AvantLink Throwing Email and Search Affiliates Under the Bus

EB07E6B3-D6AB-4BE2-9983-3E3E32C5B203.jpgAvantLink has a post on their blog addressing the now effective (as of June 1) New York state “affiliate tax.”

While most of the post does a good job of laying out the issue with practical examples, this part at the end of the post caught me by surprise:

New York Sales Tax, Merchants and their Affiliate Programs · AvantLink’s Affiliate Marketing Blog: “To prevent falling into the scenario of Example 2 we propose adding the following terms to your Merchant program terms:

‘New York State Affiliates may not solicit New York State residents by using flyers, newsletters, telephone calls, e-mails, PPC ads, or any other type of Internet marketing techniques besides web site advertising links.’”

That’s well and good for some affiliates who still just do banners, but I’d argue that many (if not most) affiliates doing more than $50 a month now utilize some sort of PPC or email component as a part of their campaigns or traffic generation. To amend merchant terms saying that affiliates can only use banners seems more than heavy handed and follows the same draconian logic as employed in the actual NY state law.

If you look at the “Top 10 Affiliate Programs” from last month, at least 7 (probably 9) of them rely (some heavily) on PPC and email. To lop off those channels of traffic generation within a network doesn’t solve the NY problem.

Affiliate marketing has become a much larger umbrella than just banner ad placements on static html websites. In addressing this issue, we need to make sure we’re letting both merchants and NY state know that.

What am I missing here?

[Update] Gary from AvantLink adds this in the comments on their blog post:

4Gary M on Jun 3, 2008 at 6:30 am:

Our recommendation does not disallow email marketing and PPC altogether. Rather, email and PPC targeted at New York residents.

While that’s a good point and clarification of the suggested terms, I still don’t think it’s a fix for many/most affiliates doing business in NY state or with their residents. Geo-targeting is an expensive proposition and this seems to be putting yet more responsibility on the affiliate and further alleviating the merchant from responsibility or diligence.

Is the NY State Affiliate Tax That Big of Deal?

There has been much hand wringing in the world of affiliate marketing over the so-called New York state “affiliate tax.” However, as Trust points out on ABW, it doesn’t seem that 99% of merchants running affiliate programs care much…

How Are Merchants Finding Out About This? – ABestWeb Affiliate Marketing Forum: “Looking at this list and I only see about 40 merchants (so far) which is maybe at most 1% – 2% of merchants with affiliate programs who have dropped NY affiliates. So was wondering if we have a whole bunch more coming and if all the merchants know about this or what. Or if it’s going to be an overall small percentage that drop affiliates.”

Is that a symptom of poor communication by New York state legal authorities, legal counsels, affiliates…or is this really not that big of deal?

There have been a plethora (literally) of blog posts in the affiliate-blog-osphere about the issue ranging from Shawn Collins and Linda Buquet‘s respective reporting to ReveNews coverage to Peter Bordes at Relevantly Speaking chiming in to our discussions on GeekCast to even networks like ShareASale offering strong and well thought-out advice for merchants.

However, merchants really don’t seem to be paying too much attention to all of this.

Once again, I defer to Trust on ABW:

I guess I was expecting a whole slew of new drop notices today, haven’t seen anybody post anything new. In the end if it winds up only being about 1% – 2% then that’s really not much at all. I guess we’ll have to wait to see how this turns out but at this point not as bad as I thought it would be. Time will tell.

Is this just the latest Froogle?

I’m not so sure. I do think there is a considerable need for affiliate marketers to educate and inform merchants about the viability and importance of the performance channel in terms of their bottom line, but “affiliate marketing” as we know it is SO wide ranging and dispersed at this point that it would take Microsoft creating their own loyalty program to get us to organize… oh, wait.

In other words, our conception of “affiliate marketing” (in my opinion) is rapidly evolving away from just the network/affiliate model that has served us well (and badly) for the last decade. “We” are moving into video, lead gen, offline, mobile, widgets, social media, search and all sorts of places that we didn’t envision a decade ago. I would venture to say that at least 75% of the people doing affiliate marketing don’t even know they are doing affiliate marketing.

I’m not arguing for a name change or anything of that nature. However, I do want us to realize that while the NY affiliate tax has certainly caused its share of fear and loathing, we need to realize that this industry has fractured and continues to move away from anything resembling an industry. Coming up with an organized group to represent its needs and views may be as difficult as getting merchants to address the NY state issue.

So here’s my take: Merchants are letting legal figure this out (if they even need to). We should be proactive but realize that interstate commerce is a very complicated subject and requires highly skilled lawyers (and such) to grok. I doubt if NY state’s tax will survive the appeal process based on my understanding of what’s happening, but I’m no lawyer.

In the meantime, it looks to be business as usual.

Twhirl and FriendFeed Room Sharing Coming Soon?

Twhirl (recently acquired by Seesmic) is the most interesting of the Twitter desktop apps. I’ve never been a big fan as I relied heavily on Twitter’s GTalk integration to get real time updates and use Track via XMPP.

However, for FriendFeed, Twhirl rocks.

So, I found this note from Seesmic’s Loic Le Meur interesting…


twhirl rooms.jpg

I’ve been playing with FriendFeed’s Room feature in the Affiliate Marketing Room. It’s fairly nifty and should only get better.

Loic mentioned on a Gillmor Gang podcast a few weeks ago that Twhirl is working on a feature to allow for XMPP to flow through its service in Twitter as well. If that happens, I might be using Twhirl a great deal more.

Affiliate Marketing on FriendFeed

For any affiliate marketers who are also FriendFeed users or fans, I created a public room called “Affiliate Marketing”:

FriendFeed: “Affiliate Marketing” Room

Why would this be useful? Well, you get the best of FriendFeed (comments, sharing of interesting or relevant stuff from around the web, some aggregation, RSS etc).

No high expectations for this, just thought I’d put it out there for any aff marketers already on FriendFeed (and if you are, make sure to friend me at samharrelson).

New Hat

I have a hat fetish. I admit it. I can’t help it.

So, I was very excited to see my new awesome hat arrive from Canada (via eBay):

Cam.jpg

Yeah, it’s Indiana Jones-esque but that’s sort of the point. I’ve been searching for years for the perfect that I can wear on the trail, in an airport or on the road. This one might solve that problem (plus it looks pretty cool and can provide some good branding material… maybe I should add a beard?).

Thoughts?

CAN-SPAM Compliance Conference Call Tuesday

UnsubCentral and the Email Sender & Provider Coalition (ESPC) are holding a free conference call next Tuesday to discuss the recent changes to the federal CAN-SPAM law and what mailers and marketers should know about the changes.

Total Compliance: What the Changes in CAN-SPAM Mean for You

Join experts from the Email Sender & Provider Coalition and UnsubCentral as they team up to help marketers discover the information needed to successfully navigate the new CAN-SPAM rule provisions. Register today!

Date: Tuesday, June 10
Time: 2 PM EST / 11 AM PST
Duration: 45 Minutes

You will learn:
How to clearly interpret the new regulations
How the new rules affect your daily business
How the new rules will apply to different scenarios
What you need to know to avoid legal issues”

One of my good pals and bright guy John Engler from UnsubCentral and Justin Weiss, Associate Counsel at the Digital Policy Group will be the speakers. This looks like a great event for mailers and CPA marketers / networks as well as anyone interested in the legal side of performance marketing. I’ll be on the call taking notes as well.

What’s Your Whuffie?

One of the things I put at the top of the priorities list during my first week at Motive Interactive was to make sure we owned our online reputation in terms of subscribing to the various vanity feeds (Technorati, Twitter Track (still down at the moment), Google Alerts, Yahoo Pipes for YouTube and Flickr tags, etc) as well as making sure we popped up with favorable items when you search for “Motive Interactive” on Google.

It’s common sense, but SO many marketers and networks overlook this very foundational step in their reputation and brand management.

For instance, if you search “sam harrelson” on Google, my web activity (all of it really favorable) dominates up to the very last listing on page 10 when another Sam Harrelson from Washington State shows up as a part of a political donation site (ironically enough, he donated $1500 in ’05 to a House race in New Jersey… the home state of my political arch-nemesis, Shawn Collins). You have to go to page 26 to find another Sam Harrelson mentioned.

But the key is that your rankings look interesting, unique and relate to your mission in life/work/career/whatever. Video, audio and pics are essential for that.

That’s not a huge deal since people rarely get to page 26, but if you are trying to build your company or personal brand and grow a positive reputation, you surely need to make sure you are ranking well for your own name since going to Google has become the new indicator of “Whuffie.”

Just something to keep in mind and yet another reason to get involved in the social web.

II Kings by Cogan and Tadmor

Want:

Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor, II Kings: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary « Biblical Studies Notebook (BSN): “II Kings (Volume 11 in the acclaimed Anchor Bible) is the chronicle of the raging conflicts that tore the United Kingdom of Israel apart, creating the rival nations of Israel to the north and Judah to the south. It tells of the time of the great prophecies of Elijah and Elisha, and of the legendary conquerors of not only the Jews, but the whole of the Middle East – Sennacherib, Hazael, Tiglath-pileser III, Nebuchadnezzar, and Shalmaneser.”

Looks like a great translation by two highly respected scholars.

Motive Interactive

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I’m in San Diego for the week as I begin my first full week as the Director of Performance Marketing at Motive Interactive.

You’ve probably heard of Motive Interactive if you’re in the affiliate space but probably not exactly sure who they are, what they do or how they stand out from the crowd of CPA and affiliate networks that have been in full bloom for the past five or so years.

That’s what I’m here to change (as well as grow the network of course).

I got my start in the world of affiliate/performance marketing years ago with an email firm (SubscriberBASE) that eventually morphed into a CPA network (AdDrive), so I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for the pure CPA world. Along with that, I’ve always been a firm believer that one day a network would bridge the gap (chasm?) between the CPA world and the pure rev share world and thereby get the best of both for publishers and affiliates. A few networks have tried it, but no one has been successful. I’ve got the opportunity to do that here at Motive. So, when this position was offered to me, I couldn’t turn it down.

So what makes Motive stand out from the crowd?

Let me show you.

Tomorrow (Thursday May 29), I’m doing demos for a few larger affiliates as well as folks who might be interested in what Motive is doing and why I would be crazy enough to get back into the turbulent world of CPA networks while I preach social media marketing. I’m here all day and night and I’d love to show the affiliate managers here the power of blogging by saying “Oh yeah, I’m giving this person a walk through because I blogged to see if anyone would like a walkthrough.”

Not only is this a demo and walkthrough of the network, but we’re launching Advent2.0 (Advent is the technology behind the Motive network) later in June and I’d love to have your input as to what you would like to see, what tweaks we could make to improve things and what sorts of offers you’d like to see in a network.

All that said, give me a call/txt (803.413.6834), send me an email (sharrelson@motiveinteractive.com or any of my other 97 email addy’s), send me a direct Tweet (samharrelson), send me a Facebook message, comment here… you get the point… and let’s set up a quick 5, 10, 30 or whatever time slot and chat. It’s not a pitch as much as an explanation.

I’d love to show you what we’re up to, where we see the industry heading and why you should be interested in Motive. Good things are happening here, trust me.

Seriously, I’d love to show you around. Get in touch.

(Special thanks to Linda Buquet! BTW, If you’re not following her coverage of the NY state affiliate tax, you’re missing out.)