Podcast: Download (26.0MB)
Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards “Affiliate Manager of the Year” Matt McWilliams joins Affiliate ABCs hosts Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare to talk about what affiliates should look for when evaluating a merchant to promote. One of the toughest decisions an affiliate has to make is which merchants to give the real estate on their website to. Matt, Deborah and Vinny have a candid discussion about what to look for to be sure a merchant is worth promoting and is worth “above the fold” attention (or not).
Some highlights:
*Find merchants in the networks you belong to and search by category or keywords
Take a look at the merchant from the Consumer perspective::
*First impression – would you shop there?
*Do they have “leaks” (banners to other sites, adsense, send shoppers away)?
*If there are links to other sites, do they actually track back to the affiliate program? Some merchants cross track with others.
*Easy to navigate? FAQ? Shipping information? Contact information, About Us, Whois Information matches the site About Us information?
*What is the shopping process like? Is it easy or are there roadblocks? Is there a prompt to call to complete the order? Is it secure?
Now look from the Affiliate perspective:
*Compare commissions, cookie duration, other program terms to other similar programs.
*Appropriate banners? Text links?
*Is it a site that you would promote with a datafeed? Do they have one? Is it well categorized? Is it available in 3rd party tools you may be working with?
*Send a note to the affiliate manager if there is something you would like created, see if they respond. Is there contact information?
*For Shareasale merchants: Are they on Auto Deposit?
*For any other network, what happens if the merchant’s balance with the network goes offline? Is there a way to check the merchants online/offline history?
Some links mentioned in the show:
Legacy Learning Affiliate Program Blog
ABestWeb Affiliate Marketing Forum
Legacy Learning Website
Join the Legacy Learning Affiliate Program
Find us on Twitter:
Matt McWilliams
Vinny O’Hare
Deborah Carney ( a.k.a. Loxly)
Affiliate ABCs
Geekcast.fm
Podcast: Download (24.8MB)
Affiliate ABCs episode 24 is all about networking at Affiliate Summit, focused on the ASW10 in January in Las Vegas. Hosts Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare are joined by Jim Kukral who is the emcee once again. From the interesting <a href="http://www.affiliatesummit.com/10w-agenda/"keynotes to discussions about sessions including Jim’s session on getting motivated and Deborah’s panel about mommybloggers and affiliate marketing, we highlight some of the fun and seriousness that makes up Affiliate Summit.
Be sure to listen to this podcast too, to see how people who networked made a difference to their bottom line. Affiliate Summit was one piece of that puzzle…
Meet us all at Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas – here’s a coupon for $100 off any pass.
Parties at Affiliate Summit
A little more about Jim:
A graduate of The University of Akron with a BA in Public Relations and a minor in Sales & Marketing, Jim has spent time working for publicly traded firms and small businesses alike. Jim’s work and experience in the Internet marketing industry has branded him as a leading thinker and thought-leader in the community.
Follow us all on twitter:
AffiliateSummit
Jim Kukral
Deborah Carney (a.k.a. Loxly)
Vinny O’Hare
AffiliateABCs
Many thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts and many other educational and entertaining podcasts related to all things geeky 
Podcast: Download (35.1MB)
Affiliate ABCs episode 23 is another in our series of “Back in the Day” profiles of an internet and affliate marketing pioneer. Hosts Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare are joined by Jim Kukral who started his journey online back in 1995. We talk about Jim’s transition from web designer to affiliate marketer to coach and consultant, with a lot of laughs along the way…
We dug up a couple of Jim’s first sites using the Wayback Machine:
iQuit.com (which he eventually sold)
AffiliateMakeover.com
We also talked about how we all got help with affiliate marketing along the way from ABestWeb Affiliate Marketing forum and how networking helps all of us.
Meet us all at Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas – here’s a coupon for $100 off any pass.
A little more about Jim:
A graduate of The University of Akron with a BA in Public Relations and a minor in Sales & Marketing, Jim has spent time working for publicly traded firms and small businesses alike. Jim’s work and experience in the Internet marketing industry has branded him as a leading thinker and thought-leader in the community.
Follow us all on twitter:
Jim Kukral
Deborah Carney (a.k.a. Loxly)
Vinny O’Hare
AffiliateABCs
Many thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts and many other educational and entertaining podcasts related to all things geeky
Podcast: Download (36.6MB)
Shawn Collins shares his insights on the history of affiliate marketing and it’s evolution to the present with Affiliate ABCs host Deborah Carney. This is a little longer than our podcasts generally are, but it is facinating information. So much so that it is the first in a series of podcasts with industry folks that have been around a while that will share their stories about the history of our industry. The show notes are also lengthy and quite amusing and enlightening
This podcast was inspired by a blog post Shawn wrote several years ago on Clickz and his Clickz articles archive is located here.
More fun links:
Club Mom Affiliate Support Site (from Archives.org)
VelocityNYC.com – recently repurposed
babylounge.com – mentioned and now redirected
New York Affiliate Managers Watch out, there’s a pop that firefox blocked for me. Shawn in a bow tie?
Refer-it – Remember them? Plus more great links to historical articles.
Affiliate Summit
If you wrote articles that chronicle the history, feel free to drop them in the comments here, and if you would like to be on an Affiliate ABCs “Back in the Day” Podcast, email me at abcs at teamloxly.com
Be sure to follow AffiliateABCs on Twitter too.
Podcast: Download (25.8MB)
Host Deborah Carney (a.k.a. Loxly) and guest affiliate marketer Brian Darrow discuss how affiliates can use datafeeds and what merchants need to know about how affiliate use datafeeds, and how merchants can make their feeds better. Brian provided a nice outline for this podcast:
I. What they are/advantages of using them
A. “Long Tail” traffic
B. Automated content
II. Potential pitfalls in using data feeds
A. Duplicate content
B. “Thin” content
III. Methods of processing data feeds
A. Automated
B. Manual
C. Tracking Results
IV. Not all data feeds are created equal
A. Infrequently Updated
B. Short on data
C. Misinformation
Listen along as moderator Lisa Picarille leads a discussion about affiliates and Trademark Bidding with Deborah Carney and affiliate marketer Joe Sousa
In the wide ranging discussion we defined trademark bidding; discussed when it’s a good thing for affiliates and when it’s good for merchants; gave examples of when it makes no sense; the motivation behind merchant’s decisions to forbid trademark bidding; how some affiliates game the system; what it takes to police these policies; how to educate merchants and affiliates on the topic; software that helps affiliates do trademark bidding and more.
Here’s the rest of the story and the podcast.
