If you’re going to make a career as an affiliate, you need to find your own path.  It is your creativity and drive that will help you to pick the right offers, design unique landing pages, write effective ad copy, and create a marketing program that is uniquely your own.

Check out what the gurus have to say and then take their advice and make it unique to your business.

Never before have we revealed the challenging process that prospective affiliate manager go through on their way to becoming members of the affiliate.com team.  Along with a written essay, prospects are also judged on their customer support skills, online marketing background, and ice hockey skills.  One of the key interview processes has involved a live audition in front of a panel of esteemed judges.  The panel is looking for examples of dedication, creativity, and talent.  These are three qualities have always been keys to becoming a successful affiliate manager.

As we dusted off the old tape and popped it into the VCR, we were once again blown away by one particular audition from affiliate manager Antonio Vitale.  Click here to check it out.

After watching the entries to our Blogger Contest pour in before the deadline last Monday, our celebrity judges (Missy Ward, John Chow, Zac Johnson, and Murray Newlands) faced an incredible challenge.  How to pick a winner from among so many great blog posts.  After much deliberation over the past week, each of our judges cast their vote and we are now ready to announce our winner.  Without further ado, the winner of the first ever affiliate.com T-shirt Blogger Contest is…

Heather in BC!

Heather blogged about her experience wearing her shirt during the Olympics, included some video and in what can only be termed a brilliant move, also included a photo with one of the contest judges!  Check out her post here.  Her creativity won over our judges and many other bloggers, as well.  Congratulations Heather!

We weren’t kidding when we said that the judges had a tough decision.  We received so many great entries to the contest, that we want to say a special thank you to all of our participants.  We will be sending each entrant a little thank you in the near future.  We will also be featuring some of the other great contest entries on the affiliate.com blog during the week, so be sure to stop by and check out some of the funniest or most creative entries.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the contest!

Past episodes of the wildly popular video series have wowed audiences and critics alike with their behind the scenes, unvarnished look at the real lives of our affiliate managers.  Early episodes featured fan favorites Will Charland and Jon “Ringo” Ringhofer and helped make both of these affiliate managers into the A-list celebrities they are today.  But, becoming a household name does have its drawbacks.

“Getting the VIP treatment at every exclusive industry party gets to be quite a burden after a while,” said Ringo, as security cleared a path to his private table at Rain Nightclub during a recent industry party at Affiliate Summit West.  “I mean really, when there are like five parties happening simultaneously, it can be very stressful to decide which ones to attend.  I wouldn’t wish this kind of pressure on anyone.”

Charland claims that his celebrity status hasn’t changed him at all.  “Honestly, I haven’t noticed any major differences in my life since becoming a celebrity,” said Charland.  “My day starts out pretty much like the average affiliate manager.  I wake up each morning, get dressed in the clothes my manservant has laid out for me, enjoy a light breakfast prepared by my personal chef, have my chauffeur take me to the office…  You know, just an average guy having an average day.”

In the latest episode, our very own Jaz Pester steps into the featured role.  Jaz is no stranger to iconic status within the affiliate marketing industry, as you’ll see in the new episode of affiliate.com Cubes. Visit www.affiliatecubes.com to check out the new episode - sure to become an instant classic.

Our current Blogger Contest will be coming to an end just before LeadsCon, but we wanted to run one last promotion for our most popular shirts ever.  If you are heading out to LeadsCon next week, be sure to pack your affiliate.com shirt.  Wear your shirt during the show and you could earn cash on the spot!

Get spotted wearing your affiliate.com Kings & Queens t-shirt during LeadsCon and you could win a quick $50.

Various members of the affiliate.com team will be on the lookout for people wearing our Kings & Queens t-shirts at the show or just around Vegas during LeadsCon.  If you are spotted by the right person, you could win $50 cash on the spot.  Click here for the official rules.

See you in Vegas!

Your affiliate.com Team

The Official Rules – affiliate.com LeadsCon T-shirt Promo

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. OFFERED TO LEGAL RESIDENTS OF THE FIFTY UNITED STATES AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND TO LEGAL RESIDENTS OF OTHER COUNTRIES AS ALLOWED BY APPLICABLE LAW. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED.

1. Eligibility: Eligibility: Open to legal residents of the fifty (50) United States and the District of Columbia and to legal residents of other countries as allowed by applicable law. Applicants must be at least fourteen (14) years old and any applicants who are under the age of majority in their jurisdiction, must have parental permission and consent to participate. affiliate.com is a division of Media Breakaway, LLC (the “Sponsor”). Employees, officers and members of the Sponsor, its parents, affiliates, and subsidiaries (collectively, “Released Parties”), and their immediate families (mother, father, sister, brother, any child, husband, wife regardless of where they reside), and those living in the same household of such employees, officers and members, whether or not related, are not eligible to enter or win. Networks and list partners are also ineligible for this promotion. All applicable federal, state, and local rules apply. Void where prohibited or restricted by law.

2. To Enter: The affiliate.com LeadsCon T-shirt Promo (”Promotion”) begins at 12:00pm PST, February 22, 2010 and ends at 5:00pm PST Wednesday, February 24, 2010 (the “Promotion Period”). To enter during the Promotion Period, simply wear your affiliate.com Kings or Queens promotional t-shirt in Las Vegas during the LeadsCon trade show. One secret member of the affiliate.com team (“Judge”) attending the show will be looking for people wearing the affiliate.com Kings or Queens shirts and at their sole discretion may award $50 cash on the spot (“Prize”) to people wearing the shirts.

3. Drawing: Winners will be selected at random by the Judge during the contest period. The winners agree that the Sponsor may use his/her name and likeness to post on the affiliate.com website and as part of its other promotional activities. Odds of winning will be based on the number of eligible entrants spotted by the Judge during the Promotion Period.

4. Prize: An undetermined number (but not to exceed 20) of Prizes will be awarded, consisting of $50 cash. In addition, the winners may be announced on the affiliate.com blog. Approximate Retail Value: $50 per Prize. All Federal, state, and local taxes on the Prize are the sole responsibility of the winners.

5. General: No transfer, assignment, cash redemption, or substitution of the Prize is allowed except by the Sponsor in its sole discretion and then for a prize of comparable or greater value. In the event of noncompliance with these Official Rules, or if the Prize or Prize notification is unclaimed or returned as undeliverable, the Prize will be forfeited and, at the Sponsor’s discretion, may be awarded to an alternate eligible winner. By participating, entrants agree: 1) to be bound by these Official Rules and that the decisions of the Sponsor will be binding and final in all respects; 2) that the Sponsor and its designees shall have the right and permission to use (unless prohibited by law) winner’s name, voice, city and state of residence, photograph and/or likeness for advertising and/or trade and/or any other purpose in any and all media now or hereafter known throughout the world in perpetuity without further compensation, permission or notification; and, 3) that Released Parties are not liable and shall be held harmless by entrant for any claim, action, liability, loss, injury and/or damage to entrant and/or any other person and/or entity, due in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, by reason of the acceptance, possession, use and/or misuse of a Prize or participation in this Promotion. Any portion of a Prize not accepted by the winner will be forfeited. If this Promotion is not capable of running as planned due to infection by computer virus, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failures or any other cause which corrupts or affects the administration, security, fairness, integrity or proper conduct of this Promotion, the Sponsor reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to void suspect entries and/or modify, terminate or suspend this Promotion and, in the event of termination or suspension of the Promotion, at its discretion select winners from all eligible, non-suspect entries received prior to event requiring such termination or suspension. Any claim or dispute arising from or out of this Promotion and these Official Rules shall be governed by the laws of the State of Colorado. Venue for any such claim or dispute shall be exclusively in the Federal or state court in the County of Denver, Colorado. By entering the Promotion, each entrant agree that service of any process, summons, notice or document by U.S. registered mail to such person’s respective address shall be effective service of process for any action, suit or proceeding in the state and federal courts located in the State of Colorado, with respect to any matters to which it has submitted to jurisdiction as set forth above. In addition, each entrant irrevocably and unconditionally waives application of the procedures for service of process pursuant to the Hague Convention for Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters. LeadsConference, LLC has no association with and does not endorse this Promotion.

]]> http://affiliate.com/the-official-rules-%e2%80%93-affiliatecom-leadscon-t-shirt-promo/feed/ http://affiliate.com/staying-motivated/ http://affiliate.com/staying-motivated/#comments Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:33:48 +0000 admin http://affiliate.com/?p=1679 by Jon Ringhofer, Senior Affiliate Manager

Many people dream of working for themselves.  For a lot of people, the idea of being your own boss is like the Holy Grail of jobs.  No one to tell you when to be at the office every day, what to wear, how long your lunch should be.  It must be paradise!  Successful affiliate marketers know that there are plenty of challenges to go along with the benefits of working for yourself.

One of the biggest and most important challenges is motivation.  Staying motivated and energized on a daily basis isn’t always easy when you work for yourself.  While successful affiliates are generally very entrepreneurial and good at self-motivation, this doesn’t mean they have access to some kind of magical fountain of motivation.  Hitting some rough spots and plateaus are ordinary stages in any affiliate’s development.  There are days when the motivation just isn’t there.  Maybe you have hit a time when your ads just aren’t working well and you can’t seem to get a handle on how to improve performance.  Even people who work for themselves can sometimes feel like they are in a rut.  When this happens, you need something new and fresh to get that creative energy flowing again.

Everyone has different ways to recharge their batteries, but there are definitely some tried and true methods that work for a lot of people.  Here are a few suggestions.

1.    Buy something new for your business.  Whether it is just a new pen, desk chair, software, an upgraded computer or other office gadget, these kinds of things can shake up your routine and help get you over the hump of stalled motivation.

2.    Check out a movie that will get your entrepreneurial spirit engaged again.  It could be a film you’ve seen before that really got you excited when you saw it.  It could be Rocky, Wall Street, Good Will Hunting, The Blind Side, or whatever film that had you walking out of the theater just itching to get started on some new project.

3.    Another idea could be to just take a day (or even a just a few hours) and do something fun.  It should be an activity you really enjoy.  Maybe something that you haven’t had as much time for since starting your own affiliate business.  Whether it is a long bike ride, a trip to a museum, a visit to a relative or friend, or just a stroll downtown, in the woods, or on the beach – it should be something to take you away from your routine for a period of time.

4.    If inspirational quotes motivate you, take 5 – 10 minutes, and read a few.  There are countless websites and books that have compiled quotes from a huge variety of sources.  Some of my favorites are: www.inspirational-quotes.info, www.inspirationalquotes4u.com  and www.motivatingquotes.com.

These are just a few ideas to help get you through the inevitable time you’re your motivation starts to drop off.  The bottom line is that you need to find things that get you recharged and utilize them when your start losing your enthusiasm.

If you have logged into your account recently, you probably noticed that the affiliate.com interface has received a facelift.  While the functionality remains essentially the same, I wanted to give you a few tips on getting the most out of the interface’s new look and feel.

Searching Offers
When browsing for an offer, the quickest way to find what you are looking for is to use the ‘Keyword Search’.   If you’re looking for the newest offers, click on the “Offers” tab, click on “Search Offers” and filter by “Recency”.  In “Search Offers” you can also search by minimum threshold, specific country or category, to narrow down your results.

Select Offers
‘Select’ offers are a relatively new concept with affiliate.com.  We created this new offer description so affiliates are able to view all the offers we have in the network, including those that were previously labeled ‘Private’.  Similar to ‘Private’ offers, affiliates must get authorization to run ‘Select’ offers.  Be sure the offer you apply for accepts the kind of traffic you plan on driving.  To expedite the approval process, send your affiliate manager an email letting them know what offer you have applied for and the type of traffic you plan on running.

Pixel Placement
DirectTrack allows publishers to place their own third-party pixels.  This can be a huge help if your affiliate manager is not readily available, (say at 3:30 am mountain time) when you are ready to start your campaign.  This can be a big advantage whether you are in a different time zone or just like to work on your affiliate programs late at night.  If this option isn’t already available to you, ask your affiliate manager to activate this capability for you.  Please note that not all advertisers allow third-party pixels, so the option may not be available for certain offers.  Check with your affiliate manager if you have questions about a specific offer.

When placing a third-party pixel, DirectTrack works best with non-secure image pixels.  This piggy-backs your pixel to the DT pixel, and means that every time the DT pixel fires, yours will fire as well.  DT can also support iframe, script and postback options.  Any javascript must be placed on the advertiser page directly.  The nature of any script is that it fires in the order in which it was placed.  If your script pixel is placed behind a script that is improperly placed, it may not fire properly.

Tracking Subids
If you choose not to place a third party pixel, you can track subids through the affiliate.com system.  There are a few different ways to do this.  To track your subids in the “Get Subid Stats” options, append “&subid1=” to the end of the link.  You can add up to 5 subids per link by adding them in sequential order. (“&subid1=red&subid2=blue&subid3=green” etc.)  To view your subid stats, go to “Overall Stats”, select “Get Subid Stats”, then select the date, keyword filter, or quantity of subids you wish to view, and click on the “Display Stats” button.  This will show subids related to your leads and clicks.

If you are trying to track subids through your contextual link, you can do so by simply applying the subid directly to the end of the contextual link (“login.tracking101.com/sw/675/CD36753/red_blue_” etc.). You can view this report in “Overall Stats”.  Choose the campaign and date range, and click on “Download Optional Info”.  It will generate a CSV file with only your lead subids (contextual links don’t track clicks).

These are just a few tips to get the most out of our tracking system.  I encourage you to use all these functions and give us feedback on what else you would like to see in our network.

Please log in, check out our new design, and let us know what you think.  Our goal is to provide the most user-friendly and functional system in the industry.  The best way to reach that goal is to get your feedback on features you like and what we can do to make the system even better.  So, let us know what new features or enhancements you would like to see from the system and we’ll do our best to give you all the tools you need to succeed.

Please contact your affiliate manager with comments or suggestions on the interface or any aspect of our services.

Thanks,
Your affiliate.com Team