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Marty M. Fahncke, Founder of Conference Call University, recently sat down with me to discuss what is in store for the next Affiliate Summit, as well as sharing his tips for getting maximum value at the conference.

Download the segments of the first preview call in MP3 format: Shawn || Marty

Have a listen to my preview of what is happening at Affiliate Summit 2007 West:

Also, listen to Marty’s 10 Tips to Get Maximum Value from Affiliate Summit:

Register for the next Affiliate Summit Preview call at http://www.affiliatesummitpreview.com/. The next call features interviews with Todd Taylor from TaxBrain.com and Sean Crotty from Art.com.

Todd will be speaking about getting maximum value from viral video, and Sean will cover the opportunities for taking an affiliate program to other countries.

You can listen to all of the Affiliate Summit Preview calls at http://www.cculearning.com/summitreplay2007.

Gene Kavner, Former World-Wide Director of the Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) Associates Affiliate Program, knows a thing or two about a thing or two when it comes to affiliate marketing. He’s got some advice for affiliate managers on improving their affiliate programs.

In his new blog, AffiliateBrand.com, Gene shares his opinion on What Every Affiliate Program Should Have.

Gene breaks down his suggestions to seven points:

1. One of the most important components of any affiliate program is the relationship between the merchant (site with an affiliate program) and the publisher (site that drives traffic to the merchant).

2. Each merchant needs to have a clear way to understand how elastic their affiliates are.
3. Merchants need to provide tracking id’s to their affiliates.
4. Merchants need to be able to offer ladder commission structures for affiliates based on volume of leads.
5. Merchants need to be able to compensate their affiliates differently.
6. Affiliates should have direct links to the merchant.
7. All affiliate programs should generated 2nd-tier commissions.

Visit AffiliateBrand.com for more insight from Gene Kavner and supporting information for the list above.

The October 2006 issue of Affiliate Classroom Magazine is out and this month’s issue takes a look at niche marketing from three different marketing perspectives: promoting CPA programs, keyword research, and niche mining.

The cover story discusses how CPA and niche marketing can be a great match, but only if you find the right CPA match for your niche topic and audience.

Also, an Affiliate Classroom student explains the principles behind effective niche research, including audience, product, and keyword-based approaches.

And in a continuing series on affiliates and Web 2.0, you’ll learn how to use “social spaces” to find hot niches.

Check out the new issue of Affiliate Classroom Magazine.

Nominations for the Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards are closing on October 31, 2006.

These awards recognize exceptional performance in affiliate marketing.

The Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards will be presented at Affiliate Summit 2007 West on the evening of Monday, January 22, 2007.

The categories for the Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards are listed below:

• Affiliate of the Year

• Affiliate Manager of the Year
• Exceptional Merchant
• Affiliate Marketing Advocate
• Best Blogger
• Affiliate Marketing Legend

Nominations can be submitted at http://www.affiliatesummit.com/pinnacle-awards.php.

Don’t be modest - if you think you should be considered, go and nominate yourself.

Please note that these are just nominations. There’s no need to campaign to have your friends and colleagues nominate you dozens of times.

The Affiliate Summit Advisory Board will review the nominations to come up with a list of finalists for each category. Finalists will be announced in the near future.

One of the foremost tenets of affiliate marketing is know your partners. Monitoring merchants is something every affiliate should do, but how many really do it?

Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) enables you to subscribe for updates on any company name or keyword with Google Alerts.

Google Alerts are e-mail updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.

In addition to providing you with news updates for any keyword term you select, you can also get e-mails if your keyword is mentioned in a blog, the regular Google results, or Google Groups.

This is a great, free tool to keep an eye on any key announcements for companies you promote, as well as positive and negative opinions on the companies in blogs and Google Groups.

Visit http://www.google.com/alerts for more details.

Can affiliate marketing be used to sell one-of-a-kind products, and if so, how?

There is only one thing that affiliate marketing cannot be used to sell, and that is the product or service that isn’t otherwise selling on the Internet.

That is a problem I see repeated over and over again. Somebody has a grand idea to sell something online, but they don’t bother researching and testing to determine if there is an audience for their product or service.

Nor do they perfect the selling process before launching an affiliate program.

Affiliate marketing can provide incremental sales for a product. If you”ve already established a site that is selling a product, then you should explore affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is not a magic bullet, it’s a marketing channel to increase your existing online sales.

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Got an affiliate marketing question? Ask it anonymously at http://www.askshawncollins.com/ and I’ll answer it for you in the AffiliateTip.com blog. Read the Ask Ronald Bell archives.

I had a chat recently with Fraser Edwards, who runs the Affiliate Blog Podcast. The interview is now available to download or stream from his site.

We discussed a wide variety of topics related to affiliate marketing, including the past, present and future of Affiliate Summit, as well as differences between the UK and US affiliate markets.

Another item we touched on was the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, signed into law on October 13 by President George W. Bush. Fraser and I talked about the implications of the law on affiliate marketing for both sides of the pond.

Also, the grassroots efforts in the UK and US to set up industry associations were explored.

Visit Fraser’s Affiliate Marketing Blog to download or stream the podcast.