Going to CJU reminded me that I’m enamored with affiliate marketing. It’s such an interesting intersect between corporate and entrepreneurship. Companies and individuals that otherwise wouldn’t work together are driving sales in innovative ways. Affiliates can often be forerunners for the company and improve their online marketing. That said, Backcountry.com has been consistently successful at their affiliate marketing channel. That’s why you don’t want to miss John Breese speak on Friday, October 5th, 2007.

I’ve heard John speak before and he’s NOT BORING. I don’t know that you’ll get a polished Powerpoint but what he does say will make you think. Which is what I like. Of course I came away thinking more about ADD than online marketing. He made me think about the responsibilities we have to others in our life and the way ADD affects relationships. I passionately disagreed with his take on it so I remember his speech. And it works for him.

So don’t miss the chance to hear John speak on a subject that he’s also passionate about - affiliate marketing. He’ll speak on new affiliate marketing techniques for
Utah First Fridays http://www.utahfirstfridays.org

Date: Friday, October 5, 2007
Time: Starts promptly at 8:00am - 9:00 AM, Open Networking 9:00 - 10:00 AM
Location: Miller Free Enterprise Center SHOWROOM (front building)
Salt Lake Community College
9750 South 300 West Sandy, UT
Cost: $5 at the door
Contact/ RSVP: 801-957-5284 or Ashley.Sokia@slcc.edu

Hope to see everyone at RMAMA and Utah bloggers represented - see you there! I expect this to be a packed room. Don’t forget that November 1st Guy Kawasaki will speak at the same location. Don’t miss either one. We got Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, and John Breese all within six months of one another. Who will be next? How about an SEO expert who can speak in public. Mat Siltala? If you have suggestions please comment.

If you’re a regular reader of my blog you know this blog is my personal journey through and reports of the affiliate marketing and internet marketing industries. I’ve had a broad range of experiences over the past few years. Recently I’ve done dropshipping and ecommerce sites and learned some things.

Dropshipping has one huge drawback at first - inventory. All new relationships are rocky. There is no trust built and there is unfamiliarity. For drop shipping to work it’s got to become a real business relationship, not hands off. If you want to have a profitable drop ship business - like many of my friends have - you ride this time out.

Small retailers run out of stock on their products more often than I thought. I made a sale on my site and I didn’t know the item was out of stock until weeks had gone by. Tough to provide good customer service when you don’t know what’s going on. Babysitting job.

Then I recently won an eBay auction for a tent. They didn’t tell me they used a dropshipper until I complained that I hadn’t heard from them. It’s been over a month and no tent. No refund (the dispute is in process).

Affiliate marketing means I don’t worry about fulfillment at all. The merchant does. No customer complains or worries. I don’t have to think about my site while I’m on vacation or a business trip. I get a check for ebooks I sell and they NEVER run out of stock. Instant delivery.

I talk a lot about super affiliate Jeremy Palmer not only because he’s a friend, but because he’s a world class affiliate marketer. He’s got the rare ability to both be an affiliate and to communicate and teach well. He has people skills and he can communicate clearly. Attend a few conferences and you’ll learn that this is a rare combination.

I hardly hear him speak without learning something valuable. Since his income is totally dependent on performance - and given the amount of traffic he drives - I trust his judgment. If a mistake would instantly cost you personally thousands of dollars that you cannot recoup, you’d get good or quit.

Tomorrow Jeremy is launching a new program with another professional I admire and have met - Anik Singal of Affiliate Classroom. You must read his free monthly affiliate marketing ezine that focuses on affiliate and online marketing. There was an excellent issue on SEO a few months ago. But, back to coaching. If you want to learn from masters, here’s your chance. They are going to teach you how to be an affiliate.

My recommendation is that you take this course if you’re already an affiliate and want to improve your results significantly. The main emphasis is on paid search (PPC). This is training you can count on to be quality from professionals who know. Sometimes so-called gurus are teaching old methods and holding a lot of information back. The things you learn will be the latest and not something that worked well years ago. Read more about affiliate marketing training by Jeremy and Anik.

The package has study materials, and tons of bonuses (including from superstars Vinny Lingham and also Rosalind Gardner). There are also webinars. Affiliate Classroom wrote training for affiliate managers, now they are covering affiliate marketers. It looks comprehensive. You couldn’t take a college course for the price but the material is like one. I know webinars - one webinar - that sells for $800. That’s more than this entire course.

Jeremy Palmer the super affiliate is offering a new service - coaching. I talked to him a few days ago and he didn’t mention it. In fact, it seems like CJU would be the perfect place to tell people about his plans.

He says he’ll reveal every program and tool he uses to be a million dollar affiliate. As you may know, the people he’s coached have been very successful. One is Justin Bowen, who just won a Commission Junction award for greatness. One thing you might want to know going into affiliate marketing as a search affiliate you’ll need thousands of dollars to invest up-front. That was somewhat of a shock to me when I was new to this.

I don’t see a blog post with details but I’m sure that’s coming. I don’t know if there is an affiliate program attached. I’m not sure how long the program is but it starts September 25, 2007. Not a lot of lead time! However, I’m sure there are people who will jump to learn from a super affiliate. He’s teaming up with Anik from Affiliate Classroom.

eComXpo is an internet marketing conference that is entirely online. It covers various aspects of the industry from affiliate marketing to email marketing. It’s well-attended and the speakers are usually excellent. Plus it’s free.

I’ve attended on and off for the past few years. You can listen while you’re at work and it’s free while it’s live. Otherwise you can pay $50 to access all the sessions to listen to later.

The biggest challenge of a virtual conference is not getting distracted. So plan time away from distractions for the speakers you really want to listen to. If you’re at work, go to a conference room. Or, buy the transcripts.

The conference runs October 9-11 - that is a Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Here are some highlights. Mat - they ask for speakers. Please apply and talk about Social Media Optimization and how to utilize web 2.0 Strategies on your Site.

* Bryan Eisenberg from Future Now will speak about web site conversion
* Geoff Ramsey from eMarketer will talk about digital strategies
* Anne Holland from Marketingsherpa will deliver great data as she usually does on Search engine marketing, Email marketing and Landing Pages

* Seth Godin on Blogging: How Blogs and Web 2.0 Can Change Your Business Forever - DON’T MISS THIS ONE

* The New Realities of Online Life: Lee Rainie – Pew Internet and American Life Project

Don’t put off registering because if you’re like me you’ll forget. They send you reminders. Seriously, no travel expenses and you can learn from the best minds in the industry.
Click Here To Register Now!

If you want to get a crowd mad at CJU, here are some tips for you. I’m giving out my own awards:

• Be shamelessly self-promoting. Talk about your greatness and past positions. Promote your site. Make sure there is no real information that will help your audience. Award: Mark Papia, Vice President of Performance Marketing, Fox Interactive Media (MySpace.com).
• Make sure what you talk about is too esoteric for anyone to relate to that isn’t in your inner circle. Award: panel that was so hard to follow I can’t remember what one it is.
• Put down search affiliates and give information that is misleading. Make sure Vinny Lingham isn’t in the crowd when you do this. Award: this is one I only heard about and didn’t attend. There was a shouting match at the end. Too bad I missed it. Someone fill me in on the comments section below.
• Tell people they can’t fly their helicopters in the lobby or outside during networking events. Award: CJU staff.
• Set up a lab to help people learn how to be power users of your site who don’t know much about it. Award: CJU staff - note this was my experience only. Complete waste of time.

Now for the positive ways to get a crowd riled up:

• Give good information based on real-life experience. Be bold and honest in the outcome. Award: Steve August, Operational Vice President of Customer Marketing, Brookstone. What a classy guy
• Choose an amazingly beautiful location and give people lots of opportunities to network. Award: CJU staff
• Give clear and well-articulated tips on how to run an affiliate business from someone who knows. Award: Jeremy Palmer. I heard a CEO commented to his staff - we need to hire this guy to consult for us!
• Conduct relevant and important surveys about the industry and clearly articulate the findings. Award: Rebecca Madigan, Director, Product Management, Commission Junction - she was outstanding.
• Engage the audience and wow them with your PowerPoint show and grasp of the industry from a high up view. I have never been disappointed by anyone I’ve heard from Ogilvy and so I’m a big fan. Award: Greg Smith, COO of Neo@Ogilvy North America

To get more news about the affiliate industry check out (thanks for putting my posts on the list!) Affiliate Classroom’s news page.

Also, read Revenews bloggers to get their take on the event. http://www.revenews.com/. Sam Harrelson made some dire predictions (I tried to meet him but no luck). I did get to see Vinny Lingham, Adam Viener, Jeremy Palmer, Justin Bowen, and others.

Fun times.

I was at the awards ceremony but to be honest I couldn’t hear a thing. It was outside, people were talking, and I couldn’t see the stage. However, I want to congratulate the winners of the Commission Junction Horizon Awards for affiliate marketers and merchants who run affiliate programs. I know one of the winners and met another at CJU.

People
Advertiser: Theresa Tao, ShoeBuy.com - who I got to sit by at lunch the next day and chat with. She’s incredibly down-to-earth.
Publisher: Craig Cassata, MrRebates.com

Greatness
Advertiser: HP Home and Home Office Store
Publisher: Liquid Apogee - I met Justin Bowen a few years ago at Affiliate Summit. After several years of working hard, he quit his job at Nasa to be a full-time affiliate. He’s a class act and friend. Congrats!

Innovation Award:
Advertiser: MidPhase Services
Publisher: Move Marketing

Global Vision
MNP Enterprises

Myth #1 - Being an affiliate is the easy life
CJU gave a great presentation about research they did on affiliates and affiliate managers. The myth of affiliates is that don’t really work too hard and make easy money. While they might have a laid back style and work out of their home, the affiliates that produce have been doing affiliate marketing for a long time. The average time is in the business is 8.5 years.

Sometimes I think this myth is perpetuated because affiliates are often not very corporate looking or acting. They work from home. The merchants they work for are not used to working with entrepreneurs. They are used to working with others like them. The CEO may not even know what affiliate marketing is about.

Myth #2 - Affiliates don’t work that many hours
The average time they spend on their business is over 60 hours per week. They put their own money into advertising for their merchants and build up their business over many years before quitting their regular jobs and are full-time affiliates.

Myth #3 - What merchants do won’t affect affiliates
The speaker did a great job explaining things from both an affiliate and a merchant’s point of view. Affiliates plan campaigns 6 months ahead of time and if the terms of the program change or the merchant makes other changes, it can break an affiliate. Especially as they gear up for important seasons and holidays. Affiliates and merchants should communicate and work as a sales team.

Myth #4 - Affiliates care most about commissions and bonuses - the money
The number one factor affiliates named was how responsive a merchant is to them. How a merchant responds to their requests. Then next is the brand name and then conversions. At number four was if the merchant allows deep linking. Commissions were ranked 5th in importance.

Myth #5 - Affiliates rely almost exclusively on Google
CJU talked about the concerns each side had and how surprisingly Google changes didn’t come up often as a concern for affiliates. Most affiliates know that you can’t base your business exclusively on Google. So they diversify.

This was the best presentation that I have heard so far - besides Jeremy Palmer’s. I’d like a copy of the data. Anyone know if they have the powerpoint or the research posted online?

These tips come from super affiliate Jeremy Palmer’s speech today. It was entertaining to watch advertisers ask a lot of questions during the Q&A try to get in a plug for their program or try to find out how to recruit him.

Top Tips from Jeremy Palmer:

• Block off a horizontal space on your site for your call to action. Don’t clutter your page with more than one offer. Also, the most viewed part of your site is the top left hand corner. Try putting the offer there.
• Use images that match your marketing message (example: marketing online dating for Asians, get pictures of Asian men and women) and put a call to action under the image as a caption. Research shows that people read captions.
• Don’t add both affiliate links and AdSense. People think that visitors to their site will at least make money off a click if the visitor doesn’t make an affiliate sale on their page. However, it usually means people won’t do either one. Along the same theme he said, keep it to one offer per page.

Jeremy’s wish list for CJ Advertisers is he wants to see top and base line conversion rates and reversal rates for their programs. Also he said he’d rather have bonuses spread out across each sale than a big bonus payout in a lump sum.

I’m at Commission Junction University (CJU) right across the street from the beach in Santa Barbara, California. RMAMA (Rocky Mountain Association of Affiliate Marketers) hosted a swanky dinner. Troy from Hobbytron recounted how he was prohibited from giving away helicopters to affiliates. Hobbytron is famous for handing out remote control helicopters. They fly them in the lobby of the hotel. Today it was networking on the lawn and Troy and Dan Ben arrived with two boxes of goodies. A CJU employee asked them to remove the boxes immediately. No toys were given out. Long time affiliates who have got toys for years will have to go look for other souvenirs for their kids.

And, just because I am an affiliate of Hobbytron, I’m going to post a picture to remind me of the drive down. A helicopter mounted with a video camera was filming a brigade of Scions going down the Santa Monica freeway.

Kyosho Caliber M24 Electric RC Helicopter RTF

The whole time I’m singing Sheryl Crow’s All I Wanna Do…and the line “until the sun comes up on the Santa Monica Boulevard” Download Rock music on iTunes.