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Today (December 31, 2008) is the final day to share an affiliate marketing tip for a chance to win an iPod Nano or Flip Mino HD.

Just post your tip in the comments of my post, “Any Affiliate Marketers Want an iPod Nano or Flip Mino HD?,” by 7pm on December 31, 2008.

This contest is being sponsored by Market Leverage, and I will be selecting the winner here.

There are a handful of other blogs running the same contest with Market Leverage and the blog owners will vote for three Grand Prize winners who will receive a Market Leverage Grand Prize Pack that includes an Amazon Kindle, a $100 Market Leverage Rewards Card and a $50.00 iTunes Gift Card.

The grand prize winners will be announced on January 5, 2009.

More details at http://blog.affiliatetip.com/archives/any-affiliate-marketers-want-an-ipod-nano-or-flip-mino-hd/.

The third annual Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards will be presented on Monday, January 12 at Affiliate Summit West 2009, taking place at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

The Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards Gala is affiliate marketing’s most prestigious, competitive honor for the leaders in the space. Award winners are recognized because they are innovative leaders with vision and influence.

Here are the finalists for the Pinnacle Awards at Affiliate Summit West 2009:

Affiliate of the Year

• Scott Aikin
• Mike Allen
• Kim Rowley

Affiliate Manager of the Year

• Angel Djambazov
• Stephanie Harris
• Kim Salvino

Exceptional Merchant

• 4Checks.com
• Amazon
• CelebrateExpress.com

Affiliate Marketing Advocate

• Michael Coley
• Brook Schaaf
• Melanie Seery

Best Blogger

• Jamie Birch
• Angel Djambazov
• Scott Jangro

Affiliate Marketing Legend

• Connie Berg
• Scott Jangro
• Kellie Stevens

The Pinnacle Awards are open to all attendees of Affiliate Summit West 2009.

See video from the Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards in 2008.

Affiliate Summit West 2009 is on schedule to sell out by Monday, January 5, 2009, based on sales patterns of past Affiliate Summits.

As of this morning, there are 225 registration slots remaining.

Gary Vaynerchuk, star of Wine Library TV and Director of Operations at Wine Library in Springfield, NJ will be the Keynote Speaker for the conference.

This time around, Affiliate Summit will feature the largest exhibit hall of all of the twelve Affiliate Summits, and a limited number of sponsorships are still available, though all exhibitor booths are sold out.

More details at http://www.affiliatesummit.com/.

Q: How do I, as a Malaysian who studies in Australia as a temporary resident, make money in the U.S. market? Should I focus on the U.S. market or other markets?

A: There is money to be made as an affiliate marketer all over the place… the U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan, the U.K., all over Europe, etc.

It comes down to which sort of affiliate programs you prefer to promote and the audience you are able to attract.

Your niche will typically dictate your audience and their geographic location to a degree.

However, if your site is about something sort of generic like clothing, look at your logs to see where your visitors are coming from, and cater to that group accordingly.

If you’re finding that 90% of your audience is based in the U.S., then you should certainly cater to that market.

Rather than try and force a certain audience to come to your site, I would recommend testing the path of least resistance and appealing to your existing audience.

Also, be sure to check with any affiliate programs you promote to confirm that they ship to the countries of origin for your most frequent visitors.

I went to the mall yesterday to pick up some stuff, and it was like Cyber Friday Redux. Shopping is most certainly not finished.

And this was reinforced by an email from LinkShare yesterday about the surge in spending by people with Christmas cash money and gift cards burning holes in their pockets.

According to the National Retail Federation’s 2008 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch survey, the average person had done less than half of their holiday shopping by the second week of December, far less than in previous years by this time period; 41 million people had not started their holiday shopping yet.

Furthermore, the survey illustrates that 40.2% of people will do the remainder of their holiday shopping online, up significantly from 34.9 percent a year ago. More consumers wait for better deals and advertisers often offer the biggest sale of the year right after Christmas.

Put down the eggnog and get on it!

Post-Holiday Shopping