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.The 2009 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report is now available for free at http://affstat.com/. The report can be viewed online or downloaded.
Over four-hundred and fifty affiliates were surveyed on their methods, preferences, [...]

I am a big advocate of offering email as a subscription option for RSS feeds. Not only does it give people another choice to consume RSS feeds, but this option has been far more popular among reader of my blogs than subscribing with RSS readers.
There are various ways to do this, but I’m going to [...]

This week on the Affiliate Thing podcast, Shawn Collins pulls a solo shift on Memorial Day before heading out for the Inbound Marketing Summit in Dallas.
Topics covered this week include how the majority of affiliate marketers, based on a totally unscientific study, were in fraternities and sororities in college.
Also, a new series of how-to videos [...]

One of the key tactics for an affiliate is redirecting and/or cloaking affiliate links.
Affiliates cloak their links for a variety of reasons, but I do it so my affiliate links will be short, so I can use then in text email newsletters, and some people don’t like clicking affiliate links.
While there are many ways [...]

I was thinking about what goes into creating a new affiliate site, and I’ve outlined the seven important elements when I start up a new affiliate project.
This primer is intended for folks that are just breaking into affiliate marketing. I know some people are searching for a “get rich quick” lesson, and that’s not the [...]

This session, The Art of Keyword Blasting, took place Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at Affiliate Summit West 2009.
Session description:
PPC campaigns on blasting keywords to find profitable keywords.

Ian Fernando, Founder, IANternet Media, LLC

More Affiliate Summit West 2009 audio is available at http://geekcast.fm/archives/category/affiliate-summit/.

Affilorama is launching a new course for affiliates called AffiloBlueprint on April 28.
AffiloBlueprint is being billed as a step by step guide for beginners to create a profitable niche affiliate site.
I haven’t played with it myself, but it looks like it could be helpful for new affiliates to break in.
More details at http://www.affilorama.com/blog/affiloblueprint-2 [...]

Every time there is some sort of phenomenon online, there are a bunch of angles affiliates can figure out to monetize it.
Earlier this week, the Internets were buzzing about the performance of Susan Boyle, who sang “I Dreamed a Dream” from “Les Misérables” on “Britain’s Got Talent.”
Shortly after Susan Boyle’s appearance on the show, a [...]

There has been a lot of talk about the advertising tax, which is being considered by many states, but a lot of folks aren’t clear about the threat and implications.
So, I’ve put together a a short video on the advertising tax. Given me two minutes of your time t find out why you need to [...]

I was at a conference for event planners last Wednesday, and I was surprised in a session about social media that I was the only one using a blog, Twitter or Facebook to market a conference. There must have been 100+ people in the room.
The were all locked into the old, expensive ways of promoting [...]