Tag Archives: affiliate marketing

Affiliate Summit West 2009 In Pics and Words (Part 2)

If you missed it, check out: Affiliate Summit West 2009 in Pics and Words (Part 1).

Here’s more goodness from the Affiliate Summit:

carolyn tang

ShareASale’s Director of Client Services Carolyn Tang AKA Catango is one of the most pleasant and knowledgeable individuals in the industry and it was a pleasure to talk to her at the SaS booth, even though there were lots of people there.

As a tradeshow visitor, I’ve got more than my fair share of t-shirts, notepads, pens, paper weights and stationery to last 2.5 lifetimes. I liked how SaS did a little out of the box thinking to provide a photobooth where affiliates took some crazy pics (I’ll post mine later), and thoughtfully gave out baby T-shirts and bears. For affiliates with families or significant others, they’ll likely be seeing the SaS logo on a teddy bear or baby T for some time to come. (a good thing).

Check out the Friday Podcast interview on Affiliate Program Strategies with Carolyn Tang.

colin mcdougall ros gardner

It was cool hanging out with top affiliates Colin “Google” McDougall and Ros Gardner over dinner at the Nobu Japanese restaurant at the Hard Rock for the private launch of Jim Lillig’s Offeratti network.

Considering that Colin doesn’t take raw food, it’s a testament to the great food at Nobu that Colin was enjoying the sashimi with the rest of us during the meal. It was also interesting to hear Colin tell his stories about his towed trailer that he rolls out for holidays. And if you’re looking for inspiration as you’re working towards your ideal affiliate lifestyle, Ros has bought a lot of nice toys/trinkets to enjoy the fruits of her labor.

dina riccobono

It was great to meet affiliate network Market Leverage‘s marketing manager Dina Riccobono after talking to her over IM and being interviewed for MLTV late last year.

Market Leverage has a proactive outreach and affiliate recruitment program and it’s refreshing to see a network take the intiative in getting to know affiliates. They hosted a dinner at Switch at the Encore hotel, with Market Leverage CEO Mike Jenkins in attendance. It was a great opportunity to talk to affiliate managers Mike Kelly and Jen Fluker to get insight into how affiliate managers operate.

At the dinner, Mike announced the launch of Market Leverage’s greenlinks program, which provides links to video-based affiliate training from the ML website interface.

Here’s an earlier Friday Podcast with Market Leverage CEO Mike Jenkins

jen goode

Jen Goode, better known as JGoode, headed the Affiliate Summit mentors program and did a great job (I believe there were more than 100 mentees in the program). I also had a picture taken with the penguin and nearly kidnapped him. Ah well, maybe next time.

In the meantime, check out the Friday Podcast with Jen talking about Print-On-Demand product strategies

jon fisher

With Jon Fisher AKA AOJon , founder of the WickedFire affiliate marketing forum. I started making these “gang signs” because a number of the “affiliate gangstas” started making them.

miles baker geordie carswell nickycakes

Before the panel discussion on Affiliate Strategies for Traffic Generation and Sales Conversion on the first day of the summit with Miles Baker, Geordie Carswell, Nickycakes.

The session went well with positive Continue reading

Friday Podcast: Social Marketing Strategies With PotPieGirl

potpiegirlThis week on the Friday Podcast, I invited PotPieGirl to talking about generating traffic using free methods.

I’d seen her twitter exchanges with Miles Baker and found that she’s pretty proficient in building sites on Squidoo (the social networking site founded by marketer and author Seth Godin) and generate affiliate marketing income from her efforts.

During the course of our discussion, I found out:

  • How she got started in affiliate marketing
  • Her strategy for traffic generation and how she got involved in social media marketing
  • How she balances her time with a spouse and kids to take care of too
  • How 2007’s “Squidoo Slap” (where Google placed less prominence on Squidoo lenses) has affected her business
  • Tips for resources to build your internet marketing skills
  • How to market effectively using Squidoo lenses

Check out the podcast below:

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Links below:

One Key Concept To Growing Your Internet Business In 2009

If you’ve attended any sort of time management, goal setting or time management class in high school or college, you’d feel that you might have been beaten over the head with the Vilfredo Pareto bat.

Originating as a study that showed 20% of Italy’s population held 80% of its wealth, the concept of Pareto Efficiency (also known as the Pareto principle or 80-20 rule) introduced the idea of efficiency into everything you do. It’s not just enough to work hard, you need to work smart too.

Being (or wanting) to be a lazy affiliate marketer, it’s necessary to get a handle on this concept, especially if you want to hit your 2009 goals (it’s almost the end of January, you did set them, didn’t you?)

So this is your brain and the stuff you can work on every day:

90-10 rule

I’d go one step further to suggest that working in “internet time”, the 90-10 rule applies.

A merely 10% of your efforts are going to be responsible for 90% of the results you get, because of the vastness of the internet, the efficiency of technology like Continue reading

Friday Podcast: Building Your Affiliate Karma With Missy Ward

missy wardI’d hesitated about approaching Affiliate Summit co-founder Missy Ward for this series till I felt the time was right.

As an experienced affiliate professional, Missy has built up a reputation in the industry, serving in senior management positions like:

  • Director of Public Relations for Media Breakaway LLC (formerly CPA Empire, now known as affiliate.com)
  • Vice President of Partnership Marketing for eBound Strategies
  • President of Aluria Software
  • Vice-President of Marketing for Global Travel International

Some of these positions were concurrent with taking a leading role in launching and growing the Affiliate Summit conference/trade show as well as a number of fundraising intiaitives.

If you’ve had a chance to talk to Missy during one of the trade shows, you’d find that she’s personable and knowledgable. During the course of our discussion, I got to know Missy better, including:

  • How she got involved in affiliate marketing
  • The formation of the Affiliate Summit and it’s goals and growth over the years
  • How she got involved with fundraising activities, concurrently growing her affiliate business
  • A preview of upcoming Affiliate Summit conferences and related events
  • The guerilla marketing strategies used to promote the summit (merchants and affiliate networks can take a leaf out of Missy and Shawn’s playbook)
  • Missy’s video blogging and promotion strategies
  • A number of inspirational moments from the recent Affiliate Summit
  • Key updates involving projects like Geekcast.fm, a new podcast in the making, Missy’s return to affiliate management and the revamped AffStat affiliate industry survey

Check out the hour long podcast, chock-full of content below:

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Resources:

How To SUCCESSFULY Recruit And Retain Affiliates In Your Affiliate Program

One of the affiliate marketing professionals I constantly look forward to talking to is Heather Paulson, founder of internet marketing/affiliate management agency Paulson Management Group. She’s simultaneously one of the most pleasant and knowledgeable people in the industry.

heather paulson

Heather Paulson

Affiliates are constantly bombarded with the “highest payouts, best offers” line that too many affiliate managers fall into using whether out of habit, laziness or a combination of both.

So it’s a breath of fresh air to get useful information to Continue reading

Affiliate Video Marketing Strategies From Affiliate Summit West 2009

One of the standout sessions from Affiliate Summit West 2008 was the video marketing panel comprising AskTheBuilder’s Tim Carter, Wine Library TV’s Gary Vaynerchuk, Metacafe’s Brian McCarthy and Buy.com’s Melissa Salas moderating.

melissa salas

Buy.com’s director of affiliate marketing Melissa Salas

This year’s session similarly featured Continue reading