With ShareASale’s ThinkTank 2012 and Affiliate Summit Central 2012 being just around the corner I am getting more and more emails about scheduling meetings at these events.

Unfortunately, I am not going to attend either of these. Neither am I gonna be at a4uexpo Europe 2012 in 5 weeks. To simplify things for everyone, I decided to put together a list of events where you can find me.

Being extremely busy — with writing (books, magazine articles, online posts), consulting, OPM work, and a million other things — I now only attend the events where I am also speaking. So here’s the list of my upcoming speaking engagements that I already have scheduled in 2012 (all but one are confirmed; the second one is still in the works, but I’ll be in town):

• iLive Internet Marketing Conference (Riga, Latvia, May 22, 2012)
• St Petersburg Internet Conference (St. Petersburg, Russia, May 28-29)
• Google Affiliate Network Client Summit (Chicago, IL, Jul 18-19, 2012)
• Affiliate Summit East 2012 (New York, NY, Aug 12-14, 2012)
• Affiliate Management Days (Florida, Oct, 2012)

If you’d like to meet at any of the above, email me in advance, and I’ll be happy to plan for it.

A few minutes ago AvantLink has officially launched AvantMetrics as a standalone affiliate marketing analytics product and brand [announcement here].

Apparently, this “click stream intelligence” functionality has been available to AvantLink clients for a while, but only directly within the network, and this has just changed.

Being extremely excited about what I believe to be the big news for affiliate marketing analytics, I sat down with the company’s CEO and co-founder, Scott Kalbach (SK below) and asked him a few questions about the tool. But before I bring you the interview, here’s an appropriate video to start with:

And here’s the interview itself:

GP: First of all, congratulations on rolling out AvantMetrics, a well overdue tool which I’m sure you’re proud of! In the video about it you’ve introduced it as a “robust affiliate platform that revolutionizes affiliate marketing.” “Revolutionize” is a powerful word meant to be used when talking about a radical change. Seeing press releases devalue the word day in and day out, how exactly would you back up the claim in your case?

SK: Up to this point, Affiliate Marketing has relied on a simplistic “Last Click Wins” standard attribution model. In large part this was due to a lack of technology to determine all of the marketing channel touch points that a customer crosses leading up to a sale. AvantMetrics gives you insight into the entire customer click stream leading up to a sale and allows you to determine if “Last Click Wins” is the right model for your program. If it isn’t, AvantMetrics provides the technology to implement an alternate shared commission attribution model for your affiliate program. For example you could split the commission among multiple affiliates that referred the customer before the conversion took place. So, in fact, AvantMetrics does allow for a radical change from the “Last Click Wins” attribution standard.

GP: The idea of a “digital container” that groups “all third party pixels” to track “the entire stream of all affiliate referral traffic” (to give “insight into your program from beginning to end”) is an excellent one. But when multiple affiliate networks are involved, would the solution be even allowed (read: comply with the major affiliate networks’ terms of service) by the networks that compete with AvantLink (some networks are quite strict on tracking-related issues)?

SK: First, let me be clear that the data AvantMetrics is capturing is on the end client’s website only. We’re not capturing customer data as they browse around an affiliates website. The data that AvantMetrics collects is not unlike what any good web analytics service collects.

The pixel container has advanced business rules based logic to output other tracking pixels depending on the client’s needs (for example: de-duplicating sales/commission across multiple affiliate networks). It’s up to the client to make sure that the rules they put in place align with the terms of their agreements with other marketing channel providers.

I’ve seen a lot of poorly implemented de-duplication code on merchants websites over the years, so I think that networks will come to appreciate the reliability and accuracy of the functionality we’ve built into our pixel container. Not to mention that once our pixel container is on a client’s website, it allows the client to add or remove pixels basically on demand which will help all networks integrate more quickly with an advertiser.

GP: I love how you segment affiliates into “referral groups”: Introducer (1st affiliate referral), Influencer (2nd referral), and Closer (3rd referral). But how exactly does the solution determine/differentiate one from another? From the video it is apparent that you’re tying it to various affiliates’ “entry points into the customer’s path to purchase”. Can you give a bit more details on this (especially for situations when many more than 3 affiliates are involved)?

SK: An Introducer is an affiliate who refers the customer as the very first step in the customers path to a conversion. An Influencer doesn’t refer the customer as the first step in the path to purchase, but they bring the customer back before the customer enters the checkout funnel. A Closer brings the customer back after the customer has already entered the checkout funnel.

Our system has the ability to tag a URL as the checkout funnel entry point and that’s how we determine the difference between an Influencer and Closer referral.

Once a client is on our AvantMetrics system, we can do an analysis that breaks down all of the client’s affiliate referrals into those three groups and show you the percentages that each group makes up of your overall affiliate traffic. We usually recommend at least a months worth of data collection before doing this analysis. At that point our client’s have accurate and detailed information to determine if they should continue with the standard “Last Click Wins” attribution model or if they need to consider a shared commission attribution model.

GP: When I got my very first glimpse at the functionality, we’ve exchanged these tweets:

@ePrussakov Thanks for RT. AvantMetrics.com will be live 1-2 weeks. ..available to anyone even if not using our Aff network#analytics

— AvantLink.com (@AvantLink) March 30, 2012

In that response you mentioned that AvantMetrics will be “available to anyone even if not using” AvantLink. So if a merchant runs two affiliate programs on other affiliate networks — one of which is on Commission Junction, and another one on LinkShare — they can still use all AvantMetrics’ capabilities?

SK: Absolutely. AvantMetrics was created by the team at AvantLink but it’s also a completely independent brand and service from AvantLink. AvantMetrics services help solve common problems like online marketing channel de-duplication, attribution analysis and implementation, pixel container functionality as well as complete insight into the marketing channel touch points. An advertiser doesn’t need to be on the AvantLink network to take full advantage of the services available on AvantMetrics.com.

GP: And finally… your prices. I couldn’t find any information on them at AvantMetrics.com while the video mentioned that plans start from $25 per month. Can you give us some more details on the pricing and/or available packages?

SK: Here’s a summary list of the services that are available via AvantMetrics right now.

1. Pixel Container Functionality
2. De-Duplication of Multi-Network Sales
3. De-Duplication of Internal Marketing Channels
4. Referral Group Analysis and Shared Commission Attribution Model Functionality

Our current pricing is a tiered flat fee model based on the customers traffic volume. AvantLink client pricing starts at a discounted rate of $50 per service level. Here is the general pricing list for AvantMetrics.com:

◊ 0 – 100k total visits per month: $50 a month per service level
◊ 100k – 1 million total visits per month: $100 a month per service level
◊ 1 million – 2 million total visits per month: $200/month per service level
◊ Over 2 million total visits per month: Custom Pricing

GP: Thank you for shedding the light on these important areas. I appreciate your time, and wish you luck, Scott.

Did you know that when it comes to blog monetization, affiliate marketing is second only to contextual ads type tools (see more in Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2011 report)? That’s quite a change from 2009; and if one includes Google AdSense into the “affiliate advertising links” category (as some affiliate marketers do), I’m certain it would then easily rank #1.

As the above chart shows, “affiliate advertising links” are neck-and-neck with “self serve tools” for nearly 55% of professional full time bloggers; and they are also being actively used by professional part time bloggers (over 50%), entrepreneur blogs (over 45%), and even corporate blogs (some 38%)

If you aren’t yet using affiliate links in your blog, it’s a high time to start playing with them. Here are just a few of the options that you have when it comes to “affiliate advertising links”:

Affiliate Banners

Once you’ve joined an affiliate program, you can start promoting merchants using their banners. Below you may see an example of how Fishgator blog does it:

Individual Products

Many online retailers also offer affiliates access to their product feeds. Below you may see how these look on Commission Junction affiliate network (when I’m searching for “iPad cases” in BestBuy.com’s inventory), where you can either grab links to individual products (to feature them in your posts), or using these tools you may import them in batches.

Affiliate Widgets

There are affiliate networks that offer these (e.g. ShareASale, Google Affiliate Network), but my personal favorites are Amazon associates program widgets (mainly due to the high degree of customization that Amazon offers). Below you may see how Roger Dooley uses one on his blog:

Textual & Contextual Links

Here you have two options: (i) either link individual product/keyword mentions to the respective merchant pages (through affiliate-coded links) manually, or (ii) automate the process by using tools like VigLink or Skimlinks. Click on the image below to see a good recent article on how the latter two work:

Reviews, Lists, Comparisons

Finally, consumer advice type blog posts are greatly popular. They may be monetized using any of the above-described methods. Below you may find a screenshot of a popular “review” site that successfully monetizes through affiliate links:

Instead of Conclusion:

IMPORTANT: Whichever of the above you use, make sure you comply with the Federal Trade Commission’s rules regarding testimonials and endorsements which I covered extensively here (see also this recent article for a lawyer’s take on them). Good luck monetizing your blog(s)!!

Naturally, explaining what an OPM does is not any simpler than describing what affiliates do, or what affiliate marketing is. In fact, it is quite a bit more complex, because you first have to explain what is affiliate marketing, who are affiliates, what is an affiliate program, and only then… why in the world merchants need outsourced (affiliate) program managers, and what it is exactly that we do (recruit new affiliates, motivate them activate, police compliance with the merchant’s rules for affiliate marketing, handle communication, and work on the program’s optimization — yes, the five pillars).

To reflect the common (pre)/(mis)conceptions, in line with a famous What others think I do meme, and among others using two actual pictures of myself (one from a fishing trip, and another one from a speaking opportunity), I’ve put together the following “What People Think OPMs Do” visual summary:

And here is an accompanying “legend” (with my best attempts to quantify the veracity of each preconception):

Neighbors — They don’t know what exactly I do, but do know that it’s “computer-related” and I seem to have cash falling on my head. 95% FALSE (5% of the truth is that I do work at the computer)

Friends — Judging by the stuff that I post on my Facebook wall, it appears I must be on a life-long fishing trip. 95% FALSE (I, honestly, wish I had that much free time!)

Mother — Well… If my mother doesn’t think that I’m a computer gamer of some sorts, my mother-in-law definitely does. 100% FALSE

Other relatives — They, probably, picture me working on a laptop, sitting in a comfy armchair, and wearing pajamas. 100% FALSE

Myself — I’d like to think of myself as of an educator, and contributor to the betterment of the industry. Essence – 100% TRUE; Time commitment – 20% TRUE

Reality — Multiple clients, 12-hour work days, coffee, stress, lack of fresh air… 100% TRUE (but since I’m working for myself, it’s also 100% worth it!)

I’m sure the situation is very similar with other outsourced options to in-house business tasks (e.g.: search engine optimization and paid search marketing, banner/graphics design, web development, outsourced social media marketing, conversion rate optimization, programming, etc); and the vast majority of my blog’s readers will identify with what I’m trying to say.

Enjoy your weekend, shutting down that computer and Internet connection on your smartphone(s), and spending time with those who matter most in your life!

Yesterday afternoon, a friend, foodie blogger, and fellow marketer, Patrick Vesperman — who also happens to be the senior marketing analyst in charge of Target.com’s affiliate program — posted an amusing thing on his Facebook wall. Here it is (with his permission):

I have no way of knowing whether the author of the above-quoted affiliate recruitment letter was joking or not — however you may feel about things like the Mayan End Times “prophecy” (aka 2012 phenomenon) or the Zombie Apocalypse — so, I’ll assume they were being creative but, needless to say, their approach grabbed attention. They certainly weren’t being cliché-esque or boring.

Managers: How creative are you in your affiliate recruitment (or other routine work)?

Affiliates: Can you share examples of other creative approaches to recruitment?

The “Comments” area under this post is all yours.

An good question came from a beginning affiliate program manager:

I have been in the affiliate marketing industry for 5 years and I know your expertise in the industry very well.

I wanted to ask you about the industry standard for affiliate manager compensation. I have been approached by a small website to manage their affiliate program. Their sales are about $2000-3000 per day. I would only like to charge them commission for my services. What is the industry standard for running an affiliate program based on commissions only?

I replied to them privately, but also got their consent for answering this question in my blog. So here we go:

In-house Affiliate Managers

Structure: Salary + benefits + bonuses

Earnings range: Per Affiliate Summit’s AffStat 2007 Report (yes, a little dated, but still), the vast majority of respondents (48%) stated that their annual salary is $40,000 to $50,000 or under [source]. Taking the economical crisis (and consequent inflation) into account, this roughly corresponds to affiliate manager’s national average salary as reported by SimplyHired.com who stated that as of July 2011 it was $66,000 per year — averaging $77,000 in the State of New York, $75,000 in California, $69,000 in Illinois, and $61,000 in Texas [source].

Outsourced Affiliate Program Managers

Structure A: Monthly retainer + performance bonus [more here] where the latter may be tied either to the affiliate-referred sales volume or to gross affiliate payouts (incremental, if we’re talking an existing affiliate program).

Structure B: Flat monthly fee.

Structure C: Commission only.

Earnings Range: Again, per the above-quoted source back in 2007 the majority of OPMs (35%) were earning $8,000 or more a month, or $96,000 to $120,000 or more annually. Another large segment (35%) reported making between $4,000 and $8,000 a month (22% – $4,000-$6,000, and 13% – $6,000 -$8,000); while the rest were making under $4,000 a month.

The big question is, of course, how much should you charge in those performance bonuses (or as our above-quoted colleague asked: how much should I charge them in commissions)?

The answer is always: it depends. The two main situational variables here are: (i) the brand (the size and recognizably of which will directly impact your conversion rate), and (ii) the vertical (a bargain electronics store will have a substantially slimmer profit margin than a sterling silver jewelry manufacturer, for example). In the course of the past decade I’ve managed over 70 affiliate programs as an OPM, and had those performance bonuses range from 2% to 35% (of the order value) with online retailers, and a few times exceeding 50% with service providers (with whom it is more common to tie the manager’s commission to the affiliate payout).

Do your due diligence on the profit margins in the vertical you’re considering, factor in the merchant’s competitive payouts to affiliates, and any additional expenses (e.g.: payments to an affiliate network on which the program will be run) they will incur; and only then make your offer. Stay flexible, and work with the merchant on this one. After all, it has to work for all parties involved.

Earlier this week eMarketer tweeted:

79% of US marketing professionals plan to increase spending on social media in the next 12 months – ow.ly/atWqm

— eMarketer (@eMarketer) April 24, 2012

And among the first accounts to ReTweet my mention of the above was TicketNetwork’s affiliate program‘s Twitter account. Their RT got me thinking: “How many other affiliate programs and affiliate managers are actively using Twitter to educate affiliates, and other online marketers, thereby promoting their own affiliate program?”

It turns out, there are quite a few affiliate programs with Twitter accounts. However, not all are created equal. Many are plain broadcasters (of coupons, deals, sales, promos, and a here’s-our-newest-newsletter tweet every once in a while). But when as affiliate managers we are explicitly favoring (and looking to recruit) affiliates who add value, shouldn’t we ourselves be adding value — even through those Tweets?!

I have a Twitter list of accounts for various affiliate programs, but today I’d like to specifically highlight those who in the course of this week tweeted out something different or truly useful (yes, another #FollowFriday post of sorts):

Google’s @mattcutts breaks down crawling and analysis that can affect your ranking in SERPs: bit.ly/JJqEVP

— eBay Partner Network (@eBayPartnerNet) April 26, 2012

Funny stuff from @sewatch “Your Website Might be Over-Optimized If:” ow.ly/avYry #SEO #SEO for Affiliates #affiliate

— Fanatics Affiliates(@FanaticsAff) April 25, 2012

What I Learned From Building 5 Popular Blogs — diythemes.com/thesis/what-i-…

— Olga Eskina (@GAorgAffiliates) April 24, 2012

Tweet us your best advice for new affiliates to be entered in today’s giveaway for the Mr. Bunny Travel Kit!

— Sigma Affiliates (@Sigma_Affiliate) April 24, 2012

The big question is no longer: Are you, as an affiliate manager, using social media? The more important one today is: Are your Tweets, status updates and posts truly adding value? Don’t be like most others. Stand out!! Educate others, educating yourself in the process. It’s fun, and it is also truly rewarding.

A little over a week ago I was approached by Chris Johnson, asking if I would like to contribute a 30-second video answer to a question of how online marketing, and performance marketing in particular, will look like around 2015.

Earlier today my video, along with videos from a few other affiliate marketing experts, was used as a part of Chris’ and Matthew Wood‘s Embracing, Influencing and Disrupting the Customer Journey – an Affiliates Roadmap to 2015 keynote speech at Zanox Expert Day in Berlin, Germany. I was honored to be included (the question/challenge was pretty nice there!) and today I’d like to share my thoughts/video with my blog’s readers:

If I had to guess (based on what I see happening now), I’d highlight three main areas:

1. Online video — I believe that video will really pick up by 2015, but visual and aural content will never be able to fully replace the original (read: textual) one. Neither do I expect online video ads to fully replace static (or even animated) banners and other types of creatives.
2. Social media — No, don’t get me wrong: some are already monetizing social (all three of these areas: social shopping, social gaming, and social content). However, it is still far from being mainstream. In 2015 I’m certain it will be. After all, the Internet is inherently social; and more platforms will undoubtedly emerge, while affiliates will find ways to make money using both existing and new social media platforms. The platforms themselves will also start being more active in the performance marketing space. However, more than likely not directly, but via various subaffiliate type tools.
3. Mobile — Based on 2011 holiday season figures, we’ve already seen a really impressive growth [more here]. But the really exciting time is yet to come! For example, did you know that two-thirds of US smartphone owners already use their phone to aid in shopping, and eMarketer estimates that by the end of 2015 in America there will be 176.3 million smartphone users [source]. Also, by 2016 mobile search is expected to generate 27.8 billion more queries than desktop search, generating $3.2 billion in revenue compared to desktop’s $10.2 billion [source]. The era of mobile is just beginning. Things will only get more interesting with time.

What do you think online and affiliate marketing will look like in 2015?!

In case you have missed my weekend tweet, a really interesting situation has occurred to me on Saturday:

Paid USPS to deliver an underpaid envelope to find out it was an affiliate recruitment letter. NOT the way to introduce an affiliate program

— Geno Prussakov (@ePrussakov) April 21, 2012

Nearly two years ago I blogged about “regular mail” as “the most underused method” of affiliate recruitment, encouraging merchants to mail prospective affiliates “a postcard, or even a package with a little gift”, promising that it will “do wonders for your affiliate recruitment campaign”; hence “it’s well-worth the extra time spent on it.” A month ago Shawn Collins also posted an example of an “affiliate recruiting postcard”. And then a few weeks later I get an underpaid-mail-to-be-delivered notice from USPS. A bit confused, yet nonetheless intrigued I settle the difference (paying 150% more than what the sender paid), and receive an envelope with a well-put-together marketing booklet, explaining why I want to partner with their affiliate program.

I won’t call the merchant out. That’s not the purpose of this post. The point is to (a) once again emphasize this method of affiliate recruitment, and (b) warn merchants from committing the “underpaid mail” mistake.

I didn’t join the program (however interesting the educational course on CDs looked, it wasn’t a good fit for this blog); and I still don’t know why I ended up paying to find out about their affiliate program.

The Facebook convo that I had (with two affiliates, and an affiliate manager) summarized the irony of the situation extremely well:

By all means, do use regular mail to approach affiliates. But check the current postage prices before mailing your envelope off! After all, (i) you’re putting your money and effort into designing and producing the marketing material, (ii) you’re using a method very few competing affiliate programs would use, and (iii) you’re spending your time on it all… Why doom it all to the trash bin?!

Earlier in the morning a quick Twitter interaction has occurred between me and an attendee of the Russian Internet Forum 2012:

@PShkapenko That’s def. one way to put it. 420 pages in 9 minutes. Would’ve made a beautiful title.

— Geno Prussakov (@ePrussakov) April 19, 2012

[Translation of Pavel Shkapenko's original tweet: "Prussakov briefly covers the contents of his remarkable manual at RIF 2012"]

It was a privilege to be a part of the conference, and, if you speak/understand Russian, and have missed (or would like to revisit) my speech earlier this morning, I have already uploaded it to YouTube, and here it is:

Here’s also the “outsourcing vs in-sourcing” comparison table that I’m referring to:

Инсорсинг или аутсорсинг?