Make Money with Affiliate Programs

DoubleClick Performics announced today that they are now the Google Affiliate Network.

I think this is noteworthy on a couple of levels. First, Google doesn’t always attach their name to acquisitions. I can only speculate on the reasons for this, but I’d think it’s an indication that Google sees a big future in affiliate marketing.

Second, they retained the “affiliate” moniker at a time when some folks in the space are wigging out over whether affiliate marketing should rebrand to performance marketing or some other ambiguous name.

And third, it raises the profile of the industry overall. That’s always a good thing.

Anyhow, it’s neat to see the evolution of the company that I knew as Dynamic Trade ten years ago.

They rebranded some time around the spring of 2001. I remember this, because they changed names shortly after my book, “Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants,” went to print.

People still ask me whatever happened to Dynamic Trade.

DoubleClick then acquired Performics in 2004 and later changed up the name to DoubleClick Performics.

So when Google acquired DoubleClick Performics in March 2008, I wondered what they would name the company (if they re-named it).

So farewell, Dynamic Trade > Performics > DoubleClick Performics. And welcome Google Affiliate Network.

Below is the text of the announcement from Chris Henger, Group Product Manager for the Google Affiliate Network:

We are pleased to introduce Google Affiliate Network . Effective Monday, June 30, 2008, DoubleClick Performics Affiliate will operate as Google Affiliate Network. The integration with Google’s brand is a reflection of efforts to quickly assimilate our business and teams, as well as reinforce Google’s commitment to the Affiliate channel. Together with our new colleagues at Google we are creating new opportunities for monetization, expansion and innovation in Affiliate Marketing.

Within the next couple of weeks you will see some exciting changes to the user interface reflecting the new brand. The platform will continue to be hosted at www.ConnectCommerce.com, but will eventually migrate to a google.com product url.

As noted in earlier communications, DoubleClick Performics’ Search operations are being spun off and sold to a third party. While many advertisers have relationships with both DoubleClick Performics’ Affiliate and Search, there have always been separate account teams and product-specific specialists servicing clients’ search and affiliate programs. These teams remain intact. While the formal separation will occur when the Search business is sold, the businesses are functionally separate today.

We are proud of what we achieved as Performics and this name change signals a new milestone. Google provides world-class resources and enables us to continue to attract the best talent to support our advertisers and publishers. Now as part of Google we have an exciting and unprecedented opportunity to advance our industry. We remain committed to ensuring you receive the quality service you have come to expect from us.

We appreciate your business and look forward to doing great things together.

Sincerely,

Chris Henger

Group Product Manager
Google Affiliate Network

More details at http://www.google.com/ads/affiliatenetwork/index.html.

There aren’t many options out there for storing long videos online. Many services, such as YouTube, restrict the upload size to 100 MB and length to ten minutes for most users.

We use Fliqz.com for Affiliate Summit to offer up the full conference sessions, which run 45-60 minutes. You can see an example of these videos at http://www.affiliatesummit.tv.

Anyhow, we were just talking about the lack of video vendors serving this market on the GeekCast show recently, and then Magnify.net comes out with an attractive solution.

Magnify.net’s new “Self-Serve CDN” (content delivery network) enables users to upload an unlimited number of uploads in sizes up to 500 MB each.

I think this will be a great solution for any affiliate and merchants looking to post longer, instructional videos.

More details at http://www.magnify.net/options/pro/cdn.

The Blue Man Group, best known for their incredible shows that combine comedy, music, multi-media theatrics and of course, blue-painted skin, are going to be performing on the second day of Affiliate Summit 2008 East on Monday, August 11, 2008.

Affiliate Summit is running August 10-12, 2008 in Boston, and the Blue Man Group will entertain the crowd with a short performance before the keynote address.

Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, NJ, will be delivering the keynote address.

Check out the latest issue of Esquire Magazine for a feature article on Cory Booker at http://www.esquire.com/features/cory-booker-0708.

Emcee Jim Kukral will start it all up, and it’s going to be a top notch morning - don’t miss it.

Register now for Affiliate Summit before the conference sells out.

We are closing out issue 2 of FeedFront Magazine, so if you didn’t get a copy of the first one in the mail, and you want to get issue 2, subscribe now.

Anybody based on the U.S. who attended Affiliate Summit last year in Miami or this past February in Las Vegas should have received an issue of FeedFront in the mail by now.

If you didn’t get a copy, we must have an incorrect address on file for you.

You must get your subscription request in no later than June 30, 2008 to receive issue 2.

Subscribe now at http://feedfront.com/free-subscription/.

Download issue 1 of FeedFront at http://feedfront.com/feedfront-issue1.pdf.

I met up with Stephanie Agresta, aka Internet Geek Girl, at the recent LinkShare Symposium and she shared some thoughts about why affiliate marketers should care about social media.

“As you know, I am really passionate about social media, and I see that it has huge future potential for traffic and reach building.

Not only that, but I happen to think it is really fun.

I also think that affiliate marketers should care about the community that they can build within a social media world.

Using a best practices approach, being really authentic and transparent, you get to build reach and build community, and also have a good time while doing it.”

Check out more from Stephanie at http://internetgeekgirl.com/.

Q: I have a site with over 500 pages with an average of three pages read per visitor. Now, I have a few products, which are equally good. My question is… should I promote one at a time, or should I spread it out on different pages, so that when a visitor goes to another page, they see a different product?

A: I would suggest setting up the site with a content management system, such as Drupal or WordPress, where you will have everything sorted into categories with a logical hierarchy.

And then, you can have a page dedicated to each product, and then as you categorize them, the category pages will update dynamically.

This will be similar to the structure of a data feed driven site, but it would have to be created manually.

You can see an example at WeViews.tv, which is an affiliate site created my my Affiliate Summit partner Missy Ward and me.

Each post is in one or more categories, so visitors reach the site by listings in the search engines for the individual posts, and they get there via categories or drill down from the home page.

The June 25, 2008 episode of Affiliate Thing was missing Lisa, who was still celebrating her LinkShare Golden Link Award win.

Sam Harrelson filled in to chat about the LinkShare Symposium and Golden Link Awards, which just took place in New York City.

Shawn and Sam Harrelson also chatted with Jonathan Van Clute, one of the favorites for the upcoming Top Affiliate Challenge reality show.

They also talked about what’s going on with the Performance Marketing Alliance, some cool WordPress plugins, and how all your business are belong to Google.

Show Links

• LinkShare Golden Link Award Results
• Performance Marketing Alliance
• Jonathan Van Clute of Top Affiliate Challenge
• Rotate Banner Ads on WordPress Blogs
• FriendFeed Comment Plugin
• Google Ad Planner

Subscribe to the Affiliate Thing RSS feed or listen on iTunes. You can also send a blank e-mail to affiliatething@aweber.com to get each podcast delivered by e-mail.

Stream the show on WebmasterRadio.fm or download it.

There is a new WordPress plugin called Max Banner Ads that enables affiliates to add and rotate banners in blogs without editing themes or monkeying with the codes.

I have been a user of OpenX to serve ads for quite some time, and I’m very happy with the OpenX hosted solution. But I’d say there are more bells and whistles than needed with OpenX for the average affiliate.

If you’re simply looking for a means to easily insert and rotate ads, as well as tracking impressions and clicks, Max Banner Ads looks like an ideal solution.

More details at http://www.maxblogpress.com/plugins/mba/.

The FTC has set forth new rules that could have a significant impact on email practices for affiliate marketers.

Davis & Gilbert LLP has published a new document, Advertising, Marketing and Promotions Alert: FTC Approves New Rule Provisions Under The Can-Spam Act that helps clarify the new rules.

The Federal Trade Commission announced these new rules on May 12, 2008, and they are set to go into effect go into effect on July 7th, 2008.

Download the CAN-SPAM document at http://www.affiliatetip.com/CANSPAM-Act-1199265-7.pdf.

I was in New York yesterday for a whirlwind day at the annual LinkShare Symposium, which took place at Chelsea Piers.

I enjoyed the speakers at the event, which included James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds, and Patti Freeman Evans, Research Director for Jupiter Research.

And it was heartwarming to see the three finalists for LinkShare’s Performance Marketing’s Most Vocal Advocates award get together without any fisticuffs.

Congratulations to Lisa Picarille for winning the big honor.

Lisa Picarille, Missy Ward, Scott Jangro, and Stephanie Agresta

See highlights of the LinkShare Golden Link Awards at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hRndLMO7yY.