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 Tweeted back on June 1 that I was looking for a new laptop, and got lots of good advice – thanks to @CarissaMania, @Ed, @FiveAds, @gloungepartner, @LionelatDell, @michaelvorel, and @NickRac.
I [...]

I wasn’t able to record the Affiliate Thing show this week, so my trusty co-host Lisa Picarille soldiered on with guest co-host Scott Jangro, super affiliate and president of MechMedia.
The covered the latest in the advertising tax saga with media depicting Amazon vs. the states, as well as winners of the LinkShare Golden Link [...]

My Affiliate Summit partner, Missy Ward, is back at it again with another fundraising effort to battle breast cancer.
For the third year in a row, she has organized a team under the Affiliate Marketers Give Back banner to participate in a walk – this time Team Affiliate Marketers Give Back will be doing the 40-mile [...]

There are three groups of people that have emerged since the announcement of the death of Michael Jackson yesterday: devastated fans, haters, and marketers.
Well, if we drew up a Venn diagram, most marketers probably also belong to one of the first two camps, too.
Anyhow, it didn’t take long for fans to express their despair with [...]

Forrester Research published a report, “Performance Marketing: How To Build An Effective Affiliate Program” earlier this month that provides an optimistic outlook for affiliate marketing.
Interactive marketers are in a performance mood during this recession with 60% planning to increase their budget for interactive this year by shifting money away from traditional advertising, according to respondents [...]

There is a lot of buzz on Twitter this morning about the return of the advertising tax in the California budget bill.
Brook Schaaf Tweeted that Amazon will drop California affiliates if the advertising tax is enacted, and Lisa Picarille Tweeted that she’s headed to Sacramento to fight the bill.
Linda Buquet also shared some news [...]

Back in the spring of 1999, Cindy Arko (then Aylward) hired me to join her and James Marciano to run Refer-it.com, the first affiliate program directory.
Prior to my joining them, they ran the first Affiliate Solutions conference at the Harvard Club in early 1999.
It was an exciting, explosive time in affiliate marketing back when affiliate [...]

Affiliate Summit and buy.at are hosting a Tax Talk & Crab Feast on Thursday, July 9 in Baltimore, MD at the buy.at office.
We’ll be getting together starting at 4pm for a discussion on the advertising tax legislation, the impact on affiliate marketers, and how to fight it.

Also, we’ll use this time to demo the [...]

This week on the Affiliate Thing podcast, Shawn Collins and Lisa Picarille talked about the Facebook username rush, the launch of the Affiliate Summit AffStat Report, and a lawn full of pink flamingos.

Lastly, the finalists were announced for the LinkShare Golden Link Awards.
Show Links

Get Your Username on Facebook
AffiliateTip on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/affiliatetip
AffStat: Affiliate Marketing Statistic [...]

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, and strategies for the 2009 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report.

The report features dozens of charts of data, based on the responses from the participating [...]