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Reason #5 I'm enamoured with affiliate marketing

It's ok (even encouraged) to click on your own links.

Rocky Mountain Affiliate Manager Association

http://www.rmama.com/
The Rocky Mountain Affiliate Manager Association meets monthly. The location changes, but it's in Salt Lake somewhere, from 1-5pm. Companies like Overstock.com and Backcountry.com attend.

If you don't have an organization like this, start one. It can be very valuable to your affiliate program.

I'm writing about setting up an affiliate program for your small business. I hope to do a follow-up article on how to supplement or replace your day job with affiliate marketing. I also want to do it myself so I understand it from both ends.

I just added an affiliate ad for 3 free audiobooks. When you click this we both win. You get free books (or a good deal on Commcast or web hosting, etc) and I get a small commission for referring you. Win-win.

Co-registration for email newsletters

I want to learn more about co-registration...so when someone signs up for a newsletter they can sign up for yours too. It's a way to leverage each other's lists.

How I got back on Adsense

I hear I'm one of few people EVER who got back on adsense after getting kicked off. I hear this method is not working for others, but it's worth a try.

I'm not a fan of the way this is handled but thankful to be back on. First off, I had someone back me who makes Google a lot of money. He wrote first, vouching for me.

Often you get kicked off because of click fraud and its often out of your control (I'll blog about a tool that can help you detect when it happens though).

After my friend wrote a letter, I wrote a letter with the information requested, and was back on the next day.

I emailed adsense-adclicks-appeal@google.com with the details below:

- My name

- My company's name (if applicable)

- My publisher ID number (located in the AdSense code on your website
with the format, pub-################)

- My website's URL

I also explained how I didn't knowingly break any rules. I gave them a little about why I wanted back on. I make so little I have no incentive to commit fraud. Once I accidently clicked on my own ad (I clicked my mouse & it was near the ad space) and it scared me! It seems too arbitrary. I hope this changes. It's not fair that someone else (even well-meaning) could permanently shut you out of this great revenue stream.

Best Affiliate Summit speakers

I dug (remember to put google alerts on these names) the presentation by Fredrick Marckini of iprospect.com. He collected business cards at the end of his talk so he could send us a white paper (smart) of his presentation. He shook everyone's hand and greeted most by name. Impressed.

He spoke about the end of search. Next stop: intelligent agents that tell you what to look at based on your preferences.

Another one that blew me away is Jeff Barr from Amazon.com. Mechanical Turk has to have other applications and could spon additional business models in the non-techie world.

I was impressed by what some of Amazon's affiliates were doing with one-page niche sites. I'll put a link to some of them once I have more time.

Declan Dunn from Dunn Direct Group was dynamic and insane. I loved it! Think aging hippie. He talked about podcasting. You learn most when you hear it. Most people don't read text and the retention rate is tiny.

Good to be back to 24/7 internet access. More later...

Affiliate Summit 2006 report 1

The Affiliate Summit conference is amazing so far. Will blog more when I get home. Amazon.com web services guy blew me away. He challenged my thinking.

Avon does co-branded emails with MyPoints and others traditional marketers (should've written the whole list...Clubmom was on there...bingo sites).

Can't wait for tomorrow's class on how adult industry marketers work. They invented it and are cutting edge, along with the Christian Coalition. While I'm in sin city I may as well learn from the pros...

Definately my crowd here. This is my passion. Starting to see the same faces as at the Ad-tech show. Found an affiliate marketer in Draper to interview for Connect. Found Pete and guys from Paul Allen's class. Idea to start job site modeled after Amazon's model, push and pull jobs. Want to podcast....mmmmmmmm....eat this stuff up.

Dream jobs: affiliate marketer or buzz marketer. Love to create buzz...

This entry was blogged from the Apple store on the strip...hope I find my cell phone.

Glory Days

When I first started at my day job as a web marketer I applied what had worked in the past and didn't pull it off so well. I'd dreamed about what our site could do for over a year beforehand.

When you first get a new position you have the glory days. You ask to go to conferences, you try to get budget, you try to rally people to get things done. The company wasn't as web saavy overall as I'm used to. Now we had a new VP who is totally committed to it.

This honeymoon brought a lot of focus and enthusiasm about the web site when before it was under the radar (at least to marketing). I find this is a good time to get things done. You act quickly. We hired a web programmer and graphic designer. I thought it was our chance to really rock. I was enthusiastic. I was estatic. Then reality hit and a lot of frustration.

I better read The Likeability Factor that's on my shelf, lol.

I still think we kicked trash. We met a very aggressive timeline. The positive feedback continues to come in. I've got a lot of goals ahead but I realize that my approach and timelines may need some adjusting. That's alright though. Like I said I'd still say overall there were a lot of successes...I just got 3 more positive emails this morning.

Rant #2: Linkhogs

There are web sites out there that think we don't know the internet. Every single link on their site, links to a page in their site. They never link to anything outside their site. They highjack you, as if staying on their site means you are loyal to them or they can force you to purchase from them. As if we don't know we can pull up another browser or leave their site at will anyway.

Why not make give us high quality links (there is so much junk out there, thanks Jonas et al)? So we know we can trust you to lead us straight for more information or even more objective information. It's good web customer service to help us get what we're looking for and not try to sabatoge us.

Old thinking. The web is all about connection. It's networking. We're not grocery stores who arrange things as roadblocks so we will buy more. We don't have to walk through the entire store to find the staples we came for. We can go straight to the page we want and leave again. We don't force we entice someone to stay. Apple stores aren't arranging things so people will stay (neither is Barnes & Noble). They make it inviting or compelling and you don't want to leave.

I prefer transparency. Where it makes sense, why not link to better information, more information, other sources? Why not become the authority in your niche and direct people to complementary information or products? (do it with affiliate marketing and you'll get a kickback)

Adsense: how it's hurt. With contextual searching you have to worry more about ads which might appear on a page you link to. There could be illegal claims or competitors or misinformation. The legal department doesn't like it at all. Better not to link.