Breaking News: Affiliate Convention Los Angeles is coming in December, where Affiliates Always Attend for Free! Yes it’s true!

You really should try to attend this event. Whether you are a company or an affiliate, this will be a great learning and networking experience. I went to the last one in Denver and it was a really great time. I was a presenter on Affiliate Marketing 101 and my sessions we packed to the hilt with hungry-for-knowledge affiliates. And I met a bunch of great people personally afterwards. There were lots of friendly people there to brainstorm with and have little meetings at the event itself. And the parties they had out at night were really fun, with a few suprises. I ran into a bunch of people I knew and met tons of new people, so it was a very successful endeavor to say the least. I highly recommend attending this next one in L.A.

Check out their site to register and learn more: http://www.AffiliateConvention.com

They have lots of great sponsorship opportunities and booth opportunities you can check out. Make sure to be there. There will be tons of great affiliates and companies there to meet with and learn from.

Hi all, I decided to launch a new Twitter account because the url affiliate manage was available. I plan to tweet about the best practices in affiliate management. Do me flavor and follow me here: https://twitter.com/affiliatemanage.

I wanted to let you know about probably the best affiliate software product I have seen developed in a while. Now you can launch your own affiliate network or add an in-house affiliate tracking program to your own site with: HasOffers.com. They have an incredibly robust system, tons of functionality, and the best part is the basic version is free! Click here to check it out.

I’m running their software on a couple of my own sites and it’s working really well. If you are looking to launch your own boutique or niche affiliate network or want to add affiliate tracking to your site, make sure to check them out.

You can also contact HasOffers directly:
Patrick Hearron
AIM: HasoffersPatrick
Email: patrick@adappsolutions.com
Office: 206-508-1318 ext.1010
http://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickhearron

Thank you for your time.

The Murray Newlands Fan Page is a resource for affiliate marketing and social media innovation, as well as a great place to find other people who are doing just what you are- growing an online presence. Beginning this week is the End of Summer, Murray Newlands Facebook Fan Page Competition.
By becoming a Fan at the Murray Newlands Fan Page you will have access to great affiliate and social media information- The MurrayNewlands.com blog, the @MurrayNewlands twitter feed, conference recaps and photos and other resources.

But what about the competition? It’s a way to have fun and grow the community! The two best things about Facebook in the first place. (And you can win $100!)
With that, here is how you enter the End of Summer Murray Newlands Facebook Fan Page Competition.
What: End of Summer, Murray Newlands Facebook Fan Page Competition
Who: You
Where: MurrayNewlands Facebook Fan Page
Why: For that one last bit of creativity at the end of summer! (and to win $100)
How: To with the $100 prize, show how creative you can be at recruiting people to the Murray Newlands Fan Page!

Here is how you enter the Facebook Competition :
1. Become a Fan of the MurrayNewlands Facebook Fan Page and invite ALL your Facebook friends to join.
2. Tweet this message: “I signed up for the @MurrayNewlands Facebook Comp – $100 prize! Sign up @ http://tr.im/wGym Plz RT”
3. Post it to your Facebook Wall.
So how do you win the Facebook Competition?
The Facebook competition winner will be chosen at random on the 30 August 2009 by Murray Newlands. No purchase necessary. Murray Newlands’ decision is final and the rules are by his discretion. You must be able to take payment by paypal.

Anyone that knows me knows that I am a voracious networker and have been so since getting into the Internet marketing industry in late 2001. You don’t get 3000 Plaxo and 1500 LinkedIn connections by sitting on your fanny doing nothing! So, I decided to put together a list of some of the things I like to do to build my social networks and actual generate business and friendships from them.

1. Be Friendly, Out-going, Respond, and Retweet - Social media has forced people to network with each other, but I still don’t see much actual interaction. I mainly see people promoting themselves, which is fine, but doesn’t really build lasting bonds or generate business. Make sure to reply to your connection’s “status updates” and retweet stuff you find interesting. Reach out to your connections and try to find common ground for working together. Try to actually help your connections in some way by possibly connecting them with someone you know or a valuable resource…it goes a long way.

2. Use Ping.fm - I absolutely love Ping.fm for broadcasting my messages out on all my social networks at once. It makes it easy to update your “Status” everywhere in one motion. What I have noticed is an increase in the responses from my connections to the messages I’m broadcasting since using this wonderful tool.

3. TweetDeck – This is a great desktop based application that allows you to really keep on top of your Twitter account and what’s going on. This will allow you to interact and respond more actively, and overall manage your Twitter account better.

4. Invite – you can’t build your network unless you invite anyone and everyone you know to connect with you. Most social networks have an invite from address book feature….use it!

5. Start Your own Social Network – Use Ning.com to set-up your own social network, so you can start conquering the Internet and building your own social network. It’s really cool and easy.

These are but a few ideas for making you more productive with Social Networking. Let me know if you have any questions and I will help you out.

Running an affiliate marketing program for your ecommerce or lead generation website is one of the best ways to increase both your traffic and sales dramatically. Your affiliate program should grow consistenly over time and be part of your overall long-term online marketing strategy. There are a few ways to handle management of your affiliate program, i.e. inhouse management, outsourced affiliate management or no management at all. Of course, having dedicated affiliate managers is the best way to make certain that your affiliates will be well taken care of. However, it’s improtant that you have very competent, proactive people managing your affiliates on a day-to-day basis. Simply approving affiliates and sending a monthly newsletter is not enough to make sure your affiliate program grows to it’s fullest potential. Affiliates need plenty of attention, training and resources to help them do their thing.

Experience Advertising is a leading affiliate management agency or OPM (outsourced program managers). They have several large corporations onboard as cleints and several smaller companies using their services. They manage almost exclusively on the Commission Junction affiliate network. Experience Advertising is run by people that have been in the affiliate marketing space since 2001 and online marketing since 1998. They have an excellent suite of free affiliate tools. They also provide keyword research and unique content to their affiliates free of charge. If you are looking for a really good, affordable affiliate management company then Experience Advertising is the company for you.

Make sure to hire a company that has years of experience and free tools for your affiliates, to give them the best chance at succeeding with your affiliate program. Once you have a robust, gorwing affiliate channel you are on your way to increased traffic and revenue on a performance-basis. Affiliate marketing should definitely be part of your online marketing strategy.

Just got another email from Linkshare peddling ShoeMoney tools! Thought it was funny (but not funny) that they are trying to make money off their affiliates! You know Linkshare is making an affiliate commission on the $79/month price tag (that magic price point charged for supposed Internet stuff). Woopie..you get the first month for $3.95. Most of these tools are available for free from other sources. Affiliates should never have to pay for tools to help them be better affiliate marketers. Linkshare should put together their own suite of tools instead of reselling ShoeMoney’s tools. They must think he’s so great, but I don’t see it. It’s also funny that they are offering the same deal ShoeMoney offers to his newsletter subscribers and for the first 50 that respond…classic cheesy marketing!

Review Writing is one of the aspects of social media, online marketing and affiliate network marketing that I write about at MurrayNewlands.com. Interviews and reviews are both great ways to network and become more active in the online community. Not only is it a great way for me to learn more about what is out there, but I am able to pass on useful information to others, which is another key way to build your online community.

I will examine a recent ClickBooth Review that I wrote as a case study. Before beginning a review, think about two things:

Audience: Who are you writing for? The ClickBooth Review as about the ClickBooth Affiliate Network and my audience was affiliate marketers.

Purpose: Why are you writing the review? The ClickBooth Review was aimed at affiliate marketers looking for quality affiliate networks.

Once you have these figured out, it’s time to focus on what your readers want. The key with content is to give them something of value- My
ClickBooth Review offers affiliate marketers the value of introducing them to a high quality affiliate network, and by writing the review my goal was to bring more of those affiliate marketers into the ClickBooth affiliate network.

So, what are affiliate marketers looking for in an affiliate network review?

1. Trust: The first thing you want to know about a person or an affiliate network is can you trust them? I started my ClickBooth Review by saying that I’ve been involved with them for years- I’m not writing about a new network that I just found. I have been an active affiliate marketer for years and my readers know that I can be trusted to provide a quality affiliate network.

2. Specifics: My ClickBooth Review went into specifics about why ClickBooth is a quality network. One specific that regarding their payouts: “Yesterday they did two great things to put a smile on my face. I received a check for $3000 USD for an affiliate account I had missed! Always great when that happens, that is worth a Clickbooth review in its own right.” Rather than just recommending the ClickBooth network in a general sense, I gave a specific example about why they are a high quality network. Knowing exactly why a quality network is a quality network goes a long way toward substantiating the recommendation.

3. Resources: Affiliate marketers need support resources. In my ClickBooth Review I recommended their blog by Eric Schechter, which is a great, consistent support network. This is important for any affiliate marketer because knowing there is consistently updated information that is part of the network reassures them that the network will be there to support them whenever they have questions.

4. Reasons: Affiliate marketing is a large field with many options- there area few key features of any network that all affiliate marketers will weigh in making their decision. At the end of my ClickBooth Review I listed fast payouts, green affiliate programs and high affiliate payments as good reasons to join the ClickBooth Affiliate Network.

For more information, I recommend reading my ClickBooth Review in full, or visiting my Blog to see more examples of interviews and reviews.

Author Bio: Murray Newlands is a blogger and online marketing expert. www.MurrayNewlands.com is his blog about social media and online marketing, from the affiliate side to the green world. The blog is widely read by bloggers, online marketers, affiliates and people trying to change the world. The blog regularly features interviews with prominent bloggers and reviews of social media apps and affiliate networks.

Find him on Twitter @MurrayNewlands.

Linkshare UK looks like they are doing some really informative stuff to try to help Advertisers get more savvy about facilitating and motivating their affiliates. They are running some live webinars and have some recorded webinars you can check out. They have been good in the past so there is no reason the next one focusing on “How to Run A Publisher-Friendly Program” shoudn’t be quite good. Should be interesting at the very least! I find the Brits to be very advanced with affiliate marketing techniques and management, probably due to the small, focused region everyone operates in. While here in the U.S. everyone is all spread out and most of the networking is done via email, chat and phone. In a smaller region you can really meet up in person and get more accomplished.

That the ’last click wins’ model that affiliate marketing is premised on continues to prevail underlines the inherent problems the industry faces in finding a credible alternative.
 
As affiliate marketing becomes more complex so industry players have been debating whether a multi-attribution model, that is apportioning parts of one overall commission amount to the affiliates involved in that sale, would better reward all touchpoints.
 
In theory this makes this sense. Understand the consumer’s path that leads them to the ‘buy now’ button and reward retrospectively for the multiple marketing efforts that influenced and guided their buying decision.

But delve a little deeper and a multi attribution model throws up more questions and subjective dilemmas than there are answers to.

An advertiser may find that two or three affiliates may be involved in a typical sale. Do you apportion the commission accordingly (by halving or dividing by three in this case) or do you weight it subject to a possibly arbitrary scoring system that attributes a ‘value’ to individual affiliates? What would then be the basis for this system; individual affiliate performance such as new customer acquisition numbers, average basket amounts, frequency of purchase?

From an affiliate’s perspective there are obvious concerns. If you run a cashback, loyalty or reward site and need to publish a commission rate what do you advertise when you don’t potentially know what you’re getting? What about affiliates working in the paid search space who need a guaranteed rate of return so they can account for their click costs and work their campaigns profitably?

By all means try to understand what value your individual affiliates contribute at various stages to your sales but rather than talk about dividing a commission according to an arbitrary click measurement why not just try to appreciate the value of each of your affiliates; both the volume drivers and by affiliate categorisation?

As multi-attribution continues to pose more questions than it answers many advertisers are getting on with the business of running their campaigns. The savvier are taking a step back, understanding the wider picture and apportioning commission rates that reflect the perceived or actual ‘value’ of their different affiliate types.

And ultimately that’s what performance based marketing is all about.

Guest Post by: Kevin Edwards of Affiliate Window.

Since the credit crunch first reared its ugly head, tongues have been wagging around the affiliate world, with one main concern spilling out of people’s minds; was the looming cloud of a recession gilded by the sweetest of silver linings?

With every penny ever more precious, with every cent being counted, would the greater focus by merchants on return from marketing spend see an industry seeing significant year on year growth make the shift to a dominant mainstream channel? Or would overall reduced marketing spend mean affiliates would suffer along with press, radio and TV?

For a while it seemed that affiliates were at least safe, and were at best coasting to a better, and richer, future. As one might expect, merchants were increasingly enticed by the idea of a channel that only pays out on a tangible return. However, overall reduced marketing spend has seen a more significant shift as merchants have shifted focus on other media to CPA and ROI targeted campaigns. Aggregators, PPC and traditional display-based advertising are delivering on CPA and ROI based models that have begun to return lower CPAs than affiliates and higher ROI.

There’s a simple lesson to be learnt from this; it is no longer enough to simply drive sales. Whilst this represents a sea change in thinking for many, for affiliates to capitalise on the current economic condition it is imperative that two things are addressed, and soon:
Quality of traffic
Costing Models

Without a significant increase in the quality of traffic, or the way that traffic is handled, the opportunity that is available to affiliates, that sweet silver lining, is likely to evaporate. By changing the overall perspective of a volume driving channel to one that is linked to profitability, ultimately doors will be opened rather than shut.

This is not to say that fundamental upheaval is necessary. However, publishers need to accept that positioning and potential will need to be increasingly tied to the needs of the merchant rather than CPAs and EPCs as merchants become more educated.

A simple example of this would be loyalty sites, a group that have seen huge successes in recent times, but who have also left a bad taste in merchants’ mouths that have been burnt one too many times. Simply by developing offerings that tie into the LTV of a custome, for example an insurance bounty that only pays out on renewal of a policy they can create a harmonious model that would make significant steps toward realising the huge potential growth for affiliates that is currently available.

The affiliate channel currently sees itself at a fork in the road; partially through its own impressive and intrinsic growth, but also through unforeseen global economic changes. By acting quickly and sagely, it can make the move from being a specialist part of the marketing mix to something that consistently sits at the heart of all merchant’s overall media strategies.

Guest Post by: James Atherton of Vizeum.

There is a big unanswered question in affiliate marketing today – how can we give credit for an online sale in such a way as to reward all of the sites that played a part in it? Surely that would be fair but as yet there is no workable answer.

Imagine I’m buying a Pay As You Go mobile phone. First of all I’ll probably read reviews of two or three new handsets I’ve heard about (for simplicity let’s say I’ve visited one review site, although in reality it may be several), clicking through to retailers and back in the process. Having decided I want the new Nokia I’ll then go to my chosen comparison site to find the best deal on it, before clicking through to the merchant. Wait a minute though, here’s a box in the checkout for a voucher code… I’ll just pop back to Google to find a current code for that merchant, which will involve clicking on the site and hence dropping a voucher code cookie, which will win the commission for the whole sale. Wouldn’t it be great if the merchant could store the three cookies (this is possible) and then automatically split the commission three ways on completion? I guess it would be more popular with the review sites but then they probably work a lot harder to put their content together than the voucher sites anyway.

I’ve deliberately omitted another stage of the buying process here, the cashback or reward site. The problem is they need to know what the CPA is in advance in order to offer it to their members, so it would seem they would need a different set of rules altogether – and they may be the sites who prevent this idea from ever getting off the ground. The other problem with this method if it became the norm is that it’s open to abuse. What’s to stop unscrupulous affiliates linking to merchants using a link that momentarily visits another of their own sites, because if the commission is going to be split they might as well bag another share to make sure?

I don’t know the answer to this big question, but I look forward to the debate.

Guest Blog by: Richard Buckton of Digital TV Advice