As an affiliate marketer, there is a tendency to want to maximize conversions and profits, and it’s sometimes difficult to see the forest through the trees and easy to lose perspective of the greater goal of growing your business and expanding its scale.

Ultimately affiliates overcome five challenges to bring their business to the next level:

1) Master Plan and Consistent Action:
Having a list of goals/resolutions at the start of the year is pretty useless… unless you put in the action to back that up. Consistent, focused action, and refusing to get sidetracked by small, more interesting projects is what separates serious affiliates from those who have a myriad of “interesting” hobby affiliate sites.

2) A Systems-based Business Architecture:
As your marketing campaigns, with their components involving research, set up, tracking, analytics and optimization, become more sophisticated, so too will the need to document the processes and have step-by-step procedures to not only increase the probability of success when launching new campaigns, but it will also reduce the time taken to set them up.

Sitting down once a month to map out your business processes will give you a clear blueprint and help you identify your strengths which have led to successful campaigns.

Building on these strengths will likewise build your business. Checklists, flowcharts and procedures can aid in this process.

3) Business Leverage:
No matter how superhuman your resolve and physical endurance, you’re still limited to 24 hours a day. Looking at options like hiring employees, automating repetitive elements of your business by developing software or scripts to reduce manual labor, and outsourcing tasks outside of your expertise to experts can increase your effectiveness and efficiency.

This will free you to focus on high value activities like sourcing for new offers, as well as negotiating for better terms from merchants and networks.

4) Joint Ventures/Collaborations:
Partnerships are one of the best, and sometimes worst, ways to grow your business. In some cases, the partnership will not work out because each side had different expectations from the project and the reality doesn’t match up to it.

However, if the partnership works out, particularly if your partner complements your strength, this could be a classic case of 1 + 1 = 3.

5) Building a Long-term, Brand-based Business
Affiliate marketing is growing up. Thin affiliate sites created with appropriate About Us, Contact, and Privacy information pages to meet Google AdWords requirements are still out there, but the writing is on the wall. As the industry matures, users will look for full fledged destination/portal sites that they’ll be returning to for repeat purchases.

Success will be measured not just in conversions, but ultimately in repeat purchases.

Long term affiliate success will lie in rolling with the five forces that will help you shift your game to a higher level.

Andrew Wee blogs about blogging, affiliate marketing, and social media at http://WhoIsAndrewWee.com.

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Running a membership site has exploded in popularity as an Internet business model. Online business owners are finally recognizing what the “early adopters” discovered years ago: membership sites can be extremely profitable, have a low startup cost, and can actually be fun to run.

The concept is easy enough. You have some information, knowledge, or passion about a topic that others are interested in, as well. You set up an exclusive community and charge whatever fee you want to allow entry. Your members benefit from having access to, not only very specific information on the topic but also, a community of others who share their interest in that topic.

As an example, RestaurantOwner.com was started by a friend of mine, Jim Laube. Jim had 20+ years in the restaurant industry and frankly was burnt out from the long hours.

He decided to leverage his experience in the industry and started a membership site. Jim provides a wealth of information for his members, such as articles, interviews, downloadable excel spreadsheets, and PDFs.

Topics range from how to start a restaurant to cutting down on employee turnover, picking a location, pricing etc. You name it and Jim will write about it.

He charges $99 to join and then under $20 a month to stay on as a member. Jim’s site has thousands of members. I’ll let you do the math.

They all pay him month after month to stay on.

That recurring revenue brings up a crucial point about running a membership site. You have a steady, consistent stream of income coming in, month after month.

With a normal business, regardless of how good last month was, on the first day of the new month you are basically starting from scratch with revenue. With a membership site, you know that if last month you pulled in say $15,000 for the month that this month is going to be very close to that number. Perhaps even more with a bit of marketing.

In my work, I have a bird’s eye view of over 920 active membership sites. I know what these sites are making. Quite a few are making tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars per month, and are often run by one or two people.

Some of the topics of the sites we have may come as a surprise you, including craft sites (embroidery, cross stitching), health, fitness, education, sports, dog enthusiasts, and how to get a cruise ship job.

One of the most consistently successful is the _____owner.com type sites. That is, choose a niche business and provide the tools for people in that industry. The previously mentioned restaurantowner.com is one example but that can be applied for almost any industry: hair salons, gas stations, CPA’s, handy man business, affiliate managers etc.

Everyone has knowledge or interests. Why not consider leveraging it in a very profitable way?

Tim Kerber is CEO of MemberGate Solutions and also runs MembershipSiteOwner.com

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There will be a convergence of two worlds, MLM and affiliate marketing. If you’re only in one world, you need to understand the other so you can get beyond the misconceptions and better compete.

Know that there are legitimate MLM (“network marketing”) companies. These differ from pyramids which are illegal.

When a firm pays new independent reps (or “networkers”) for sponsoring others into the program or mandates that new reps must each purchase a certain amount of product to receive the right to sponsor others into the opportunity, then the company can be vulnerable to pyramid challenges.

Most mainstream MLM companies do require the purchase of a start-up kit containing sales materials to become an approved independent rep.

To stay within legal parameters, MLM companies have extensive policies and procedures for their reps. In addition, they have compensation plans that, because of their tiered structures, have some complexities that have to be accurately explained.

Also, disclaimers and disclosures regarding the income opportunity and the products are needed.

That’s why mainstream MLM firms will have start-up kits whereby the reps are given information needed to help them operate their businesses within ethical and legal parameters. A manual is included along with brochures, business cards and other sales materials.

Note that reputable companies sell these kits at cost without any bonuses made to reps. This is done to avoid any possible legal challenges relating to monies being made purely for the act of recruiting.

From a marketing perspective, having a start-up kit also helps to screen reps from those who just impulsively sign up as opposed to those who show some real interest since there is this minimal purchase involved. (Many of the kits sell for $49 or less.)

MLM companies without start-up kits have a far greater number of people who sign up and never get active selling products as opposed to those mainstream firms that do require the purchase of a kit.

Affiliate marketers can relate to this. You know that since people can become affiliates for free, resulting in an overabundance of inactive affiliates in a given affiliate program.

Hence, how one enters an MLM program as opposed to an affiliate program differs. Agreements, along with the policies and procedures, are usually more stringent in the former.

If you participate in the upcoming convergence of MLM and affiliate marketing, you’ll want to utilize the best strategies and tactics to create a synergy between the two to expand your business.

This article serves as a start to a more vivid understanding of both worlds.

(This article is for informational purposes only and no legal advice is given as an experienced MLM attorney should be consulted for such matters.)

Debbi A. Ballard is a well known MLM consultant, expert witness, speaker and author who is educating people about the upcoming MLM and affiliate marketing convergence, and spearheading the development of MLM best practices at www.MLMconsultantsblog.com.

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With more than 3,200 in attendance, Affiliate Summit West 2009 in Las Vegas goes down in the record books as a sell out and the largest show to date.

Opening up the conference on Sunday was the Affiliate Meet Market; the room was full of energy. A scaled down version of the exhibit hall (tables instead of booths), the Meet Market was the place to be for networking and continues to be a show highlight.

Concurrent breakout sessions took place on Sunday as well. Hot topics of the day included monetizing chat, automating websites, merchant mindsets, ethical issues, and expected trends.

On Monday morning, Gary Vaynerchuk spoke with vigor and intensity. His excitement and motivational keynote set the tone for the rest of show. You’ve got to love how he said “I think what I’m passionate about, is crushing it every day for making yourself happy. And I think when you talk about, and you build a business around a passion, that’s when you can really knock it out of the park.”
Gary oozed enthusiasm and it was infectious.

Days 2 and 3 also brought a full agenda of breakout sessions via panels and solo presentations. Session themes included anything social media, SEO, PPC, videos and mobile. Audiences were thrilled with the lineup of speakers and the rooms were packed with eager attendees ready to learn.

Traffic and networking in the exhibit hall were awesome on Monday and Tuesday, with attendees visiting over 100 booths. New products and tools in the industry were demonstrated and lots of business cards were exchanged.

One of the culminations of the show was the annual Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards, which were given to affiliate marketing leaders in six categories.

Congratulations to this year’s winners: Affiliate of the Year – Mike Allen, Affiliate Manager of the Year – Angel Djambazov, Exceptional Merchant – CelebrateExpress.com, Affiliate Marketing Advocate – Melanie Seery, Best Blogger – Scott Jangro and Affiliate Marketing Legend – Kellie Stevens.

As the show drew to a close, everyone let loose and had some fun to raise money for the National Breast Cancer Foundation at the Affiliate Summit Triathlon. Dozens made donations to enter the 3 events: adult tricycle, virtual golf and basketball challenge.

Congratulations to the winner, Charlie Calabrese of Buy.at.

Lastly, special thanks to all of our distinguished speakers, exhibitors, general sponsors and metal sponsors: AzoogleAds, ShareASale, OneNetworkDirect and Buy.at. Your contributions helped make Affiliate Summit West 2009 a huge success.

Like folks did at this past show, instead of concentrating on the country’s troubled economy and uncertain future, focus on working smarter and more efficiently. Learn ways to adapt and grow despite the nation’s challenges. This will be pivotal to making it a banner year.

See you in the Big Apple, Affiliate Summit East 2009 – August 9-11, Hilton New York.

Amy Rodriguez is the Conference Director at Affiliate Summit.

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I was recently reading a post that my business partner, Shawn Collins had up on his blog, AffiliateTip.com, entitled “Cynical Marketing.”

In the post, Shawn talks about how there are some marketers out there that simply don’t get the fact that not everything they do has to revolve around making money. They forget that sometimes, it’s more important to just give back.

The content of his post was dead on and the timing in which I read it, couldn’t be more ironic.

You see, earlier that day, I was approached by a marketer who read a post on my blog, MissyWard.com, that discussed me coming out of affiliate management retirement to help support breast cancer research and treatment – a cause that is very close to my heart.

This marketer had the chutzpah to ask me “what my angle was and why on earth would I bust my a** to grow someone else’s company when there was absolutely nothing at stake for me”.

Rather than chastising him for his ludicrous implications, I simply told him how I felt.

Giving is in my DNA and since affiliate marketing is what I do best, it seemed like a natural fit.

He followed up with a “you’re nuts.”

You know what, Mr. Cynical Marketer? Maybe I am.

But I keep very good company.

Aside from the folks that Shawn mentioned in his post that give back to the online marketing community without ever asking for a thing back (Haiko de Poel, Jr. of ABestWeb.com, Scott Jangro of Jangro.com, Jim Kukral of JimKukral.com, Melanie Seery of NYAffiliateVoice.com and Kellie Stevens of AffiliateFairPlay.com), I can think of dozens of marketers, including Shawn, who neglected to name himself) who do the same.

Chris Brogan who takes the time to answer every single questions he’s asked on Twitter; Brian Clark who provides amazing free content on CopyBlogger.com everyday; Brian Littleton of ShareASale who takes the time to educate his merchants and affiliate marketers to both make the affiliate marketing industry better and push it forward.

Also, all of the folks that walked 60 miles with me to raise money for breast cancer research on behalf of AffiliateMarketersGiveBack.com ; Jeremy Schoemaker who provides dozens of case studies and tips to marketers to grow their businesses — the list goes on and on.

Now, it’s not to say that I’m averse to making money. I think I do a pretty good job at it. So do all of the people that I’ve mentioned above.

Maybe I’m just an idealist, but I believe that when one does well, there is an inherent responsibility to give back to the industries that have helped us get to where we are today and to help the less fortunate.

So, to all of the other idealists out there that give so much, with no strings attached – I salute you. Please keep doing what you’re doing. You ARE making a difference.

Luke 12:48 “From everyone who has been given much, much will be required, and from the one who has been entrusted with much, even more will be asked.

Missy Ward is a Co-founder of Affiliate Summit and Co-Editor-in-Chief of FeedFront Magazine. She also manages the ThesisAffiliates.com program in which all of her management fees are donated to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

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There’s a huge difference between someone saying that you’re amazing and you saying it about yourself.

On the one hand, you sometimes have to explain your credentials. For instance, if I’m asking you to think about what I’m saying, you might want to know my credentials, my qualifications, where I’m from. That’s why blogs have an “About” page (or at least, that’s the best way to use an about page, in my not nearly humble opinion).

But, there really is a huge difference between explaining your perspective versus outright bragging about yourself. No, you can’t really cheat by restating what others have said about you. That’s still basically going to come off as bragging (to me). And this works on the personal scale as well as the company scale.

Which works better? An ad about how awesome you are, or an ad about how awesome your customer is?

Keep the Conversation Focused on Your Customer

In advertising and marketing and all business communications, think about your customer. One way the iPod won the MP3 war was they came up with a way for customers to think easier about the product. It fits 1000 songs. That was way easier to understand than number of megabytes. Thus, the conversation was from the perspective of the customer.

Think of the old cheesy car salesperson. “Can you see yourself in this baby?” There’s a reason they say that. It works. People think from their own perspective.

In talking about yourself, talk instead about others, if you can.

I really loved what John Andrews was doing with his customer of the day blog posts for his little bistro. (Then again, I just read that John’s shop closed down, so does that make it a bad strategy?) John had the perspective that by praising his customers, they’d feel motivated to return. Seems reasonable to me.

Mick Galuski, who I wrote about as a small town superhero, earns and keeps my business because he customizes his communication to me to make it about my interests. In turn, I praise Mick all the time, and talk with him about business, and give him potential ideas for future efforts.

What This Means to Personal Branding and Self-Promotion

In situations where you’re talking with others, do your best to talk more about them. Learn about them. Ask questions. The smartest people are those who plumb the depths of the other person, and come away knowing them deeply. We seem to fear, as humans, that the other person in a situation won’t hear us. We get worried that we’ll leave a conversation somehow unequally.

Strangely, the most “important” people (in at least the public business sense) I have ever met in my life have all asked me more about myself, and even with me trying hard to turn it around, they were gracious and interesting and still worked hard to know more about me than themselves. People like Vinod Khosla, Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, and many more have always started with more questions about me than about themselves.

If that’s how they roll, why wouldn’t you do the same yourself?

It’s certainly something I notice more often when meeting people, or learning more about them on the web. While writing this post, I was distracted twice to do other things, and in one case, I read someone’s about page on their blog and choked on how self-important they seemed (and hey, read mine and call me out if you think I seem stuck-up). The other was a request from someone whose event I once attended, where he spent the first 10 minutes doing a strange “you love me, you really love me” type performance. Great guy. Super smart. Off-putting as all hell to start an event that way.

What do you say?

Chris Brogan is President of New Marketing Labs, a social media agency and education company and blogs on ChrisBrogan.com

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Affiliate marketing is a journey that provides you with the entrepreneurial freedom to choose a business model that caters to your professional strengths and personal interests.

All successful conquests begin with a clear and concise roadmap and as an affiliate marketer yours must be transferrable and innovative.

Your marketing strategy should be as dynamic as the landscape is, and by incorporating these points into your initiatives, you will be well on your way to a success campaign launch.

Identify and Become the Brand

• Take the time to assess the active marketing initiatives of the brand you are looking to promote.

• Which mediums is the brand actively using to market its product (online, radio etc)?

• Current SEM promotion: is the brand marketing on all tier 1-3 engines?

• Note the verbiage and graphics used in all of the promotions (is the message clear and marketable?)

• What is the value proposition to the user and is there a sense of urgency (seasonality/limited-time offer)?

• Determine the core demographic of the brand and identify who the online target audience is.

• Is there a similarity (brand demo and online target audience)?

• If so, draw the parallels and note the similarities. This will assist you with marketing to the most conversion prone audience.

• If not, be sure to target both audiences, as there may be an opportunity to capitalize on a new (unsaturated) market share.

Competitive Landscape Analysis

• Conduct an extensive search to determine who the brands offline/online competitors are.

• Analyze each competitor’s campaigns by taking note of the features/benefits of the product and the value proposition to the user.

• Note the distribution channels that the competition is using to promote their campaign (IE: SEM and Social Media etc).

• Diversifying distribution channels allows for an extensive reach to multiple market shares (ie. SEM targets real-time purchasers while social media provides brand engagement/awareness).

• Do not simply mirror the competition but trump it through innovation.

• Identify what is marketable about the competitor’s campaign and finesse it.

Distribution Channel: En Route to Conversions

• Establish a marketing budget, which is flexible to the emerging media landscape.

• SEM distribution: Be clear with what your ceiling and floor spends are but ensure you have the ability to inflate/deflate daily.

• Institute a monthly test budget.

• If you’re monthly marketing budget is $1000 (SEM distribution), allocate $200 of that to test distribution via an alternative channel.

• Marketing your campaign through more than one distribution channel will assist with stabilizing your revenue streams and building your portfolio. Diversification is the claim to fame.
Follow these steps and you will greatly improve your chances of success in your affiliate marketing journey.

Miss White joined the MediaTrust Business Development team in 2008 where she’s responsible for strategic partnership alliances, new business development and portfolio management.

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Webster’s Dictionary defines autopilot as “a device for automatically steering ships, aircraft, and spacecraft.” Such systems of directing vehicles without assistance from human beings are excellent when used in the contexts that they were created for. Affiliate marketing is not one of them.

However, numerous merchants run their affiliate programs the “autopilot way,” and many are not even aware that they do.

I’ve found this problem to be more common with programs run on affiliate networks. When a merchant starts a program on a network, they often mistake the affiliate network for a self-adaptive autopilot.

Aerospace avionics expert George Siouris defines this type of affiliate program as one that “measures its own performance, compares it to a standard, and adjusts … parameters until its performance meets the standard.”

Similarly, some merchants believe that once an affiliate program is started on an affiliate network, the network will both measure its performance, and ensure that the program keeps developing according to a “standard”.

However, the job of the affiliate network is to provide the merchant with tracking, reporting and payment solutions. The rest is affiliate program management, and most affiliate networks do not have it on the list of services provided by default.

An affiliate program is a marketing campaign. Launching it on a reliable platform (affiliate network, for example) is only half the job. The second half entails active affiliate program management.

The key management elements are (a) recruiting new affiliates, (b) educating and motivating current ones, and (c) policing all affiliates for compliance with your Terms of Service. Yes, you want to make sure your program has a detailed TOS agreement, in which you specify what affiliate behavior is unacceptable, and what consequences such behavior will bring about.

Examples of the most frequently banned affiliate behaviors include trademark bidding, forcing clicks, cookie overwriting, cookie stuffing, and use of downloadable software.

Besides recruiting and policing, the affiliate program manager is also responsible for reviewing new applications, and maintaining a healthy communication channel with the affiliates.

In February 2009, Econsultancy.com published the UK and the US Affiliate Censuses. Among the top reasons for not promoting a merchant, US affiliates pointed to “slow acceptance to program” (17%), and “bad follow-up communication” (10%). Poor communication has also been mentioned by 12% as the reason for dropping affiliate programs.

UK affiliates have also stated that “merchants do not communicate a variety of issues to them,” and whatever communication does exist, “ranges from bad or impersonal contact” to “failure to convey important information.”

US affiliates echoed this observation by underscoring that “merchants do not communicate enough with them,” and when they do, it is performed in a generic, mass-mailing style.

All dangers of the “autopilot approach” are too many to outline here. If you are serious about your online presence, treat your affiliate program as a serious marketing campaign. Otherwise, gaining genuine trust and loyalty of affiliates will be an impossible task.

Geno Prussakov is the Founder of AM Navigator, and author of “A Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing” and “Online Shopping Through Consumers’ Eyes.”

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It is the classic “church and state” argument; brand advertisers in TV, print, and outdoor advertising and direct response marketers in infomercials, catalogs and direct mail. Very seldom have the two worlds collided, traditionally.

Early in online marketing, measurement, tactics and mindsets were simply ported over from the offline world. Branded advertisers would pay high CPM rates for premium inventory on premium sites (akin to a billboard in Times Square). Direct response advertisers would run and evaluate campaigns based on CPA or CPC, with less concern over whether inventory was “premium”, just that it worked (akin to direct mail).

One side was Madison Avenue-sexy; the other was not. It was supposedly “neat and tidy” since this hierarchy was what worked for decades, offline.

Beginning only recently, we have started to see an unprecedented shift. A myopic view would suggest that the impetus behind this shift is tied to the overall economy, with “fluffy” ad dollars simply being pinched more than ever.

A broader viewpoint might indicate that advertisers and agencies of all types are taking proactive steps in educating themselves and spending more effectively.

Why exactly is this shift taking place? It is that both brand-focused advertisers and direct response advertisers are moving ad money online, and that the business models ported from the offline world are changing.

For performance marketers who make their living in front of a machine, this isn’t exactly “news” – you know the power, scale, efficiency and measurability of the medium and how to leverage it.

But traditional offline marketers and brand marketers (who still hold a majority of overall ad dollars) are beginning to take a closer look at performance-based campaigns, or at least “hybrid” campaigns.

We will continue to see branding and customer acquisition lines blurred, compounded every time you read about CPM rates declining. I’ve long held the notion that the best way for brand advertisers to extend their brand was to gain more customers, make them happy, keep them, and communicate with them.

Uniquely in the online world, a consumer’s use of social media, blogs, forums, discussion groups after interacting with a brand can be powerful – and measurable. Some large advertisers finally understand this and are surprised at the increased insight they can have into user’s interactions with their product or service.

Is Online there yet in fully satisfying all types of advertisers in peaceful coexistence? Not yet. There is more education needed across the entire advertising ecosystem, measurement techniques can be improved and the economics of the marketplace have to stabilize further.

But for the first time, I’m seeing advertisers and large brands beginning to address the medium internally, push more advertising dollars online and take steps to become more educated. The next few months will be fascinating to watch as this shift presumably becomes more apparent.

The takeaway is that there could be real opportunity for responsible performance-based marketers and affiliates as more ad dollars are funneled online.

Michael Sprouse is the Chief Marketing Officer for Epic Advertising, and is based at the company’s headquarters in New York, NY.

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Few people are aware of, much less understand, the “Vendor Liability” clause of CAN-SPAM. Yet it is critical for anyone who has affiliates to understand this aspect of Federal anti-spam law, as it is specifically aimed at affiliate program administrators who ignore spam complaints about affiliates.

The Vendor Liability section of CAN-SPAM works like this: if you have an affiliate who is sending email that advertises your product, and that email is in violation of CAN-SPAM, then *you* are on the hook, legally, just as if you yourself had hit the “send” button.

The test is whether you stand to profit from that spam, and if you do, then the explanation that “I didn’t actually send the email” just won’t cut it. And of course, if one of your affiliates is spamming information about your product, then you *do* stand to profit from that spam.

The Vendor Liability section of CAN-SPAM does require that you either knew – or *should have known* – that your affiliate was sending spam.

It’s that “should have known” that really puts affiliate program administrators on the hook. It means that you have to carefully monitor who joins your affiliate program, and even more carefully monitor what they are doing once they have joined. And it means that you have to pay particular attention to any spam complaints that may come in for any of your affiliates.

Once you start receiving spam complaints about a particular affiliate, at that point you *should* know that they are spamming and that you stand to benefit from the spam that they are sending.

This may seem like an onerous law, and it *is* burdensome. In fact, many affiliate program administrators will no longer allow their affiliates to use email at all in conjunction with their affiliate programs. But it’s important to understand that there is a breed of rogue affiliate who signs up for all sorts of affiliate programs, and then blasts spam out to millions of people with whom they have no relationship, to turn a quick buck. And there is a corresponding breed of affiliate program administrator who looks the other way so long as the money keeps rolling in.

The Vendor Liability section of CAN-SPAM is intended to nip this in the bud, holding affiliate program administrators accountable as the beneficiaries of their affiliates’ illegal spamming activity.

Because of this, if you administer an affiliate program – or participate in affiliate programs yourself – it’s important that you be very familiar with the requirements of CAN-SPAM. We offer free CAN-SPAM compliance resources on our site, at http://www.ISIPP.com/.

Anne Mitchell is the CEO of ISIPP, which provides email deliverability and accreditation services to make sure your email makes it to the inbox, and not the junk folder.

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