn’t have any minimums and they do nice work with the customization, as you can see above with the Affiliate Summit East 2011 jar of jelly beans.

The custom jars can be ordered empty, as well as with Jelly Belly Beans, M&Ms, or mints.

These would be neat to customize and send as follow-ups with people you meet at conferences. Hmmm, I might do that after Affiliate Summit.

Do People Remember Your Company?

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It’s essential to stand out with your audience, and I’ve seen a lot of creative ways that companies have done it over the years at Affiliate Summit.

One of my favorites is from AKMG with their custom skate decks that they’ve given out at Affiliate Summit.

AKMG Skate Decks

Affiliate marketers clamor for the skate decks at the shows and I’ve seen some share pictures of the decks hanging in their offices.

What a great way to stay top of minds with the people that matter to your company!

Speaking of AKMG, Kimberlee White, President and Co-Founder of AKMG, will be on a panel at Affiliate Summit East 2011 called Do-Not-Track? Not-So-Fast.

Here is the session description: In the name of privacy, proposed laws will diminish users’ Internet experience, and devastate online advertising all at once. Learn how to rally, educate and fight this misguided effort.

Bullet-Proofing Your Affiliate Agreement

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The Bullet-Proofing Your Affiliate Agreement presentation from Affiliate Summit East 2009, which took place August 9-11, 2009 in New York, NY.

Speaker:

  • Pete Wellborn, Founding Member, Wellborn, Wallace & Woodard

Avoid catastrophe and build in great offensive weapons and defensive shields by a carefully-crafted affiliate agreement. Bear in mind that most lawyers do not understand this specialized field.

Slides from this session are available at http://www.slideshare.net/affsum/bullet-proofing-your-affiliate-agreement-pete-wellborn

More details on Affiliate Summit at http://www.affiliatesummit.com/

Note: the company(ies) and position(s) listed above were current as of the time of the conference. Some of this information may have changed since then.

Video: Bullet-Proofing Your Affiliate Agreement

If you liked this video, be sure to register for the next Affiliate Summit. The session videos aren’t made public until a year or more after each conference.

Interactive Schedule Tool Available for Affiliate Summit East 2011

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The interactive schedule tool for attendees of Affiliate Summit East 2011 is now available at http://ase11.sched.org/.

Shawn Collins Interactive Schedule for Affiliate Summit East 2011

Attendees will now be able view detailed agenda information by the type of pass they have registered for and create a customized schedule based on the events they would like to attend.

The schedules can be accessed via a mobile-formatted version for iPhones, Blackberry, Nokia, and Android phones, downloaded to iCal, and added to Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook.

Additionally, users can coordinate schedules with friends and view popular sessions.

To use the basic functionality of the scheduling tool, simply:

  1. Visit the Affiliate Summit Schedule tool at http://ase11.sched.org/.
  2. Sign in with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or create an account.
  3. In the “Audience” drop down tool, select the pass type that you have registered for (See below). The events that you can attend will be displayed based on your pass type.
  4. Select the events that you would like to attend.
  5. Once finished, you may display your customized schedule and print.

Affiliate Summit East 2011 interactive schedule

There are additional features that you may wish to explore including connecting your account to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn; viewing schedules of attendees who have opted to share them; viewing popular sessions, etc.

buy.at Reduces Payment Cycle for Affiliates

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buy.at has announced that they’ve reduced their payment cycle from 60 to 30 days for all approved transactions to affiliates.

Time is money

So buy.at affiliates will likely see a higher commission payment at the end of this month, as it represents earnings for both May and June, rather than just May.

More details at http://blog.buy.at/reduced-payment-cycles-for-buy-at-affiliates/.