Unfortunately I was a bit late to this session today, but I got a lot of good info in the 40 minutes I did attend. The panel consisted of:

• Adam Riemer, Director of Marketing & Client Relations, Downtown Ecommerce Partners (Moderator)
• Chris Henger, Group Product Manager, Google Affiliate Network
• Kim Rodgers, Affiliate Manager, 4Checks.com
• Melanie Seery, Affiliate, NY Affiliate Voice
• Clarke D. Walton, Internet Lawyer, Walton Law Firm, P.C.

First I do have to comment on the panelists – I had the pleasure of hearing a session at ASW08 where Clarke spoke on internet taxes in relation to affiliates and I have to tell you – this is the kind of lawyer you want in your Rolodex.  He’s extremely internet and tech savvy, which is always good when you’re talking about internet law.  He has experience doing affiliate marketing himself, so he can totally relate to your issues.  And he clearly knows his stuff.

Speaking of really knowing their stuff, Kim Rodgers is the ace affiliate manager who really knows what she’s doing, and has built her program up SO much it’s phenomenal.  I had the pleasure of sitting with her last night at the Affiliate Dinner (more on that later) and she really is a great AM and has the unique experience of being in the position of a company that initially culled their NY affiliates and now, after some changes internally, are able to welcome them back and have to regain their business (not to mention their trust).

So, the bullet point review of the panel:

• Networks can’t really give any advice to affiliates legally, so they’ve pretty much had to stay out of it.
• Early in July, California explored the NY law and determined that affiliates don’t prove nexus, hence pretty much saying the opposite of what NY is.  Hopefully for those of us in California this means that they’ve gotten it out of their heads to try to mimic this.
• Late in July the NY state senate approved a motion to repeal the tax, so while there’s not much news about this yet it’s a step in the right direction in terms of a repeal.
• It’s important for affiliates to be willing to comply and work with their merchants to get through this and maintain a good relationship.
• Affiliates in NY will have to give up a little privacy (like their NY address) in an effort to comply.
• Merchants can simply add a small paragraph into their terms of service that NY based affiliates need to agree to specifically to comply with laws.
• Affiliate managers need to follow up with the NY affiliates to make sure they’ve read the modified TOS and agree.
• Merchants who kicked NY affiliates right away probably have a better chance of wooing them back than merchants who waited until the middle of June and then deactivated the NY affiliates retroactive to May 31st.  Melanie’s opinion?  “They don’t have a prayer.”

Some take-home answers from the open Q&A:

• The law applies to merchants based in Canada as well  (unfortunately I couldn’t hear if they said it applied to international merchants too).
• The law is not clear if nexus is established when a merchant has affiliates who make $10,000 per year aggregate or per affiliate.
• Affiliate managers should not encourage their affiliates to incorporate their businesses in other states.  This is a poor work around (it’s not a solution) since, well, what if that state’s next to adopt a similar law?  You can’t keep reincorporating and it’s basically fraudulent anyway.
• The state of Washington has come close with a similar law affecting internet sales and taxes.  Formerly, the tax rate on an internet sale was calculated based on where the merchant is located.  Now, it’s calculated based on where the order is shipping to.  This only applies within the state – for now.  (As an aside, I know that the California law is already like this and bases tax assessment on the shipping address, being that PsPrint is based in California).
• The federal government is also looking into these laws since we are talking about interstate commerce and may make a move soon, but it’s hard to say in what direction that move will be.

If you caught anything I didn’t (ahem 11|15 Media’s Michael Buechele), please share with the rest of us!

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The training has been over for about 2 hours now and I’ve been sitting in my hotel room on the 16th floor with a brilliant view of west Las Vegas thinking about whether or not I should share my views with you on the training tonight or wait until I’ve had some time to absorb it and wind down more from the experience to write about it.

However I’ve decided in the interest of reporting to you, I should talk about my initial impressions at least while they’re still fresh in my memory. I will be dropping names!

First, the event was hosted by Anik Singal from Affiliate Classroom. Super gracious guy and a pleasure to talk with. Good job Anik for a great event!

The first speaker of the day was the keynote by Ned Farra. Ned talked a bit about Zappos.com and their history. Being previously unfamiliar with Zappos, it was interesting for me from a case study type point of view.

Next we heard from Bryan Rhodes & Stephanie Harris from Shaaf Consulting on a typical affiliate manager day. A lot of GREAT tips & tricks on how to allocate your resources (i.e. time & money) where they’re best served, making your job more efficient, and coping with being an affiliate manager. I think this was one of my favorite sessions of the day because they were engaging and even as fairly new to this game as I am, I could totally relate! I think this is the most actionable session for me.

Afterward we heard from Clarke D. Walton, a lawyer specializing in internet law. Some people seemed bored by this, but I was fascinated by the legal side of things. He shared some great case studies that really helped me to understand the legal perspective of affiliate marketing.

Amit Mehta, a 7 figure super affiliate, then talked about how to recruit and keep super affiliates. Good stuff, a lot of which I’d heard before, but definitely worth while. I learned some new tricks that I’m DEFINITELY going to keep in my back pocket

I admit… the next couple of sessions were after lunch, which I was rushed through and had to take with me back into the meeting room, and I was less than enthused about the content. Todd Farmer & John Vehlewald from kowabunga gave a good talk about the difference between CPA and Traditional affiliate programs. It was interesting from a publisher point of view, but not very useful to me as a manager considering our printing products and the types of campaigns we run.

Lisa Riolo talked about metrics… I wish she could have gone a bit more in depth but the overview was good. Actually, more in depth in this setting so late in the day might not have been the best idea, so I’ll accept it! She did help me really understand how to make metrics more actionable.

Next up was Michael C. Jones from Pepperjam talking about affiliate marketing technology. Okay, I’ll admit it – I was bored. Partly because he was using a slide presentation that wasn’t included in the packet of materials we were given, contained a ton of information, and talked too fast. I’m really hoping that I can approach him via email later this week so I can get the PPT and really read it and soak it in. It was some stuff I already knew regarding coding and whatnot so nothing too ground breaking for me, personally.

Worst/Best Session of the day came from Heather Paulson. I was really interested in the topic of engaging affiliates and she started out great…then she seem to lose the audience. Keep in mind that this was an affiliate manager training day, so when you ask how many people have ever heard of xx tool and no one raises their hand, saying “uh, you should” may not go over well.  The rest of her talk kind of went sour in my mind from there. Her information was overwhelming and almost pointed to “you can’t do this, hire me to do it!” without actually saying that. Maybe I took it the wrong way, I’m open to that, but it just rubbed me the wrong. I admit though, I did pick up some useful tips that will really improve my actions as an affiliate program manager, so it wasn’t all bad.

Lastly Rachel Honoway talked more about the new AC Certification courses to become a bona fide “certified affiliate manager”. I really want to take the courses! They’re fairly reasonably priced ($1500 for a 10 module course).

Oy tomorrow is a lighter day with just booth set up, registration, and the meet market, but work is work!

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