Time flies, and lots has changed since my original announcement of the new affiliate management conference.

In fact, things have even changed since the day I announced the full agenda — believe it or not, but it has expanded even further!

But being a big fan of structured approaches, and easy-to-digest presentation, let me highlight the key points about upcoming Affiliate Management Days for you in a bullet-point format (which should be helpful both to those familiar with the event, and to those who are hearing about it for the very first time):

• Date: March 8-9, 2012 / Place: San Francisco, CA
• Target audience: affiliate managers, online merchants, digtal marketing professionals
• Content: 4 keynote presentations, 24 breakout sessions, covering affiliate recruitment, fraud, adware, black hat techniques, web analytics, attribution data, landing page optimization, branding, influence and persuasion, trends and innovations, mobile, video, social, and much more [full agenda here].
• Speakers: 28 speakers including (a) affiliate marketing legends Todd Crawford, Kim Rowley, Sam Harrelson, Karen Garcia, Rebecca Madigan, (b) such digital marketing celebrities as Tim Ash and Linda Bustos, and (c) experts from such organizations as Harvard, Google, eBay, Best Buy, JC Penney, and many others.
• Press: the conference has already received a good amount of press, and should you want to find out more about it see these links.

How to Save $620 on Registration

Okay… Here’s the three-step secret:

1. Find a speaker coupon code (like one mentioned here)
2. Go to SF 2012 registration page
3. Register within Early Bird period (which ends Jan 20)

These three steps will help you save $619.50 off the on-site price (or $419.50 off the regular price). But hurry! The Early Bird rate expires this Friday.

I hope to see you there.

[Liveblogging from Affiliate Summit West 2012]

Every year at Affiliate Summit West (in early January) we find out the names of the newest recipients of the conference’s annual Pinnacle Awards, “affiliate marketing’s most prestigious, competitive honor for the leaders in the space” [source]. I’ve been covering this news steadily over the past few years (2009, 2010, 2011), and today is the day when this year’s winners have received their trophies (last one awarded, literally, seconds ago).

Here are the 2012 Pinnacle Awards winners:

• Affiliate of the Year — Coupon Cabin
  
• Affiliate Manager of the Year — Kim Salvino
  
• Exceptional Merchant — Tiny Prints
• Affiliate Marketing Advocate — Tim Storm
  
• Best Blogger — Tricia Meyer
  
• Affiliate Marketing Legend — Kim Rowley
  

Of course, I was bummed not to even make the list of the finalists this year (after being on it for two years in a row), but it encourages me to press on, looking up to some of the above folks, and learning from them. Congratulations to all, and here’s to another exciting year of affiliate marketing achievements ahead!

In five days I’m flying off to Las Vegas for my already-customary speaking gig at Affiliate Summit West. I am very much looking forward to this, and, as always, honored to have a new opportunity to present at this vibrant conference. This one is going to be the largest Affiliate Summit to date — with nearly 5,100 attendees present. My schedule is already pretty packed, but if you’d like to meet, do drop me a line as I still have a number of 15-20 min slots available throughout January 8, 9, and 10.

Sneak Peak Into My Presentation

As you may have already seen elsewhere (both in my blog, and on Affiliate Summit’s website), the topic I’m going to tackle is Advanced Affiliate Program Management & Analysis. In my presentation I will address a number of affiliate program optimization and policing questions. The specifics of the ones that I’ll tackle are that they are the issues that program managers (and merchants) don’t bump into until they’ve run their affiliate program for a few months or sometimes even longer. At the end of the presentation we’ll arrive at 5 profound action points for the audience to implement. As always, it’s gonna be a lively and examples-rich session, where everyone will learn something new.

So, I do hope to see you at 11:30 am PST on Monday (Jan 9) in Caesars Palace Las Vegas.

Free Books At Three Locations

As you may remember, half a year ago, I was giving away 5 copies of my Affiliate Management Hour book at the Affiliate Summit in New York City. The only place where you could get these was my session at the conference. This year/time two things will change: (i) I will have even more books, and (ii) they will be available in 3 locations. These will be:

• My above-described session (Jan 9, 11:30am-12:30pm ◊ Emperors II)
• During my “office hour” at the Advice Booth (Jan 9, 1:00-2:00pm ◊ Booth #107)
• At Go Mobile or Go Home! session (Jan 10, 2:00-3:00pm ◊ Emperors I)

All of the above locations are at Caesars Palace hotel.

See many of you soon, and, again, should you wish to meet in person, either come to my session, or drop by the “advice booth”, or email me to see if we can sync something up.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

With great pride, and slight tremble with excitement more than anything else! in my voice, I bring you………… a brand-new conference — a different conference, a professional forum geared specifically towards affiliate program managers and marketing executives responsible for their businesses’ affiliate marketing programs.

It is going to be a two-day event, which will be a part of the Data Driven Business Week (which traditionally combines such fine conferences as eMetrics Summit, Predictive Analytics World, Conversion Conference, Text Analytics World, and others) to take place in March 2012 in San Francisco, California. Here are more details:

• Name: Affiliate Management Days
• Dates: 8-9 March, 2012
• Venue: Westin San Francisco
• Conference chair: yours truly
• Website: AffiliateManagementDays.com
• Official press release: here

I am also proud to bring you the two confirmed keynote speakers (both no strangers to the affiliate marketing world): assistant professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School, also known for his extensive expertise in affiliate spyware, adware, click and commission fraud, Ben Edelman; and Co-founder and CEO of RingRevenue, Jason Spievak. The keynote addresses will cover the latest research on adware and affiliate marketing abuses (naturally, this one by Ben), as well as the latest performance marketing trends, specifically when affiliate programs leverage the rapidly growing offline and mobile channels (this one by Jason).

In addition to the keynotes, we will have numerous breakout sessions, covering an array of topics from affiliate marketing analytics and program optimization to landing page conversion optimization and the latest tools to streamline your affiliate management processes.

If you’re interested to speak at Affiliate Management Days, we are now accepting speaking proposals, and I would like to encourage you to submit yours.

Here are three important links that I’d also like to draw your attention to:

• Registration — register here (save $500 if you register by December 20, 2011)
• Speaking proposals — submit yours here (deadline: December 23, 2011)
• Sponsorship opportunities — contact Paul Gillis

If you’re an affiliate program manager, this event is for you! If you’re an affiliate, there are other good conferences to consider: Affiliate Summit being my personal US preference, and a4uExpo — my European favorite.

I hope to see you there, and should you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask them (either via the “Comments” area below, or by email).

Several things – important to affiliates, and affiliate marketing industry as a whole — have happened in the course of the past few days, unfortunately not all good, and today I’d like to draw your attention to the following four:

1. Pennsylvania Enacts Affiliate Nexus Tax law — Late last night (on December 1, 2011) the bad news came from the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue which “in a surprising move… issued a press release and memorandum… stating that an existing statute has been reinterpreted to include a definition that states out-of-state retailers have nexus (and must collect PA sales tax) if they have affiliate marketers” [more in today's post by the Performance Marketing Association].

2. Bing Bans Holiday Deals Sites — On November 30, it was reported that Bing, in its “version of the Google Panda Update”, has “completely removed some sites deemed thin from its search engine.” Ironically, among others they’ve also banned CyberMonday.com, a website owned by Shop.org which coined the very term “Cyber Monday” back in late 2005 [more in Danny Sullivan's post here]. As Tricia Meyer has rightfully summarized, this article is “eye opening for affiliates” — “especially those who rely on search engines for all their traffic.”

3. Federal Sales Tax Reform — The reform which can remove the Affiliate Nexus Tax, “potentially getting 60,000 devastated affiliate marketers back in business”, is gaining a “growing support” and “has a very good chance of passage” [more in the Performance Marketing Association's article here].

4. £1 Million Incubator for Affiliate Marketing — In the U.K. TradeDoubler has launched The Zoo Project, a unique initiative “offering £1m worth of business resources and industry mentoring to help” affiliate startups, fostering/encouraging affiliate marketing innovation [more in this article from November 30, 2011 at MyCustomer.com].

It certainly is a dynamic industry we work in… If I’ve missed a important news that belongs here, please do submit it through the “Comments” area below.

I’ve been speaking internationally for more than 4 years, but 2011 has been the busiest year for me so far. In the course of this year, I’ve already spoken at 7 conferences in 5 different countries all around the world:

• Affiliate Summit West 2011 (Las Vegas, NV, 9-11 Jan 2011)
• PubCon Austin 2011 (Austin, TX, 8-9 Mar 2011)
• Russian Internet Forum (St Petersburg, Russia, 18-19 May 2011)
  
• a4uexpo Europe (Munich, Germany, 7-8 Jun 2011)
• Affiliate Summit East 2011 (New York, NY, 21-23 Aug 2011)
  
• Plimus Take Charge Summit (Tel Aviv, Israel, 13-14 Sept 2011)
• Global Software Selling Conference (Beijing, China, 19 Nov 2011)
  

You may see me present in Russian here, speak some German here, and English at my YouTube channel here.

If you’re looking to hire a conference speaker — be it to keynote your event, or present on a niche subject — here are the areas I specialize in:

• emerging trends in digital marketing
• affiliate marketing and program management
• blogging and social media
• personal branding
• leadership
• Internet opportunities for brick-n-mortar

You may view feedback on me as a speaker here and on my LinkedIn profile; and you may also read more about me here.

If you want me to speak at your event, email me today.

Impact Radius has just announced its version of the Top Performance Marketing Influencers list, ranking 25 affiliate marketing folks “with the most influential blog and Twitter presence”. Here’s how the official press release describes the list:

Designed to help advertisers, agencies and media companies seeking expert guidance in improving their revenue from performance marketing, the list, based on an Impact Radius independent analysis of the influence of more than 400 prominent performance marketing thought leaders, identifies the top people whose blogs, tweets and social metrics provide the most influential insights and advice for the industry.

I am humbled to make the first dozen, in quite a company:

1. Brian Clark — Copyblogger | @copyblogger
2. Shawn Collins — Affiliate Tip | @affiliatetip
3. Jeremy Schoemaker — Shoemoney | @shoemoney
4. John Chow — JohnChow.com | @johnchow
5. Brett Tabke — PubCon | @btabke
6. Rae Hoffman-Dolan — Sugarrae | @sugarrae
7. Missy Ward — MissyWard.com | @missyward
8. Peter Bordes — MediaTrust | @mediatrustpete
9. Pace Lattin — Industry Pace | @pacelattin
10. Lynn Terry — ClickNewz.com | @lynnterry
11. Matthew Wood — A4U | @matthewwood
12. Geno Prussakov — AM Navigator | @eprussakov

Here’s also a quick screenshot of part of the original infografic [which may be seen in its entirety here]:

Congratulations to all 25, and especially to my good friends Shawn Collins, Missy Ward, Matthew Wood, Greg Hoffman, Peter Hamilton, Angel Djambazov, Tricia Meyer, and Kirsty McCubbin. Honored to be with you all on this list.

On Tuesday (October 18, 2011) the newest issue of FeedFront, the official magazine of Affiliate Summit, has become available for online viewing and download. In it, on page 18, you will find my new article, which answers the question in the title of this blog post — what money should an advertiser/merchant should be prepared to spend when starting an affiliate marketing program.

There are 3 major components to keep in mind:

1. Platform — whether an affiliate network, or affiliate program software on which your program will be run
2. Creatives, Feed, Landing pages — banners, video, product data feed, landing pages (make sure you also budget for ongoing optimization of these)
3. Management — whether it’s gonna be someone in-house, or an OPM agency, you do want to budget for it too

My article concludes:

The sum total of all of the above … expenditure points can vary anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. In the past I have launched programs with as little as a $300 investment to as much as $9,000… much will depend on your or your company’s own involvement in the affiliate program’s setup, launch and management.

You may read the online version of FeedFront Magazine issue 16 by clicking the image of my article below:

Yesterday evening I received a confirmation that one of my proposed sessions has been selected (yes, thanks to both your votes, and the votes of the conference’s Advisory Board and Founders) for Affiliate Summit West 2012 which will be traditionally held in Las Vegas, NV on January 8-10, 2012.

This will be my 6th and 3rd consecutive time speaking at an Affiliate Summit, and I’m truly excited. To me Affiliate Summit is the most important affiliate marketing conference of the year. When planning it in advance (booking exhibit space, picking sessions to attend, scheduling one-on-one meetings, and networking events), one can really take a lot out of it [see this post of mine for tips on making the most of it].

Also, while — per a quick poll I ran 4 months ago — the majority of people attend conferences to network with colleagues and prospective clients/partners, the second most popular answer chosen was education [more here]. As a conference attendee, I personally try to draw two things from every conference I go to: inspiration/motivation and education/training. As is always the case with my solo presentations, it is with these two in mind that I’ll be presenting at Affiliate Summit West 2012 too.

My session’s official session title and description are as follows:

Advanced Affiliate Program Management & Analysis

What is parasitism and channel cannibalization? What KPIs and metrics are important to analyze? How can competitive intelligence help you grow the program? We’ll tackle these & other vital questions.

We’ll focus on the topics and questions that inevitably spring up a few months into the launch of every affiliate marketing program. So, if you have an affiliate program, this session is for you. In an already customary manner there will be time for questions at the end of my presentation. I will also make sure to bring some of my books to give away this time too (just as in New York, but maybe more than one title). Hope to see you in Las Vegas!! Session date and time should be posted at this page some time soon.

Today, on October 19 2011, at 3:00 pm UK time — or right after finishing their It’s All in the Data panel discussion which finished literally 40 minutes ago at a4uexpo London (nice timing!) — Econsultancy has released its UK Affiliate Census 2011. They haven’t had one out since 2009; so this one has certainly been long-awaited-for.

I was honored to be invited to contribute my thoughts to this important annual report. And in my today’s post I’d like to share them with you, highlighting the three things I chose to comment on, and giving you a snapshot of the things the report addresses:

Most Important Promotional Methods

Regardless of the growing popularity of mobile, social, and retargeting, it is good to see that content is still king; and the two most popular promotional methods are content-related (both self-made and user-generated content). As an affiliate program management agency we see much of the same — most loyal and targeted customers come through content affiliates.

Main Reasons Why Affiliates Drop Merchants

I’d like to thank affiliates for pointing out one of the major problems of this relationship. Somehow many merchants believe that they can drop commission or change their payout structures as they please; often without notifying affiliates at all.

The two most widely-spread reasons for dropping a merchant are ‘found a better merchant’ (34%) and ‘Commission structure changes’ (17%). Often these are closely interconnected. Merchants must understand that when hundreds of affiliate programs are competing for the attention of one affiliate, it is the affiliate who will win; unless the merchant stays truly competitive and attractive.

Popular Sources of Information on Affiliate Marketing

It is still imperative for affiliate networks to spend more time on putting together quality, educational materials (comprehensive knowledge bases, webinars, how-to blog posts and videos, etc) to help affiliates succeed.

The full 61-pages report is available for purchase via Econsultancy’s website here.

For further insight into the present-day UK affiliate market, make sure you also check out the results of Bigmouthmedia‘a Affiliate Survey 2011 (released earlier this week): infographic/overview here & full 6-pages report here.