So I’ve returned rejuvenated from my vacation and I’m here to announce that I’ve started a new podcast with Michael Buechele of 11|15 Media called Affiliate Marketing Fanatics.  In the podcast, hosted generously by GeekCast.fm, we discuss different tools and aspects of affiliate marketing from both the publisher perspective (Mike) and the affiliate manager perspective (mine).

We recorded our first episode just before I left for vacation and Michael worked on the editing and posting while I was gone… unfortunately as we’re just learning this stuff, there are some strange audio issues and the very end got cut off.  We were using Pamela to record over Skype, so if anyone out there has any suggestions to fix them, I’m all ears.

In our first episode we discuss Zemanta, the BAAMC, RingRevenue, the PMA, and Facebook. So please, go check it out and comment and let us know what you think!

Affiliate Marketing Fanatics Episode 1: Almost a Fail

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Date: Sunday, January 11th, 2009.  Session 3d, 3:00pm.
Session Description: There are two sides to ethical issues in affiliate marketing, and we will entertain audience questions for a panel of industry leaders.  The panel consisted of:

• Haiko de Poel Jr., Managing Partner, dp internet services LLC, DBA ABestWeb (Moderator)
• Connie Berg, CEO, FlamingoWorld.com LLC
• Chuck Hamrick, Affiliate Manager, affiliateCREW.com
• Brian Littleton, President/CEO, ShareASale.com
• Alex Butin, Freecause (Alex stood in for Paul Nichols from Ebates, who had to bow out last minute)

With Alex on the panel and the latest big issue facing affiliate ethics being toolbars overwriting affiliate cookies, I think that swayed the tide of the questions asked by both Haiko as moderator and Q&A portion.  I would have liked to hear more questions asked by audience members, but admittedly, I didn’t have any to ask myself since I’m still learning about all the different issues that eat at the ethics of the industry.

Bullet Point Review!

• Haiko made a good analogy to Las Vegas and asked: is the soul of the industry gone?
• Online marketing is becoming the default medium for high ROI.
• From your unique vantage point, where do you draw the line?
  • Chuck, as an OPM, said: Knowingly doing something that’s unethical.  Working with adware and parasites knowing that’s wrong.  Allowing PPC tactics you know affect other department’s performance.  Being an affiliate of your own program.  Playing favorites.
  • Connie, as a coupon affiliate, said: Coupon sites that have a toolbar that overwrites other cookies.  Auto load cookies.  Social media apps. Networks owning competing affiliate sites.  As new technology comes out there are new ways to cheat.
  • Alex, as a technology provider, said: Be clear with your motives, evolve your business models.  It’s up to merchants to decide what’s unethical, as a company they don’t want to create a tool that doesn’t do exactly what it says it does, so they’re not interested in shady features that aren’t advertised.
  • Brian, as a network, said: They see “interference” to tracking as a problem period, and since parasites, toolbars, etc. interfere with tracking, they’re out.  They’ve also seen a total disregard for other company’s policies (affiliates breaking Google rules was his example) and they have no interest working with those people.  Don’t turn the other cheek to practices you know are unethical.
• There’s a whole movement of squeaky clean networks and businesses.
• We need to take charge because the networks won’t.
• People are pushing the term “affiliate” under the rug and re-branding as “performance” marketing.  Performance is all inclusive and too broad to represent affiliates.
• Network compliance teams are a joke.
• The industry needs more disclosure and transparency, not division and separation that some organizations are actually providing (seemed to hint at the PMA).

Points brought up during the Q&A

• One question asker made the statement that “cookies are dead”, referencing the new browser technology recently coming out that has been blocking affiliate ad displays and blocking cookies.  Brian respectfully disagreed with the statement that cookies are dead, but said his network is looking at ways to track without cookies, but couldn’t get into specifics for obvious reasons.  Other panelists agreed that the cookie issue isn’t too big yet.
• Brook Schaaf asked about the negative thoughts associated with coupon sites, and Connie and the other panelists agreed that “one bad apple spoils the bunch”, so to speak.  There are shady coupon sites running toolbars that overwrite cookies, stealing non-affiliate coupon codes from the merchant’s website, and stealing exclusive codes from other affiliates that have given legitimate coupon sites a bad name.

Based solely on the description of this session, I was hoping for more of a discussion, but despite the room being packed, the panel was over 20 minutes early with just two questions asked.  I’m glad that it seems they took the feedback from Boston and toned the emotion of the session down a bit, and I hope to see further discussion at future Summits, or perhaps even a jam session type event to just address ethics.  It seems like a discussion bigger than an hour long panel can accommodate.

There’s also a recap from Michael Buechele’s point of view on the Affiliate Summit Blog:  Affiliate Summit West 2009 Session Recap – Ethical Issues in Affiliate Marketing. Check out a different perspective.

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Happy New Year!  As I mentioned last Friday, I’ve spent this week with family in Oregon, so I have been semi-off the grid.  So this week’s edition of Cribbed Content is as much for me to catch up on things as it is for some of you!

On a personal note, 2008 treated me okay…but I’m hoping that 2009 knocks me off my feet!  I hope your lives are treating you right and leading you in the direction you want to go!

• The movie industry doesn’t get to have all the fun with an awards season: on the heels of ShareASale announcing their awards last week, the finalists for the Pinnacle Awards Finalists at Affiliate Summit West 2009 were announced this week.  Congrats to the finalists, and we’ll see who the winners are at the awards dinner in Las Vegas.
• Google’s Matt Cutts confirmed via Twitter that PageRank was updated.  I heard about it before then and I’m glad to report that this blog has gone from a PR0 to PR2, thus reassuring me that I hadn’t landed on some mysterious Google blacklist.  As exciting as this was, it was also proven how little PR means anymore when I checked my twitter page out of curiosity to find it was a PR9!
• It’s Official: The Performance Marketing Alliance is now an official, non-profit trade association.  Charter membership will be available sometime this month, I imagine starting at Affiliate Summit.
• I wrote another guest post at Marketing Pilgrim, this time on how Digg’s Lack of Ad Targeting is Hurting Revenue.

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