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2010 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report

Filed Under: Uncategorized
Apr.21, 2010

2010 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report

The 2010 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report is now available for free at http://affstat.com/. The report can be viewed online or downloaded.  Special thanks to AffiliateTip for letting us use this resource!

The 2010 Affiliate summit AffStat Report interviewed over eleven-hundred and fifty affiliates on their methods, preferences, and strategies for the 2010 in the affiliate world. The report features tons of charts of data, based on the responses from the participating affiliates on affiliate marketing, performance marketing, list management, social media, search marketing, domains, email, and more.  They were also asked to share any complaints, problems, ideas, suggestions or opinions they have regarding anything to do with affiliate marketing.  Special thanks to all the affiliates, list managers, data owners, advertisers, and affiliates that participated in the AffStat report at the affiliate conference this year!

Below are the questions covered in the 2009 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report.

  1. Do you maintain an opt-in e-mail list for your site(s)?
  2. Do you promote your affiliate links in PPC search engines?
  3. Finish this sentence: I have been an affiliate since…
  4. When signing up for an affiliate program, do you read the affiliate agreement?
  5. Do you prefer network or independent affiliate programs?
  6. How many affiliate programs do you actively promote?
  7. How many return days for cookies would you consider to be fair?
  8. Do commission payment policies (how often a program pays) affect your decision to promote an affiliate offer?
  9. Have you successfully requested an increase in commission from an affiliate manager?
  10. How many domains do you own?
  11. Do you own any domains dedicated to a particular affiliate program?
  12. How do you most often find out about an affiliate program and then join?
  13. How often would you like to hear from your affiliate managers?
  14. What is your preferred method for finding out information from an affiliate manager?
  15. How much information should an affiliate manager make available to you?
  16. How would you prefer to be contacted by affiliate managers on an individual basis?
  17. What is your preferred method of commission payment?
  18. What is your preferred payment threshold?
  19. What industry/merchant types do you prefer to promote?
  20. What is the minimum EPC (earnings per 1 click) for you to promote an affiliate program?
  21. What is the highest reversal rate you would accept?
  22. What is the most important factor in choosing a merchant?
  23. What are your preferred link types?
  24. Do you cloak links (CGI, .htaccess, meta redirect, etc.)?
  25. What is your average gross monthly income with affiliate programs?
  26. Are you currently using any URL Shortening Services in your marketing efforts?
  27. If you answered YES to the question above, which URL Shortening Services are you actively using?
  28. Does your affiliate marketing plan currently incorporate marketing on social networking sites?
  29. If you answered YES to the above questions, which social networking sites are you currently using in your affiliate marketing efforts?
  30. Are you currently integrating video in your affiliate marketing plan?
  31. Are you currently using any WordPress plugins or widgets designed for affiliate marketing efforts?
  32. If you answered YES to the above question, which affiliate marketing related plugins and widgets are you currently using?
  33. If you are currently using WordPress to build out affiliate sites, what is your preferred WordPress theme?

2010 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report

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Increase Your Twitter/Facebook/YouTube Followers

Filed Under: Uncategorized
Apr.20, 2010

Increase Your Twitter/Facebook/YouTube Followers

The concept is simple… pay these advertising networks to bring new followers to your Twitter/Facebook/YouTube account . I have wanted to do this for a long time but have held back because I think some of these services are a big waste of time.  After reading Zac Johnson’s Blog post I decided that I would take the plunge and do it!

First I had to go out and find what services are available. The best way of doing this is just going to Google and searching “buy twitter followers“. You will get a big mess of results.

For this Twitter Follower case study, let’s use 10,000 followers as the price point and what I will order for each Twitter account.

Here is a list of paid Twitter services and their rates.
BuyTwitterFriends.com = 10,000 Followers for $49.99 (0.0049 each)
PurchaseTwitterFollowers.com = 10,000 Followers for $59.99 (0.0059 each)
TweetSourcer.com = 10,000 Followers for $60.00 (0.006 each)
UnlimitedTwitterFollowers.com = 10,000 Followers for $74.95 (0.0074 each)
Twitter1k.com = 5,000 Followers for $104.97 (0.0209 each)
SocialKik.com = 10,000 Followers for $150.00 (0.015 each)
USocial.net = 10,000 Followers for $447.30 (0.044 each)

The two that I bolded are the accounts that I decided to pay money to, to get followers.  With BuyTwitterFriends.com I decided to go with 10,000 followers and with SocialKik.com I decided to go with 500 new Facebook Fan Page.  We’ll have to see how they both work out.  I am hoping for the best.  Adogy Facebook Fan Page is the page.  You can all go check it and see if this really worked!

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Search And Conversation are the New Focus of YouTube Redesign

Filed Under: Uncategorized
Apr.20, 2010

Search And Conversation are the New Focus of YouTube Redesign

YouTube began pushing out the site’s redesign Wednesday after testing the format since January. The cleaner, stripped-down version, which comes after a year of planning, more closely resembles the style and design of pages from parent company Google.

The changes might seem subtle at first, but that’s only because the site sports a cleaner look. Metrics from preliminary tests that YouTube ran earlier this year suggest that overall video playbacks with the redesign rose 6%. People stay on the site 7% longer to view and comment longer. The cleaner design also helps pages load faster.

The redesign also considers content owners. The site encourages conversation between the content owners and site visitors. People can now ask questions and have the person who uploaded the video comment under the Uploader Comments section. The best rated comment rises to the top.

Hover over the Views tab to reveal stats on the video. If a video owner creates multiple videos they now serve-up on the top of the page without cluttering the sides with links and thumbnails. The site also lets content owners brand videos with a profile and a logo above each video player.

Although the site encourages community and conversation, YouTube has yet to implement the open-source Salmon protocol, which would allow people to share comments across multiple social sites without leaving the page.  This would greatly help for their list management purposes.

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Speed Up Your Website

Filed Under: Uncategorized
Apr.16, 2010

Speed Up Your Website

Reduces HTTP requests

Significantly decreases the roundtrips between browser and server, reducing page load times.

Adogy packs multiple JavaScript files into a single file, packs multiple CSS files into a single file, creates CSS spritesets from JPEG, PNG and GIF images. Packing files significantly decreases the roundtrips between browser and server, reducing page load times

Compresses page resources

Minifies and gzips resources, reducing page load times and decreasing data traffic. Gzip compression can be applied to HTML, JavaScript, CSS files to reduce file size, compression is automatically turned off if the browser or corporate firewall doesn’t support Gzip compression.

Increases caching

Caches optimized resources on the server so optimizing only happens once per page.

The first time a page is produced; the resources are optimized and cached on the server making subsequent page requests faster. The server cache is refreshed at set intervals and can be configured to refresh some resources at different intervals – e.g.: for news feeds or dynamically changing content.

JavaScript, CSS and static images are cached on the browser using far-future-expires headers. The cache is refreshed whenever resources change on the server.

Optimizes image combining and inlining

Multiple images referenced in the HTML file are combined into single files using CSS sprites. Far-future-expiry dates are set on images so they remain cached on the client until they change.

One image file type is produced for each image type – PNG, GIF and JPG. Optionally, GIF files can optionally be converted into PNG files and JPG compression can optionally be increased.

CSS images can either be inlined inside the CSS file, reducing the HTTP requests (but increasing the CSS file size), or included in the spriteset by adding a directive in the CSS file.

Static images are set with far-future-expires so they are cached by the browser, dynamically generated images can be excluded from the spritesets and browser caching.

Optimizes JavaScript combining

Multiple JavaScript files are packed into a single file, with full configuration over which files are packed (head, body or both), where they are placed in the HTML, and the ability to exclude JavaScript files that are location, name or state dependent.

JavaScript is minified, removing whitespace and redundant characters. Far-future-expiry dates are set so the optimized JavaScript is cached by the browser until it changes.

Maintains browser & search engine compatibility

Optimizations are turned on or off depending on the capabilities of the browser.

With full support for Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome, Apple Safari and all search engines. Should gracefully degrades, handling unsupported browsers by returning the original page.

Supports common JavaScript frameworks

Unsupported frameworks can be included or excluded from packing. Adogy has built-in support for AJAX, Microsoft SharePoint 2007, DotNetNuke, EPiServer, Microsoft CRM and common JavaScript frameworks. Unsupported frameworks can be included or excluded from packing.

Supports dynamic content

Frequently changing content (like newsfeeds) can be excluded from optimization or refreshed periodically.

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Affiliate Summit East 2010

Filed Under: Uncategorized
Apr.12, 2010

Affiliate Summit East 2010

Adogy will be attending Affiliate Summit East in NYC  – August 15-17, 2010.  This three day conference includes an exhibit hall with affiliate merchants, vendors, and networks, as well as multiple tracks of educational sessions covering the latest trends and information from affiliate marketing experts.

We are also part of the Affiliate Summit East 2010 Challenge, a Nike+ Challenge where we will donate $1 to the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade for each mile run (up to $5,000.)  Currently we have 2 of our team in the race.  It changes everyday but we hope to be in the top 5.  Right now one of us is #14 and the other is #31.  Wish us luck!

If you would like to set up an appointment with us please contact your dedicated account representative with the time that works best for you.  We look forward to seeing all of you there!  Let us know if we can help any of you out in any way.

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Tatto Media Report Finds SEO Conferences Have Zero Value

Filed Under: Uncategorized
Apr.12, 2010

Tatto Media Report Finds SEO Conferences Useless

Tatto Media is one of the largest display advertising networks in the world. Tatto just put out a very interesting 17 page report which posts responses to survey questions to over 2,500 affiliate marketers.

When asked what conferences they find of value SMX and SES shows got 0% of the vote… not 1 person in 2500 liked the show?  That seems a little fudged to me but I guess we’ll just let them be.


2010 Affiliate Survey –

I guess that would make sense that people really like Affiliate Summit and Ad:tech.  WE ARE AFFILIATES, we’re not into SEO and other things as much as making a quick buck today.  Data Manager and List Managers are the same way.  Although we always want streams coming in, we love making a quick buck today. Those are just my thoughts though.  What do you think about about these statistics?

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Affiliate Summit FeedFront #10 Just Came

Filed Under: Uncategorized
Apr.09, 2010

Affiliate Summit FeedFront #10

Just got my copy of Affiliate Summit FeedFront Magazine and I’ve read almost the whole thing. For all you list owners, it’s a must. This issue of FeedFront Magazine includes an Affiliate Summit West 2010 Recap in pictures, How to Kick the Hype Habit by Rosalind Gardner, Walking the Straight and Narrow by Dush Ramachandran, and Increase Conversions by Shooting Your Designer by Tim Ash.

Here are the articles for this issue:

  • 03 How to Kick the Hype Habit By Rosalind Gardner
  • 04 The Work-at-Home Dad: Finding Balance By Daniel M. Clark
  • 06 Behind the Scenes of Colorado’s Affiliate Tax Fight By Jeannine Crooks
  • 07 Of Golf and Affiliate Marketing By Matt McWilliams
  • 08 Increase Your Productivity and Decrease Your Workload By Brian Williams
  • 09 Dealing with an Advertiser’s Landing Page Changes By Ian Fernando
  • 10 Does Making S@#! Up for Attention Work? By Jim Kukral
  • 11 Mobile First for Google. How About You? By Michael Martin
  • 12 Learning and Building Through Relationships By Patrick Vesperman
  • 13 Affiliate Summit West 2010 Recap By Shawn Collins
  • 17 Walking the Straight and Narrow By Dush Ramachandran
  • 19 Are You Using Twitter the Right Way? By Matt Enders
  • 20 Co-Registration 101 By Blake Hamann
  • 21 Should You Listen To Your Affiliate Manager? By Bryn Youngblut
  • 22 Upcoming Events
  • 23 MasterCard Massacre Paves Way for Industry Leaders By Laura Miller
  • 24 Understanding the Mindset of Affiliates By Joris Toonders
  • 25 Your Lifestream as One Big Affiliate Link By Brian Littleton
  • 26 New Look at Affiliate Motivation By Geno Prussakov
  • 27 Ask Shawn Collins: Do Affiliate Marketers Need a Blog? By Shawn Collins
  • 28 Increase Conversions by Shooting Your Designer By Tim Ash

FeedFront Magazine, Issue 10

If you can’t wait to see your copy (or you’re not currently a subscriber), you can download issue 10 of FeedFront.

Free subscription to U.S. addresses at http://feedfront.com/free-subscription.

Thanks to Affiliate Summit for a great Conference and amazing magazine!

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Is Negative Option Rebills Dead? I think NOT

Filed Under: Uncategorized
Apr.09, 2010

Is Negative Option Continuity Rebills Dead? I think NOT

There are not a whole lot of people talking about Negative Option and the Death of the Rebill (there is some wickedfire forum thread). (Thanks go out to Mike and Gennadiy for real info).  I however would like to talk about it.  There are a lot of list owners and data partners out there that would like to know what’s going on. First off, I’m not a genie, I dont have a crystal ball. What I have is my brain, my eyes and my ears which are ALWAYS open and looking for information. I give the information as it comes to me and asking such a question is just begging for speculation and if I were one to speculate well then…that makes me the biggest asshole in the world if I were wrong correct?

Moving to talk about continuity offers…

A lot of rebills have gone down in the past couple weeks. What we have here is a miscommunication of “why” they went down and more importantly we have a ton of “speculation” on events that have not even occured yet. Speculation is a real bitch in this business. Trust me on this one. People talk all day online behind a computer screen and they hear and read all sorts of shit and then they go running their mouth as if they had the slightest clue as to what’s really going on when in fact they have received all the pertinent information to complete the story.

Anyway…

What happened to the rebill offers that went down today? One of the largest issues (and I say largest because this is the one that directly affected most of the offers I know of today) is that Meritus Payment Solutions is one of payment solutions used by quite a few advertisers in this space. Now the blame doesnt go to Meritus because their Registered ISO/MSP is Wells Fargo Bank. Wells Fargo Bank has bailed from rebills/continuity/negative option billing (or whatever else name you want to come up for it).

What does this mean? This means we had some advertisers heavily relying on Meritus and now business is in chaos BUT……..business always resumes for the ones who have their stuff organized. There are literally a ton of merchant options out there people. Much like the explosion of CPA Networks this year, there has been an explosion of advertisers in this space. A lot of them who are complete retards and want to make the quick buck and dont plan their businesses in a smart and strategic manner.

As a publisher if you relied on Google Adwords for 100% of your traffic and woke up one morning to see that you have been banned, do you pack up shop and quit or do you suck it up and find other options?

Enjoy that analogy because that’s what it’s like for the advertisers today who were relying heavily on just one merchant service. Things change, people adapt and smart businesses find a way to succceed.

So the death of rebills is NOT upon us currently. There are still a multitude of options as a cpa marketer out there to promote and their will continue to be more options coming in the future. We are an industry in it’s infancy and nobody likes “baby killers”, they like to see the child grow. So stop complaining and get going! Data Partners and List Owners unite!

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The Subdomain Url Policy Enforcement For Adwords

Filed Under: Uncategorized
Apr.09, 2010

The Subdomain URL Policy Enforcement For Adwords

Google is now enforcing their new URL adjustments for Adwords Advertisers. In an attempt to break Adwords Advertising Subdomain “spammers” (apologies for this word, this is what most of whom are using these tricks are being referred to as) will have another crackdown brought upon them. Originally designed, implemented and now being publicly addressed to reflect “sites who sit on shared or hosted domains” the new adjustments will now be enforced to make sure advertisers are sending their “clickers” too “100% CORRECT DESTINATION AND DISPLAY URLS“.

Here’s an example:

Destination:

http://thiswouldbesomeaffiliatesite.com

Display:

http://mycoolsubdomain.thiswouldbesomeaffiliatesite.com

In that example, it will now be enforced that you cannot use that. Subdomains being used as “redirects” are no longer allowed and will now be enforced. So far from Adwords, they are saying that ads will be disapproved but I would suggest if you have campaigns setup this way with this type of url structure to go in their and quickly change it up. Adwords has been on a banning spree and why give them another reason?

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Get your Book Featured at Affiliate Summit East 2010

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Apr.06, 2010

Get your Book Featured at Affiliate Summit East 2010

This is not my post but I think any affiliate marketer or list owner should check this out. Affiliate Summit is taking place August 15-17, 2010 in New York City, where they always have a bookstore for attendees to purchase relevant books, as well as have book signings with some of the authors.

If you will be attending Affiliate Summit East 2010 and you’ve authored a book (or more than one book), they’d like to help sell some copies during the conference.

Submit your information

Deadline to request that your book(s) be included is April 30, 2010.

Check out full post

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