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.

I was just reading A Grinch’s Gift Guide on Yahoo! Finance, and I was surprised by the odd advice given for not buying a PS3.

Sony PlayStation 3
It’s all fun and games until the rechargeable battery dies. Unlike its competitors, which use replaceable AA batteries, the PS3’s remote control is screwed shut. When the battery goes, [...]

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This week on the Brandmouthing podcast, I talk about how it’s very uncool to have a Barbie lunch box for a second grader at my local school.
I found this out when my daughter, Lexie, came home in tears after being teased for hers.

So, I went out and got [...]

I was interviewed recently by Grant Crowell for ReelSEO on “Online Video in Affiliate Marketing – The Vast, Untapped Domain?“.
In the interview, we discussed opportunities for affiliate marketers in video, how video is being used by affiliates, as well as mistakes, challenges, and legal issues with video.

We also talked about how I got into video [...]

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Today is a day where people feel compelled to state to whom or what they are thankful. Well, I’ll jump on that train and say I am very thankful to people who fight cancer.
It’s our mutual enemy and we all stand to benefit when there is more research to fight it.
So, [...]

I started hearing weeks ago about how Zhu Zhu Pets were the hottest toy for Christmas, and pegged them as a good item to focus on for affiliate sales between Black Friday and beyond.
But then I started getting a sense that these motorized hamsters were going to be tough to sell, because they were going [...]

CT Moore interviewed me at Pubcon in Las Vegas last week about trends in affiliate marketing for the NVI blog.
We chatted about the intersection of social media and affiliate marketing, pay per call, the impact of the economy on the industry, and whether Google will kill affiliate marketing.
Video: Pubcon 2009: Shawn Collins on Affiliate Marketing

I met up with Matt Bredel on the second day of Pubcon in Las Vegas, and we chatted a bit about the use of Twitter at conferences.
He rolled video as we chatted about the ways Affiliate Summit has used Twitter leading up to the conferences, as well as during the events.
At the end, we tackled [...]

I got an email today from a stranger. It’s an email I get a few times a week from desperate people that are looking to make money fast.
It’s almost as if they’re on the same template with these three components:

Something terrible has happened (sick family, lost job, bad investments, etc.).
They found me on Google.
How can [...]

I, audience.
Yesterday marked the first Audience conference, organized by Loren Feldman of 1938 Media, at the Hudson Theatre in New York City.
This was a unique event where the focus was on the audience, and there were groundrules out of respect for the speakers and fellow audience members – no Twitter, no open laptops, no photos, [...]

Florida State Senator Nancy Detert has announced that she is continuing to research requiring merchants to collect sales tax on online sales, and it appears likely that legislation will be introduced in Florida during the upcoming legislative session, according to Affiliate Advocacy.
Hopefully, as Senator Detert researches the matter, she will realize that this legislation could [...]