Tim Storm - Affiliate Legend

Congratulations to Tim Storm of Fat Wallet for winning this year's Affiliate Marketing Legend award. I'm proud to say I've known Tim for several years and it is well deserved.

Affiliate Summit Orlando - Live Report

The summer version of Affiliate Summit is supposed to be the "slower" of the 2 events put on by Shawn Collins and Missy Ward, but this event is showing no signs of slowing down. The hotel lobby and bar were buzzing, and I have to imagine just about anyone who reads this blog is down here at the event.

The Partner Maker hosted a casual get together in the hotel last night that provided a good opportunity to catch up with some old industry friends and meet some new ones.

Former NY Yankee pitcher Jim Bouton is just wrapping up his keynote speach, and while he might not know anything about affiliate marketing, he knows a lot about life and was able to remind us of a couple of key lessons. First and foremost you have to "love the process". No matter how much success you have you are always going to have some failures, but if you love the process of what you do you'll have a much greater chance of success and happiness. The second lesson came from his telling of his story of making a comeback to the major leagues after an 8 year absence from the game. That lesson was persistence, and it reminded me that many times it takes more than one attempt to reach the goal you're after.

The Strange Things You Can Buy Online

With the amount of time I've spent online over the past 10 or so years nothing should surprise me, but I was on the homepage of Costco the other day and something caught my eye at the top of the page. Nestled between tabs that will take you "Food and Wine" and "Furniture" is a tab that reads "Funeral". Yes my friends, you can purchase a casket or urn online at Costco and have it delivered.



Is there actually a demand for this? If a loved one passes away, are you looking online to save a few bucks? What happens if there's a problem with shipping and your casket doesn't get there in time - are you delaying the funeral services? Of course you could always be pre-planning your funeral and could choose to store it in your basement until you're "ready".

I think the most unusual thing that I've purchased online myself is about 1,000 gallons of oil fuel for my house. It was actually pretty simple through a site called PriceEnergy and ended up saving me a couple hundred bucks this year.

My top 5 list of other unusual items you can purchase (in no particular order)

1. Turducken
2. Stuffed Pet Urn
3. Guillotine
4. USB Barbie
5. Owl Puke

Commission Junction Network "Expanding"?

CJ posted a notice on the merchant interface yesterday that I found rather curious:

"In an effort to better serve our clients, Commission Junction will soon be expanding our network to allow publishers from some additional countries to join. The activation of these additional countries will help us provide a truly global network and present new opportunities for advertisers to maximize their international presence. China will be the first new country, becoming active on May 22, 2006."

A few things strike me as unusual:

1. China used to be a country listed on the application page, in fact I found several sites from China in the various programs we manage dating back to 2002.
2. CJ has always had the biggest and best platform for international affiliates and merchants. They have the ability to display reports in native currencies and pay affiliates in their native currency. What they're calling "global expansion" has been in place for years.
3. CJ currently suports 203 countries. If you are one of the 45 residents of the Pitcairn Islands you can apply to be a CJ publisher. Just how many countries are left to conquer?

Did Commission Junction see large amounts of fraudulent transactions from certain countries and decide to block all affiliates coming in from those countries? Now that those countries are being let back in slowly they could have said "Hey, we're letting all the bad guys back in", or "We tossed the baby out with the bath water when we blocked ALL affiliates from these countries", but they're putting a friendlier spin on it. I'm actually surprised they made any statement at all - they didn't notify merchants when they removed certain countries off of the application.

Personally I would rather be the one that decides who I want to work with rather than having the network choose for me, so I think its a good thing that they are not blocking affiliates from specific countries. Word of warning - if you are running an affiliate program with limited or no resources and don't know who your affiliate partners are this change could effect you in a bad way. Our agency is constantly reviewing which affilaites are driving orders and if we don't already know who they are we make it our business to learn. If the affiliate is unresponsive to our emails, we may become suspicious and watch future orders more closely.

MSN AdCenter RoadShow Hits NYC

I had the pleasure of attending MSN's AdCenter RoadShow today at the Helmsley Hotel in NY City. About 50 search engine marketers, mostly from agencies attended this 3 hour training and informational seminar. One interesting thing for me was their vision on how they plan to integrate all of their advertising products within the AdCenter. They hinted at the possibility that you could eventually purchase all of your advertising on MSN through the AdCenter in a self serve environment. Building on Steve Ballmer's recent announcement that Microsoft will be spending more than $1 Billion on research and development, MSN is clearly out to be a serious player not only in search but in all online advertising. There are clearly some issues and bugs that need to be worked out with AdCenter before it can really compete, but it looks like they've got a good start.

Warner Bros. Partners with 180solutions for Deception

According to today's Media Post online, media giant Warner Brothers has been working with controversial adware company 180 Solutions to distribute their online soap opera "Deception". Can anyone think of a more appropriate title for 180 to be featuring? The full article can be found here:

http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=43217&Nid=20252&p=354327

Web 2.0 and Affiliate Marketing

Beth Kirsch, Director of Online Marketing for Lower My Bills recently wrote about Web 2.0 and Affiliate Marketing on Revenews. There has been some debate over how much affiliates can utilize 2.0 technologies to drive sales for merchants through RSS, Podcasts and blogs, but I think the power behind web 2.0 is much greater than just these 3 technologies.

First we need to start with just what the heck is web 2.0? The best source for 2.0 information seems to come from it's "creator" Tim O'Reilly. According to this article written in September of 2005 the concept of web 2.0 began as a brainstorming session that O'Reilly was part of.

What 2.0 represents to me is a new way of thinking and a new way of doing business. This chart that O'Reilly came up summarizes this new way of thinking pretty well :





So what does all this have to do with Affiliates? If you ask me, affiliates have been living the 2.0 life since the days of 1.0. They understood that it didn't take millions of dollars in Super Bowl ads to generate sales for the merchants they promoted. Affiliates had to get creative in the way they utilize technology to build, manage, and market sites. They were among the first to jump into the paid search arena when GoTo.com launched back in 1997, mainly because it delivered the best ROI. Web 2.0 companies are based on a foundation of simplicity and functionality rather than smoke, mirrors, and oodles of VC cash.

One of the most compelling aspects of web 2.0 is the idea of web services and API's. We're clearly moving towards a more collaborative tech environment and its changing the way we do business. Companies like SalesForce.com have developed an open platform that allows anyone to build a piece of technology that easily can plug into their system. Skype already has dozens of applications that offer additional functionality they didn't think of or have time to develop. It's a shame that the larger affiliate networks haven't grasped this concept and opened up their back end to let creative people build applications around their technology. Smaller affiliate companies like DirectTrack and MyAffiliateProgram have this functionality and I think it has fantastic potential. It's no surprise to me that 2 of the largest and most successful affiliate programs of all time Amazon and Ebay have each launched very successful web services platforms for affiliates.

In the coming weeks I plan to talk about some of the more intriguing technologies that the web 2.0 generation has to offer. Be sure to subscribe above to be notified of updates.

NETexponent - We're hiring again

My company is looking for talented folks to work in our growing media department. Job description can be found here. You'd get to work on great brands in a fun team environment. Send an email to Jobs@NETexponent.com with the subject line "Media Manager" if interested.

Score One For The Good Guys

I've been a big fan of AlexsCoupons.com since I first met creator Todd Martini at last year's CJU conference in Santa Barbara. I've worked with hundreds of coupon sites over the past several years but there's something different about this site that is obvious once you know the story behind the website.

Todd and his family were recently featured in this video:



I'll include Todd's disclaimer here:

"There are a couple errors in the story. We do not make $600k-$900k each month. We've generated up to $900k in sales in a single month (12/05), but we're paid only a small percentage of that amount as commission. We are currently donating 10% of our profits or $1000, whichever is larger, to charity each month. If we ever do make $900k in a single month, we'll be making a very large donation to charity! 8-) "

I think a big part of what I love about affiliate marketing is that an anyone has the power to change their lives through this industry. My hat is off to Todd and his family who were able to take a nearly impossible situation and turn it into a thriving business that is also helping other people.

Prosper.com - A new way to borrow and invest

Every once in a while you come across a technology or company that can really change the way you’re used to doing things, and I think Prosper.com is one of those companies in the making. The concept is amazingly simple – people looking to borrow money can create a profile that includes how a credit rating while people looking to lend money can search the profiles and decide who they want to lend money to and see what rate they will get in return. No Banks, no contracts, just an open marketplace for cash.

Obviously the rate of return is directly proportional to the perceived risk. If you want to lend money to “TheWorldIsFlat” who has impeccable credit to go along with his $170k income then expect an 8% return on your investment. If you’re willing to gamble a little and lend your money to “Distressed22” whose finances spiraled out of control due to medical bills you can get a 22% return on your investment while helping out someone who needs the cash.

I’m no Warren Buffet, but I don’t know of any investments that have that type of return attached to them. As long as the person doesn’t default on their payments you’re guaranteed a hefty return.

As for the risks, Prosper.com encourages users to invest small amounts of money with several applicants as to minimize your risk. There are also some deterrents to prevent folks from running away off with your hard earned money:

1. Every registered user must submit to a credit check and have “verifiable information”
2. If a person is part of a group (such as firefighters, marines, etc) and is late on their payment, the “group leader” is notified and the group rate is put at risk.
3. If a person misses their payment, they risk having their credit damaged and late fees are assessed.

I love the concept – it takes the power out of the banks and credit card companies and into the people.

Keep an eye on these guys, this idea could be huge.