Speaking proposals for Affiliate Summit East 2012, taking place August 12-14, 2012 in New York City, are now being accepted.

The submission deadline is April 20, 2012. Any submissions after this date will not be considered.

Accepted speakers will be notified no later than May 11, 2012. If you have not been contacted by May 11, 2012, your proposal was not accepted.

Submit your speaking proposal at http://www.affiliatesummit.com/12e-speakers/.

FeedFront Magazine is now available on iPad.

Now you can read the current issue of FeedFront and any of the past issues on an iPad, as well as online.

Check out issue 17 (January 2012) of FeedFront on your computer or iPad.

You can access all of the past issues of FeedFront at http://issuu.com/affiliatesummit/docs.

The magazine issues can also be downloaded as PDFs and printed.

If you’d like to receive print editions of FeedFront in the future, sign up for your free subscription (U.S. addresses only).

Feel free to embed FeedFront to your site, and please click the Facebook Like button on issues you enjoy.

Affiliate Summit has created a dailymile Challenge where we will donate $1 to benefit the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in support of Affiliate Marketers Give Back team for each mile cycled, run, swam, or walked (up to $5,000).

dailymile syncs with Garmin (205, 305, 310xt, 405, 405cx), Nike+ device and iPhone app, as well as a number of iPhone and Android clients.

You can also manually enter your exercise efforts.

In order to participate in dailymile activities, you will need to friend me on dailymile and I will invite you to the challenge.

Do you accept the Race to Affiliate Summit East 2012 Challenge?

Affiliate Summit East 2012 is taking place August 12-14, 2012 in New York City.

The participant with the most total miles at the end of the challenge will receive a VIP Pass to Affiliate Summit West 2013. 2nd to 5th place finishers will each receive a Networking Plus Pass to Affiliate Summit West 2013, and 6th to 10th place finishers will each receive a Networking Pass to Affiliate Summit West 2013.

Please note that all information you provide as part of the contest is public and may be used by Affiliate Summit in our marketing efforts for this event.

Affiliates were asked “Do you cloak/redirect links?” for the 2011 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report.

The majority of respondents, at 59%, said no, and the remaining 41% indicated they do cloak their links.

I’ve been cloaking affiliate links for as long as I can remember – first through meta redirects, then via an .htaccess file, before I moved on to using a WordPress plugin called Pretty Link.

I also came across another useful affiliate redirect WordPress Plugin called ThirstyAffiliates last fall.

Additionally, I use bit.ly Pro, which is a free service that enables me to use my own domain to make redirect links. I use aff.bz there.

Over fourteen-hundred affiliates were surveyed on their methods, preferences, and strategies for the 2011 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report.

More details on AffStat at http://affstat.com/.

Affiliate Summit has incorporated games into the Affiliate Summit forum, where everybody can earn points for doing various things on the site.

Just jump into the forum and participate to earn points for visiting, posting, etc.

Along the way, you’ll accomplish achievements and be able to cash in points for rewards

Details on the Affiliate Summit Rewards Program and eligibility requirements will be posted in the near future.

The Performance Marketing Association (PMA) reports that the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue is delaying enforcement of its Affiliate Nexus Tax law until September 1, 2012.

Hopefully, merchants will continue to work with their affiliates in Pennsylvania, rather than jumping the gun and booting them out.

More details at http://performancemarketingassociation.com/reprieve-in-pennsylvania-affiliate-nexus-tax-law-on-hold-until-september-1st.

Highlights from Affiliate Summit West 2012, the premier affiliate marketing conference, which took place January 8-10, 2012 in Las Vegas at Caesars Palace Las Vegas with over 5,000 affiliate marketers.

Video: Highlights from Affiliate Summit West 2012

The seventeenth issue of FeedFront Magazine is out, so we’re on to issue 18.

The next issue of FeedFront will be coming out in May 2012, and the deadline for article proposals for issue 18 of FeedFront is February 22, 2012.

If you are interested in writing an article, go to the FeedFront article proposal form to submit a one sentence summary on what you’d like to cover.

No ghost-written articles. We only want content from people writing from their personal industry experience.

If you have previously been accepted to write an article and either failed to meet the deadline or did not adhere to the editorial guidelines, please submit your article proposal elsewhere. We take our deadlines and guidelines seriously.

Do not submit a complete article now – just a one sentence summary.

We will contact everybody who submitted a proposal by February 22, 2012 on whether the article ideas are accepted or denied.

The Meet Market for Affiliate Summit Central 2012, taking place May 15-16, 2012 at the Hilton Austin, has sold out.

If you’re not familiar with the Meet Market, it is an extended session of structured, face to face networking we’ve been running at Affiliate Summit since summer 2006.

Affiliate programs and networks have tables set to meet with affiliates to discuss their offers and cut deals. Vendors that cater to affiliates and merchants will also have tables to share information about their products and services.

Each table is a meeting spot for teaching, learning, closing deals, creating partnerships and finding new opportunities.

In the event of any cancellations, we have a Meet Market waitlist.

There are still other sponsorships for Affiliate Summit Central 2012 available, and some include a Meet Market table.

I was digging through some old files, and I came across a few of the postcards I used to recruit affiliates for the ClubMom.com affiliate program between 2000 and 2004.

The first one I mailed was from a company called Web Cards back in 2000.

Their thing was to take a screen capture of a site and make that the front of the postcard. Then I got a few lines to write copy at the bottom.

Web Cards was good at the time, as I didn’t know of other vendors that provided such a service, I don’t known that I was aware of how to take a screen capture myself at the time, and I didn’t have a graphic designer available to me.

That all changed over the years.

I was able to sell the affiliate program with the left side of the back of the postcard from Web Cards.

I don’t recall when this postcard came out, but I’m guessing it was late 2001 or early 2002. I think this one was printed through VistaPrint.

This piece of mail was different from the previous one, as it had value propositions for the affiliate program on the front, and then I just put my contact information and how to apply on the back.

Finally, I sent one around Christmas 2003 with a New Years resolution theme. I’m pretty sure this was also from VistaPrint.

This postcard added more contact information on the back side, including my AIM (at that time) and home phone number.

While there are a variety of ways for an affiliate manager to contact affiliates directly, I found that direct mail was the most effective for me, based on surveying affiliates over the years about the reasons they came to apply to the affiliate program.

But still, I have gotten so few pieces of mail from affiliate programs over the years.

I’d highly recommend to any affiliate managers to test direct mail to recruit affiliates. The fact that nobody else is doing it is one of the best reasons for you to try – you’ll really stick out.