2010 - Page 2 of 23 - Affiliate Marketing with Missy Ward, Affiliate Summit Co-Founder & Co-CEO

Pinnacle Awards Finalists at Affiliate Summit West 2011

by Missy Ward

The fifth annual Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards will be presented on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 at Affiliate Summit West 2011, taking place at the Wynn Las Vegas.

The Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards are affiliate marketing’s most prestigious, competitive honor for the leaders in the space. Award winners are recognized because they are innovative leaders with vision and influence.

Here are the finalists for the Pinnacle Awards at Affiliate Summit West 2011:

Affiliate of the Year

Deals.Woot
Tricia Meyer
Kim Rowley

Affiliate Manager of the Year

Carolyn Kmet
Kim Salvino
Wade Tonkin

Exceptional Merchant

Buy.com
TinyPrints
Zappos

Affiliate Marketing Advocate

Rebecca Madigan
Lisa Picarille
Brook Schaaf

Best Blogger

Lisa Barone
Eric Nagel
Geno Prussakov

Affiliate Marketing Legend

Todd Farmer
Jen Goode
Brad Waller

The Pinnacle Awards are open to all attendees of Affiliate Summit West 2011.

Video: Affiliate Summit West 2010 Pinnacle Awards

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For The Heck of It

The State of the Affiliate Blogosphere

by Missy Ward

I was recently digging into Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2010 report, which surveyed over 7,200 bloggers, and provided great insight as to who is blogging, what they are blogging about, why they are doing it, how often, and where they are blogging from.

There were some interesting key trends this year, including the growth of mobile blogging, the influence of women and mom bloggers on the blogosphere, and the growing trust consumers have for bloggers over traditional media.

But no other trend was more exciting to me than the compelling statistic that 36% of bloggers surveyed reported making money from their blogs. That number, while still low, indicates a significant increase from 2009, meaning that more bloggers than ever are attempting to make money from their blogs. Additionally, the data also revealed that bloggers who received revenue from blogging generally blogged more this year than ever before.

According to the survey, while self-expression and sharing expertise still lead as blogger’s primary motivations, a significant portion of part-time and self-employed bloggers admit to blogging to make money or supplement their income.

Overall, only 18% of bloggers surveyed reported a non-salary income from their blog in 2010. The most common ways of generating blog revenue were from display ads, affiliate marketing links, paid postings and search ads.

Unfortunately, the mean income reported was $9,985, which, in my opinion, indicates that (A) bloggers still view blogging as a way to subsidize their hobby, to some extent, or (B) they just don’t know how to monetize their blogs properly, but want to learn.

Over the last year, I’ve run into a whole lot of more (B)’s. This is very exciting to me, whether the newfound open-mindedness to content monetization was economy-driven or because bloggers have finally realized that it is OK to monetize one’s blog.

Either way, the affiliate marketing industry wins a brand-new crop of passionate content providers, who are outpacing other social media and many traditional media outlets, in terms of generating consumer recommendations and purchases, according to the survey.

Affiliate Summit recognized this shift early this year and subsequently created Monetize Summit, which makes its debut on the Sunday of Affiliate Summit West 2011 in January. This series of beginner educational sessions will focus on turning a blog into a profit center, making money using pop culture content, providing tips and tricks to increase conversions, and teaching attendees how to use a datafeed to monetize a site.

With more than half of the bloggers surveyed planning on blogging even more, and 43% planning to expand the topics they blog about, it is our goal to help those bloggers be able to afford to spend more time to do just that.

Affiliate marketing shares in the blogger’s optimism for the future and we welcome you to our growing family.

Technorati’s state of the Blogosphere 2010 Report can be read in full here.

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For The Heck of It

Have Lunch with @shoemoney @johnchow @affiliatetip @pearsonified @brianlittleton @sugarrae…

by Missy Ward

** Update, December 14th: Auction is now over. Congratulations to Eleanor Chin; the winner of the Charity Auction. We all can’t wait to have lunch with you! Thank you so much for bidding.**

**Update, December 13th: With just a little over 24 hours left, the charity luncheon is already at $1,000! Oh, did I mention it’s my birthday, too? This lunch also comes with Birthday cake!***

Who better than this Online Marketing Dream Team to tell you what you need to do in order to grow your business?

John Chow

Founder of The TechZone, TTZ Media Network and JohnChow.com. John is best known for showing the income power of blogging by taking his blog from zero to $40,000+ per month in two years.

Shawn Collins

Shawn Collins has been an affiliate marketer since 1997 with a number of active affiliate projects, and a decade of affiliate management under his belt. He is a Co-founder of Affiliate Summit, the leading global conference and
tradeshow for the affiliate marketing industry and Co-Editor-in-Chief of FeedFront Magazine. He authored the book Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants, and was an editor and contributor to InternetMarketing from the Real Experts. Also, he publishes the annual AffStat affiliate marketing benchmark reports. Shawn blogs daily on affiliate marketing at Affiliate Tip and co-hosts the weekly Affiliate Thing podcast on GeekCast.fm. Additionally, Shawn has been quoted in numerous publications, including Entrepreneur Magazine, Internet Retailer, Inc. Magazine, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

Rae “Sugarrae” Hoffman Dolan

Ten+ years ago Rae started a small website about her son and his medical condition that became one of the first international support groups and largest website in general on the topic. It earned national media coverage and helped further medical research in the field. Investigating ways to support that site, she found affiliate marketing and became one of the most well known voices in the affiliate landscape and organic search engine optimization. Today, her current area of research is site auditing and advanced organic link development techniques relating to all of the major engines. Ms. Hoffman-Dolan, better known online as Sugarrae, is the CEO of website publisher MFEInteractive. She also owns numerous successful personal websites on a wide range of topics.

Brian Littleton

As the founder and CEO of ShareASale, Brian has connected thousands of merchants and affiliates alike, ensuring mutual profitability while preserving the sprit and core values of the affiliate marketing industry. Since 2000, his leadership and vision have helped shape the industry into what it is today. ShareASale celebrates its 10th anniversary this year and currently supports over 3,300 small- to-medium-sized merchants, working strategically with its clients, both on the advertising and publishing end, to maximize their individual potential.

Chris Pearson

Creator of the Thesis Theme for WordPress, Chris is a relentless learner with an interest in a wide array of topics, both online and off. As far as nerdy internet stuff goes, he’s a ninja in SEO, HTML, PHP, affiliate sales, design, and paying attention to details that others tend to miss.

Jeremy “ShoeMoney” Schoemaker

Jeremy is the President of ShoeMoney Media Group and Founder of ShoeMoney.com. He has proven his skills online in the search engine marketing world and his knowledge and expertise make him one of the top go-to guys for PPC, arbitrage, SEM, branding and affiliate marketing. In 2007 Jeremy launched the AuctionAds advertising network and added more than 25,000 affiliates in a mere 4 months of operation who generated millions a month in revenue. Whether its his blog or any of his companies, ShoeMoney has proven that he has the dedication, drive, and at times the audacity to get the job done.

Missy Ward

Missy Ward is the Co-Founder of Affiliate Summit, FeedFront Magazine, GeekCast.fm, VelocityNYC Press, AffStat.com, ShipToTroops.com and AffiliateMarketersGiveBack.com (amongst other things). In addition, she’s also the the Co-Publisher of Revenews.com and VP of Operations for MoneyMindedMoms.com. She also has a new book out called Internet Marketing from the Real Experts in which the net proceeds are donated to the National Breast Cancer Foundation. (Read more about the endeavor here.) For the last 10+ years, Missy has helped companies grow their businesses successfully using the pay-for-performance model. Before she worked for herself, she was Director of Public Relations for Media Breakaway LLC, Vice President of Partnership Marketing for eBound Strategies, President of Aluria Software and Vice-President of Marketing for Global Travel International.

I can’t begin to guess what this team charges for one-on-one consulting.

But, no matter, because YOU CAN WIN LUNCH with this dynamic group of marketers *and* help stomp out Breast Cancer at the same time.

The winner of the Charity Luncheon Auction will be treated to a lunch at 12:30pm on Monday, January 10th during Affiliate Summit West 2010 at Red 8 at the Wynn Las Vegas. During this time, they will have unlimited access to the group in which to pick their brains on their specified marketing expertise.

Net proceeds of this auction will benefit the Affiliate Marketers Give Back, 2011 Avon Walk for Breast Cancer.
Bid High and Walk Away A Winner in So Many Ways!

(Auction Ends: Dec 14, 2010 13:04:36 PST)

GO TO THE ONLINE AUCTION

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Affiliate Summit News

How to Ask Questions in Sessions at Affiliate Summit…

by Missy Ward

We’ve received a lot of feedback in the past that the Q&A at the end of sessions was problematic on a number of levels.

Some people would be inaudible, because they didn’t ask a question with a mic; while others would preface their question with a commercial for their company.

So, the audience will be able to submit questions to the speakers via SMS, a phone or computer web browser, as well as Twitter at Affiliate Summit West 2011.

It will be easy to ask a question in any session.

We’ll be providing instructions at the conference, so check out the agenda for Affiliate Summit West 2011 and start thinking about the questions you’d like to ask.

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