Affiliate Marketing Fanatics #7: Tweeting, Speaking, & Blogging
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Affiliate Marketing Fanatics – A Publisher (Mike Buechele) and an Affiliate Manager (Trisha Lyn Fawver) talk about all things Affiliate Marketing. From blogging to branding, social media to search, video and more!
We’re back after a fortnight away! We don’t do it on purpose, it just happens that way, we swear! We’re back in the swing of things this week with a relatively short show for us clocking it at an even 30 minutes and 30 seconds! This week we delve into our favorite topic of Twitter… I think we might as well just rename this the TwitterCast! Specifically we discussed:
- Twitter monkeying around with the @replies and the #fixreplies fiasco that ensued.
- Commission Junction has finally jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, and we ponder why larger companies take so long to make the social media move.
- We excitedly ham it up about the fact that we’ll be speaking on a panel at Affiliate Summit East 2009, and another show I’ll be at next month.
- Mike’s discovered a HARO-like service specifically for bloggers called Blogger LinkUp run by Cathy Stucker and we talk about the two.
- Finally we give some well deserved shout outs to our fellow ASE09 panelists Jen Goode, Stephanie Lichtenstein, and our fabulous moderator Lisa Picarille.
Breathe Easier, California Affiliates!
I had the pleasure and pain of driving up to Sacramento yesterday to sit in on the hearing for AB 178, which I’ve talked about before putting California affiliates in jeopardy. Lisa Picarille and I hopped into my car and made the drive up, and about 10 minutes away from our destination, we get the news that the hearing had been postponed. The bill has been changed to a two year bill. What does this mean, exactly?
Believe it or not, I couldn’t find a sufficient actual definition for what a two year bill is online, so I can only pass on what I was told in basic layman’s terms, which may be better anyway. Basically what this means is that the hearing has been postponed until January, when it will be up again to be heard in hearings. We were told by several seasoned lobbyists that if it’s not heard in January, this bill in this current incarnation will be dead. However, the issue won’t necessarily go away. We will need to keep an eye out for other bills to make sure language isn’t shoehorned into other bills that could affect affiliate livelihood and tax nexus, and we also have to pay attention in June when budgeting starts to make sure no strange budget items that could affect nexus show up.
This is a small victory and California affiliates can certainly breath easier for awhile, but it’s not over yet. We’ve won the battle but the war rages on. Of course, there’s a lot of blog coverage on the happenings of yesterday, so check out their points of view as well:
- Mr. Lewis Goes to Sacramento – David Lewis
- Calif. AB 178 on Hold for Now – Lisa Picarille
- California Hearing Postponed – that’s a good thing! – Rebecca Madigan
- No Hearing for California AB 178 – Shawn Collins
- Commission Junction’s Internet Retail Tax News
Affsum Session: Advanced Approaches To Affiliate Recruiting, Training, and Management
Date: Sunday, January 11th, 2009. Session 1b, 12:00pm.
Session Description: Dual presentation on advanced techniques, strategies and ideas for affiliate training and management. This enlightening, and entertaining session will help you improve and grow your affiliate program. The panel consisted of:
- Heather Paulson, President, Paulson Management Group
- Geno Prussakov, CEO & President, AM Navigator LLC
Bullet Point Review!
- Affiliate Managers = ones called to manage the unmanageable ones.
- Don’t think of it as Affiliate Management – think of it as Affiliate Leadership + Affiliate Program Management.
- Affiliates are normally intolerant of bogged down management, so you can’t actually manage them, just the program.
- Affiliate managers deal with different affiliates at different maturity levels.
- Use a contingent management style and strategies that are situational.
- More than 350 of the Fortune 500 companies use a contingent approach.
- There are tools to use to find affiliates: Syntryx, DomainTools, manual research, Email Analyst.
- iSpionage is a great tool to monitor keywords and find affiliates that way.
- If your program is on Commission Junction, ask them for a Push Offer – request recruiting function is turned on for your account.
Unfortunately the Q&A was a bit useless since no one bothered to go up to the microphones that were provided, so the questions were unintelligible. And judging by the answers they gave that I could hear, they must have been really specific because I didn’t really get much from the answers.
I admit, this session was a bit of a let down for me. It started late due to some technical difficulties with the presentation and so they were rather rushed. I’ve heard Heather speak before, and while she really knows what she’s talking about, she talked about the same tools she’s been talking about since I first heard her speak. Geno was refreshing since I’ve never heard him speak before but his data was a bit hard to grasp. This session definitely needed the help of the slides, so I’m including them.
All in all I think Heather has good things to share for affiliate managers just starting out, but I’ll be passing on her sessions from now on since it’s clear she’ll be sharing the same things. Definitely recommended though if you’ve never heard her talk about Syntryx (she has to be their biggest cheerleader, hands down) or Affiliate Relationship Management.
Here are the slides from the presentation, courtesy of Affiliate Summit:
Read MoreCommission Junction: Happy 10th Birthday
Affiliate network Commission Junction is celebrating it’s 10th anniversary today. They are one of the top affiliate networks with thousands of affiliates and hundreds of advertisers, including one of New Edge Media’s client’s PrintPlace.com. From their announcement today:
“The dedication of all our teams to putting our clients first contributes to our longevity,” said Kerri Pollard, General Manager of Commission Junction. “Many Internet-based companies that were founded in the dotcom heyday of the last decade are no longer around. The fact that we are still successful after 10 years is a testament to the fantastic partnerships we have with our clients.”
I’ve personally been working with Commission Junction since the end of 2007 and I’ve had very few problems with them, mostly related to internal IT issues on the advertiser end and their reporting. I do wish the reporting was better, but otherwise it’s a great network to get exposure on with a wide range of advertisers for an affiliate to choose from.
Read MoreOnline Marketing Glossary: Affiliate Network
Affiliate Network:
- An intermediary between an affiliate and merchant. For merchants, it offers tracking technology, reporting tools, payment processing and access to affiliates. For affiliates, it offers a one-click application to merchants, reporting tools and payment aggregation.
The big networks out there are Commission Junction, Rakuten LinkShare, and ShareASale. Most affiliates are members of more than one network to gain access to the best deals and a variety of merchants. Merchants typically stick to one network with some exceptions in the interest of simplicity.
____
Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Commission Junction Now Listing States
Just noticed this in my CJ account today…they’re now telling us merchants what state the publisher is in.
I think this will be beneficial, but also it could be unduly prejudicial with the states looking at similar laws to New York with taxes. Thoughts?
Read More
