Affiliate marketing posts from seasoned affiliate marketing pro Missy Ward.

Domain Name Auction After Affiliate Summit East 2010

by Missy Ward

There will be a major domain name auction and networking event on Wednesday, August 18 (the day after Affiliate Summit East 2010) in New York City.

Extend your Affiliate Summit trip, so you can learn from domain name and online advertising experts at the DOMAINfest NYC Power Networking Day event on August 18, 2010 at the Grand Hyatt Midtown Manhattan.

Registration is only $175 and includes access to all sessions, lunch, and dinner cocktail party.

The big event of the day is the Moniker.com Live Domain Name Auction, where you will have a chance to bid on domains such as Rate.com, ByOwner.com, Cable.com, StockQuotes.com, Stocks.com, CreditRate.com, Patents.com, and many more at all price points.

Visit http://domainauctions.moniker.com/2010/DOMAINfest-New-York to view the domain name auction catalog.

Bids are accepted in the room, online and via telephone proxy.

Get 20% off registration using discount code AFFSUMMIT.

Check out http://domainfest.com/NewYork2010/agenda for more details.

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Call Me Anything, Just Don’t Call Me Late for…

by Missy Ward

A Rose by Any Other Name There’s been a lot of talk of late regarding a change in the affiliate marketing nomenclature; inclusive of the industry name itself.

Some argue that as our industry evolves, that the designation should take on a broader descriptive, e.g., “performance marketing industry”, in which affiliate marketing plays a vital role as a significant channel; yet one of many.

As an industry, we do tend to over-complicate the issue by using disparate terminology for essentially the same things, leading to even greater confusion, especially to folks outside of our community.

For the last decade, I’ve called myself an “affiliate”, while others have preferred to be called “publisher” or “associate”. Lately, I’ve also seen the term “media partner” being used to essentially describe the same relationship that I’ve had with my “merchants” (or “advertisers”, depending on what THEY choose to call themselves).

Some make a case that “affiliate marketing” carries a lot of yucky baggage with it and by renaming it “performance marketing”, that our industry will garner more media attention, become shielded from advertising tax laws and that it will somehow change the perception that some people have about our industry overall.

Others maintain that after spending years educating online marketers and the public about affiliate marketing that changing the name now, would set us back in a time where our industry continues to emerge and is now being recognized as a legitimate, viable marketing channel.

As I look at the Affiliate Summit East 2010 agenda included in this issue of FeedFront and the incorporated articles written by the experienced marketers that specialize in various subsets of internet marketing, I would wager that many do not call themselves affiliate marketers or performance marketers. Rather, they likely have labeled themselves as social media marketers, SEO’s, bloggers, e-mailers, direct marketers, etc., even though they all are involved in affiliate marketing at some level and are actively trying to increase their foothold in our growing sector of online marketing.

So, while I’m all for a term to better reflect our industry’s forward-thinking, innovative, multi-channel approach to generating sales and leads, I don’t know if I’m ready to change it to performance marketing, just because it somehow seems more mainstream.

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”- William Shakespeare

Email me your thoughts at missyward@affiliatesummit.com to be published in FeedFront Magazine’s new Letters to the Editor section.

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Recap of the Affiliate Marketers Give Back, 2010 Avon…

by Missy Ward

On June 5-6, Team Affiliate Marketers Give Back set out on our 4th annual walk to fight breast cancer. This time, we took on the streets of Chicago for the 2010 Avon Walk for Breast Cancer.

Our team gathered on event eve at Gino's East of Chicago for a pre-walk team dinner consisting of lots of carbs (pizza and beer). Most of us got to bed early as we had to be up in time to make the 5:00am bus to the Opening Ceremony which was held at Soldier Field. It was an emotional event which gave us the motivation we needed to get walking as soon as they let us out the gates at 7:00am.

Day One's walk took us from Soldier Field through the beautiful neighborhoods of Chicago, many of which I've never seen before. 26.2 miles later, we crossed our first finish line at Warren Park — the site of the temporary Avon Wellness Village, where many of the walkers camp overnight.

Some of us went back to the hotel while others decided to walk (hobble) a little bit further to a local Mexican restaurant to celebrate with Tacos y Cerveza.

Day two's 13.1 mile walk came way too early for some of us. Standing in line at 5:45am feeling sore and covered with blisters, I had to question my sanity for a moment. But after seeing a few of the folks that were walking that were currently going through chemo standing on line with me, I had a much better perspective on what I was about to set out to do.

The route was extraordinary today. The views along the water were stunning while the walk through the Cancer Survivor's Garden was met with mixed emotions of hope and sadness.

After a quick pit-stop at the Chicago Blackhawk's Store to pick up some shirts to support the team later that night, we were back on the road to Soldier Field where I crossed the finish line with Melissa Salas of Buy.com.

After months of fudraising, 39.3 miles walked, dozens of team blisters and aching muscles, I am proud to say that Affiliate Marketers Give Back raised our highest team amount to date: $73,058.81. Our team was the 5th largest fundraising team and I was the 3rd largest fundraiser overall.

I'd like to thank all of the people on my team, all of the folks that supported us with donations and words of encouragement along the way and the rest of the walkers that took on Chicago with us.

In total, the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer Chicago raised over $7.7 Million, most of which was distributed immediately at the Closing Ceremony to breast cancer organizations throughout the Chicago area to support the remarkable work they do in the fight against breast cancer; work that will someday rid the world of this disease.

We all have so much to be proud of as we showed the world what the power of a united community can do.

Click here for my pictures or here for Karen Garcia's pictures of the event. (I will add more from the team as they get uploaded).

Shine on!

PS – Brian Chase, Melissa Chase, Kevin and Rhianna De Vincenzi, Sara D'Onofrio, Jenny Frederick, Karen Garcia, Jenna Jasso, Brian Littleton, Chris Pearson, Jaz Pester, Scott Richter, Amy Rodriguez, Melissa Salas, Brook Schaaf and Kevin Strawbridge: I am honored that you walked this year and I promise you… walking is like child birth. In a few days, you'll forget about the pain and I swear you'll want to walk again next year in Denver 😉

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2010 LinkShare Golden Link Award Finalists Announced

by Missy Ward

LinkShare has announced the finalists for the 8th Annual LinkShare Golden Link Awards.

The Golden Link Awards ceremony will bring together more than 400 Advertisers, Publishers, OPMs and Agencies to celebrate great industry leaders and innovators.

Shawn Collins and I (we come as a matched pair 🙂 ) are up for Performance Marketing’s Most Vocal Advocate, along side of Melanie Seery and Steve Schaffer. Shawn and I can’t be more honored to be selected as finalists again this year.

The 8th Annual LinkShare Golden Link Awards will be held during the LinkShare Symposium East luncheon in New York City on June 22, 2010.

Here is the list of all finalists in every category:

2010 Golden Link Award Nominees

Best New Advertiser: The Limited, CarRentals.com, Crocs

Best New Publisher: Deals Woot, Mall Networks, Blastoff Network

Innovative Advertiser of the Year: CheapOair, Macy’s, Dollar Days

Innovative Publisher of the Year: Clicks2Customers & RingRevenue, Airmiles.ca, StyleFeeder

Affiliate Manager of the Year: Gus Brito of Tiger Direct, Nette Martino of Orbitz, Michelle Brown of Drugstore.com

OPM/Agency of the Year: Gen3 Marketing, The JAR Group, OPMPros.com

Advertiser’s Choice: Citizen Hawk, Coupon Cabin, Deals Woot, Fabulous Savings, Mall Networks, Market America, Mr. Rebates, Offers.com/Vertive, Offerpal, Savings.com, ShopAtHome, StyleFeeder, SurfMyAds, TheFind, Upromise

Publisher's Choice: Avon, AHAVA, Bloomingdale’s, Care2, Chase, CheapOair, Cookies Kids, Crocs, Current Catalog, Delta Airlines, Drugstore.com, Ed Hardy, Estee Lauder, FragranceNet.com, Gaiam, Ice.com, JC Penney, KarmaLoop, Lego, Macy’s, Microsoft Store, Neiman Marcus, The North Face, Omaha Steaks, OneTravel, Orbitz, Saks Fifth Avenue, Service Magic, Walmart

International Advertiser of the Year: ASOS, Drugstore.com, Topshop & Topman

Technology Genius Award: TheFind, Skimlinks, ScanBuy

Performance Marketing's Most Vocal Advocate: Melanie Seery, Missy Ward & Shawn Collins, Steve Schaffer

Congratulations to all the finalists!

This is one of my must-attends, every year. Linkshare always puts on a very classy event packed with hundreds of top-notch affiliates, high-quality speakers and awesome networking opportunities.

Will I see you at the LinkShare Symposium East?

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