Tricia Meyer

Affiliate Marketer, Blogger, and Consultant

Run for Charity with Affiliate Summit

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I initially got into running because of the Race for the Cure. After walking it for a number of years, I decided to start running it. I didn’t run fast, but I could run a 5K. After a couple of those, I decided to run my first half marathon last May. For some crazy reason, I signed up for it again this year. Just as I was starting to tire of my training, a great new opportunity came along to turn my runs into money for charity.

Affiliate Summit has started a Nike+ Challenge in which they will donate $1 to the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade for each mile run in the challenge (up to $5,000). When I saw this, I immediately hit my local running store to buy a Nike+ tracking sensor and wristband. I then visited the Affiliate Summit East 2010 Challenge page on Nike’s website and set up my account.

Now when I run, I have a higher purpose. I logged a little over 13 miles last week interspersed with my Zumba days. During each run I kept telling myself that each mile was more money being donated to help fight breast cancer. Hopefully this challenge will keep me running well past the Indy Mini and into the summer up through Affiliate Summit in New York in August. If you are an affiliate marketer and are up for a little fitness challenge (whether you walk or run, the sensor works the same), you should definitely check it out. If nothing else, help cheer the rest of us on!

Help Fight the Advertising Tax

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The advertising tax/affiliate tax/Amazon tax is threatening to kill small businesses just like mine, and it is time that I join the fight. I’ll be honest and admit that I am new to this. When the legislation first started popping up, I figured if it wasn’t my state, it didn’t impact me. Then I really started paying attention and listening to what was happening. I listened in to the entire Colorado proceedings and followed along with my friends on Twitter. By the end of the night, I knew that regardless of whether the fight was about Indiana, I needed to be better educated and get involved.

States are attempting to use legislation to get around federal laws that prohibit them from collecting sales tax from out of state businesses unless there is a “nexus” within that state. The states are passing legislation that would make an affiliate a “nexus,” despite the fact that we do not take any money or send out any goods. States think that they will increase their revenue. Conversely, the merchants are just disaffiliating with the affiliates and the affiliates are losing their businesses. How is that good for anyone involved?

Following the advice of the Performance Marketing Association, I made a quick video about how you can get involved in fighting the advertising tax. It doesn’t matter which group you join or if you even join a group. The bottom line is that you need to 1) get educated, 2) get connected with others involved, and 3) spread the word. While big businesses may have the money to fight these fights, we have the voices and the personal stories that can stop states from taking our businesses away from us.

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I’m a Star: Internet Marketing from the Real Experts

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Okay, so I’m not really a star. But I kind of felt like it when I got home from Affiliate Summit and started reading the book that was in our conference bag: Internet Marketing from the Real Experts. Why did I feel like a star? I found that I have two different articles in the book and I am among such amazing company! There are articles from so many people who are truly amazing in affiliate marketing: Geno Prussakov, Jamie Birch, Scott Jangro, Brian Littleton, Lisa Picarille, the list goes on and on (and apologies to the other 80+ people I didn’t mention!). The book is edited by Shawn Collins and Missy Ward.

If you are looking to learn about affiliate marketing, this book gives you a couple of things that the others do not. First, it is written from the perspective of many different players. By that I mean that you can read articles by affiliates, affiliate managers, networks, and consultants. You’ll get a 360 degree view of the industry. Second, it touches on many different areas of affiliate marketing from SEO to video to blogging. Lastly, it is broken down into 3 minute segments so you can pick it up and put it down whenever you have time. You can also jump around to the area that impacts you.

If you are the least bit interested in affiliate marketing, this book will be money well spent for you. Whether you are just starting out or have been in affiliate marketing for years, you will absolutely learn something new from this book. It’s not a “get rich quick” book; it’s legitimate information on how to help you grow your business and maximize your returns. And if you care to check out my articles, they are on pages 94 (Merchants, Bring on the Videos) and 102 (Rewards Sites: Asset or Liability?).

Using Aweber Lightbox for Newsletter Signups

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I’ve been using Aweber for the newsletters on a few of my websites for quite a while and like it for a number of reasons. I don’t pay for any traffic to those sites, and my lists are building slowly. I happened across a post on Facebook recently (and can’t even remember how!) where they were talking about using Lightboxes. I started investigating and discovered that the Lightbox option is where you get a pop up of sorts that isn’t really a pop up asking if you want to sign up for a newsletter. I had mixed feelings about implementing it but have been pleasantly surprised so far.

Here’s a chart that shows daily signups over the course of a month. It’s easy to see when I implemented the Lightbox:

The blue show people who unsubscribed (luckily not many!). Green are people who subscribed and verified their subscriptions. Yellow are those who subscribed but did not verify. I can understand why the yellow increased so much. Some people just entered an email address in the box to get it to close rather than hitting the “close” button. However, you can see that my verified subscriptions have tripled. Interestingly, this is from a site that actually has much less traffic now than it did in December, and the December subscription numbers were consistent with those first eight days shown in the chart.

Clearly I am getting more newsletter signups. However, there are two potential downsides. First, are people hitting the back button on the site after the Lightbox pops up? I have it set to a delay so that they will find the content and start reading before the Lightbox pops up. Conversions on merchandise are definitely down a little bit, but it is also not a month in which I would expect to see high conversions. The second issue is the number of people “complaining” about the newsletters. My “complaints” (which can be defined as many different things in Aweber) have gone up from about .08% to .24% this month. Could it be that people are signing up just to close the box but then also verifying and not really wanting the newsletter? That seems odd, but possible.

I’ll be continuing to watch the trends over the next month or so regarding newsletter signups, site visits, and merchandise conversion rates. The one thing that I want to stress is how easy it was to create the Lightbox in Aweber, including modifying the template as well as the appearance itself. Next up I will be doing some A/B testing on Lightbox differences (graphic v. text).

New Blogger Attending Affiliate Summit?

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I’ve had the privilege of serving as a mentor at the last two Affiliate Summits. Each time I was paired with an affiliate who was very new to the industry. In both cases I was able to see Affiliate Summit through their eyes and remember back to my first time, when I was so new to affiliate marketing that I didn’t know CPA from CPS or a toolbar from a network. It can be confusing and overwhelming, especially when you are a blogger and do something else full-time.

Last summer I participated in a panel at Blog Indiana with two women who are both educated about and instrumental in affiliate marketing– Carolyn Tang and Kristen Kinsey. We were lucky enough to be chosen to give a similar presentation at Affiliate Summit West. If you are relatively new to monetizing your blog or affiliate marketing in general, here is a little taste of what you can learn from our presentation:

  • Affiliate marketing basic terminology such as “merchant,” “network,” and “affiliate”
  • Ways to evaluate potential merchants for your site
  • How to use PayPerCall technology
  • Different ad types including banners, text links, and specific products
  • Widgets and plugins that help add content to your site while monetizing it
  • How best to work with your affiliate manager
  • General resources for affiliate marketing

As I said, this is meant to be a basic session geared to those who are new to affiliate marketing and/or monetizing their blogs. We’ll show you some examples and also give you an opportunity to have your blog looked at by the panel live for feedback on how you can better monetize it. If you are interested, our session is at 3:00 on Sunday and is titled Start Monetizing Your Blog Today. If you are already a seasoned affiliate marketing veteran, please help spread the word to those who might be interested and would find it valuable.

Thanks to Marty Fahncke for moderating for us!