5 Star Affiliate Marketing Blogs

Internet Marketing cartoons and pictures. You dont want to miss these. Can read ‘em… gotta click to see ‘em!

Ralph Wilson just published a great article about merchants and direct linking. Many merchants want to “use” their affiliates for link pop even though they are only paying them for sales. I don’t really believe that motivation is fair. However, there are several pros and cons to this linking method. One of the pros to direct linking IMHO is protection from adware that targets network links as well as anti-spyware/adblocking software that blocks network links or deletes cookies…

We are currently dealing with the effects of a distributed denial of service attack.
Thank you for your patience as we work to restore our services to full reliability…

Four of these Laws reminded me of things that are important for affiliates to consider. The Laws of Respectability, Laws of Dependability, Laws of ‘Memorability’, Laws of ‘Typeability’. If you have some of those LONG hyphened keyword domain names then you especially want to read those 4 sections, although this article has several good points for affiliates to re-think.

According to the turn out and early reports from Ad:tech05, the online ad industry is alive and kickin. Expectations are high. More than 6,500 registrants are anticipated through the show’s close April 27, a 50-percent-plus jump from 4,000 at last year’s ad:tech in San Francisco. On the exhibitor side, all the online blue chips are here: 170 of them, from suppliers in search marketing to banner specialists, Web analytics firms to interactive agencies. Also, there are portals, ad serving networks, market researchers, affiliate marketers, e-mail services companies, database marketers, rich media vendors and even insert media, list and teleservices firms…

Claria… stated Monday that McAfee has changed its tune on the company’s products, no longer calling them a “malicious threat.” This is possibly the first step for Claria to build a more positive image to their brand, which took a big hit when it was known as Gator a few years back…

gency and research execs have formed a new coalition, called Safecount, to improve relations between consumers worried about privacy and marketers hungry for data… “Advertisers and publishers want accountability, not a cold war with consumers, and we need to prevent a technical arms race… As its first move, Safecount has signed on as the sponsor of the Network Advertising Initiative’s “eCommerce in the Age of Spyware” event, scheduled for May 12 in New York.

…of the 70 percent of consumers who use some form of anti-spyware software, 79.5 percent say they run the software daily or weekly, 57.6 percent delete every item pointed out by the software, and 48.3 percent delete cookies through the software…

Well the Google Gods smiled down on my blog today! I had been wondering my brand new blog network would get blessed with Google PR, but had not checked for a couple days. Just got a PR 4 and the blog is only 1 month old. CLICK - you’ve got to see this picture! “I Blog for Traffic!”

We are happy to announce that we just added 2 more new programs to the existing 6 in the Niche Retail mini affiliate network. Golf Push Carts and Spare Beds (air beds). As always these “Niche” products have a high average order size and very high conversions due to the Niche targeting and shopper-friendly layout of the sites. Niche Retail now has 8 affiliate programs in one easy interface, featuring these 2 new ones plus…

AffiliateManager.net, the best private “gated” affiliate forum and the ONLY real forum exclusively for affiliate managers was hacked and destroyed. I didn’t get a chance to blog about this yesterday but did want to write about it today. Shawn Collins, an industry leader built this manager community and it has become a primary information source for affiliate managers and service providers. Visiting that forum was a vital part of our daily routine and the loss of 2 years of valuable insight and posts is just, well… hard to even imagine someone could do this.

Some of you know that the Grokdotcom newsletter is one of my favorites and filled with great info on converting more of your hard earned traffic into sales. Here is a little snippet from their latest newsletter:

Users aren’t eating cookies as much as previously reported. The following article on cookies is based on new Atlas research which shows users dont delete cookies as often as they say they do. The Jupiter Research cookie report I blogged about on March 14th stated that “as many as 39% of online users may be deleting cookies monthly.” This new report and the following diagram suggest the real cookie story may not be quite as bad as Jupiter’s data showed.

Just scanned a very interesting article on Clickz by Fredrick Marckini of iProspect based on new information he has gathered from the recent Google patent filing. I have often heard merchants say that their rankings disappeared. I wonder if this particular issue with too many affiliate links coming in too fast could be part of the problem???

The Consortium of Anti-Spyware Technology Vendors was established to help computer users remove unwanted software and put pressure on those companies that distribute invasive online advertising technologies. According to the Web site “C.O.A.S.T. has ceased operations, and this website will be taken down permanently on April 15, 2005.” Did the end of this organization begin when they let 180 Solutions, one of the most infamous spyware and adware companies in?

This has absolutely nothing to do with Internet marketing but you just MUST see it and hear it.
RefreshingMedia one of my friends over at affcommunity.com posted: “This is by far one of the best music videos I have seen in a while. It’s obsure, has a haunting melody and only 1 lyric. It makes you want to dance in your chair. The old people popping is amazing.”

Do you ever pray to the Google Gods for good rankings? I know a lot of affiliates that do. Well I think of Google as a “She” so this guy must be praying to the Yahoo God…

We are proud to announce that PartnerCentric has re-vamped and re-launched the existing two Smooth Corporation programs that are on CJ as well as adding two more programs that are in-house via DirectTrack. So whether you prefer the convenience of the CJ network or the independence of an “Indie” we offer you the choice that best meets your needs.

The Interneka affiliate tracking program site has been down for 2 days. Reason unknown. If you are an affiliate or merchants using this tracking solution you should check your links.

The affiliate marketing space is just as fiercely competitive– and frenzied. Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter’s 5 forces model brings some order to the chaos. Regardless of whether you are the owner of your business or simply a sales person pushing your company’s products, take time to really think about the forces that affect your piece of the business.

We are proud to announce that PartnerCentric has re-vamped and re-launched the ARTinaClick Art & Posters Affiliate Program. The 1st thing we did was to increase your earning potential. On top of the already high 15% base commission we added performance incentive bonuses up to 25% to help you earn more!

My goal in this book is to help you understand how affiliate management software works, which features are important, let you know as much as possible about the programs themselves, and then make recommendations to guide you in the selection process. At the end I award four software programs the Web Marketing Today Award of Excellence in Affiliate Management Software.

Hey this is a pretty cool key word list highlighting spring’s top searches by category. Categories include, top tax searches, top wedding keywords, diet searches, cleaning, travel KW, baseball KW and more. Enjoy!

Turn up your speakers and get ready to smile on a Tuesday morning.
webuildpages.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object)
Picked up this perky little ditty at ThreadWatch. Thanks Nick for the laugh!

I would not normally blog about a new shopping search engine except based on the people involved, this one could be big. I heard on a forum that John Glick has left Yahoo to join the Become team and Chris Kermoian, formerly of Alta Vista is the Vice President of Product Management. Become is founded by Michael Yang and Yeogirl Yun, founders of pioneering online comparison shopping site mySimon. Have no idea if there is anything here that could help or hurt the affiliate industry, it’s just hot off the press so thought I would share.

I recently got a call from our affiliate manager informing me of their “new PPC guidelines”. These included A) Your bid must be set to .50 cents (or less) this applies to both Google and Overture B) Cannot use parent domain (wasn’t using anyways) C) You must stay out of the top 4 positions on Overture and with Google

Experts will reveal their best practices in establishing, growing, optimizing, and policing affiliate programs. Whether you are thinking about starting an affiliate program or just looking to expand an existing one, this session is worth attending. Please join us and learn how to:

I just got an email from Overture saying: “We would like to help you get ready for the upcoming Mother’s Day shopping season. As such, we have reviewed search logs from the previous year to identify seasonal queries that are relevant to our advertisers. ” Its a pretty darned good list of PPC search terms, categorized to allow you to quickly identify those that are most relevant to your business. I don’t want to post a link here due to copyright issues. If you are an Overture advertiser check your inbox. If you need a copy let me know and I will send to you.

I just discovered a blog that I really like and think should be requisite reading for all new affiliate managers. (Even you old dawgs!) When I 1st started reading it I thought, “This blog should be called a day in the life of an Affiliate Marketer.” The real name of the blog however […]

Rumor has it that Experian is buying Affiliate Fuel. What’s with all the big companies buying up Affiliate Companies lately??? 1st CGI buys Kowabunga (which made lots of sense and seemed to be a good fit) - now Experian is buying Affiliate Fuel? I don’t get the connection here at all. Affiliate Fuel is not that big of a player IMHO.

Here is some great, hard hitting stuff about how Spyware and Adware negatively impacts our industry. Thanks to Wayne Porter for sharing this important info. As more and more companies take a stand, change will come.

According to letters that have gone out to affiliates, the IBM Affiliate Program will be closing at the end of April and no more commissions will be paid, so take those links down and find a replacement.

List your favorite KeyWord and SEO tools - let’s all share.
Leave a Pearl, Take a Pearl
I like DigitalPoint which shows WordTracker AND Overture daily totals. I use this one often for researching domain names before I buy them.
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/
This one calculates Google search frequency:
http://ecommerce.insightin.com/tools/keyword_popularity_calculator.php
I just found this resource recently. Have not even […]

PartnerCentric just designed a brand new independent affiliate program for Traffic School Online.com, a company established in 1997 as the nation’s first driver improvement course delivered on the Internet. Since 1997 they have served over a half-million customers nationwide! Online traffic classes allow people to complete courses at their own pace with no boring classroom while reducing ticket points and saving on insurance.

Have you discovered the new MSN search results spoof site yet??? It’s hilarious! Enter a name and personal characteristics, and the site delivers an authentic-looking MSN search results page with gut-busting headlines and summaries. Even the contextual ads are faked—and definitely contextual.