Many in the affiliate marketing industry are aware of what happened last summer with the New York State affiliate tax, also known as the Amazon Tax.  The state laws were amended to include affiliates as agents of the merchant, requiring the merchant to charge sales tax for purchases made to New York residents.  As a result, many merchants took the easy way out and decided to drop all NY state affiliates from their programs.  This resulted in an immense loss of revenue for several affiliates.

Unfortunately, several other states are following suit, most notably California, Hawaii, Minnesota, Tennessee, and Connecticut.  The most pressing of which is California, looking to enact the new bill ASAP with a hearing scheduled for April 13th in Sacramento.

In layman’s terms, AB 178 changes the definition of a “retailer engaging in business in this state” to include any retailer that works with affiliates in this state where the gross receipts or sales prices is over $10,000 per year.  Feel free to read the entire bill online here.

Being a California resident myself, I can tell you that this will have a huge impact on the affiliate marketing industry.  One of the major affiliate networks, Commission Junction, is located in Santa Barabara.  Several super affiliates are also based in California.  As well, Amazon, one of the largest affiliate merchant programs out there, has already testified that they will drop all Hawaii affiliates if Hawaii’s legislation passes, so that can’t be good news for California or the other states.

This bill is short sighted and ill conceived, and we need the help of everyone in the affiliate marketing industry to fight it.  A legislative day has been planned for next Tuesday, March 31st, where several of us are going to Sacramento to speak with legislators and their staff about the ill effects this bill will have.  If you are interested in also participating, please feel free to email me at trisha [at] newedgemedia.com and I will gladly pass the information to the organizers.

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While you were busy finding stolen loot in a speaker box, Travis Gosa, here’s what was happening in business this week.

• Shoemoney spews more vitriol at Shawn Collins.
• Instead of fixing track, Twitter bought search service Summize.  At least it’s been fairly stable lately.
• Gary Vaynerchuck filmed episode 500 of Wine Library TV live from San Francisco on Monday.  Good show; sorry I couldn’t be there.
• There are apparently wheels turning in NY to repeal the affiliate tax.  Linda Buquet has been all over it.

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After running to the bank to take out money for bridge toll, heading west towards the big scary city, and rifling through my car & wallet for change for the meter while praying that the meter maids were taking a day off, I finally made it into the June Bay Area Affiliate Managers Coalition meeting, this time hosted graciously by Real Networks. As an aside, I like their building… older, brick, kinda funky and unique but still professional.

Last time I did a video because it was my first venture over there and I had a lot to say. I was happy to receive some kudos on it from BAAMC organizer Michael Brucker. We had some special guests at this meeting… Lisa Picarille from Revenue Magazine came over and Brook Schaaf from Schaaf Consulting flew up from LA just for this. Aren’t we special?

I was going to write a good long post about it, but it seems Lisa in her diligence as a journalist has beat me to it! So here’s her take at RevenueToday.com. She mentions a few other special guests that attended the meeting, but I didn’t see them (and yes… I’d recognize them!) so maybe they were on the phone listening in… I did arrive a touch late.

So, some notes not mentioned from my take. It was nice to finally meet Lisa in person, especially after subbing for her that once on Affiliate Thing. Very gracious…although I have to tell you, it’s totally surreal sitting in a room looking at a person speak that you listen to every week without an image in your head. Strange lol. She was surprised that I’d had time to come to the meeting given how busy I usually am, which prompted me to mentally review how busy I must sound on Twitter and this here blog without actually intending it!

Also said hi to Karen Garcia of GTO Management who came to the meeting directly from SFO – what a trooper! And had a nice conversation with a fellow affiliate manager who’s used PsPrint a lot in his former life of being an event promoter and loves us! Always great to hear!

Brook talked about the up-and-coming Performance Marketing Alliance (PMA), which got a lot of people in the room revved up. We also talked at length about the NY affiliate tax and how we wish the networks would get more involved. What’s definitely clear is that there’s a lot of confusion on how we’re effected as managers and the programs we represent. A vague law will only vaguely be enforced, NY!

Incidentally as a side note, the PMA launched their blog this week and today Rebecca Madigan posted their plan of attack.

We also talked a bit about some miscellaneous things like video widgets and the like. Since most of us in the room have our programs through Commission Junction, we collectively wish they’d buck up on offering some more interesting and innovative creative options, like widgets. One opinion was that video is pretty good for buzz, but general consumers never think to click on the video so it doesn’t convert as a sales tool. I think the jury is still out on video as a traceable seller like a banner ad.

That’s the meat & potatoes of it, really. Our next meeting should be sometime in August. And I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that I managed to escape parking-ticket free!

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