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.

Thanks for visiting the Affiliate Tip blog. Subscribe to my RSS feed or enter your e-mail on the top left to get updates by e-mail.There is a lot of fuss and discussion about how to leverage Web 2.0 as an affiliate. Some folks think it simply cannot be done.
I’m inclined to disagree. When the method [...]

I’ve been getting an increasing number of questions on video, how to do it, market it, monetize it, etc. Since there is such an interest in video, I’ve decided to create an offshoot of the Affiliate Tip blog that is dedicated to video.
My new blog on video is titled simply Make Video on the Internet, [...]

You have called out some of the “free ringtone” scammers, but the guy that runs Elite Retreat is the worst of all. Look at his forum at sprintusers.com/forum. Those sponsored ringtones are not free - why haven’t you called him out? Is he your friend? Is what he’s doing OK? Because if it [...]

With the Affiliate Summit coming up in London, I’m curious as to which British band is your favorite?
That’s a sort of random, non-affiliate marketing question, but I’m game. I am still living in the 80’s when it comes to a lot of my favorite music - stuff I picked up on from the old MTV [...]

The next installment of the Affiliate Thing show will feature an interview with Tara Hunt, Co-Founder & Chief Trouble Maker of Citizen Agency.
Tara, also known as Miss Rogue, defines herself as a customer first, marketer second. In 2005, Tara became the marketing director at Riya, where her community marketing theories resulted in huge gains, such [...]

Vonage can no longer sign up new customers. A U.S. district court judge has barred the VoIP provider after they lost a patent infringement lawsuit to Verizon.
According to InfoWorld, “Judge Claude Hilton of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia denied Vonage’s request to stay an injunction pending its appeal of a [...]

Is the use of blogs considered one of the better ways to succeed in affiliate marketing?
There isn’t really a single answer here. It really depends on what topic you’re covering and what products or services you hope to sell.
I’d say you should go with blogging as an affiliate if you don’t have an ability to [...]

The user generated media thing is fun and interesting and accessible. Anybody can blog, podcast, make videos, etc. But is that good or bad?
Jim Kukral mused today that he’s got Internet and Web 2.0 overload, and I’ve got to say I sort of agree.
I was thinking about the places where I feel compelled to maintain [...]

ShareASale is running a contest where they are trying to get their affiliates and merchants to submit videos explaining the purpose of their “ShareASale Star Thingys,” which are sponge-like, yellow stars left over from their booth at the last Affiliate Summit.
Just for entering the ShareASale contest, they will pay you $10, and then another $50 [...]

I was just reading John Chow’s blog, where he steered a whole bunch of affiliates in the wrong direction.
In the post, “Evil Affiliate Marketing Trick Of The day,” John expresses a frustration he has with affiliate marketing…
The concept of affiliate marketing is pretty straight forward: send a reader to the reseller site with your affiliate [...]