Tricia Meyer

Affiliate Marketer, Blogger, and Consultant

Moving My Affiliate Cheese

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Once upon a time when I was in the corporate world, I loved reading “Who Moved My Cheese?” with my teams. I loved when things changed because I saw opportunities. But I didn’t think that the book applied to me now that I am an affiliate and own my own business. I couldn’t have been more wrong!

As it turns out, the cheese gets moved more in affiliate marketing than when I worked for Lexis. I have to remember that every move means a new challenge that can take me down a different path. Look around. Isn’t the new Shareasale toolbar policy really just someone moving my cheese? It means not only evaluating my own company’s non-use (or use) of toolbars but to what extent we need to educate our visitors better about them. It means looking at where we are in industry and where we want to be.

But toolbars aren’t the only thing. I was reading Scott Jangro’s post about affiliate links in Twitter. Extending it out to other conversations now going on is the use of affiliate links on Facebook. These are new opportunities for us. We can choose to follow the path of monetizing our Twitter and Facebook accounts or continue along the road of viewing them only as pure social networking.

Each twist and turn in affiliate marketing can be scary because it’s my livelihood. On the flip side, it keeps my business fresh because I always have to be on the lookout for the next big thing. So go ahead and move my cheese. I’m up to the challenge and, in fact, looking forward to it!

Affiliate Created Video: ASW09 Part 1

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Last month at Affiliate Summit West, I had the pleasure of leading a round table discussion about affiliate created video. At first I worried that I didn’t possibly have enough to say to fill a whole hour. But as I began putting together my notes, I realized that I could have talked for hours!

Because this wasn’t a formal ASW09 presentation, it was not recorded for their site. However, Angie did take some video with her Flip and has been formatting it for me a piece at a time. Here is the first 10 minutes of the round table discussion. In it, we talk about different types of videos that affiliates might want to create including product and merchant reviews, how-to-videos, weekly updates, and viral videos. In addition, we started talking about how we can tell how many people are watching our whole videos and the Shareasale video technology. Lastly, we talked briefly about the use of videos on Facebook.

Thanks to some of my friends for attending and helping keep the discussion interesting. 🙂

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Affiliate Marketing and Toolbars

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Before I got into affiliate marketing, I have to admit that I really like toolbars. I liked being reminded where to shop and get deals. But after I became an affiliate and started getting educated, I realized that those toolbars were a convenience for me at the expense of people who worked really hard on their websites.

Naturally when I started a cash back site, I didn’t even contemplate a toolbar. I knew from a few different sources that the rewards sites with toolbars were looked at as “evil” and parasitic. It became the “good guys” versus the “bad guys.” But has that all changed?

Shareasale (one of my favorite networks) is having a series of discussions regarding changing its terms of service regarding toolbars. A number of merchants and affiliates (who I consider to be clean and ethical) have stepped up to say that they think the time is right to evaluate new technologies. Others are EXTREMELY opposed to the mere suggestion.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, and I hope to have a seat in the front row because it will impact my business heavily. If you would like to read more information straight from the source, check out the ShareASale Blog.