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Affiliate marketing blog fever - catch it!

It looks like the growth and popularity of the blogs over at ReveNews may have been a tipping point for the convergence of blogs and affiliate marketing.

Recently, Chris Sanderson rolled out RSS feeds for the affiliate programs managed by his company, AMWSO.

Danny Kautt of Rockler has a blog for affiliates that dates back to early 2003.

Paul Colligan runs the Affiliate Marketing World blog.

And Jim Kukral has a blog that’s heavy on affiliate marketing.

Need more convincing that it makes sense to start blogging for affiliate marketing communications? Check out the recent post by Seth Godin. He has essentailly endorsed blogs as the next generation way to reach people.

Oh yeah, and I just put up a ClubMom affiliate program blog.

In the words of the Dora the Explorer theme (what do you want, I’ve got three little girls!)…

“Come on, vamanos!
Everybody, lets go.
Come on lets get to it,
I know that we can do it!”

It was more than five years ago that I started working for http://www.refer-it.com/, the first affiliate program directory. Back then, it was considered the key place to go in search of affiliate programs to join.

I had high hopes for the directory, and it was becoming a monster resource for a while. But as the folks behind it left for other opportunities, it sort of became a derelict property.

Oh, it’s still there, and people are still using it, but it isn’t being run the way it used to. It’s not really being run much at all.

Affiliates have noticed this and over time, affiliates found other resources to shop for affiliate programs. According to responses from affiliates for the AffStat 2004 Report, affiliates are finding out about affiliate programs largely by the affiliate manager being active on message boards, the affiliate manager emailing, calling, or direct mailing them, or via Google.

They are still using affiliate directories, but in lesser numbers. I aim to change that with AffiliateTip.com.

This new breed will be proactively managed, and as Refer-it used to do, AffiliateTip.com will discriminate and only list programs of a certain caliber. After all, it’s a resource for affiliates, and they don’t want to have to navigate through a bunch of garbage.

One key element with AffiliateTip.com is that affiliate managers have to include their direct email address in their listing, so affiliates can reach out and ask questions. If that’s a problem for an affiliate manager, there is a simple solution - they won’t be in the directory.

One of my intentions is to feature programs that are actively managed by affiliate managers that actually want to hear from affiliates. Deadbeats need not apply.

The Free National Membership Organization For Moms Announces The Selection Of UnsubCentral To Provide Their Email Suppression Service To Affiliates

AUSTIN, TX (PRWEB) July 19, 2004 — ClubMom, Inc. (www.clubmom.com), the free national membership organization for moms and #1 affiliate program in June 2004,* today announced that its affiliate program will be utilizing the Affiliate Manager bonded email suppression service from UnsubCentral, Inc. (www.unsubcentral.com) to enable ClubMom affiliates to promote ClubMom in compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act.

Under the CAN-SPAM Act, advertisers utilizing email to distribute commercial messages are now obligated to manage unsubscribe requirements across all affiliates and sales channels. This is a potentially daunting task requiring security and data-privacy safeguards for creating a centralized suppression list, providing suppression lists to affiliates, and updating suppression lists with new opt-out requests.

The UnsubCentral Affiliate Managerâ„¢, a suppression service ensuring CAN-SPAM compliance while protecting data privacy policies, will be powering the ClubMom affiliate email suppression list utility. UnsubCentral is the only suppression management service provider to offer a solution that safely and securely integrates all commercial email channels, ensuring corporate-wide CAN-SPAM compliance.

“Under CAN-SPAM, advertisers are now responsible for creating a centralized suppression list, providing suppression lists to affiliates, and updating suppression lists with new opt-out requests–while maintaining data privacy and security,” said Joshua Baer, interim CEO and founder of UnsubCentral. “We’re seeing rapid adoption of our suppression solutions across a variety of channels as more affiliate marketers and large enterprises are educated about their responsibility and cost effective solutions like UnsubCentral. We’re delighted to see ClubMom take a leadership role by partnering with UnsubCentral for CAN-SPAM compliance.”

“We quickly realized that a bonded, third-party entity must be established for the general good of the industry. By providing a secure environment with audit and fraud detection for managing opt-out lists across sales channels and third parties, UnsubCentral is a cost-effective solution for companies seeking to outsource to a compliance partner,” Baer said.

According to a recent poll of affiliate managers on the AffiliateManager.net Forum, only 11% were working with a third party to manage list suppression to comply with CAN-SPAM.

“It is surprising that more affiliate managers and their respective affiliate programs have yet to partner with an expert in order to ensure compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act. There are large brands in the affiliate marketing space that are recklessly allowing their affiliates to send solo emails on behalf of the company, or simply emailing around excel files full of email addresses - and they are playing with fire,” said Ronald Bell, affiliate manager of ClubMom.

According to Bell, “ClubMom has not allowed affiliates to send solo email since CAN-SPAM came into effect on January 1, 2004. As we researched the options for email suppression solutions, and surveyed our affiliates, UnsubCentral emerged as the clear choice that allowed us to safely continue our highly effective affiliate email marketing program.”

More information about ClubMom’s Affiliate Program can be found at: http://www.clubmomaffiliates.com/

About ClubMom
ClubMom ® (created and administered by CMI Marketing, Inc.) is a FREE national membership organization, with more than a million members, that recognizes rewards and celebrates moms for what they do every day, by offering rewards and savings from America’s best companies, ways to save time, meet other moms, and get mom’s voice heard.

ClubMom was established by Meredith Vieira, moderator of the popular daytime talk show “The View,” actor and social activist Andrew Shue, entrepreneur and ClubMom Chief Executive Officer, Michael Sanchez, among others. Investors include Highland Capital Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Board members include Shelly Lazarus, Chairman and CEO of Ogilvy & Mather, and Sara Levinson, President of the Women’s Group at Rodale Publishing, and former President of NFL Properties and MTV-Music Group.

About UnsubCentral
UnsubCentral, Inc. is a CAN-SPAM compliance service provider and SKYLIST incubator company. The Austin, Texas-based corporation offers email suppression solutions that create a secure environment for managing opt-out lists across the enterprise, affiliates and various third parties. Integrated with IronPort and reviewed by TRUSTe, the centralized platform ensures clients comply with CAN-SPAM and data privacy requirements. For more information, please visit www.unsubcentral.com.

*(SOURCE: Refer-it.com)

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Refer-it.com, the first affiliate program directory, publishes a top ten affiliate program list each month. ClubMom has been the top rated affiliate program for back to back months (May and June 2004

According to Refer-it, “The Top Ten programs are calculated by the absolute number of clickthroughs each program received on Refer-it.com.” This means that the top affiliate programs are those which tend to draw the most interest from affiliates who visit the Refer-it directory

I would attribute the ascent of the ClubMom program to the fact that ClubMom recently increased the affiliate commissions significantly, as because ClubMom received lots of national press around Mother’s Day.

Affiliates can apply to the ClubMom affiliate program at http://www.clubmomaffiliates.com/

I was curious about what sort of person becomes an affiliate marketing professional. I’d spoken with a handful of folks in the industry who were ‘Greek’ in college, and I wondered how many affiliate marketers were in fraternities or sororities.

So I ran a poll in the AffiliateManager.net forum to find out. To my surprise (not sure why?!), a mere 31% were in a fraternity or sorority.

One interesting thing I found out from the poll was that ReveNews blogger, Sam Harrelson, was the President of the Nu Chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha.

And I also recently found out that Brian Clark, one of the founders of ReveNews, was in the Alpha Nu chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha.

Maybe that’s not interesting to you, but it was to me, because I was the President of Delta Psi Chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha.

So now us fratboys are planning to do some business together.

Benjamin Edelman, a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Economics at Harvard University and a student at the Harvard Law School, has done extensive research into 180solutions and the effects of the practices of 180solutions on affiliates and affiliate program merchants.

This is a very interesting read, and I’d urge all affiliates and affiliate managers to read through it at http://www.benedelman.org/spyware/180-affiliates/.

The Republican National Committee affiliate program was initially set with automatic approval of affiliates, which is contrary to the accepted best practices in affiliate marketing.

In general, it is suggested to manaully approve all affiliates, so as to limit the risk to your brand and minimize the chance of fraud (though you’d have to be a nut to commit credit card fraud against the RNC).

Anyhow, the folks operating the affiliate program have flipped the switch to manual approval - smart move!