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Affiliates who partner with merchants to promote a specific brand or site spend a great deal of time, money and effort to move the needle from 0.

Most large affiliates have a pre-determined idea of the amount of keyword space they need to have with a generic merchant in order to make that initial investment worth their time. In order to help faciliate that movement, how much keyword space should merchants afford affiliates?

The answer is invariably dependent on how much control and insulation a merchant hopes to retain over their brand and search strategy. However, in order to attract affiliates which can drive high volumes of quality traffic (“Super Affiliates”), merchants must give over some of that control and allow for enough keyword space to make the upstart move from “0 to 60” rather quickly.

How much keyword space is too much keyword space? Is there a limit?

The Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards were announced at last night’s Pure Imagination party held at the Wynn Hotel and Resort…

Affiliate of the Year: Scott Hazard
Affiliate Manager of the Year: Angel Djambazov
Exceptional Merchant: Amazon.com
Affiliate Marketing Advocate Award: Brian Littleton
Best Blogger: Jim Kukral
Wayne Porter Affiliate Marketing Legend: Todd Crawford

An exceptional set of winners (and nominees) this year, so a big congrats to all. However, the triumvirate of Legends (Wayne Porter, Tim Storm and Todd Crawford) is quite a group of personalities!

I’d also like to congratulate Shawn Collins and Missy Ward for putting together an incredible show this year. They have constantly made tweaks here and there that have elevated the quality of the show to an exceptionally high level in terms of education, inspiration, networking and fun.

The floor and sessions are packed, but so are the meeting rooms and hallways. I see deals happening everywhere with confident affiliates and knowledgable networks and merchants constantly interacting. As Jennine Rexon of Rextopia commented to me, “the buzz is tangible.” I completely agree with her.

See you in Miami!

I think so… they are much more fluid, transparent and cost-effective.

This morning at Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas, I had the great pleasure to spend a good deal of time with Heiko Rauch, Co-Founder and COO of Zanox, Holger Kamin, Regional Manager / Country Manager USA and Sean Cheyney, AccuQuote’s VP of Marketing and Business Development in an involved and incredibly interesting discussion about affiliate marketing, the international online marketing world and possible futures for marketing in a cross-channel and cross-border world.

Heiko, Holger and Sean were more than gracious with their time, insights and honesty about the position of Zanox in the United State affiliate marketing scene and how partnerships with companies such as AccuQuote may help to quickly make affiliates, publishers and merchants aware of the opportunities that an international approach can bring to their respective platforms.

We began by discussing why AccuQuote decided to partner with Zanox to promote its affiliate and online marketing efforts. One thing quickly became clear as Sean talked about this decision… AccuQuote is giddy with excitement over the prospect of consolidating its myriad and diaspora marketing efforts under one umbrella, while still offering the same sorts of customized and personalized platforms for promotion for which AccuQuote is famous.

Sean continually pointed to the “partnership” aspect which Zanox stresses (even within its logo) and how AccuQuote could better facilitate communications with publishers and affiliates by working with one network rather than upwards of a dozen yet offer even more flexibility and transparency than before.

Sean commented:

“Our goal is to make the process of buying life insurance as easy as possible for our customers. We do that by combining instant online quotes with the personal service of seasoned, experienced professionals. It was therefore very important to us to find an affiliate marketing partner that placed the same emphasis on customer service as we do – and we found that in Zanox.”

As Sean made his case for the AccuQuote decision, Holger was especially passionate about Zanox’s commitment to its vision of e-commerce as a global business and online marketing as the greatest exemplar of that paradigm. He articulately emphasized the point that by helping merchants and affiliates reach each other on a global scale, Zanox has placed itself in a unique position which other affiliate networks have not been able to establish.

Heiko pointed out that Zanox has well established offices in Shanghai, China and is quickly learning how to apply what is working in those offices to its European and American efforts.

That is exciting.

“Zanox was founded on the principle of performance-based marketing. Our customers only pay for results, period. That focus, combined with our comprehensive support program for affiliate partners, means that we can offer the highest-quality, most effective affiliate marketing programs around.”

Holger and Heiko continually brought up their excitement for the Zanox AdRank program as a way for search affiliates to find useful keywords and adequately monetize their programs while providing guidance for publishers, as well. I’ve taken a look at a few demo’s of that program, and it is a nice alternative to AdSense as it provides customization.

Speaking of customization, the Zanox and AccuQuote partnership is grounded in it. Sean says that is a major reason that AccuQuote has partnered with Zanox. The level of customization and immediate transparency is greater than any other affiliate network, and after taking a peek at some of the programs, I can’t argue. I’m impressed with how well Zanox has built the ability to customize banners, links, mobile creative, and web site placements while not becoming so automated in creative generation that the program loses the human touch. Rather, they have been able to provide the merchant with a welcome ability to seek out and establish that happy medium themselves.

I’m more than impressed with what I’ve seen and heard from the Zanox and AccuQuote deal, and I’ll be covering more aspects of the partnership in the coming days as I process them. I’ve got many pages of notes and many neurons full of insight that I can’t wait to share.

Thank you Sean, Holger and Heiko for an enlightening session!

Email is still around, and just as vibrant as ever. As I’ve remarked earlier, social media has helped to drive the consistent toehold of email, as it is the prerequisite vehicle for registration information and new updates. Marketers and consumers alike haven’t joined the RSS movement and “reading feeds” is still something reserved mostly for early adopters and tech geeks. It doesn’t look to be changing either. I’d love to see a study on teenage usage of RSS data, but in my university classes I’m not seeing any use of RSS or feeds by students (or colleagues).

So, where is email to go with this new found authority?

I’d suggest taking a look at Dot Email if you are a merchant, affiliate or network interested in future trends of email marketing and usage:

Dot Email is a FREE online community for email marketers to share ideas, keep up with news, learn tricks of the trade and complain about the vexing issues that hurt the industry. Just as anything communal, you get out of it what you put into it.

There are other forums discussing similar issues, but the niche style of this forum makes it particularly valuable info for anyone in online or affiliate marketing. The innovations that email will drive will come from forums such as this, so you’re doing yourself a favor by keeping on the pulse of this sector of our market.

Thanks to Alan Hume for the post idea and this link with more info on the platform!

Google Security VIP / Microsoft Security MVP / Affiliate Marketing Legend Wayne Porter and I have been spending the afternoon in a Vegas hotel blogging, thinking and creating some fantastic new paradigms for affiliate and online marketing. It is Day 0 of Affiliate Summit West and we’ve enjoyed ourselves at Affiliate Dinner and this morning’s Gospel Brunch with Wade Tonkin and the Christian Affiliate Marketers crowd.

Tonight we’re at a hotel off The Strip, preparing our gear. I think we’ve solved the whole equation of marketing, social media and how to exist on the web. Email us for the answers.

Mobile is the next big thing, right? So, AffiliateCampBeta.mobi has taken on a mobile nature, constantly moving. So, we might end up in a campsite tonight, we might end up rolling our sleeping bags out in a 7 Eleven on Flamingo Road, we may even end up in jail.

Much in the spirit of web2.0 (Wayne is speaking on that tomorrow so we’ve been trying to think of something unique and post-modern to throw out to the crowds), AffiliateCamp Beta goes to where the action is and seeks to exist in that fragile and tension filled moment between creativity and production…

As Wayne points out in his post about our beta experiment, you can try to find us out in the desert tonight or tomorrow night, but we’re not sure where we’re going to end up. We’ve got our gear, we’re mobile and we’re moving to follow where the conversation leads us.

That may be hell it may be nirvana or a mix of both. Wherever it ends up, it was the path that was the point all along.

Affiliate marketing, in all ways, is a journey of self-discovery and examination and finding a meaningful place to live and exist within that new found location. We place things like links and pageviews on top of that location, but underneath all of those trappings is a living, beating heart constantly trying to innovate and challenge barriers. That’s what our little experiment is all about, and hopefully we’ll help expose some of that delicate tissue which keeps the ingenuity going throughout the veins of the web.

There is a lot of talk about how video, social media and web2.0 applications will impact affiliate marketing.

Why should affiliates really care about web2.0 since websites that have worked to bring in healthy commissions for years continue to bring in high monthly checks?

The basic answer to that fundamental question (which was part of an interesting table conversation at this morning’s Gospel Brunch with the Christian Affiliate Marketers group at the House of Blues here in Vegas) has to do with the way users are processing and using information and services online. Affiliate marketing sites must be useful for consumers and individuals in order to keep a steady stream of traffic and a healthy community at the site.

Affiliates are beginning to turn towards web2.0 tools (and platforms associated with web2.0 apps such as php and AJAX) to better serve the more experienced and tech-saavy audiences using the web now. A practical example would be FatWallet.

Right on the front page of this heavily visited site, Tim Storm and his company have launched a wiki. A wiki is:

is a website that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove, and otherwise edit and change available content, and typically without the need for registration. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for mass collaborative authoring. The term wiki also can refer to the collaborative software itself (wiki engine) that facilitates the operation of such a Web site, or to certain specific wiki sites, including the computer science site (the original wiki) WikiWikiWeb and on-line encyclopedias such as Wikipedia

The FatWallet Wiki is tied in very well to the forums section and makes use of the large community that frequently visits the site. However, what the FatWallet team has accomplished with the wiki is an incentive for users to visit the site for communal and sharing purposes. That’s what web2.0 is all about.

So, visit sites that are actively using these technologies and platforms that everyone is talking about, and see how affiliate and merchant sites are actually putting these these things in their programs. There are some creative and useful applications of these new social platforms, and if you are an affiliate or a merchant involved in the affiliate space you need to see how these technologies can apply to your program.

Lots of great highlights from tonight. At the Schaaf Co. Affiliate Dinner, I sat with Wayne Porter, Revenue Magazine’s Lisa Picarille, Riya’s Beth Kirsch, Blogkits/ReveNews’ Jim Kukral and DigitalRiver’s Todd Crawford while Brian Littleton, Brook Schaaf, Missy Ward and Corey Newhouse gave Shawn Collins a proper roasting.

It was a great socializing event to kick things off here in Vegas. Lots of affiliates, merchants and a healthy dose of fun.

Tomorrow morning is the Gospel brunch with Wade Tonkin followed by Jim Kukral’s guylights treatments and the ShareASale concert show.

Wayne Porter and I are heading out to the campsite tomorrow after enjoying our last night of civilization in a hotel room off the strip. We’re waiting for a late nite pizza now.

More to come tomorrow.

Analytics, as we have known them and constructed them for our use, are stunting the growth of online, especially affiliate, marketing.

Online marketing is still very much in its infancy. This new beast of marketing is only about 12 years old, and has only been taken seriously in the last six to eight years. In order to mark the growth of this infant, we’ve attempted to translate offline metrics and analytical means to put marks on the wall every so often.

However, these translations of offline analytical methods have not enabled us to adequately record or understand many of the aspects of affiliate marketing which is the sole reason for using such measurements.

In effect, the translations of offline analytics into our online experience have held back some of the developments and keen data driven insights which could have been gained if a false analytical structure had not been superimposed on the situation.

Kowabunga’s CTO Jeff Doak, SearchingForProfit’s SEO guru Amanda Watlington, The Partner Maker’s Jeff Molander and myself discussed this issue on yesterday’s “Weekly Insight” podcast. The show is really coming into its own because we are all beginning to seriously debate one another and allow our own personalities to come out and stake their respective territories. There are many things that I disagree with Molander on, and there are many things that Jeff D disagrees with me on, and there are other things that Amanda and I don’t see eye-to-eye on. Now that we’ve exposed some of those disagreements, we’re able to mine that valuable space in between all of our opinions and experience.

That is incredibly valuable for you as well.

Here’s what we discussed:
* Future of Media Analytics, Metrics
* MSN Enters Analytics Game
* Multi-channel Marketing Challenges
* Cam Balzer & “Offline Multipliers”
* Google Acts Weak: Monopolistic AdSense Rules

On the show, I articulate my idea for how online marketing, especially the affiliate side of things, can move beyond analytics as we know them. My basic argument is that a top-down superstructure artificially imposed on human communications will never work.

This is especially true with the types of human interactions afforded by the new emerging media platforms. I see a time when everything we do is linked back to some sort of personal affiliate link that we can share both online, offline and over mobile, without having to take the time to embed any links or share any paper coupons.

So, give this week’s show a listen. It’s well worth the hour and will hopefully provoke you to think some new thoughts and help push our industry forward.

Here’s the mp3.

Google has picked the Western North Carolina town of Lenoir for its new $600 million data center.

The center will bring 210 needed jobs to Lenoir, which is a charming little town just down the street from me. Lenoir is well known for it’s furniture production, but that market has seen a collapse in recent years.

Buy.com is leveraging its relationship with the Google Checkout platform in its newest set of banner and web placement creatives.

The newest newsletter from the Buy.com affiliate program (managed through Commission Junction) includes the following banners…

The embedded link in the creatives take you to a landing page which explains the Google Checkout and Buy.com relationship…

“In an effort to provide our customers the broadest selection of checkout options, Buy.com has implemented Google’s new checkout service ‘Google Checkout’. The Google Checkout service assists customers in two distinct ways. First, it shows Google Checkout customers more relevant information in Google search results by displaying the Google Checkout badge on the sponsored links of merchants that offer Google Checkout. Second, it helps simplify the buying process.”

What follows is a graphical set of instructions on how to use Google Checkout from the consumer point of view.

Many argue that eBay’s PayPal is the undisputed champion in the consumer pay service platform, but I’ve argued in the comments here that PayPal is hampered by its close knit association with eBay and it’s inability to reach its customer base via email because of the severity of phishing scams.

Google Checkout stands to broaden the idea of an “online wallet” (though I wouldn’t use those terms because that idea is so tainted with history and baggage) with participating merchants. These co-branding campaigns, along with the placement of the Google Checkout feature on the front page of Google points towards an immenent Checkout/PayPal showdown.

I quote Hunter S…

“There was madness in any direction, at any hour. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.”

Amen.

As most of you already know, Wayne Porter and I are hoping to avoid the inevitability of the second coming which will be caused by 1700 money hungry affiliates, tax collectors, CPA networks, Whores of Babylon, and suit-cladded silver-tongued affiliate network devil reps gathering in the midst of Sin City.

It’s going to be epic, folks.

Here’s some info on our gonzo activities:

Article
5 Star Coverage
Shawn’s Take
Wayne’s Word

When we’re not burning dollars out in the desert, we will be at the conference. I fly in tomorrow (Friday) night around 10 and have already heard of a few goings on. I’d like to have a signficant level of intoxication while I attempt to set up my tent in the cold dark desert by myself (Wayne flies in on Saturday) in order to properly greet any rattlers that may be sharing the space with me. So, if you are doing any pre-partying or socializing on Friday night please let me know.

On Saturday, I think Wayne and I are doing a pod/video cast for anyone interested in joining. We’ll tape it at Bally’s for ease of use. You won’t miss us, so if you want to participate, just join in. Maybe we’ll be there to greet you at the door as you check in and we’ll push a camera in your face and ask you what you hope to accomplish at the Summit. Or maybe we’ll flush a cherry bomb down Shawn’s toilet and record the results. It will inevitably involve a camera.

Saturday night is Affiliate Dinner (sold out… great job, Brook)

Sunday morning is the Gospel Brunch with Wade (anticipating the Second Coming again and hedging my bets). Jim Kukral is buying everyone drinks on Sunday afternoon at the main Bally’s bar downstairs so make sure to be there from 3-6 for free drinks. Jim’s hair dresser has been on vacation, so I’m volunteering to do a guy-lights application at the bar. It will be on YouTube for those of you who miss it, of course.

Sunday night is the big music party, then Monday is the floor walking, hand shaking, card making experience. I have a few meetings and interviews set up but do have some free time for a chat, podcast or pontification.

I have to fly out late Monday night (around midnight) to be back in NC so that I can teach at 8:00am, but I will be at one of the Monday night parties until I have to exit.

SO, if you’d like to meet up and share a drink and some conversation you can contact me the following ways:

1) Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/samharrelson. Add me as a friend and I’ll be shooting out periodic updates and gossip (as I’m sure everyone will). ShareASale is doing some cool stuff with their twittering, so sign me up as a friend just to follow that experiment along.

2) Mobile: 803-413-6834. Feel free to text or call me on Friday, Saturday, Sunday or Monday. I’ll have it on my possession constantly. Hopefully there is reception in the desert.

3) AIM: sbharrelson22

4) I’ll be live blogging here on CPN as well. So, check CPN while you’re sinning it up.

My advice? Stay away from the crap tables. While that normally refers to a betting game, it can also mean certain booths of companies with ill-repute. You know who they are.

My other advice? If you’re an affiliate, dress as casually as possibly. The less formal you are, the more important your affiliate status must be because it appears you aren’t trying to impress anyone. So, don’t comb your hair, wear flip flops, forgo shaving and look like you’ve been sleeping in the desert for the past few nights… oh… wait.

We’ll leave it with Gram Parsons…

This old town is filled with sin,
It’ll swallow you in
If you’ve got some money to burn.
Take it home right away,
You’ve got three years to pay
But Satan is waiting his turn

This old earthquake’s gonna leave me in the poor house.
It seems like this whole town’s insane
On the thirty-first floor your gold plated door
Won’t keep out the Lord’s burning rain

I recently posted about a new Partnercentric managed program called AdventureQuest focused on the exploding online gaming market.

Another gaming company, K2, has also opened an affiliate program with a 90 day cookie, 10% payout and PayPal only payments.

The K2 Network, Inc. Affiliate Program provides a way for you to be a part of the exciting and constantly growing universe of online gaming. K2 Network’s games have a large audience and our subscription base is increasing at a steady pace. You can make money as an affiliate of K2 Network – all you need is a website.

Until gaming companies such as Capcom and BioWare are snagged up by the large media companies, expect more gaming companies to follow suit. It only makes sense that these companies would seek to use the affiliate platform to increase word of mouth advertising and reward loyal gamers.

I think there’s a great overlap between the world of gaming and affiliate marketing in terms of metrics, performance incentives and general macro percentages. Perhaps they will implement mobile into their ad platform as well and begin to recognize the power of Jeff Doak’s “Marketing is Flat” philosophy.

Email me or comment below if you’re a merchant or network looking for affiliates and I’ll post you below…

Forums? Email newsletters? Blogs? Email blasts? Plaxo? Web2.0 stuff?

The question that merchants and networks always have is how they can they find more affiliates. Here are five quick tips I’ve been successful with while working in the network space…

1. Have attractive offers (more is not better… we all know what FreeSlide did). Attractive offers are offers that are easy to understand, are consistent in payout and can even be niche focused.

2. Blog, podcast or do videos that discuss the industry and important issues rather than just producing fluff content describing how super awesome your network or program is.

3. Participate participate participate.

4. Don’t have long and annoying signatures on your email messages. Put them in text, make them quick and easy to read and understand, and put your phone number or maybe url at the most. If an affiliate wants your AIM or your Skype info, they’ll ask.

5. Have a gimmick that makes you stand out… use Twitter for communications, have a crazy color scheme, send Lego toys to affiliates… do something different.

What did I leave out?

Here’s a short speech I did at Affiliate Summit East this past June in Orlando, FL during the “Lessons Learned” session at the end of the conference (thanks for providing this, Shawn!).

http://video.affiliatesummit.com/embed/iframe/panel/cid/P77YJ6Z3KQQGB897

I normally don’t post links without adding something original to the conversation.

However, this article by Sally Falkow on building an email list with social media is a must read…

http://falkow.blogsite.com/public/item/155255

I came across this via Andy Beal, so make sure to check out his informative discussion on the issue as well.

A company in our space will soon be releasing a platform which allows for the ability to place affiliate links in bittorrent files. Affiliates will be able to place links and check stats while advertisers will be able to select the placements depending on file type in an automated system which looks very much like a CPA network.

The company wishes to remain anonymous at this point, but will make an announcement in the next month.

I had a beta walk through tonight, and this has the potential to be huge.

Thoughts? Legal issues? Is anyone else doing something similar?

Google is ramping up its Checkout platform.

I’ve heard rumblings from my sources within the company and from a few of the merchants involved in the Checkout program that something major is on the way… soon.

Tonight, it seems that Google has added Checkout to the main search page in a very prominent way…

Here comes the fun.

I’ll release some info when I can, but let me know you opinions on how this relates to affiliate marketing. Strap in… it’s going to be a wild ride in the coming weeks.

[EDIT] Jonathan (TrustNo1) has also posted on this development over at ABestWeb.  Be sure to follow the conversation there as well!

Are you a new CPA network, or one that is trying to grow outside of its traditional box, or a merchant program courting new publishers? Then you need to know how to treat them.

My advice?

1. Be upfront about payouts, pay rates, offer types, commission structures.

2. Google them and do research. Don’t rely on a business card, word of mouth or a forum for all of your insight. Impress the publisher with how much you knew about them before you called, and they will take the hook.

3. Interact on forums with them… argue or agree on industry issues they care about… just show that you care (and if you don’t care you should look for another line of work).

4. Don’t try to throw money, iPods, stereo equipment, cruises or other gimmicks at publishers to activate and retain them. It won’t work. If it does work, it doesn’t say much about that publisher.

5. Ask them advice on a potential new offer or industry issue by phone, im or email. People love to give feedback and state their point of view. Let them know you’re interested in theirs.

6. Don’t pressure them for leads when they have a down month. Pressuring never works.

7. Send Starbucks gift cards or cheese and wine baskets out of the blue. It’s the little things.

8. Ask them tough questions about how they are promoting your program or network offers. Don’t take gloss answers, but let them know you are actively looking at every publisher with some scrutiny to keep the quality of your offer or network high.

9. Don’t pretend like you know what you don’t know or that you are smarter than you really are… be humble and accept advice and complaints from publishers. Make a detailed “ADVICE” and “COMPLAINTS” list with info on who gave the input and how you can act on it. Then, act on it and email/call/im the publisher to let them know you are on top of things. You don’t have to make all the changes or tweaks the request, but let them know that you’re at least listening and entertaining the idea.

10. Treat the smallest publisher the same way you treat the highest performing loyalty site. It’s hard, but it works.

Have more advice? Leave them in the comments or send me an email.