Over the years many events, technologies, and companies have changed the face of affiliate marketing. The current battle against the Affiliate Tax (Advertising Tax, Amazon Tax) is one of the most important events to happen in our young industry.

The Advertising Tax has the power to both reform and injure our entire industry. To date New York, Rhode Island, and North Carolina have all passed the tax. Other states have seen the damage these laws do to small businesses and have shot down similar legislation.

Being headquartered in North Carolina, mgecom took a leading role in the fight against the Advertising Tax. In this fight, we learned many things which could be of great value should you find yourself in a state considering the implementation of the Advertising Tax. My best advice is this:

- Start an online petition and gather as many signatures as possible. The volume of signatures is important, but more from your state equals more relevance to lawmakers.
- Gather short, personal stories from every affiliate you can reach whose business will be negatively impacted. Print and bind these, and hand deliver them to your legislators.
- Use Twitter to get the message out and gain new supporters. Create a hash tag (we used #ncaffiliatetax) and include it in every Twitter update you write.
- Talk to the Performance Marketing Alliance and leverage their experience, data, and reach.
- Utilize the enormous power and community of ABW (ABestWeb.com) and other affiliate marketing forums.
- Organize face to face meetings with anyone in your state who has an interest in seeing the law shot down. Use these meetings to plan your group strategy.
- Don’t wait to start the fight. Make yourself heard as soon as the legislation appears. Even better, be preemptive and start educating your legislators on our industry.
- Visit your legislators in person. Meeting with lawmakers from your county is very important, but talk to anyone who will listen, particularly if they are on your State Finance Committee.
- Call your legislators multiple times. Don’t settle for speaking to an aide.
- Be persistent.

In North Carolina, we were unfortunately fighting against the perception of “fairness” in the eyes of lawmakers.

Many were focused on ensuring that Amazon.com and local book retailers were both subject to the same taxes and removing what was seen as an unfair competitive advantage.

North Carolina being in a significant budget deficit certainly did not help our chances. To lawmakers, the Affiliate Tax seemed like a way to both close the budget gap and keep local retailers happy.

We found that personal stories from affiliates and getting legislators to see how the Affiliate Tax laws negatively affect small businesses and individuals was much more effective than speaking to them about their misconceptions of fairness and new tax revenue streams. In the end we lost the fight, but we did make headway with key legislators. Now, we will work towards repeal of the Affiliate Tax.

Matt Enders is the CEO and Founder of mgecom, inc., an Outsourced Affiliate Program Management firm.

Download the entire FeedFront issue 8 here – http://www.scribd.com/doc/20220412/FeedFront-Magazine-Issue-8
FeedFront issue 8 articles can be found here as well: http://feedfront.com/archives/article00date/2009/10

Connie Berg is one of the most respected names in affiliate marketing, where she has earned a reputation as hard-working and an innovative affiliate in her ten plus years in the business. Among her industry accolades have been the LinkShare Golden Link Most Vocal Advocate Award in 2004 and the Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Award – Affiliate of the Year in 2008.

FeedFront’s Co-Editor-in-Chief, Shawn Collins, recently talked with Connie about her career, fighting the advertising tax in Minnesota, and which Aerosmith song sums up her life.

Shawn: What was the first domain you purchased?

Connie: My first domain was FlamingoWorld.com in 1998.

Shawn: Most people know you for FlamingoWorld.com. How did you get started with it?

Connie: I was really poor and found out there were coupons for online stores so I started a website to collect them for myself. Then I found that on some of the store websites that they had this thing called an affiliate program where you got paid a percent of the purchase. I figured I would sign up and use the commission as a rebate. Somehow, I don’t know how, others found my site and started using the coupons and my links. I got the flamingo theme from an old boyfriend; he used to call me Flamingo Girl.

Shawn: How about ForMeToCoupon.com, what is that project all about?

Connie: For a long time coupon affiliates, myself included looked to the networks to give us consolidated, accurate data feeds of their merchant’s coupons, sales and special offers. Tired of waiting, a light bulb went off in my head; instead of looking for the solution I would be the solution. ForMeToCoupon offers an automated, customized affiliate coupon feed and deal feed from across all major networks. It covers all kinds of deals -not just coupons – but also rebates, clearances, product deals, deals of the day, and free shipping deals.

Shawn: What has been the highlight of your time in affiliate marketing to date?

Connie: The highlight has been all the wonderful people I have met whom I now call close friends. Some of the best people are in affiliate marketing. When I go to affiliate events it is like a family reunion. I have also gotten a better education in business than I could have gotten if I had taken business course in college. There are so many smart and inspiring people in the industry, they constantly challenge me and spark ideas.

Shawn: What has been the lowlight?

Connie: The cheaters, those who try to game the system. Those who find ways to steal sales and commissions from other affiliates and the networks who look the other way. There are a lot of unethical players out there. For each one that is outed there are ten that no one knows about.

Shawn: Which affiliate programs are your favorites? Why?

Connie: I don’t have a favorite program but I do have 2 favorite networks. ShareASale and AvantLink. Both are honest and ethical networks and I deeply respect the people who run them.

Shawn: You’ve been a vocal opponent of the advertising tax issue in Minnesota. Have you been in touch with your lawmakers?

Connie: I went to one hearing where they postponed hearing on the issue. Since then I have sent emails, letters and had a few meetings with lawmakers.

Shawn: I saw that you blogged, “Minnesota Affiliates Where Are You?” Have more Minnesota affiliates stepped up to fight the advertising tax?

Connie: I have heard from 2 affiliates in Minnesota total. I don’t know if there are no other affiliates in Minnesota that are active or that would be greatly impacted; if they don’t understand the issue or if they just don’t care and want to leave it up to others to take care of.

Shawn: Are you concerned about the impact if the advertising tax passes in Minnesota?

Connie: I am hoping the Governor will veto the bill, but if it passes I think I will lose a lot of merchants. However, we are hoping to keep some to use just in ForMeToCoupon and not post on FlamingoWorld.com. On ForMeToCoupon we don’t earn any commissions on any sales, those go to the affiliates using our service who are active in the programs.

Shawn: How many people do you employ?

Connie: I have 6 employees, whom I also count as friends. All work from home. One is my ex-husband.

Shawn: If the advertising tax passes in Minnesota, do you think you would have to lay off staff?

Connie: I don’t foresee having to lay anyone off since we still need staff for ForMeToCoupon. We have a lot of ideas we want to implement. We know that we can’t keep all our eggs in one basket, we have to have a game plan, in this industry anything can happen so we have to be prepared and have more than one niche.

Shawn: What is your favorite site today (not including anything related to affiliate marketing)?

Connie: I love TMZ.com, it is a nice distraction from the day-to-day grind. It is fun to see celebrities acting stupid and it makes me realize that my life is pretty good compared to some of them.

Shawn: You’ve sponsored music festivals to promote FlamingoWorld.com. Have you used other strategies to promote your site?

Connie: Most of my promotion is word of mouth. I sponsor Rock-Fest every year in Cadott, Wisconsin and that is about it for organized promotion.

Shawn: What is the last book you read?

Connie: The last book I read was “Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s “, by John Elder Robison. I also read a lot of true crime books. Forensics fascinates me.

Shawn: Complete this sentence: Affiliate marketing was __________ five years ago, but now it is __________.

Connie: Complete this sentence: Affiliate marketing was fun five years ago, but now it is a lot of work and politics.

Shawn: What’s your favorite movie?

Connie: Anything with Johnny Depp! My other favorite is Gone With The Wind.

Shawn: If your life could be summed up in an Aerosmith song, which song would it be?

Connie: Living on the Edge, although I wish it were Love in an Elevator!

Shawn is a Co-founder of Affiliate Summit and Co-Editor-in-Chief of FeedFront Magazine.

Download the entire FeedFront issue 6 here – http://feedfront.com/feedfront-issue6.pdf
FeedFront issue 6 articles can be found here as well: http://feedfront.com/archives/article00date/2009/06