I was looking forward to attending this panel despite knowing that I probably knew all there was to know on this subject, because I knew two of the panelists.  Boy was I wrong – it just goes to show you that there’s always something new to be learned when attending trade shows! The panel consisted of:

• Shawn Collins, Co-Founder, Affiliate Summit
• Mike Allen, CEO, Shopping-Bargains.com
• Tim Jones, Blogger, TheRealTimJones.com

I was proud of the boys – despite having a crowd of general noobs to affiliate marketing they did an excellent job and really threw out some solid information.

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• Blended ads look nicer and work better.
• PopShops has a WordPress plugin that’s super easy to use.
• Remember to work the ads in creatively.
• Think and plan for the long term.
  • Your blog is your brand.
  • Be the expert.
  • Share your space.
• Affiliate marketing is a great start but doesn’t stop there.
  • Be careful – advertising the wrong way can tarnish your image.
  • Think like a business and set goals.
  • Craft a business plan and follow it.
  • Look for other retail opportunities (your own affiliate program?)
• There’s lots of opportunity for creativity.
• Most people don’t know it’s an affiliate link and most don’t care (when using text links).
• .htaccess redirect helps clean links up – fairly simple process.
• 50%+ of subscribers come by email.
• Utilize social media to build readership and establish yourself as an expert.
• People have to get there before they can click.
• MaxBlogPress, OpenX are good free ad serving plugins.
• Ninja Affiliate 1.5 is a paid plugin that automatically ads contextual links to keywords you enter in.
• Peel away ads (page ears) also work well
• Target your ads to your audience.
• Yahoo! Answers works well to help establish yourself within your niche as an expert.
• Don’t venture too far outside your niche.  You want to upsell and compliment your blog.
• The first thing you’d do?  Tim says sign up with the affiliate networks.  Shawn suggested doing a Google Search to get a feel for your competition.  Mike advises to make sure your site works and that content is up before applying for the affiliate programs – the merchant has to want you.
• Spend the $10 on a domain & it’ll get over the first threshold when affiliate managers review your application.

I don’t have any notes from the Q&A portion of the panel because a lot of it was specific to those bloggers asking the questions – they wanted to know specifics.  Personally I don’t think a Q&A session is really the time for that but I understand the desire for people to take any opportunity they can get to ask a question of an expert!

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