5 Star Affiliate Blogs

HELP YOUR VISITORS GIVE THE GIFT OF CHOICE THIS HOLIDAY SEASON!

One of the most popular gifts given this holiday season will be gift certificates and gift cards. Makes so much sense to let people choose the gift they want! I would think conversions on gift cards would be really high. PLUS remember that gift certificates are one of the best last minute Christmas gifts for you to promote, because they can be printed instantly online and don’t require any shipping time.

HOWEVER, affiliates be advised – the majority of merchants don’t pay commission on gift certificates and gift cards, so don’t promote that option on your site unless you verify you will get a paid for your promotional efforts.

Click here to view a list of Google Affiliate Network advertisers that offer commission on gift cards.

Oh and since we’re talking about Google Affiliate Network, here’s a list of merchants who are among the fastest growing in terms of payout rank.

15 Fast Growing Affiliate Programs on Google Affiliate Network

1. Verizon Wireless
2. Shoes.com
3. Blue Nile
4. Kohl’s
5. Sears.com
6. Textbooks.com
7. 4checks.com
8. The Children’s Place
9. Famous Footwear
10. Kmart
11. Express
12. AbeBooks
13. Cabela’s
14. Barnes & Noble
15. Finish Line

Happy selling! I hope you make a bundle from gift card sales this Holiday season!

November 18, 2009

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New programs available through Google Affiliate Network:

FedEx Office & Print Services	lulu.com	PajamaCity.com	Mounted Memories
Magix	UltraDiamonds.com	PacificGeek	MedScope
UWantSavings.com	EstablishedMen.com	LifePhoto.com

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How do you solve a problem like affiliate fraud?

This is a monumental question, one that has been around as long as affiliate marketing, and one that now threatens the very future of our industry. This is also the topic of Thurdsay’s episode of Affiliate Marketing Insider.

Joining Partnercentric on the podcast are three people who are now working to lead our industry’s attempt to self-regulate affiliate fraud:

- Rebecca Madigan, Executive Director of the Performance Marketing Alliance
- Jivan Manhas, Head of Sales for Media Trust
- Mark Roth, co-founder of Offer Vault

Among the topics they will discuss:

- What constitutes affiliate fraud?
- What is fraud doing to the affiliate marketing industry?
- Who is responsible for policing fraud?

None of these questions have simple answers – not even the definition of affiliate fraud and the determination of what constitutes affiliate fraud. Manhas and Roth both say that an action constitutes affiliate fraud when there is malicious intent or out and out theft. Do you agree?

Tune in to WebmasterRadio.fm at noon Pacific (3 p.m. Eastern)  Thursday, Nov. 19, for the next episode of Affiliate Marketing Insider and the conversation about affiliate fraud.

I announced back in August that OfferVault is offering free access to live, weekly training Webinars for affiliate marketers. The webinars focus on a variety of topics including: CPA Marketing, Niche Selection, Affiliate Marketing, Keyword Research, Pay Per Click, SEO, Web 2.0, Conversion Optimization and Testing, Landing Page Design and more.

Tonight’s free webinar is about CPA Marketing Success Tactics.

Steve Iser and John Hostler have been blowing people away with this presentation that exposes their step by step strategies for pillaging the CPA networks for over 6 figures a year.

Here is some of what they will cover:

· Easy Network Approval – the simple trick to getting an approval at the networks every time

· Covert Spy Profit Technique – how to save weeks of time by finding and reverse engineering the top affiliates

· The ‘Blitzkrieg’ Method – how to catapult your earnings per click

· Stupid SIMPLE Traffic Methods – a traffic method that can get ANYONE targeted traffic today

· The ‘Hammer’ Strategy – the “leveler”… this method is unheard of by anyone in the industry and changes the game for affiliates forever.

The webinar is tonight, Tuesday, November 17, 2009 from 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM EST. Register Here.

You like rollercoaster rides? Then you might like or may already be doing PPC affiliate marketing. I don’t think I have the the nerve for that kind of roller coaster ride, but I greatly admire affiliates that do and some of the PPC affiliates I know make an incredible living at it!

Today I’d like to share some good posts that deal with two important issues. How to scale a campaign and how to know when to give up and stop a campaign.

The Keys To Scaling A Campaign “There’s just one problem: most people limit themselves to milking that one traffic source for all it’s worth and then that’s it, end of story. There’s a lot of money on the table, why are you limiting yourself to just that one piece of the pie?”

Keyword Research : Go Deep or Going Wide First? “There’s one very common mistake that stops a lot of affiliates dead in their tracks. I’ve helped and coached a lot of affiliates and I’ve seen this mistake come up again and again, and chances are you’re probably doing it too.

When to call it quits on a campaign “Let the numbers do all of the talking and based on your financial situation, decide what the best approach is. Don’t let your ego get the best of you and don’t take the “test, test and test some more ‘till something sticks” concept too far. Seriously, don’t!”

November 13, 2009

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New programs available through Google Affiliate Network:

BidHere.com	Alpaluxe	Kazoo Toys	Twirl Kids
TigerSupplies	Rodale	Cravings By Mail	StyleQ

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5 Star News – November 2009

Welcome to the November edition of the 5 Star News. Check out all the exciting new 5 Star programs we have for you and be sure to catch the latest 5 Star merchant news & Holiday contests below.

Visit the Google New Programs Directory & Google Affiliate Network forum

New 5 Star Programs

Adfinity – Maximize Your Earning Potential! Adfinity is recommended by Publishers because we make affiliate marketing success attainable! We offer guaranteed high payouts for publishers, quality campaigns and exclusives, exceptional Linktrust tracking technology, a referral program, on time payments and an affiliate management team ready to help you day and night. Join Here!

Saveology – Profit from Technology and Home Services. Market Dish Network, Comcast, Digital TV, Internet, Phone, ADT Home Security, Vonage and more. Benefit from the industries’ highest payouts, dedicated program management, customized White Labels, phone tracking and have a 24/7 call center cross-sell, up-sell and close your traffic. Join Here!

ADFoundry.net – Your Source for Great Offers. ADFoundry.net supplies publishers with a vast array of top performing, high converting advertising campaigns, covering a wide range of verticals. They offer payouts above industry standard, incentives, a tiered commission structure and a team of dedicated professionals catering to your publishing needs. Join Here!

Google Affiliate Network: NEW Programs – Bounce Energy, Frames Direct, Say It With Books, White Flower Farm, Live! On Sunset, TheNerds.net, Bplay, Inhabit, Anti-Aging Store.com, Three Dog Bakery, Jezalins.com, PrintsMadeEasy.com, Vox Call, LacenseBeef.com, Smart Credit, Ellusionist.com, Inhabit, CSNStores.com, Naturalizer.ca, Shoplet, Taylor Made Golf Gear, Filofax, Boreal.com, CencoPhysics.com, AffiliateReporting.com, ProbioticSmart.com and Total Gym Direct. Complete program details & join here.

5 Star Affiliate Program Updates
RevenueWire News – Hot Contests! Win a Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R motorcycle from ParetoLogic, $25,000 cash from PC Tools or $10,000 cash from Driver Detective. Contest Details Here.

Market Health – New Offers and Program News – New offers for Goji Berry and Revitol. Also trial offers have been translated into several languages.

DentalPlans - Holiday Contests – Win up to $625 in bonuses in November or get a chance to Win $150 in December if you are one of the “Most Improved” affiliates. Contest Details Here

PartnerCentric Blog – Discover PC program updates, bonuses & coupons at the PartnerCentric Blog.

PartnerCentric – Social Media: Join the Conversation! Partnercentric offers social media marketing.

5 Star Forum & Blog News
Hot Recent Threads – Please take a moment to scan the recent forum threads to see if there is a question you can answer, a member you can help or a topic you want to weigh in on. Your opinion counts!

Thanks in advance for your participation. We appreciate you!

5 Star Blog – Scan the latest headlines for industry news, tips and tools

Linda Buquet :: Affiliate Recruiting :: Program Promotion :: PR

Disclosure: All of the companies listed above are 5 Star sponsors.

PubCon is rocking Las Vegas this week and it sounds like there have been some really good affiliate marketing sessions. If you weren’t able to make it to this event to hear some industry leaders speak, the next best thing is to read the live blogging accounts from people who were there. Here is some good blog coverage of the affiliate related sessions. CLICK to read the rest of this entry

Here’s a timely new affiliate program Press Release from one of our 5 Star clients, just in time for the Holidays.

With the holidays fast approaching, many affiliates are looking for new opportunities for revenue in the final, and most important, quarter of the year. This strategic partnership grants affiliates a great revenue potential that is perfect for the holidays. Affiliates can earn as much as 15% revenue share and be eligible to win three $100 cash prizes. CLICK to read the rest of this entry

Seems that Twitter is becoming more of an accepted marketing tool for affiliates now that Amazon and Linkshare have both developed new Twitter marketing tools. So let’s talk about how to market responsibly on Twitter without losing followers or ticking people off.

As with any other tool, there are good ways to use it and there are methods you should definitely avoid. Yesterday Nathan Hangen guest blogged an excellent article over at the Clickbank blog. He gives some great advice and points out that lots of affiliates are doing Twitter marketing all wrong.
CLICK to read the rest of this entry

What traits do you look for in an affiliate manager?

Who are some great affiliate managers you work with?

What should you do when you have a bad affiliate manager?

Should you just drop their program and look for another?

Should you talk to management and tell them the AM is hurting their program?

I just recently came across a good post from an affiliate who talks about what he looks for in an affiliate manager. CLICK to read the rest of this entry

I have been involved in numerous FTC Guidelines discussions on several affiliate forums, trying to help keep people informed about various updates as they come up. Since the December 1st deadline is drawing near, I thought I should post some updates here on the blog too.

So below you’ll find info about: a free webinar (tonight) with an attorney regarding the FTC guidelines, 2 disclosure policy generators that may be helpful and 6 videos from the FTC that answer common questions about the issue. CLICK to read the rest of this entry

Craigslist Now Warns About Affiliate Scammers and Tells Users
How to Get Back at Them Where it Hurts – Right In the Wallet!

Affiliate Scammers Give the Industry a Big Black Eye!

I think (hope) most affiliates know that they aren’t supposed to do affiliate marketing on Craigslist. Not only is it against Craigs TOS, but many affiliate networks prohibit CL marketing and will withhold your commissions.

The underbelly of affiliate marketing, has all kinds of scammy ways to try to game the system and trick CL users into pulling out their credit card or filling out a lead form. I won’t go into some of the creative marketing these guys do, but they are giving the affiliate marketing industry a huge black eye. Millions of CL users (consumers) are now probably going to link the word ‘affiliate’ with the word ’scammer’.

CLICK to read the rest of this entry

Looking for ways to kick your PPC campaigns up a notch for the Holidays?
Are you having challenges with the Google Adwords quality score?
Do you ever get stuck in a rut with your PPC campaigns?
Are you using the same old PPC strategies?

One of my favorite PPC affiliate marketing blogs is the RevenueWire Blog. RevenueWire is a 5 Star Affiliate network that specializes in software products and the team over there really knows their stuff when it comes to PPC! So I wanted to share a few of their best and most recent posts with you. I hope these tips will help you jump start your PPC campaigns, either by showing you some new ideas or reinforcing some important basics you may be overlooking.

CLICK to read the rest of this entry

November 4, 2009

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New programs available through Google Affiliate Network:

Bounce Energy	Frames Direct	Say It With Books	White Flower Farm
PayOffLive	Live! On Sunset	TheNerds.net	Bplay

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I wanted to report today on several new initiatives that are being undertaken in an attempt to fight affiliate fraud.

Yesterday a Performance Marketing Leadership Summit, was held and the focus was on Fraud Prevention and Affiliate Screening. The event, hosted by OfferVault, was open to affiliate and CPA networks who are concerned about the growing problem of affiliate fraud and how to detect and eliminate it. In a series of keynote presentations and panel discussions, participants received information which they will be able to implement to correct this problem.

Jivan Manhas of MediaTrust told the crowd “We are seen as the ugly stepchild of online marketing. We call it performance marketing because the term affiliate marketing is tainted.” according to Adotas who reported on the event.
CLICK to read the rest of this entry

Amazon just expanded their social networking features by launching direct integration with Twitter. The “Share on Twitter” feature allows Associates to create affiliate links to their favorite products, directly from Amazon detail pages and instantly post them to their Twitter account via the Associates Site Stripe.

Click to view full screen and see how it works!

CLICK to read the rest of this entry

Adfinity – Maximize Your Earning Potential

Adfinity is recommended by affiliates because we make affiliate marketing success attainable! We offer the highest payouts, a referral program, timely payments and a management team ready to help you day and night.

Adfinity publishers stay with our company because we are there to help them launch their campaigns, offering a level of support beyond the norm. Our experienced team of affiliate managers help make sure our affiliates are getting the best return on their marketing investments – whether it be from their website, search engine, email marketing, media buys, or social media.

Adfinity Affiliate Network Benefits:

.:. Numerous exclusives and in-house offers!
.:. Best payouts, hundreds of CPA offers!
.:. Rapid payments sent to all publishers – weekly payments available!
.:. Super affiliate signing bonuses – continued special affiliate offers!
.:. Internet marketing support – dedicated affiliate management services!
.:. Exceptional Linktrust tracking technology!
.:. Weekly informative Adfinity newsletters!
.:. Quality online advertisers that want your traffic!

Join Adfinity Now!

Read below to find out why Adfinity stands out from the crowd:

Tons of Exclusive and In-House Offers – One of the many unique things about Adfinity is the advertiser for many of it’s offers, this allows us to pay Publishers incredibly HIGH Payouts!

Best Payouts, Hundreds of CPA Offers – Because of our longstanding relationships in the industry, we give our Publishers the highest payouts

Rapid Payments Sent to all Publishers, with Weekly Payments Available – Publishers that make over $1K in weekly commissions are eligible to request weekly payments. If you’re interested, please contact your manager today.

Super Affiliate Signing Bonuses and Continued Special Affiliate Offers – We take care of our super affiliates and regularly give them Bonuses and Prizes, as well as offering them first pick of brand new offers. If you’re a super affiliate, Adfinity has you covered!

Veteran Internet Marketing Support and Dedicated Affiliate Management Services – Our staff has experience with all forms of internet marketing, and can help troubleshoot or help you launch your campaigns quicker!

Exceptional Linktrust Tracking Technology – With our recent switch to Linktrust, we’ve tracked 5-10% more leads on average than networks that use Directtrack.

Weekly Informative Adfinity Newsletters – Our Newsletters not only give you the scoop on our new offers, but tell you what’s new in the industry so you can stay ahead of the curve!

Quality Online Advertisers that Want Your Traffic – Our partners know we provide results and love working with us!

Join Adfinity Today

As always let us know if we can help you be successful with this 5 Star network.

Disclosure: Adfinity is a 5 Star Advertiser.

Pubcon 2009 hits Las Vegas next week and I know lots of affiliates that are going. I’m happy to see there are plenty of affiliate topics on the agenda this year.  Below are a few of the affiliate marketing sessions that look good.
See full session grid here.

Hot Topics and Trends in the Affiliate Space – Affiliate gurus have a large book of strategies to choose from when dealing with the wild world of affiliate programs. This panel will cover recent trends in the affiliate space, from PPC to running your own affiliate program.

Social Media Marketing for Affiliates – Affiliate advertisers and buyers, how are you dividing your time? Have you jumped in to social media plays? Is social media a good channel for you to use? This session will discuss the best ways to engage social media websites and how to profit from them as an affiliate marketer.

CLICK to read the rest of this entry

November 3, 2009

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New programs available through Google Affiliate Network:

Inhabit	Anti-Aging Store.com	Three Dog Bakery
Jezalins.com	Goalie Monkey	PrintsMade Easy.com

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