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.

You can check out Missy’s fundraising auction post.

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!

Some of the issues we discussed included:

• Kris’ affiliate wishlist for CPA (cost-per-action/cost-per-acquisition) networks
• His top picks of CPA networks (including the top 2 – Convert2Media and Market Leverage)
• CPA offer databases (including CashTactic’s new branded offer database in conjunction with Offers202)
• How to get the most out of your relationship with your affiliate manager
• His recommendations for affiliate campaign management software (Tracking202 and Prosper202)
• CashTactics’ plans for Affiliate Summit East
• A teaser for his upcoming project with Ian Fernando

Check out the podcast below:

Links:

• Kris on Twitter
• CashTactics
• Convert2Media affiliate network
• Market Leverage affiliate network
• Kris’ previous appearance on the Friday Podcast

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 on a CPA or affiliate network:

• Avoid using a free email provider like Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or Gmail. If you need to, set the services up so that you have pop3 access to your own domain and send email via your own domain.
• For your website, setting up a Blogspot blog or Squidoo lens, writing 5-10 blog or content posts and submitting it as your website has the same problem with using a free email address. There’s effort involved, but likewise, a potentially fradulent affiliate could do likewise in hopes of getting approved.
• Proactively follow up on your application. In 2006, I signed up with my first affiliate network. I filled in the application, called the customer service number, got myself verified and my account was approved immediately. If you’re an international affiliate, you’ll incur a long distance call charge doing so. But if you’re looking at affiliate marketing and internet marketing as a business, it’s a minimal expense.
• Your domain should be registered using your name or your business name and contain accurate information. If you’re applying saying you’re a Singapore affiliate and your domain name says the contact person is based in Libya…chances are you aren’t going to get approved.

The bottomline in getting approved as an affiliate is showing that you’re a real person. Affiliate networks have a compliance team which reviews affiliate applications and rejects those that seem dubious.

To avoid that hassle, spend a little time filling in the application and following up. Better yet, head to the tradeshows like the upcoming Affiliate Summit East in July in New York City and meet the affiliate networks yourself.

Check out the WhoIsAndrewWee.com Affiliate Challenge, sponsored by Market Leverage

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 might be easier to get started.

Payouts are typically related to the amount of effort needed to get the lead/prospect to take an action.

For submitting their email address or zip code, it might be $0.50 – $2. For activities requiring more effort, such as filling in a request form, or purchasing a trial pack or product, it could be upwards of $100.

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Evaluating Affiliate Networks

The majority of affiliate networks use DirectTrack, a software developed by Digital River. One issue with Direct Track (DT) is that some spyware detection/protection software identifies DT cookies as spyware and hence removes it. Because your commissions are tracked by the cookies embedded in a user’s browser, having the cookie removed means the action/sale can’t be tracked to you, and you won’t receive credit for the sale.

There’re currently more than 350 affiliate networks (about 5-10 major networks and about 300+ small outfits) in the industry.

There’re also a number of merchants (large and small) who offer their own in-house affiliate programs (such as Amazon and the eBay Partner Network), so affiliates will sign up directly with them.

For a list of affiliate networks I work with and recommend, you can check out the Affiliate Network Review resource page.

Getting Started As An Affiliate

Here’s the major problem for most new affiliates – getting too bogged down buying educational courses, reading blogs and forums and going to tradeshows, seminars, meetups – without ever actually making much progress in starting or putting enough time into their own campaigns.

Here’s a tip: Get started today.

If you’re new to the industry, you might try setting up a personal blog and apply to affiliate programs which are easier to get into (the Amazon Associates affiliate program is a pretty easy starting point – note: they have recently discontinued some forms of promotion, so be sure to read their terms and coniditions carefully).

Another tip: Sign up via an existing affiliate’s link then drop them an email

If the affiliate knows you, they can put in a word to their affiliate manager and this might increase your chances of getting accepted into the affiliate network (note: it may not always work).

If you’re like to go with this strategy, you can check out the Affiliate Network Review page and drop me a note via the Contact form, including your full name, email address used in the application, plus some information about yourself and your experience.

Credibility is a very important element if you want to go along this route, so it’s important to promote quality programs on the reference site you might be using. Including things like ponzi schemes or poor quality/scammy offers on your site will be a surefire way to get your application denied.

You can also follow up with a phone call to the affiliate network via their phone number which helps a great deal.

One great way to get started as an affiliate, especially if you’re based in Singapore is to participate in the WhoIsAndrewWee.com affiliate challenge (sponsored by Market Leverage), which is specifically focused on Singapore-based affiliates.

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In the next Affiliate Marketing Tips: Researching niches and evaluating affiliate offers

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
• The launch of the WhoIsAndrewWee.com Affiliate Challenge

Check out the podcast below:

Links:

• Dina on Twitter
• Market Leverage
• WhoIsAndrewWee.com Affliate Challenge
• Dina’s previous appearance on the Friday Podcast

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 apply through this Market Leverage affiliate signup link to be eligible for the contest.
• 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)

Here are the contest prizes:

Phase 1: Start to Mid-point (8 Jun – 7 Jul):

• Top affiliate: $100 Market Leverage gift card
• Merit prize: $75 Market Leverage gift card

Phase 2: Start to End (8 Jun – 7 Aug)

• Top affiliate: HP Mini-Note or Asus EEE PC laptop
• Merit prize: $150 Market Leverage gift card

–

Notes:

• You need to be a new Market Leverage affiliate to qualify for the contest
• 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

–

There’ll be a series of contest updates and tips to promote your affiliate campaigns over the following weeks.

In the meantime, apply to be a Market Leverage affiliate now!

[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]

Here’s more goodness from the Affiliate Summit:

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.

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.

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, 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

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.

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 feedback submitted by the session attendees.

I’ll likely plan and submit a proposal for another panel in the future.

Nicky was recently interviewed by Tracking202’s Wes Mahler. You can check out the interview here.

Here’s my Friday Podcast interviews:

• Miles Baker
• Geordie Carswell
• Nickycakes

With Team Mystery from VH1’s The Pickup Artist season 2. Pickup artist Mystery AKA Erik Von Markovik – we both share the same birthday btw.) and “Hawaii” and Jason Adams.

Soon a crowd gathered:

It was a pleasure to finally meet Todd Crawford in the flesh:

I was trying to do my best impression of a “Todd Talk” impersonation.

what I found was interesting is that his wife has been keeping a record of all the celebrities he’s been mistaken for. And if you met him in the flesh, you might mistake him for a rockstar.

Check out Todd’s Friday Podcast interview on Affiliate Management

Mike Krongel is founder and CEO of the Copeac affiliate network.

It’s been one of the better performing CPA networks on my sites. If you haven’t yet, check them out.

–

That’s it for this update.

More to come.

Buy.com’s director of affiliate marketing Melissa Salas

This year’s session similarly featured a panel of experienced marketers and service providers using video as one of their key strategies, they included Buy.com’s Melissa Salas, Qoof’s Jonathan Stefansky, Market Leverage CEO Michael Jenkins and Marty Fawnkey moderating.

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From the affiliate perspective, video and podcasts continue to be an underused media for content on landing pages, sales pages. The fact that 90% of affiliates don’t use them means that embedding audio or video content will make your pages more unique to leads. And it is simpler than it looks.

Gary Vanerchuk who delivered the Affiliate Summit keynote address had this as one of the major takeaways – when it comes to marketing yourself or your brand – be authentic (especially applicable to video). If you knock over a wineglass during your video presentation, so be it. Holding yourself up to broadcast TV or satelitte TV standard can and will be a frustrating experience.

On the other hand, staging videos and being found out can put a serious dent to your credibility.

Rich media like audio and video is probably best served in small chunks, especially in 2-3 minute pieces as mentioned by Melissa Salas, from extensive testing on Buy.tv.

Additionally, affiliates can leverage on tools from the likes of Qoof and ToldYa! which Buy.com is working with to embed affiliate links within Buy.com videos that they re-publish on their websites.

Additionally, I’d suggest looking at solutions like BubblePly which works with major video networks and posts an overlay over your videos and lets you embed affiliate links within the video.

Here’s an example of a video that Shawn Collins created for ASW07:

It was worth the 20 hour plane ride each way, and despite the somewhat hefty tax expense, the benefits far outweighed the time and resources to get there.

This is a first in a series of posts, more to come.

–

Pre-Affiliate Summit

Getting to the summit is a good idea, especially with some flights being delayed and having a chance to do some chillaxing before the event. I did some shopping at the premium outlets outlet mall and met up that night with Kim Rowley and Jon Levine.

At most conferences and seminars, I usually learn more from talking to other affiliates about their sites and projects, compared to the formal sessions (unless it’s a brand new area/topic for me).

So we went for drinks and it was interesting to hear about how the program that Jon is managing was put together.

–

Day 1: Sun 11 Jan

I was pleasantly suprised outside the conference rooms by Shawn Collins who danced a welcome jig:

I’d post a video, but the group we were with was too ticked to fire up our flip cams.

–

And shortly after, pickup artist Mystery showed up with his entourage and soon a small crowd gathered around him:

I had a chance to check out the “Mysteryplex” AKA “Project Hollywood” mentioned in Neil Strauss’ bestseller “The Game” in Hollywood later in the week. (in a future post).

In many ways, successful pickup has a lot in common with successful affiliate marketing – you need to make the offer attractive, you need to match the approach with your target’s demographic, and you need an attractive “call to action”. The showmanship doesn’t hurt either.

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Later that evening, affiliate network Market Leverage hosted a blogger dinner at Switch at the Encore by Wynn.

(Left to right): David Brim (Izea, back to camera), Market Leverage founder and CEO Michael Jenkins, Ms Danielle, Nate Whitehill (Unique Blog Designs).

Michael also announced the launch of Market Leverage’s Greenlinks – a series of video help videos, at the dinner.

Aside from the great seafood we had, it was also a good opportunity to get insight into Market Leverage’s operations from Mike Kelly (ML’s first affiliate manager) and Jen Fluker (ML’s second affiliate manager).

–

Meeting Steph

Undoubtedly, one of the advantages of attending Affiliate Summit is being able to meet networks and get a feel for the affiliate managers you’ll be working with. Meeting them in person also means you have a high chance of being accepted into their network.

I’d been talking to Stephanie Lichtenstein from Andy Rodriguez Consulting over twitter and it was a pleasure to meet her in person. In fact, I swept her off her feet:

Steph, me and Billy Kay Knoblach

Here is a video Steph put up on youtube (it’s received positive feedback from the twitter community)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acybZGnU8sw[/youtube]

Steph’s definitely got an edge when it comes to relationship building with affiliates and social marketers can take a page out of her book.

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Affiliate Triathlon

What I like about the Affiliate Summits is how Shawn and Missy combine fun activities with fund-raising for worthwhile causes. This year’s charity: the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

Some of the “competitiors” were dressed to kill too.

ShareASales CEO Brian Littleton in his 80s Miami Vice (LA Gear?) get up

The ladies from the set of Kill Bill 3: Affiliate Ninjas. Or possibly the ShareASale team (Jessica Sander, Sarah Beeskow, Carolyn Tang).

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Some key takeways:

Video Marketing will continue to be grow this year, with merchants like Buy.com integrating solutions from Qoof and ToldYa! into their affiliate platforms. Buy.com’s Melissa Salas, Qoof’s Michael Stefansky and Market Leverage’s Mike Jenkins gave some good insights during their panel which smart affiliates will be able to utilize in their campaigns.

PPC Pay per click marketing: continues to be a red hot topic with numerous sessions during the seminar track devoted to tracking, optimizing and automating the process. As PPC usage becomes more sophisticated, tools like Wes Mahler’s Tracking202 lower the barrier of entry for new affiliates.

Boutique CPA Networks: A number of “boutique” style CPA networks are rewriting the rules of affiliate marketing. While some affiliate manager are of the “I am here just to tell you the best offers and negotiate payouts for you” mindset, smaller, agile networks like Convert2Media (helmed by Ralph “Ruck” Ruckman) and Ads4Dough (helmed by Jason “Smaxor” Akatiff) are rewriting the rules of what a network is, by going the extra mile to provide guidance to new and experienced affiliates. The fact that the networks are run by top affiliates well versed in white hat and black hat traffic and affiliate tactics also means that they can provide useful and relevant advice.

If you’re an affiliate signed up to multiple networks, you’d receive a constant barrage of daily emails with subject lines like “network exclusives, promote now!”, “Highest payouts!” and “Hot new offers”.

Likewise, I’ve checked out a couple of affiliate marketing forums where networks have sponsored sections of the forums and populated these sections with “These offers are hot!” then proceed to list down payouts and offer caps.

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I don’t know how you feel, but this is pretty much tantamount to email and social network spamming by overzealous affiliate managers.

A good affiliate manager should know when to promote offers and when to back off. And emailing/hounding me when I say I’m busy is one way to get on my really bad side.

The other thing that’s disturbing is how little time many affiliate managers take to understand their affiliates. Granted, each AM might have 500 affiliates under them with just 5-10% of them actively promoting campaigns.

But my thought is this – If you’re already investing a couple of minutes using an instant messenger or making a phone call to the affiliate: what’s the best way to use this time?

Should you:

1) TELL the affiliate about your best converting offer, and the exclusives and the highest payouts. (I doubt an affiliate running a credit repair website might be able to clear many acaiberry lead gen offers for you…)

OR

2) Should you ASK the affiliate what type of offers they’re interested in, and filter your pool of offers down to the most relevant 10-20 and email that information over?

The concept of customer relationship management (CRM) does not apply only to the advertiser-affiliate network relationship because the advertiser is paying for the leads/customers, I’d say that affiliates are equal part “customers” in the equation too.

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Having said that, using Twitter, or a blog to publish an endless stream of breaking news on “offer updates” is just another way of doing what everyone else is doing.

Here are a couple of ways to disrupt the “traditional” way of affiliate management, and stepping the standards up a notch:

Engage with affiliates: This is more than just sending me a Christmas card (even if I live halfway around the world), it’s engaging and understanding your affiliates’ requirements.

Geordie Carswell, back when he was CEO of affiliate network Revenuewire, would be available over AIM to give PPC campaign tips and promotion ideas. Likewise, Mike Krongel, CEO of Intermark Media which owns the Copeac network would be available too.

These days, Ralph Ruckman AKA “Ruck” is active on the Wickedfire forum and actively posts on the Convert2Media blog and gives out promotion ideas on the C2M affiliate forum with clear, actionable ideas to promote the offers on his network. Not to mention that his partner and co-founder Steve Howe practically lives on AIM.

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Building A Goodwill Virus: I hadn’t heard of Market Leverage till meeting some of their team at the Affiliate Summit last year. Since then, they’re proactively got my mailing address from my domain whois information and sent me a schwag bag earlier this year (and included some gifts for my daughter too).

Likewise, they’ve been following on their promotion efforts by organizing a series of contests on the popular blogs and rollout their “Cashinator” money grabbing machine thingie at events they’re taking part in. While these items and cash won’t be significant for successful affiliates, it does demonstrate that affiliates are a priority for the network and building credibility and a reputation among the affiliate community are some of its goals.

Also, having a regular video broadcast does help build the reputation of the affiliate network (or merchant). Market Leverage has it’s Market Leverage TV weekly broadcast, while Buy.com has it’s Buy.tv broadcasts.

If anything these intiatives demonstrates the networks or merchant’s investment in long-term projects which will ultimately bear fruit from its core of affiliates.

Taking some of lessons to mind when attending an event like Affiliate Summit will help any network get more mileage out of their participation in the event.

–

Related podcasts:

• Mike Jenkins, founder Market Leverage
• Geordie Carswell, former CEO Revenuewire
• Dina Riccobono, Market Leverage marketing manager

Here’s the episode of Market Leverage TV (3rd Nov 2008):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngZTMddmvDk[/youtube]

Dina and I had an extended discussion on internet marketing strategies, including projects I’m working on:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCp123sdvHo[/youtube]

You can check out:

• Market Leverage affiliate network
• My new blog training program: Secret Blog Weapon
• Affiliate Summit West (Las Vegas, Jan 11-13, 2009)

I invited Market Leverage’s marketing manager, Dina Riccobono, on to the Friday Podcast to get a behind-the-scenes perspective on the production of the weekly program.

Some of the items we discussed:

• How Market Leverage came up with the idea of producing a video program
• Their broadcast studio set up
• How much time does into the production of each episode and what goes into each episode
• Distribution strategies for the video content
• Tips for new video content creators

Check out the podcast below:

And check out:

• Market Leverage affiliate network
• Market Leverage TV

Market Leverage ranks as one of the networks which effectively uses its marketing and branding budget to devastating effect. By contrast, I work with several networks with great affiliates managers, and one corp comm/PR person who isn’t really empowered to do much and/or doesn’t have any real budget to work with.

As networks see affiliate acquisition as part of the affiliate management success formula, doubtless there’ll be more resources channeled towards building a quality affiliate base.

I appreciated Market Leverage’s Digital Media Relations specialist Debby Phillips arranging a discussion with Market Leverage’s founder and CEO Mike Jenkins.

Mike’s certainly savvier than the average network owner (who’s typically a successful affiliate marketer turned network owner). Conducting some research, I’ve found that Mike has been involved in the business management aspects for a number of pretty large listed firms too.

I especially like how he’s constructed a holistic business ecosystem under his PrecisionPlayMedia group – with 3 components – DigitalLeads (an in-house offer production/packaging subsidiary), Market Leverage (the CPA network arm) and InboxBeyond (an email publishing arm) – which is how the top tier CPA networks structure their business.

During the discussion, we also touched on, but haven’t fully resolved the issue of whether the community-building /relationship-building approaches of social marketing via blogs,video will eventually clash head-on with the current incarnation of affiliate marketing, with the mostly shorter emphasis on one-off lead acquisition payout.

It’ll also be interesting to track Market Leverage’s upcoming announcements in the next 2-3 months.

Check out the Friday Podcast below:

For sign up as an affiliate, visit:

–> Market Leverage

Market Leverage is taking the lead when it comes to relationship building and branding with measures like it’s care package campaign to the top affiliate bloggers, and initiatives like Market Leverage TV. Kudos to Mike and his team for getting on the radar with innovative social marketing strategies.

In the course of our discussion, I was wondering — Will affiliate marketing come to blows with social marketing and social media?

From my discussion with affiliate managers, it seems that the majority of affiliate marketers are only interested in the one-time pay-per-lead or pay-per-sale commission structures. Ask them about revenue share or continuity (eg: subscription/membership) type payouts and they aren’t as keen.

With some bizop offers paying out $100-120 per lead or sale, this could trigger the “quick cash” impulse among some affiliates.

On the other hand, savvy merchants and advertisers would’ve grasped the subtleties of lead generation, building up an leads database and reselling the data or marketing offers to that database, and in many scenarios employing both techniques.

In this case, rev share, especially for a CPA-based network will be a moot point.

This is the business model for “affiliate marketing 1.0” if you want to apply a label to it.

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With social marketing and its technologies like video, social networking, blogging, forums, etc, the emphasis is on building the relationship, forming a community, focusing on the long-term – pretty much a complete opposite to “affiliate marketing 1.0”.

Sure you could just take the tech aspects of social media – the viral marketing, the video and audio which massively increase conversions and leave the relationship benefits at the door. But does that strip social marketing of some of its inherent benefits? Do merely become an updated version of “social engineering” as practised by Kevin Mitnick and others?

It’ll be interesting to see how these initiatives pan out.

Tune in to the Friday Podcast tomorrow to check out the interview with Market Leverage founder Mike Jenkins.

It was a bag of schwag from affiliate network Market Leverage. I thought it was pretty clever of them to suss out my mailing address from my domain whois info, and they’re one of the few merchants and networks I’ve worked with who’s taken the effort to courier a box of stuff all the way to Singapore (the shipment costs came up to about $70!).

Many networks and merchants use the tagline that customer service, relationship building is their priority (together with “highest payouts, most number of exclusive offers”, etc), but Market Leverage delivers on its promise.

There was a fair bit of research to compile a list of affiliate bloggers and send them the care packages, together with the t-shirt campaign that the Market Leverage team had been doing – which shows how marketing and promotion ingenuity can bring you massive leverage.

Market Leverage’s president Sal Guarino certainly has foresight in bringing Dina Riccobono and Debby Phillips (the woman formerly known as Debby Banning on board). Dina’s clocked up video product experience working with Next Entertainment (which produced The Bachelor/The Bachelorette/Are You Hot?) and doubtless was instrumental in putting the concept together for the network’s MarketLeverageTV broadcasts. Debby’s pretty established in the blogosphere and her relationships and social networking will help build up the buzz effect among the blogging community. (google around and you’ll see a couple of “I wish I got a schwag bag” blog posts…).

One person who’s happy with the care package I received is my daughter, Bianca.

Although she’s happy with the “Future Blogger” t-shirt, the Market Leverage teddy bear and the Dora the Explorer game for now, I believe she’s eyeing the Flip Ultra which also came in the care package.

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Looking a little deeper in the Market Leverage offers available, I was particular keen on the exclusive offers which have a payout of $20 – $50 per lead or per sale – an area I typically focus on.

If you’re more focused on the zip/email submits with payouts ranging in the $1.20 – $2 range, there’re a number to choose from.

I’ve also had an opportunity to talk with my affiliate manager Erick Bright and it was encouraging to hear that similar to other top-tier networks, Market Leverage affiliate managers are contactable via IM, will give offer suggestions as you’re constructing your affiliate sites, and provide support as you’re launching new campaigns.

Check out:

–> Market Leverage Affiliate Network