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KowaBunga! has created a couple of publications that are Holiday Quick Tips & Strategies guides.

Quick Tips & Strategies for MyAP Merchants (pdf)
Find out how to quickly, and easily boost your holiday affiliate sales using the standard features in MyAP.

Quick Tips & Strategies for Online Merchants (pdf)
A similar report detailing tips and tricks for boosting sales for your online store.

One of the most effective ways to build traffic to your site is to collect opt-ins for an email newsletter.

There are two important components to a successful email newsletter: compelling content and a continually growing opt-in list.

The more folks that opt-in to receive your newsletter, the greater chance you’ll have to drive targeted traffic to your site or directly through affiliate links in your email newsletter.

But cultivating a large list of opt-ins is not so easy, especially if your site is new or getting a modest amount of traffic.

But don’t fret, because there is a service called Subscription Rocket, where you can increase your number of newsletter opt-ins by helping other people promote their newsletters.

Here’s how it works:

• Members of the Subscription Rocket co-op place a small piece of HTML onto their site.
• People that visit the web site of a co-op member are shown a small pop under window that allows them to subscribe to other co-op member’s newsletters.
• The visitor to the site subscribes to the newsletter(s) of his/her choice.

Each time a pop under window is shown on your web site you receive 4 credits. For each credit you have, your newsletter opt-in will be shown on a targeted pop under window on other sites that work with Subscription Rocket.

That means that the more traffic your web site has, the more credits you earn.

KowaBunga! Technologies, the industry leader of private affiliate tracking and management solutions for online merchants announces a successful soft launch of the first “open” affiliate network, Kolimbo.

In only three months, Kolimbo has already generated over 35,000 new relationships and $2 million in new sales for KowaBunga!’s clients. Overall, Kolimbo is growing at a pace of 35% each month. Full public launch of Kolimbo is expected December 1, 2004.

Like traditional affiliate networks, Kolimbo pairs up merchants (“advertisers”) with affiliates (“publishers”), and then provides tracking and reporting to both parties for facilitating performance marketing deals, like cost per acquisition and cost per click. Access to Kolimbo is free to all KowaBunga! clients using their “My Affiliate Program” brand software.

Kolimbo’s “Open” Network vs. Traditional Affiliate Networks:

• Cost Savings for Merchants Means Higher Commissions for Affiliates – Kolimbo does not charge the 20%-30% transaction fee surcharge Merchants pay the traditional affiliate networks. (e.g. A merchant paying $100,000 to affiliates would pay a traditional network at least $20,000 [20% of $100,000] in surcharges.) Merchants can pass some of this infrastructure savings on to their affiliate partners, in exchange for increased promotions by their affiliate partners.

• Open Relationships Fosters Profitable Relationships – Kolimbo provides a centralized platform for facilitating direct, private relationships between Merchants and Affiliates, instead of limiting communication between the parties. Merchants and affiliates have complete control over every aspect of their relationships.

“Our unique market position as the provider of private affiliate program solutions, serving over 1,800 merchants and 500,000 affiliates world-wide, has given us the opportunity to offer this valuable new service,” said Todd Farmer, CEO of KowaBunga! “We care about the success of our merchant’s affiliate programs, and Kolimbo helps our merchants succeed.”

Industry insiders and analysts have praised the launch of Kolimbo. “KowaBunga! is to affiliate marketing as JetBlue is to the airline industry,” said Ronald Bell, proprietor of AffiliateManager.net, a leading industry discussion board. “They do a hundred little things to make managing an affiliate program efficient and painless. Now with Kolimbo, they have all of the upsides and none of the downsides of a traditional network.”

Kolimbo Offers Value to Merchants and Affiliates
Kolimbo merchant, Alan Earl from iDishNetwork.com, has already reaped the rewards of Kolimbo, “As a merchant, we need access to top quality affiliates but are simply unwilling to pay the extraordinary network fees that are associated with a solution like Linkshare or Commission Junction. Kolimbo allows us to ‘have our cake and eat it too.’ Our affiliate registrations have increased daily since the Kolimbo introduction and we’re confident that it will only get better.”

For affiliates, Kolimbo offers a convenient, free platform to find and manage their private relationships. Kolimbo affiliate, Wendy Shepherd of StudioMatrix.com says, “I have been working with hundreds of affiliate programs through many providers for about 7-years. Kolimbo is one of the most user-friendly networks on the internet today. I love the ease of finding merchants, stats and advertising creative in one area.”

MyReferer.com, leading provider of “private” affiliate tracking an management solutions, today launched MyReferer.Network (www.myreferer.net) a Free Network for Affiliates working with MyReferer’s Merchants.

This new offering reflects MyReferer’s continuing efforts to be a leader in the development of affiliate marketing software and services. Unlike traditional Networks, MyReferer.Network does not take “network commissions”.

It is beneficial to Affiliates who are used to sharing their earnings with networks. Also, MyReferer’s Merchants now have all the benefits of running “private” programs with access to a network of affiliates.

Benefits for Affiliates include: Direct access to Merchant Areas with one ID and Password - No need to remember several affiliate IDs or Passwords; “One-Click” Signup Process; Aggregated Reports; Report based on currencies; New programs added weekly.

Being listed/advertised is an option for Merchants and it is not part of the MyReferer.com Service. Merchants may be listed free of charge, but their program inclusion on the new site is always subject to editors’ review.

Affiliates can find MyReferer’s Merchants with which they already have a relationship, and add them to their MyReferer.Network account, even if Merchants are not listed on the website (any program using MyReferer.com Technology).

Affiliates and Merchants enter into direct contractual relationships through the “One-Click” signup process. It is Affiliate sole responsibility to research the Merchants before entering into an agreement. Merchants are responsible for paying the commissions and MyReferer make no warranties or representations of any kind. It is a FREE Affiliate Network.

MyReferer decided to list only a few Merchants during the “beta” period ending January 2005. Several affiliate programs should be launching through the Network within the next few months. MyReferer.Network is Free for Merchants and Affiliates. MyReferer.Network website is available at http://www.myreferer.net

Paid search has come a long way from the penny-a-click days of the late ’90s. What’s ahead? To start, think of vertical, personalized and geocentric technologies.

It was the summer of 1998 when GoTo.com launched its pay-per-click (PPC) program in a fairly straightforward way. Back then, there were few competitors and the bids were low. Often a top slot could be had for a penny a click, and the reporting was bare bones.

It was morning in paid search country.

Six years later, the paid search engine landscape has gotten a lot more crowded. According to PayPerClickSearchEngines.com, there are now about 600 PPC engines. It has also gotten a lot more expensive, with the minimum of a dime per click at Overture. And all that has made things a lot more complicated.

If you want to know what the future holds for the fusion of paid search and affiliate marketing, strap in and hold on tight.

The typical affiliate program is heavy on affiliates utilizing either natural optimization or paid placement. A third of all affiliates promote their links on PPCs, according to a survey in the AffStat 2004 Report. Additionally 16 percent cite data feeds as their preferred method for promoting an affiliate program.