2012 - Page 5 of 20 - Affiliate Marketing with Missy Ward, Affiliate Summit Co-Founder & Co-CEO

Performance Marketing Summit 2013 – Save the Date

by Missy Ward

The inaugural Performance Marketing Summit is taking place March 12, 2013 in New York City.

The one day conference will take place at the Baruch College Vertical Campus (site of Affiliate Summit Social Media in 2008 and the first Affiliate Summit in 2003).

Space will be limited to 200 people.

Performance Marketing Summit is an Affiliate Summit event.

Affiliate Summit was founded by myself and Shawn Collins in 2003 for the purpose of providing educational sessions on the latest industry issues and fostering a productive networking environment for performance marketers.

More details coming soon, but I for one can't wait to celebrate Affiliate Summit's 10 year anniversary in the place where it all started!

See http://www.affiliatesummit.com/about/ for the history and growth of the premier affiliate marketing conference.

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Affiliate Marketing

Central Florida’s Next Internet Marketing Meetup is Tuesday, October…

by Missy Ward

The next Central Florida Internet Marketing Meetup (Sponsored by Affiliate Summit) is taking place on Tuesday, October 30th at 6:00pm at Caffe Positano in Apopka, FL.

Internet Marketing Meetup Agenda:

6:00pm-6:30pm: Announcements and Housekeeping
6:30pm-7:30pm: Session – Google Analytics Basics
7:30pm-9:00pm: Q&A and Open Networking

Speaker: Pat Grady, Owner of RhinoFish Media

Session details:

Google Analytics basics including: (1) tracking code basics; (2) tagging URLs; (3) traffic sources and reporting basics; (4) events and goals basics; (5) content experiments basics. This session is a general introduction to the basic areas and functioning of Analytics, followed by Q&A. By demystifying the fundamentals, we'll set the stage for future exploration of this complex and powerful analysis platform.

About the Speaker:

Pat was told he didn’t know enough about affiliate marketing to start an in-house program, so he decided to learn more about it from the affiliate side. A few months later, his first affiliate website was making him more affiliate money than his job ever did, so he quit. Pat has now been an affiliate, merchant, affiliate manager / OPM, PPC consultant, investor, network compliance cop, researcher, beer taster, vocal forum member, mentor, advisory board member, charity donor, biz owner, analytics expert, fisherman, and general smarty pants instigator. Having spent his own money for PPC in his early days, his expertise is in ROI-centric PPC management, with an eye on multi-channel attribution. Affiliate genes in his DNA, his RhinoFish Media PPC agency is performance based. He knows every trick in the book, and thoroughly enjoys “educating” those who pursue unethical ways that harm the ecosystem he calls home.

Cost:

Admission is free. Positano's full menu is available if you'd like to purchase dinner

Click here to RSVP on Meetup.com

And don’t forget to join the Affiliate Summit Orlando Meetup Group and follow us twitter.com/otownaffiliates at to stay on top of our local events.

If you would like to present on a topic in the future, please contact Missy at [email protected].

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Affiliate Marketing

Choosing the Right WordPress Hosting For Your Blog

by Missy Ward

This post originally appeared on itsaWAHMthing.com, where I regularly contribute articles about affiliate marketing, productivity and technology tips for small businesses and work at home moms.

Choosing a host for your new WordPress blog probably isn't your highest priority in the early stages of development, but it shouldn't be taken lightly. Your hosting provider has a big influence on the performance of your blog and, at the end of the day is in total control of your blog's destiny.

Why Free Hosting Sucks

The most critical piece of advice that I share with every new blogger I know is to Never Use Free Hosting. While the lure of “free” is tempting, there are inherent drawbacks that will severely hamper your ability to grow your audience including limited space, questionable uptime, non-search-engine-friendly pages, unwanted banner or popup advertising, ugly templates, the possibility of the host closing it's doors and you losing all your content forever… and a whole lot more. Read more “Choosing the Right WordPress Hosting For Your Blog” →

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Affiliate Marketing

When Should You Start Monetizing a New Blog?

by Missy Ward

This question came in on AskMissyWard.com. Got an affiliate marketing question? Ask away and I'll answer it as time permits.

“I recently started a new blog featuring kitchen-tested vegan recipes and post both great dishes and the disasters. Ideally, I'd like to cover the costs of running the blog – hosting, my email newsletter, etc. and it would honestly be great if I could make some money out of it. I was planning on giving affiliate marketing a shot after sitting in on part your training day during Affiliate Summit East 2012. Can you let me know your thoughts on when I should start monetizing a new blog?” – Michelle

Hey Michelle,

There are two schools of thought on this subject. Below are the pros and cons of both philosophies.

Build Your Blog First, Monetize Later

Pro: Some bloggers believe that the reader’s focus will be drawn to content rather than ads which may build a stronger audience faster.

Con: You'll constantly be trying to figure out that perfect moment where you should start monetizing.
Con: You might underestimate the value of your traffic and leave all that money on the table.
Con: You might have to go through a blog redesign to include space for ads that you didn't account for when starting your blog.
Con: You may realize that your readers are not buyers. They'll love all of your recipes, but won't buy that Rachel Ray cookware you may be trying to sell.

Monetize Your Blog from the Start

Pro: Between the hard costs associated with running your blog plus the time you're spending doing it, isn't some money better than no money?
Pro: You can incorporate space for ads immediately, rather than having to redesign later.
Pro: Your readers will have a consistent experience from day one, rather than questioning your motives the day you decide to monetize your content
Pro: Learning what works early on can increase potential income down the road. (What products sell, where are my best ad placements on my site, which ad serving platform works best for me)

Con: New blogs less likely to make significant money without having traffic.
Con: Finding advertisers can be more difficult as some require you to have a certain traffic level before they'll allow you into their affiliate program.

I subscribe to the “Monetize Your Blog from the Start” because it's rarely my intent to create a blog or website that won't generate revenue.

Let me know what you wind up doing!

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