Affiliate Summit co-founder Missy Ward is at it again, raising funds for Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in Los Angeles. To motivate supporters for the effort, a slate of experienced marketers involved in the affiliate marketing industry have put up their services and products up for auction.
The auction closes this Friday, August 28th, 1159pm. Some of the bid prices are ridiculously low at the moment, so if you put in a bid for charity, you’ll either get the product or service at a steal, or you’ll be doing your part to aim in breast cancer research and relief.
Here’re some of my personal top picks for the auctions:
Two hours of consulting with Lisa Riolo: Lisa was formerly affiliate network Commission Junction’s senior vice president for business development and has had management roles at brick-and-mortar institutions like Bank of America and Peet’s Coffee. Besides the obvious affiliate marketing issues you might raise with her, she’d be pretty experienced in the operations side of running and growing a business too. The auction is currently in the $100+ region, and even if you were to contribute the retail value of $1,000, there’s no doubt that her advice would bring your business to the next level. (check out my Friday Podcast interview with Lisa R).
Two hours of consulting with Lisa Picarille: Affiliates might know Lisa as the former publisher/editor-in-chief of Revenue Magazine, the performance marketing standard, as well as co-host of the Affiliate Thing and TheSpew podcasts. You may not know that she’s a wealth of experience with print, radio and online content publishing. Whether you’re a merchant, network or affiliate, you’ll be able to bounce ideas off Lisa which will help you on the media and content elements of your business. Again, the $100+ bid is ridiculously low, and even the $300 retail value is lowballing the potential benefits. I’d realistically value the advice you could get from Lisa at at least $1,000. (check out my Friday Podcast with Lisa P).
Affiliate Summit West 2010 Platinum conference pass (Las Vegas): Gives you all-access pass to the conference sessions and trade show. If you network effectively at this event with merchants, networks and fellow affiliates, there’s no reason why your affiliate business won’t double or triple (at the minimum) from the networking you’ll be doing. In a number of cases, affiliate incomes have increased exponentially as a result of face-to-face meetups at the event.
Thesis WordPress template/framework developer’s pack: Thesis is a SEO-friendly WP template that can be customized easily to replace other website publishing tools you’re currently using. I’m developing a new set of affiliate sites using Thesis and with the SEO features, it get much more visibility from organic traffic. Also, designer Chris Pearson has placed a strong emphasis on typography, so readability and usability are greatly enhanced. The lifetime upgrades and great support at the forum is worth its ticketed price many times over. Again, the bids are ridiculously low at this point ($30) on a $164 retail value. (read my Thesis product review for more information)
Market Leverage A-List Experience: The highlight of this package is dinner at the Eiffel Tower restaurant at the Paris Hotel and Casino with Market Leverage social media manager, Dina Riccobono. If that’s not enough, you’ll also get coverage on MarketLeverage TV and be featured on JohnChow.com. With a little out-of-the-box thinking, this package can significantly boost your branding and bring a number of benefits to your business. (Disclaimer: I’m also bidding on this package). (Check out some of Dina’s tips from the Friday Podcast on videocasting and social media branding)
Although I’ve mentioned just a few of the packages up for auction, do check out the various packages available, you’ll be getting resources to grow your business and doing a lot of good for charity too!
CashTactics.net’s head blogger and an experienced affiliate Kris Trujillo stopped by the Friday Podcast to give his opinion and insights into issues that affiliates might face as they work on their campaigns.
Some of the issues we discussed included:
Kris’ affiliate wishlist for CPA (cost-per-action/cost-per-acquisition) networks
The launch of the WhoIsAndrewWee.com Affiliate Challenge a couple of weeks back has proven to be quite an attractive proposal for new and experienced affiliates.
With prizes like gift cards and mini laptops on the line, there’s been a long line of applicants to Market Leverage in order to participate in the contest. (Note: for this specific contest, you have to be Singapore-based in order to qualify).
The sticking point has been getting approved – to date, there’s only 1 eligible contestant in the contest.
One of the “risks” in making this contest only for Singapore-based affiliates is that there might be zero participants in the contest – not because there’s no interest, but because international affiliates in general have to take number of additional steps in order to get their affiliate applications approved, compared to their US counterparts (a point I highlighted during my appearance on Missy Ward’s TheSpew Episode “The SpewGirls Go Global” ).
Here are a couple of tips to be successfully approved as an affiliate (more…)
This is the first in a series of educational post about getting started as an affiliate marketer. Whether you’re new to the industry or have some experience under your belt, you should get more tips and strategies to enhance and improve your campaigns.
What’s Affiliate Marketing and CPA Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a channel or method where advertisers (also known as merchants or product owners) recruit partners to help them:
Generate prospective customers OR
Pre-sell them on the idea of buying the product OR
Getting involved in the sales process themselves
Depending on the advertiser you’re working with, you might be known as an affiliate/affiliate marketer/partner/associate/reseller.
You might be paid on:
The number of prospects generated (lead generation) OR
The value of products bought (revenue share/pay-per-sale) OR
On an ongoing basis receiving regular payments as long as the customer continues the product/service. (continuity/rebilling/subscription)
CPA marketing or Cost-Per-Action marketing is primarily focused on the lead generation aspect of the business. You might receive a $30 payout on a $4.95 trial by the customer. The advertiser is able to recoup their commission payout to you by selling a premium product on the backend (as a product upgrade), or enrol the customer in a monthly subscription.
Hence, for many new affiliates, the CPA route (more…)
Market Leverage Social Media Manager Dina Riccobono, came on the Friday Podcast to talk about the network’s social branding intiatives. Specifically, industry observers will note that Market Leverage has often taken the lead in reaching out to affiliate via the social media channel – Market Leverage TV, Greenlink affiliate video tutorials, and engagement on blogs and forums.
I invited Dina on the Friday Podcast to give her insight into intiatives like:
What social media marketing means to Market Leverage
Some of the past social campaigns that the network has led
How the online social media projects tie in with real-world tradeshows and events
Market Leverage’s new mobile application for affiliates
Finding difficulty getting started as an affiliate marketer? WhoIsAndrewWee.com has partnered the Market Leverage affiliate network to host the first Affiliate Challenge, which will provide education to help you kickstart your campaigns and promises prizes for participants.
I’m happy to announce that after a period of discussion, Market Leverage is the proud sponsor of possibly the first affiliate competition specifically targeted at Singapore-based affiliates.
So if you’re new to the industry and want to get your foot in the door, do take action by participating in this contest.
Here’s the WhoIsAndrewWee.com Affiliate Challenge format:
The contest will be held over a period of 2 months (from 8 Jun – 7 Aug 2009)
You need to be a new Market Leverage affiliate and based in Singapore to qualify for the contest. (future contests will be expanded to other geographical regions).
The contest will have 2 phases – one at the midway mark (8 Jun – 7 Jul), where prizes will be awarded to participants. And one for the contest duration (8 Jun – 7 Aug), another round of prizes will be awarded then. so you’ll have 2 sets of chances to win prizes.
One of the goals of this contest is to increase the number of active Singapore affiliate marketers, especially since Asia is a growing region.
There are 2 categories of prizes available:
Top Affiliates (determined by affiliate commissions generated)
Merit Prizes for affiliates who put in the most effort in promoting their campaigns (determined by the contest panel)
Affiliates will need to provide official personal identification or business registration documents during their application and payments will be made out to the person or business entity used for the affiliate application
Only affiliates based in Singapore (or are from Singapore) are eligible for the contest
The judges decisions are final
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There’ll be a series of contest updates and tips to promote your affiliate campaigns over the following weeks.
[To get your affiliate applications processed faster, you are welcome to drop me a note via the blog contact form, stating your name, email address used in the application, so they can be reviewed by the Market Leverage affiliate review team more promptly]
CashTactics.net’s head blogger and an experienced affiliate Kris Trujillo stopped by the Friday Podcast to give his opinion and insights into issues that affiliates might face as they work on their campaigns.
Market Leverage Social Media Manager Dina Riccobono, came on the Friday Podcast to talk about the network’s social branding intiatives. Specifically, industry observers will note that Market Leverage has often taken the lead in reaching out to affiliate via the social media channel – Market Leverage TV, Greenlink affiliate video tutorials, and engagement on blogs and forums.