by Tom Wozniak, Director of Marketing

I was talking to a guy at the gym recently who mentioned that he was having a tough time getting results, despite working out just about every day. He said that he knew his workout routine was good, but he just wasn’t getting results. But, he was going to keep at it, confident that he would break through this plateau and that results were right around the corner. On the flip side, I often see people in the gym who seem to have no idea what they are doing. They wander around, doing a set on this machine or that one, without any obvious plan or any apparent reason they are doing certain exercises together. So, what does any of this have to do with affiliate marketing? Actually, there are some great parallels between being successful as an affiliate and getting results from your workout routine.

Everyone has to start somewhere. Whether you just joined the gym, having never really worked out before, or if you just started your first affiliate marketing business, you face a lot of hard work to generate concrete results. Beyond hard work, you also need a plan if you really want give yourself the best chance for success. The guy who hits the gym seven days a week and works out hard, but has no real idea of what exercises to do or how to do them isn’t likely to get the results he is looking for. Similarly, a new affiliate who randomly promotes a variety of offers through PPC, social media, media buys, and any number of other tactics probably isn’t going to succeed in the business. The key is to have a goal that accurately defines what you want to accomplish and then a realistic plan to get you there. That plan will include learning the ins and outs of the tactics you need to utilize to reach your goal.

Be persistent. Results rarely happen overnight. You can have the best workout routine in the world, but if you don’t put in the work, you won’t get the results. Affiliate marketing is exactly the same. You aren’t going to jump into the business and start raking in the profits the next day. There really aren’t any no-effort ways to succeed as an affiliate or in working out. Admittedly, each industry is filled with products that promise incredible results with little or no actual effort, but the only people happy with the results are the ones counting up the money from all the people paying for their system. The simple fact is that you need to give consistent effort to build an affiliate marketing business or build muscle.

Even seasoned pros need to know when to shake things up. At the gym, an initially effective training routine can easily go stale and deliver diminishing results over time. Doing the same set of exercises at the same intensity level day after day is almost certain to generate fewer and fewer positive results over time. Your muscles adapt to the routine, find the most efficient way to complete it each day and then settle in at that level without a lot of future progress. In affiliate marketing, a great piece of creative that drives fantastic results will eventually fatigue, producing less and less response as time goes on. In each case, the key is recognizing that just because something worked initially does not mean it will keep working forever. In fact, it is a pretty safe bet that it won’t. The key is to change up your routine as soon as you see results starting to slip. Truly successful affiliate marketers and workout warriors alike know that they need to be constantly looking for ways to enhance performance and optimize their results.

A great recipe for long-term success in affiliate marketing or working out involves hard work, a solid plan of attack, a focus on constant optimization, and the drive to keep learning new ways to improve your results.

We are excited to announce the addition of two new members to the Affiliate.com team. Phil Ocampo will be joining us as VP of Sales and Jamie Doyle will be taking on the role of Director of Advertising.

Phil brings over 10 years of experience in online and performance-based marketing having spent time at Adknowledge and Virtumundo. Phil’s focus will be on integrating new affiliates and advertisers to the network, while working to further enhance the level of service and support provided to the company’s current affiliates and advertisers.

Jamie, who comes over from Media Breakaway’s mobile division, will be taking on the role of Director of Advertising. In her new position, she will oversee the operations of the advertising account team, providing support to all of the companies utilizing affiliate.com to market their products and services. She will also focus on enhancing internal procedures in order to further develop the industry leading support that the group currently provides each client.

Both Jamie and Phil will be heading out to New York for Affiliate Summit East next month. If you’re going to be in the Big Apple for the show, be sure to stop by our booth (AH2215) and meet the two newest members of the affiliate.com team!

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By now you’ve probably already heard that affiliate.com is getting behind Affiliate Marketers Give Back this summer and will be joining Missy Ward and a number of other affiliate marketers for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer (June 5-6, 2010).

Since announcing our participation, walkers from affiliate.com have already helped to raise over $10,000 for the cause.  But we still have a way to go.  The overall team goal is to raise $50,000 and we need your help to get there.  If you donate now, there’s something more in it for you than just helping a great cause.

Donate $100 to one of our affiliate.com walkers (Brian Chase, Melissa Chase, Sara D’Onofrio, Jenny Frederick, Jaz Pester, or Scott Richter) and get your very own Affiliate Marketers Give Back Team T-shirt!  (While supplies last.)  Click here for more information on how to donate and get this great shirt today!  We have a limited number of shirts to give away, so don’t wait!

You can also follow our efforts on our new affiliate.com - Avon Walk for Breast Cancer Facebook page.   We will be posting news about the release of the shirt, fundraising promotions and updates on our progress heading up to the event.  Be sure to check back regularly for the latest updates.

Thanks for your help in supporting this great cause!

Thanks,

Your affiliate.com Team

We are very excited to say affiliate.com is ‘Giving Back’ by sponsoring this year’s Team Shirt - both front and back - and you can bet the shirts will be awesome! HAWT pink, of course, will be the color and will unite the team to create unity and boost morale as our CEO Scott Richter and his walkers join Missy’s team to contribute their time and energy to the Avon walk, raising funds to help fight breast cancer.

Here is a sneak preview of the shirts - both men’s and women’s will be available.

The team’s fundraising goal is $50,000.00 - a big number as a goal, but the team is well on it’s way to meeting and surpassing that amount. Please give them a helping hand with a donation, and watch for the online auction with huge prizes, to go LIVE very soon.

Wednesday morning I arrived at the affiliate.com booth at 10 am and once again took tons of photos and used the video camera to catch some live footage which Tom Wozniak, Social Media Director, plans to edit into a overview of the conference action.

The affiliate.com booth was very busy the entire day and once again the team did an awesome job welcoming potential clients and advertisers, meeting old friends and new, and giving out t-shirts. We ran out of some sizes of t-shirts in the early afternoon as people continually dropped in hoping for THE most popular shirt of the conference.

My favorite part of the day was snapping a few shots of the affiliate.com girls in their ‘Chucks’ vying for one of the 3 iPads offered by Digital Moses. The idea behind the Chucks Challenge is to alleviate the extreme pain we women suffer wearing attractive shoes while working or walking the conference floor. Digital Moses challenges women to “Embrace your inner “techiness” and join the comfort movement.”

The WINNING Chuck’s Challenge ladies of the ad:tech conference will be announced next week - and, the same challenge is being issued for ad:tech New York. I think I’ll buy myself a pair of Chucks!

An unexpected, exciting event occurred around 4 pm at the booth. Someone stopped by and asked me if ‘Christi’ was around. He asked me to tell her she won an iPad and she needed to listen to her voicemail and follow the instructions - but she only had 10 minutes to claim the prize before they were going to draw again.

Christi told us all how she dropped her business card in the fishbowl at the AdManage Booth in the hope of winning the iPad, quickly listened to the message, then she found the booth number and started to run to pick up her prize. I ran after her with my camera in hand and videoed her being presented with the iPad. That was a GREAT ending to an amazing two days at ad:tech San Francisco.

My pictures are posted on Flickr and Facebook. Please take a look and tag yourself if you were one of the very lucky recipients of the newest, limited edition affiliate.com t-shirt.

Looking forward to seeing you all at ad:tech New York in November.

Guest Blogger, Heather in BC

Monday evening Tom Wozniak, Social Media Director of affiliate.com and I met for dinner then headed across the street to Murray Newlands ad:tech Opening Night Party. Murray runs a marketing blog and lives in the UK. He organized this party, bringing together web celebs Steve Hall, Brian Solis, and Ben Parr with Moderator Marissa Louie to take part in a short SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT PANEL to discuss key issues facing major brands.

It turned out the key issue facing Murray Newlands was Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcanic ash which completely closed air traffic from the UK to the United States. Murray missed his own party. One of the benefits of Social Media is the ability to create YouTube videos, which Murray did - sending us a short message of welcome and his apologies for not being able to attend.

Marissa, Steve, Brian and Benn spoke briefly then we all got down to the serious part of the evening - socializing! The room was a total crush of people and it was nearly impossible to even wriggle through the crowd. I introduced Tom to everyone I knew and we chit chatted, making plans for the next two days of ad:tech and we networked (that indicates it was serious work and not all partying!)

When I arrived back at the hotel, I met up with some of the affiliate.com team. I knew they were going to be great to work with during ad:tech as they were very friendly and welcoming. The next two days of ad:tech proved not only that, but that I had the good fortune to join a team of amazing people who worked the booth, welcoming the ad:tech attendees with knowledge, warmth, intelligence, creativity and the best work ethic I’ve seen amongst a group of 16!

Thank you Scott Richter, for inviting me to be part of your awesome affiliate.com team during ad:tech San Francisco.

Guest Blogger Heather in BC

I met some of the team at the hotel the evening of the 19th, and they introduced me to Chocolate Cake!  Sara, Andrea and I enjoyed taking photos and talking.

At 9:45 Tuesday morning we all headed over to the Moscone Center for the first day of ad:tech in the Exhibit Hall.  Tom Wozniak, Director of Social Media, arrived a couple of days earlier to look after the set-up - and the booth looked great.  Everyone was assembled and raring to go as the crowd of attendees flooded into the Exhibit Hall at 10:00.

As affiliate.com’s Guest Blogger, Tweeter, Facebook status updater and photographer, I used my new iPhone to broadcast to the ad:tech attendees to drop by the booth, meet the team and pick up a brand new, limited edition t-shirt, designed to promote affiliate.com’s presence in San Francisco.

Throughout the day I heard comments like, “Ohhhhhh, I will actually WEAR this shirt!”  How awesome is that? The shirts are incredibly attractive and comfortable.  I met the t-shirt designer, Baruch Card and he explained the basics of creating the shirt.  I had to ask him if he intentionally had the printing cut off on the women’s shirts at the bottom to read “Cliff Ho” and we laughed about that.  No, it wasn’t intentional and you can see on the men’s shirt it actually says ‘Cliff Hou’ as in ‘House’ but the smaller size shirts don’t have room for as much printing.

The Affiliate Managers and Advertising team worked seamlessly and seriously.  Mostly they greeted prospective clients one on one, but occasionally they worked in pairs, with Scott and Tom both networking with existing clients.  It was an amazing process to watch as these ‘young’ go-getters worked the crowd, exchanging information and business cards.  I can only imagine the amount of ‘follow-up’ which will take place next week!

Time after time, I had people approach me to talk (I was wearing the team ‘uniform’ of affiliate.com t-shirt and blended in as one of them), and as the day wore on I became comfortable answering their simple questions or introducing them to one of the team.

The day flew by as I updated the company’s social media presence, took a number of photos of the booth, the team and the lucky people who received THE t-shirts of the show.  My pictures are all posted on the affiliate.com Facebook account.  Take a look - if you’re not tagged in photos, please add your name!

Most of us spent the evening at Missy Ward’s “Cocktails for a Cure”, helping to raise money toward the Avon Breast Cancer Walk which will take place in Chicago in June.

Day 2 of ad:tech coming up.  Sign up for the affiliate.com RSS feed so you don’t miss it!

Guest Blogger Heather in BC

This is the largest gathering of online marketers you will find in one room.  Be sure you plan your conference time in advance to get the most bang for your buck, then work your plan.  The ad:tech agenda is full of seminars by the best in the business and you may want to choose seminars pertinent to your business plan!

Once you are on information overload, the Exhibit Floor is a great place to make connections with brands, agencies and service providers.  Now is the time to discuss what you have to offer, in an informal setting, with our team.  To discuss specific campaigns, you are welcome to set up a one on one meeting with your Affiliate Manager.

The affiliate.com booth will be highly visible, as the Team will be wearing their brand new ‘ad:tech San Francisco’ T-shirts.  What would you feature on a San Francisco based theme shirt?  Fisherman’s Wharf perhaps, or the Golden Gate Bridge?

You know affiliate.com always creates the type of shirt you will actually wear when you get home.  In addition to the cool men’s shirt, they actually offer a woman’s t-shirt, which I love.  It’s form-fitting to show off your curves rather than hiding them under a baggy, men’s oversize, generic, gaudy, shirt.  The new ad:tech SF shirts are no exception and people won’t even have to ask where you’ve been!   The color theme of a warm greyish background, with a splash vibrant red make this a shirt you will love to receive - and wear!

The affiliate.com team is ready to head to San Francisco on Monday and wants to meet you.  Drop by booth #6157 early so you don’t miss out on your chance of one of these awesome shirts!  I’ll be Twittering on the @affiliatecom stream and @heatherinbc, so watch for some fun contests!

Guest Post by Heather in BC