Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins Affiliate marketing news and opinion from Shawn Collins, an affiliate marketer since 1997, co-founder of Affiliate Summit and author of Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants.

Last Saturday (Christmas), I was hanging out with my family, and I broke out my old 12″ single of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”. I couldn’t believe that came out 20 years ago. Nor could I believe that I still had a turntable.
Anyhow, I played it a few times. It was enjoyably nostalgic, and unfortunately [...]

Register early and save. We recommend that you register early for Affiliate Summit 2005 (June 13-14 in Las Vegas). Early registrations can save as much as $500!
The Affiliate Summit 2005 Early Bird registration rate is $995. You can pay by credit card (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, or American Express) or check.
This rate is good [...]

Affiliate Summit 2005 will be taking place on June 13-14, 2005 in Las Vegas. Details on the venue will be released shortly – we’re working on the hotel bids now.
Speaking proposals will be accepted through February 14, 2005.
Submit your proposal at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=95545789006
We will contact speakers whose proposals have been accepted by the end of [...]

I am a publisher registered both with CJ and Linkshare. I have noticed there are dozens of websites who are giving users rewards for completing surveys etc. I was wondering if you knew any advertisers which offer this facility through CJ, Linkshare or any other program. It would be great to get paid to offer [...]

I just finished playing Santa (stuffing the stockings and putting out the presents for my girls), and after a few eggnogs, I decided to pass out one more present.

Here’s a little gift to any of your marketing folks that have bothered to check my blog over the holidays – a free copy of the AffStat [...]

Everyone heralds the effectiveness of data feeds, but what about the fallout – duplicate content? Search engines (most notably Google) are known to penalize web pages – and sometimes entire websites – that contain “substantially duplicate content” (Google’s own words). Is it worth the risk of having your entire retail site dip in the organic [...]

I am going to start an affiliate program as a merchant and have been looking at MyAP, CJ and my soon to be shopping cart affiliate software from Miva. My question – why pay $999 to MyAP or more to CJ when Miva does it for free? Do potential affiliates look at the monitoring software [...]

Got an affiliate marketing lesson you learned in 2004 that you’d like to share with MarketingSherpa’s 173,000 readers?
If chosen, your story (plus a hotlink to your site) will be included in MarketingSherpa’s 3rd Annual Wisdom from the Field report to be published January 2005 and freely distributed to all their readers. (99 of the [...]

As we bid farewell to this year’s model of affiliate marketing and embark upon 2005, I’ve got to wonder what sorts of changes we are in for next year.
2004 was something of a turbulent year for affiliate marketers. The year kicked off with nervous and confused affiliate marketers trying to cope with CAN-SPAM, and [...]

I’m a new affiliate manager and I’m wondering about the benefits (if any) of signing up with multiple networks (CJ, LinkShare, etc.)? Or is it enough to select just one?
I’m not sure if you’ve launched your affiliate program yet, or not. But if you’ve already signed on with LinkShare, the prospect of working with a [...]