Shawn Collins' Blog

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

Archives for July 2013

Affiliate Summit West 2014 Booth and Table Registrations Now Open

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Registration is now open for Affiliate Summit West 2014 Meet Market tables and booths. The conference is taking place January 12-14, 2014 in Las Vegas.

Affiliate Summit West 2012 Exhibit Hall

Details and pricing are available at the Affiliate Summit West 2014 exhibitors page.

Reach the key affiliate marketing players in this landmark event.

Prices go up after September 20, 2013!

The sponsors at Affiliate Summit East 2013 have the first right of refusal on sponsorships for a period of time after Affiliate Summit East 2013 wraps up.

Meet Market and Exhibit Hall maps coming soon. Book a table or booth now – locations will be selected in the order that companies have registered.

Afiliados Brasil Magazine for Affiliate Marketers in Brazil

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There is a new magazine for affiliate marketers called Afiliados Brasil Magazine.

Afiliados Brasil MagazineThis is the first magazine focused on affiliate marketing in Brazil and the content is in Portuguese.

There are both printed and digital versions of Afiliados Brasil Magazine.

The magazine is available online after completing a short registration.

The first issue runs a couple dozen pages and includes an interview with me, as well as a feature on Geno Prussakov.

Interview with Shawn Collins in Afiliados Brasil Magazine

Get more details at AfiliadosBrasilMagazine.com.br.

Social Media Optimizer Tool from KnowEm

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KnowEm, a service that provides a username search for social media, domains, and trademarks, has released a new tool to help companies optimize their sites for social media.

KnowEmThere are lots of ways you can optimize your content and control how people share and interact with your content on social media, but the important thing is that you do it.

In order to optimize your content for social media optimization (SMO), you have to use a bunch of tags.

The whole thing is a bit above my pay grade with Facebook and LinkedIn relying on the Open Graph protocol, Twitter offering Twitter Card meta tags, and Google+ going with semantic microdata markup. In short, there is no standard.

But the KnowEm Social Media Optimizer will help you get closer to SMO goodness by showing what you’ve got right and wrong on your site.

KnowEm SMO Tool

The KnowEm Social Media Optimizer is easy to use: just enter your blog or website URL and they’ll identify some of the more important markup tags the big social networks want to see and they will let you know how you score on them.

They also try to give you a rough approximation of what content users will see when they share your page on places like Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

After I ran my blog through the tool. I learned that I am sort of optimized for Facebook and LinkedIn, not at all for Twitter, and set up well for Google+.

Time to fix some stuff!

Infographic on the History of Affiliate Marketing

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Shoeboxed.com has produced an interesting infographic on the history of affiliate marketing.

shoeboxed_affiliate_infographic

One item jumps out at me, and that’s “The Beginning” being 1989 with PC Flowers & Gifts running the first affiliate program on the Prodigy Network in 1989.

This is the first I’ve heard of the company getting credit, and especially that early.

Back in 2000, I was on a mission to find the origins of affiliate marketing for an article in ClickZ (History of Affiliate Marketing), and everything seemed to point to the adult space as affiliate marketing pioneers.

And as I detailed in my book, Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants, CDNow was the first to launch what we know today as a mainstream affiliate program back in November 1994

I’d love hear more about this PC Flowers & Gifts program if anybody has more details.

Free Networking Plus Pass to Affiliate Summit East 2013

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Affiliate Summit East 2013, taking place August 18-20, 2013, is less than two months away. As we’ve done in the past, we’ll be giving away free Networking Plus passes to the conference.

Free Passes to Affiliate Summit East 2013Entries for the Affiliate Summit East 2013 Ticket Contest can be made by submitting your name and email.

There is an option for additional entries by referring your friends and spreading the word on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

There will be fifty Networking Plus passes to Affiliate Summit East 2013 given away, each valued at $549 per pass. Winners will be notified in the coming weeks.

Some details on the Affiliate Summit East 2013 Ticket Contest:

  • Prize Eligibility: Only persons residing in United States who are at least 21 years of age can enter.
  • Sweepstakes Starts: July 2, 2013 @ 12:00 pm (PDT)
  • Sweepstakes Ends: July 16, 2013 @ 11:59 pm (PDT)

The passes cannot be transferred, and the pass codes can no longer be redeemed in the event the conference sells out.

Also, anybody registering for a complimentary pass who neither checks in at the conference nor cancels will be ineligible for future complimentary passes.

Enter the Affiliate Summit East 2013 Ticket Contest.

M-Commerce: The Complete Picture, Third Edition

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Affiliate Window has released the third edition of their m-commerce white paper, M-Commerce: The Complete Picture.

mobile marketingBack in 2011, Affiliate Window started a project to better understand the opportunities in mobile withing affiliate marketing.

At the time, just over one percent of their sales were through mobile. In June 2012, the network reported that nearly 8% of sales for their clients came through mobile.

Currently, 18% of sales via Affiliate Window are now delivered through mobile handset and tablet devices.

Some key points covered in the report are…

  • Mobile growth trends
  • A round up of mobile statistics across the network
  • The growth of Android vs. iPhone
  • Advertiser and publisher case studies
  • The role mobile plays over holiday periods
  • Mobile tracking
  • Publisher opportunities

White paper: M-Commerce: The Complete Picture, Third Edition

Submit Your Affiliate Summit West 2014 Speaking Proposal

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Speaking proposals for Affiliate Summit West 2014, taking place January 12-14, 2014 in Las Vegas, are now being accepted.

Affiliate Summit West 2013 Sunday Sessions

The submission deadline is August 30, 2013. Any submissions after this date will not be considered.

Accepted speakers will be notified no later than September 20, 2013. If you have not been contacted by September 20, 2013, your proposal was not accepted.

Submit your speaking proposal for Affiliate Summit West 2014.

Affiliate Marketers with Children in 2013

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Affiliates were asked “Do you have any children?” for the 2013 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report.

The results broke out as 43.5% no and 56.5% yes.

AffStat 2013 children

When the same question was asked last year for the AffStat report, the results were 39.2% no and 60.8% yes.

More than sixteen-hundred affiliates were surveyed on their methods, preferences, and strategies for the 2013 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report.

More details on AffStat at AffStat.com.