Welcome to the Real Deal - the Official Newsletter of Affiliate Summit. Please white list realdeal@affiliatesummit.com to ensure that your weekly copy will make it to your inbox.
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Articles in the Affiliate Summit Real Deal newsletter are the opinions of the author and may not necessarily reflect the views of the newsletter, or its owners. The Affiliate Summit Real Deal newsletter always welcomes opinions of an opposite nature.
Register Now for Affiliate Summit 2008 East at the Boston Seaport Hotel (August 10-12, 2008).
Save the date: Affiliate Summit 2008 in NYC - October 5, 2008
Read past issues of the Affiliate Summit Real Deal newsletter in the newsletter archive.
Topics in this issue:
- Presentations from Affiliate Summit 2008 West
- GeekCast 7 - Two Hats, One Calacanis
- Affiliate Summit Hasn’t Ended
- Affiliate Marketing Classifieds and Other Stuff
- Immodest Proposal for Affiliate Marketing
- Videos from Affiliate Summit
Below are the session names and descriptions. Click the session names to view the presentations.
Asymmetric Warfare Battling Fraudulent Affiliates
A few bad apples can seriously undermine an otherwise successful affiliate program. Stop playing Whack a Mole. Advanced, hands-on techniques to combat these rogues en masse will be presented.
Developing The Right Merchant Mindset
Affiliate programs don’t run well on auto pilot. Many merchants start down the road of affiliate marketing because they heard or read somewhere how profitable it could be.
Domaining and Address-Bar Driven Traffic
Did you know that Direct Navigation traffic converts twice as much as search traffic? Learn about this growing practice among consumers and how domains can drive more qualified traffic to your business.
Email is Media
For advertisers and affiliate managers: a workshop that will provide all with a better understanding of how to buy and measure the performance of their email campaigns.
Engaging Consumers with Video, Widgets and Rich Media
The panel will include brief (5-10 minute) presentations by the participants followed by a lively discussion and Q&A about how advertisers are using these kinds of media in their affiliate marketing programs.
How To Futureproof Your SEO Efforts
This session will help people develop strategies that will work for the long haul, so they can avoid some of the ups and downs of SEO.
Managing Legal Risks In Affiliate Marketing
Provide updates on CAN-SPAM, keyword search liability and the recent FTC affiliate marketing rules to identify how audience members can ensure that their campaigns produce results, not liabilities.
Practical Solutions To Internet Marketing Legal Compliance
These leaders of the Legal Compliance Industry will offer you practical solutions you can implement daily into your business model creating a total compliance package.
Video Innovation in Affiliate Marketing
Websites without video will go the way of the dinosaur. More video content means a wider long-tail. There is a wealth of opportunity for affiliate marketers to use video in innovative ways.
The videos of sessions from Affiliate Summit should be available in a couple weeks, and they will be streamed online for free.
Also, you can hear the audio from Jason Calacanis’ keynote on WebmasterRadio.FM.
This episode, fueled by Miller Lite and fried foods, got a little controversial, and I “accidentally” hit the delete button.
That show shall forever live in our collective memories as the Lost GeekCast.
Anyhow, the seventh episode of the GeekCast Show, running about 50 minutes, features Sam Harrelson, Jim Kukral, Lisa Picarille and myself chatting recapping Affiliate Summit 2008 West and the keynote address from Jason Calacanis.
We also talked about the culture of YouTube commenters, how to get press coverage, self-regulation for affiliate marketing, Twitter at conferences, the perils of blogging by affiliate networks, and vanity searches on Google.
Subscribe to the RSS of the entire GeekCast.fm network, or add us on iTunes.
The Affiliate Summit Social Networking site doesn’t go dark between conferences.
If you haven't done so already, go into the Affiliate Summit Social Networking site and fill out your profile.
Then use the search to find the type of attendees you want to meet: affiliate, agency, merchant, network, or vendor. You can also search by name or email.
Jump into your account at http://affiliatesummit.confabb.com/ and get some business going.
With our heavyweight campaign volumes, advertisers pay us more so we can pay you more. Plus, we give you the best quality and quantity of high-converting campaigns, personal support publishers rave about, and an easy-to-use proprietary system that ensures you get paid for all the traffic you drive. Call 310-659-5755 or visit: http://network.hydramedia.com/.
5 Star Affiliate Forums
Affiliates :: Discover supportive affiliate forums, filled with great ideas and discussions. Affiliate Managers :: Promote your program in the forums.
All :: Find the latest blogging tips and tools in our new blog marketing forums. Visit the 5 Star Affiliate Marketing Forums today.
Affiliate Buyer's Guide
Looking for an OPM, Web hosting, blog software or other products and services to help your business? Visit the Affiliate Buyer's Guide from Affiliate Summit. Submit a free listing for your business. More information at http://www.affiliatebuyersguide.com/.
Daily Affiliate News
Stay on top of the latest issues in affiliate marketing with Shawn Collins' blog. Visit http://blog.affiliatetip.com/ to read the news of the day and subscribe by e-mail or RSS to receive updates.
One thing that Jason touched on was that there are two groups in affiliate marketing. We’ve got the white hat folks, who are doing things right. And then there are the black hat affiliates, “thin affiliates”, people that are scamming and giving the industry a bad name.
Jason mentioned in his speech that the affiliate networks deserve some of the blame in this situation, and I’d love to see them address it.
Here is an excerpt of the keynote from Jason Calacanis (listen to the complete keynote audio at WebmasterRadio.FM):
“The affiliate companies have some culpability here.
The affiliate companies are creating the infrastructure that allows people to make the profit while poisoning the well and polluting the river.
And the affiliate companies have blinders on. They don’t police stuff.”
My thought is that we certainly need to do something here. One thing I was thinking about was how the affiliate networks might adapt something that a UK affiliate network, Affiliate Window, does to fight fraud.
A few years back, Affiliate Window began requiring affiliates to pay a fee of £5 to apply to the network, and this amount would be added into the affiliate’s account upon acceptance to the network.
Initially, I wasn’t too high on this method, but in reflection I think it could be quite useful in qualifying affiliates and cutting out some of the junk.
Perhaps affiliate networks could start using this strategy to identify affiliates and certify them to a degree as legitimate, white hat affiliates.
This wouldn’t screen out all of the scammers, but it could be a start. The important thing is to get some more ideas on the table and fix what is broken about affiliate marketing.
What do you think? Share your comments.
But they are not available just yet.
Stay tuned to the Affiliate Summit Blog for news on when we post them for you to see.
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