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.I heard about an article in Forbes on Wicked Fire a couple days ago and was curious to read the piece. But I was surprised by the position of the article, [...]

Commission Junction recently conducted research on private browsing features, specifically Microsoft’s InPrivate Browsing for Internet Explorer 8, and how they might impact affiliate click tracking.
The article below, by Craig Battles, Senior Product Manager at CJ, should help affiliate marketers put any concerns to rest.
Like many of us in the affiliate marketing industry, we [...]

Internet Retailer has a new article on the importance of rewarding and engaging in relationships with top affiliates.
Ravenwood Marketing isn’t an online retailer, but it’s partly responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars of sales each week for many online merchants. Ravenwood is a so-called superaffiliate, a web site that pushes a high volume of [...]

Internet Retailer magazine has posted coverage on the upcoming “affiliate tax” in New York state. The new law kicks in June 1, 2008.
Amazon.com Inc. and Overstock.com Inc. each gave a strong message last month to New York State: You may need more tax revenue, but we won’t let you cut into our profit margins without [...]

The Orange County Register recently published an affiliate marketing overview, “Online bargain sites fueled by retailers.”
Affiliate programs, in Internet time, have been around forever – dating back to the mid-1990s when I had to define the word ‘Internet’ in my stories. Back then, ordinary people could make a living off affiliate programs. And with a [...]

The September 2007 issue of Internet Retailer has an article on the argument of whether an affiliate program should focus on quality or quantity of affiliates.
In a world where bigger often is viewed as better, some online marketers have taken this approach to populating their affiliate marketing programs. If they know they’ll pay no commission [...]

The August issue of Affiliate Classroom Magazine is now available and the focus this month is forgotten methods of generating traffic.
This issue touches on how offline advertising has a hidden goldmine of traffic and eager buyers; where to find this type of advertising; how to set up your offline campaign; and how to [...]

I had a chat recently with the folks at Practical eCommerce magazine about the prospect of merchants utilizing their transaction confirmation page to run affiliate offers.
I’ve seen some merchants include affiliate offers on the main part of the site, which is certainly not going to make them popular with affiliates, however, I don’t see it [...]

Kerri Pollard, vice president of client performance at Commission Junction was interviewed about issues and trends in affiliate marketing in the March 2007 issue of OMMA, the Magazine of Online Media, Marketing & Advertising.
OMMA’s Lynne Russo Whylly asked Kerri about the benefits of affiliate marketing, how the industry has evolved, challenges, best practices, and [...]

Kate Kaye has written an article at ClickZ on how recent legislation may result in a migration of gaming affiliates to mainstream (i.e. insurance, financing, dating) affiliate programs. As far as I’m concerned, the more, the merrier.