With the U.S. Open in full swing this week, the 2^nd Annual Team Chaos Tennis Tournament took a short break with very few matches scheduled, to allow players to fly to New York and compete against the likes of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Roddick, and Teymuraz Gabashvili.

Team Chaos Tournament organizers were initially skeptical about adjusting the game schedule based on some little known tennis event on the East Coast.  “I’m sure their event will do very well once it has a few more years to catch on,” said Team Chaos Tennis Tournament organizer Jason Von Feldt.  “Not every tennis event can expect to match the incredible growth and popularity of the Team Chaos Tennis Tournament.”

It wasn’t known how many players from the Team Chaos Tournament would actually be competing in the U.S. Open.  Reigning champion Steve Richter did fly out to the Big Apple to catch a few matches, but had previously announced that he would not being playing this year, as he was focused on defending his Team Chaos Tournament crown.

Steps are being taken to ensure that this sort of scheduling overlap will not happen in the future.  “We have asked the U.S. Open committee to check with us before scheduling their event next year, to ensure we don’t have an overlap again,” said Team Chaos Tennis Tournament organizer Jason Von Feldt.  “We haven’t heard back from them yet, but I’m sure they are just really busy this week and we’ll get a call from them soon.”

In other tournament notes, I was unfortunately forced to withdraw from the tournament due to injury, having developed tennis elbow.  What are the chances of developing tennis elbow while playing tennis?  Apparently pretty slim, as my doctor seemed very surprised when I explained that I sustained the injury, of all places, on the tennis court.  While I will be hanging up my tennis racquet for the foreseeable future, I will continue to deliver the kind of in-depth, fact-based reporting you have come to expect from all Team Chaos sports updates.  Stay tuned.

Filed under: Outside the Office by Tom Wozniak
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Our society loves to celebrate companies and individuals that launch innovative products or services.  From Apple® to Facebook to Google we hold these companies up as shining examples of success in bringing to life great ideas that resonate with consumers.  While we often talk about their innovative ideas, are we really recognizing the ideas themselves or the way the ideas have been executed?

The fact is that without execution, the greatest idea in the world is nothing more than a doodle on a napkin, a cool concept typed into a Word document, or just a thought in the back of someone’s mind.  Ideas are wonderful and you need one as the basis to develop something truly innovative, but the idea is really just the first step in a process, rather than a result in and of itself.

Did Apple invent the MP3 player?  Was Google the first search engine?  Did Facebook come up with the concept for the social network?   In each case, the answer is no.  The underlying idea for each of these success stories had already been imagined and executed by others multiple times before.  But, each of these iconic companies took the initial ideas, put their own spin on them, brought them to life in their own ways and did a better job in executing on the ideas than the competition did in the eyes of consumers.

On a more individual scale, how many times have you seen a commercial for a new product and heard someone (maybe even yourself) say something along the lines of “I had the same idea,” or “they totally stole my idea”?  Not long after the Snuggie® became a sensation, I mentioned to my wife that the next obviously ridiculous idea would be the Snuggie® for pets.  Within a month, I saw the first ad for the Snuggie® for Dogs.  Unless they have hidden microphones in Bed Bath and Beyond (where I made the comment), I think it’s safe to say that I wasn’t the first person to come up with the idea.  Instead, I was just one of lots of people who had the thought independently, but didn’t act on it by creating a product – while the creators of the Snuggie® did.

The point of all this is to make the argument that everyone has ideas.  What separates the mere brainstormers from the success stories is the execution.

Top performing affiliates are great examples of execution in action.  They often take some fairly common ideas (develop a website that promotes dating offers, build an email list that will be responsive to EDU offers, etc.) and execute more effectively than their competitors (i.e. other affiliates).  This isn’t to say that super-affiliates don’t come up with original ideas – they do – but it is how they follow through on the ideas that makes them successful, not the ideas themselves.

If you want to take your affiliate business to the next level, it isn’t always about coming up with some entirely new idea.  Don’t get hung up on the fact that you haven’t come up with a unique concept that no one else has ever thought of.  Instead, focus on ideas that you think are good (whether or not you came up with them first) and find your own ways to follow through on them.  This isn’t a guarantee of success.  Your execution might turn out to be less effective than your competitors.  The only guarantee is that if you never put an idea into action, it will never succeed.  As Wayne Gretzky once said “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”  If you want to succeed, you have to take the shot.

Filed under: Advertiser Tips, Affiliate Tips, Miscellaneous by Tom Wozniak
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Here are three quick tips for advertisers to optimize their relationships with affiliate networks.

Communicate regularly and openly with your advertising account executive.  Make sure you are touching base with your account executive (email, IM, phone call, Morse code, etc.) to make sure you are both on the same page regarding each of your offers.  Sounds pretty simple.  However, this task often slips through the cracks with newer advertisers.  An advertiser gets an offer live within a network and then goes silent for weeks at a time.  The fact is that just getting an offer live with a network is just the beginning of the process.  To get the most success from an offer, performance needs to be monitored, creatives should be tested and tweaked, and basically every aspect of the offer should be evaluated as results start coming in.  Your account executive also knows how similar offers are performing, has access to feedback from publishers running your offer, and gathers a host of other pieces of information that can help you make the most from your campaigns.  The only way to leverage all this information is to work closely with your account executive, sharing information and developing ways to boost your campaigns’ performance.

Offer competitive payouts.  Create a winning offer by providing a competitive payout.  There are many sites that keep publishers up-to-date on the payouts provided by various networks and affiliate programs on different offers.  (Offer Vault and Affspy are two of the better known sites providing this service to publishers.)  This doesn’t mean you should provide a payout that isn’t profitable for your company.  But, it does mean that publishers have much easier access to payout information throughout the industry than ever before and can make very educated decisions on which offers to run.  Offer fair payouts that meet affiliate expectations and you’ll get a lot more traction and higher quality traffic for your offers.  Talk to your account executives about setting appropriate payouts for different verticals.

Be open to new ideas. Don’t just stick to one type of traffic because you think that is the only source of quality traffic.  This doesn’t mean you need to just start taking every type of traffic on you offers.  But, you can set up test campaigns to evaluate social media, email, search, or whatever different types of traffic you previously haven’t accepted.  Your account executive can help you brainstorm and develop new initiatives to test.  You just may learn that you have been missing out on an entire segment of your market.  The only way to know is to try different things to see what works best.

While there are many facets to creating successful campaigns, incorporating these three steps into your business will help you get the best results possible.

Filed under: Advertiser Tips by Tom Wozniak
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By Molly Petullo, Compliance and Online Security Manager

An affiliate network’s fraud prevention program is a bit like playing on the offensive line in football.  If an offensive lineman is doing his job, you never hear his name mentioned by the announcers.  If you do hear an offensive lineman’s name mentioned a lot during the game, it generally means he’s committing penalties or missing blocks and hurting the offense.

Similarly, if fraud prevention is successful, it tends to go unnoticed – because issues are eliminated before they ever happen.  Just like a great offensive lineman is vital to a football team’s performance, having an effective fraud prevention program is a key to an affiliate network’s long-term success.

On any given day, there are 10’s of millions of clicks on offers running through a large affiliate network like affiliate.com.  It is a huge challenge for a network to monitor and safeguard that kind of volume from fraud and non-compliance.  As an advertiser or affiliate, you have a vested interest in working with networks that are dedicated to compliance and fraud prevention.  As an advertiser, you want to work with networks that will send you the highest quality traffic.  As an affiliate, you want to work with networks that provide quality offers and high payouts.  A strong fraud prevention program goes hand in hand with having quality offers and high payouts.

As you look at joining a new network or talking to your current networks about their fraud prevention efforts, here are just a few practices you should be looking for.

Is it a daily process? Any fraud prevention program will be more successful in identifying potential issues if it utilizes consistent and regular monitoring.  Simply doing spot checks every now and then is an invitation for trouble.

Do they follow the money? There is an obvious financial motive for online marketers that are involved in fraud – that’s why they do it.  Keep a special watch on offers with high payouts, as these can seem like lucrative targets for fraud.  But, don’t ignore the lower payout offers either.

Is someone watching when you sleep? Some perpetrators of fraud will strike when they assume (or at least hope) no one is watching.  Stay vigilant after regular business hours and during holidays.

Do they focus on metrics? Search, email, social media, PPV and every other type of marketing tactic tends to have a fairly consistent performance range for different types of offers.  Knowing what kind of performance is typical will help identify suspicious performance metrics that are outside the norm.

Do they look for over-consistencies? Just as strange spikes in performance metrics can indicate a potential issue, extreme consistency can also be a warning sign.  For example, if a publisher generates two leads on an offer at the same time, day after day, it should raise a flag.

Do they know their affiliates? Affiliates are incredibly innovative and many will test various types of traffic.  However, if an affiliate suddenly changes from doing email to search, talk to the affiliate manager and find out if this is a warning signal or just a creative publisher looking to expand into new markets.

Is it a team effort? Perhaps, the biggest key to a successful fraud prevention effort is its complete integration throughout the organization.  Just hiring a few people for the compliance department and calling it a day won’t get the job done.  Just as a football team needs more than just an offensive line to succeed, the most effective way to detect and prevent fraud is for everyone in the company to pay attention and work together.

Working with networks that follow these guidelines in their fraud prevention programs will help you build your business and avoid many of the pitfalls that can come with fraudulent clicks and leads.

Filed under: Affiliate Tips, Industry News by Tom Wozniak
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A license?  For a blog?  Seriously?  Yes, absolutely seriously.  News came out this week that the city of Philadelphia has begun requiring bloggers that reside within the city to pay a one-time business privilege license for $300 (or $50/year).

Now, before we get too up-in-arms and jump on the “Why is Philly after those Poor Bloggers!” bandwagon, let’s take a step back and look at what apparently triggered this issue.  The city has a business privilege license that applies to anyone “conducting commercial activity” based in the city.  In practice, this would likely apply to any blog that attempts to drive revenue from banner ads, AdSense, etc.  What apparently has happened is that local bloggers who made a little profit on their blogs claimed the revenue on their taxes (as they should) and this raised a flag when the city saw business revenue from these city residents (even it is was just a few dollars).  The city identified them as unlicensed businesses and began sending letters to these bloggers demanding the license fees be paid.  It appears that the city may now be more actively looking to identify potential revenue generating blogs and recoup those business license fees, rather than just utilizing the IRS to spot them.

Not surprisingly this news has caused a bit of an uproar within the general blogosphere.  But, from a close reading of the news coverage of the issue, it doesn’t appear to be a coordinated effort to target bloggers specifically (although Philadelphia may now be looking harder to indentify bloggers that would fall under the licensing program).  Instead, bloggers are just getting caught up in a larger program to generate revenue from all small businesses in the city.  Of course, that story in and of itself may be more than enough to get bloggers and other small business owners to raise their objections.  With the current economic situation, how wise is it to target small businesses with licensing fees on top of their usual taxes and other government imposed costs of doing business?

Certainly, bloggers can be a very vocal group (since sharing their opinions is basically their purpose) and whether they argue that the licenses are infringing on their first amendment rights or just create a less than welcoming environment for new small businesses in general, they are likely to raise public awareness of the license issue.  Of course, all the coverage of this story may just give other cities the idea that licensing fees are a great way to increase annual revenue.  Philadelphia isn’t the only city with this sort of business license.  CNN reports that similar licensing requirements already exist in a number of cities major, including Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Boston, to name a few.  If you are a blogger, has this issue cropped up for you?

Filed under: Industry News by Tom Wozniak
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Think about your relationships with Affiliate Managers at different networks.  Are they all pretty much interchangeable or are there a couple of Affiliate Managers that you prefer to work with?  What sets those relationships above the rest?  Chances are, you have gotten to know those Affiliate Managers better than the others.  Similarly, they have also gotten to know you and your business better than their counterparts at other networks.  So, how can you improve all of those relationships and help grow your business even faster?

Remember that your Affiliate Manager wants you to be successful.  To a great extent, their success is tied directly to yours.  Affiliate Managers with high performing affiliates are recognized and rewarded by their networks.  So, a good Affiliate Manager will want to work with you to help you grow your business.  Here are a few tips for getting the best value from your relationships with all of your Affiliate Managers.

Make your Affiliate Manager your Advocate at the Network

A good affiliate manager’s goal is to help you grow your business and drive more revenue.  With that in mind, they are there to go to bat for you at the network.  Whether it is helping you set up a white label campaign, qualify for a payout increase, or get access to a special private offer, your Affiliate Manager can have a big impact on your satisfaction and success with a network.  The best way to get this kind of support from your Affiliate Manager is to be proactive and ask for it when you need it.  Let them know what you need and how it will help you generate more revenue.

Tap in to their Expertise

Your Affiliate Manager likely works with a number of successful affiliates and has valuable insight into what is working and what isn’t.  Does your Affiliate Manager give you recommendations on offers to run, what traffic could work best, or changes you should make to optimize your creatives?  Are you asking for this kind of information or do you only call your AM about a specific question or offer?  Effectively leverage your Affiliate Manager’s knowledge and you’ll see the benefits in your revenue.

Remember that Relationships are a Two-way Street

All strong relationships have some give and take.  There needs to be something in it for both people in order to have a long lasting and effective partnership.  Remember, your Affiliate Manager is more than just an order taker or clerk.  He or she should be an integral part of your business.  This doesn’t mean you have to become best friends with every one of your Affiliate Managers, but building a great relationship is based on more than just occasional conversations about pixel placement or payout questions.  Just as your Affiliate Manager should make an effort to get to know you, spend a little time getting to know them, as well.  People are a lot happier to go the extra mile to help people they like.  This can make a real difference the next time you need your Affiliate Manager to go above and beyond to help you with an issue in your business.

Your affiliate manager can make a huge difference in your success as an affiliate marketer.  Work on developing a strong relationship and you will see the benefits in your results.

Filed under: Affiliate Tips by Tom Wozniak
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There is certainly no shortage of blogs, newsletters, and websites that touch on various aspects of the affiliate marketing industry.  Just keeping up with what some of the more well-known bloggers can be a real challenge.  But, it can be well worth your time to find a few newsletters or blogs that you find valuable and trying to check them out regularly.  Here are a few interesting posts that I have run across over the past couple of weeks, in case you missed them.

Zac Johnson
Super affiliate and blogger Zac Johnson put out a two-part post with 10 tips for monetizing your blog.  These are great tips for anyone interested in getting into blogging or who already has a blog that isn’t driving much revenue.
10 Tips for Better Blog Monetization – Pt 1
10 Tips for Better Blog Monetization – Pt 2

iMedia Connection
Every email marketer knows that a good subject line can do wonders for a campaign – and a bad one can help results really tank.  There are plenty of differing opinions on the dos and don’ts of email marketing, but this article on iMedia Connection uses a lot of examples (be prepared to read through a number of pages of content) from several bigger brands to illustrate some good and bad subject line habits.  If you are looking for ways to shake up your email program, this article is worth a read.
New Rules for Sexy Subject Lines

Seth Godin
Godin is a best-selling author and blogger who regularly writes about marketing and innovation in ways that tend to get his readers energized and excited about a topic.  His blog articles are typically short and thought provoking.  If you end up enjoying this and other posts, I recommend checking out a few of his books, as well.  They are all fast reads and will get you motivated to put some of his ideas into action.  One recent post on competition jumped out at me as a good one for affiliate marketers.
Competition

Ad Hustler
Brandon Hoffman (aka Ad Hustler) has lots of great posts on his blog and recently wrote an interesting ‘outside the box’ post on email list building.  Another great example of trying to find a unique way of approaching a marketing challenge.
A Twist on List Building

Filed under: Affiliate Tips by Tom Wozniak
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The September issue of Wired magazine includes an article proclaiming the death of the web (The Web is Dead.  Long Live the Internet).  After reading the article, I think the title may be a bit of an overstatement.  The Web is Evolving.  Long Live the Internet might be a more accurate title, but probably not as attention grabbing.  All that aside, it is an interesting article for those of us in the affiliate marketing industry.

The main point of the article is that the web (the browser controlled delivery of content on the Internet) is in decline as the majority of Internet traffic is dominated by a very tiny number of websites (Google and Facebook being two of the obvious culprits) that are slowly closing down the open Internet.  The argument is that the web will continue to shrink as more and more professional content providers seek to create ‘walled gardens’ (specifically apps) where they can hopefully generate a larger revenue stream than the more open web environment has produced.  It is probably an oversimplification, but the argument could be boiled down to the idea that apps are going to bring about the downfall of the web as we know it.

There is no question that many professional content providers (mainly traditional media companies) have struggled to transfer their old-school business models onto the Internet.  These companies have typically made their living through advertising.  Yes, subscriptions have been a part of their revenue model, but in many cases a subscription to a magazine doesn’t even cover the cost of printing and mailing.  Instead, subscription revenue was just one way to help offset some of the expense of generating and delivering the content to readers.  The real money (and profit) comes from the advertisers.  The hope was that simply transferring this model to the online world (where their distribution costs would decrease dramatically) would lead to similar if not even greater profit margins.  However, banner ads on magazine and newspaper websites turned out to drive a lot less revenue than those old print advertisements and sites like Craigslist essentially replaced the classified ad section from the newspapers.

With the rise of smartphones (especially the iPhone and Android models) and now the emerging tablet/e-reader market (iPad, etc.) many traditional content companies are looking to paid apps as the Holy Grail that will save their industry and prop up their old business model.  The app industry is certainly growing dramatically, but will it really replace the web?

Without a doubt, the way we use the web is changing.  Mobile devices have played a huge role in this change, as more and more people use them to access the Internet.  Although surfing the web on a smartphone can often be a frustrating experience.  The web is evolving to meet consumer needs with WAP pages and sites that are optimized for delivery to smaller touch screens.  While today you may prefer using a specifically designed shopping app when looking for the latest Stephen King book on your phone, tomorrow you may be happier visiting a bookstore’s website that has been designed specifically for mobile customers.  Apps are definitely the hot trend today, but with the development of HTML5, improving broadband and wireless capabilities, and other continuing technological advances, the browser-based web is still likely to remain the true ‘killer app’.

From an affiliate marketing perspective, adapting to the constantly changing Internet environment is just part of doing business.  Certainly the app market has become one aspect of that changing environment and will likely continue to grow in the future, along with the web and whatever new developments are just around the corner.  Affiliate marketers will adapt to the changes and find new ways to leverage these trends.  Our industry is driven by a focus on following the consumer and, of course, the money.  Wherever the consumer audience goes online (to a website, a portal, an app, etc.) affiliate marketers will find ways to engage them.  So, long live the web, the app, and the affiliate marketing industry.

Filed under: Industry News by Tom Wozniak
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A few weeks back I wrote an article discussing the parallels between affiliate marketing and working out.  One of the main points of the story was that new publishers have a much better chance of succeeding if they start off with a plan, rather than just jumping in and trying to figure things out as they go.  One commenter asked if I could make any suggestions on how a new affiliate marketer should start developing a plan.  While the specifics of any new affiliates business plan will be unique to each person’s situation, I tried to put together some basic steps to help a newbie put together an affiliate marketer’s business plan.  Here are a few key points that should be addressed in any new affiliate marketer’s business plan.

Create a schedule. If you’re going to start an affiliate marketing business, one of the most important things to invest into your new business is time.  You can’t just spend an hour now and again when you have some free time and expect to create a successful business.  But, how you schedule your time will be based on your schedule.  A schedule for someone working a full-time job will probably look a lot different than one put together by a stay-at-home mom.  The point is to build a schedule that works for your circumstances and allows you to spend as much time as possible on your new business.  While there are no guarantees, the more time you devote to your business, the more likely you are to succeed.

Set a budget. While affiliate marketing can be a very inexpensive business to get into, there are costs to be aware of – and they will likely increase as you become more successful.  Beyond the basics, (a computer, internet access, etc.) you will likely need to invest in some software and online services (html editors, keywords tools, email services, etc.).  Which ones you need will depend on what sorts of marketing tactics you intend to use (email, search, social media, etc.).  A little research will help you nail down these costs more specifically.  Once you get past all of the foundational costs, you have the ongoing cost of driving traffic to the offers you decide to promote.  Unless you happen to already have a bunch of websites getting tons of natural traffic, you will have to find ways to get consumers to view (and participate in) your offers.  As an example, if you start off utilizing search marketing, you will want to set a daily PPC budget on the search engines you work with (Google, Bing, etc.).  Determine an amount that you can afford, based on your current financial situation.  Remember, it is very likely that you won’t be profitable overnight, so figure out how much you can invest into the business before you need to start seeing a solid return.

Establish some clear goals. So, what is it you are looking to accomplish with your affiliate marketing business?  Start by thinking long-term then break those long-term goals down into some manageable shorter term steps.  While your goal may be to make $1 million a year in profit, how much do you realistically want to earn in your first month?  Be realistic.  Once you set those goals, you need to work out the steps to achieve them.  Don’t set a goal of making $100K profit in your first month, if your budget is only to spend $50/day on PPC.

Get educated. Most beginners in this industry don’t even know what they don’t know.  So, you need to start by learning the business…and there is a lot to learn.  If you sat down and started a list of everything you would want to know, you could become overwhelmed pretty quickly.  The key is to get a handle on the basics and then dig deeper into the specific marketing verticals you decide to focus on.  You don’t need to become an expert in email marketing if your niche is PPV.  It can be easy to feel overwhelmed by everything there is to know.  But, don’t let that deter you from getting started.  Keep it simple when you’re getting started.  As your business grows, you can continue to learn more about different aspect of the industry.

There is definitely a lot more to building a successful affiliate marketing business than what is mentioned here, but making sure you address these four areas should help you get started on the right foot.  Below are a few additional sources for more information on creating a basic business plan.  While not all of the information will be relevant for a beginning affiliate marketer, there is still a lot of useful information to help you put together an effective plan for your business.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/businessplan/ (Some basic FAQs and steps to build an effective business plan from Entrepreneur Magazine.)

http://www.inc.com/writing-a-business-plan (Basic steps to writing a business plan from Inc. Magazine.)

http://www.sba.gov/smallbusinessplanner/index.html (A government site with step-by-step guide to setting up a small business.)

The One Page Business Plan – Jim Horan (Methods for developing an effective business plan that fits on one page.  You can find it on Amazon.)

Filed under: Affiliate Tips by Tom Wozniak
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The second annual Team Chaos Tennis Tournament rolled along this week with a handful of key matches taking place around several players’ Affiliate Summit travel schedule.  There have already been some epic tennis battles and the rest of the tournament promises to take the competition to a whole new level.

The upcoming matches in the winner’s bracket will showcase some serious tennis rivalries.  In the first match Doug “Heavy D” Davis faces off against Jon “Ringo” Ringhofer in a grudge match reminiscent of McEnroe vs. Connors, Neo vs. Agent Smith, Spy vs. Spy, and Beatrix Kiddo vs. Bill – this match is sure to be a crowd pleaser.

Another big match features two attorneys taking their case to the hard court, as reigning champion Steve “The President” Richter takes on Chris “You’ve Been Served” Cantzler in a full-blown legal battle for the ages.  Representatives for each player are in negotiations regarding the time and place for the match, as well as the brand of tennis balls, length of water breaks, allowable racquet string tension, number of wrist bands, shirt color, and a host of other vital terms and conditions that will pertain to the match.  Sources report that the negotiations are moving along, with a third flip of the red-line agreement now under review.  Fortunately, the Non-Disclosure Agreement has been waived so that the scores of the match will in fact be announced to the public.

The consolation bracket has become a serious free-for-all, as the double elimination tournament gives every player a second chance to get back into the competition.  Competitors like Will “The Canadian Mountie” Charland, Brian “The Ref” Chase, Antonio “The Italian Rapper” Vitale, and Justin “The Nick of Time” Salazar are focused on turning lemons into lemonade and getting back into the final round.

“You know, not everyone is happy about dropping into the consolation bracket.  The crowds are definitely a little tougher on us, but I just tell the other players in the bracket that the fans aren’t saying ‘booooo’, they are saying ‘loooooser’… which now that I think about it isn’t really that great either,” said Brian Chase.

Stay tuned to the affiliate.com Blog and ESPN42 in Bonners Ferry, ID for the latest tournament updates!

Filed under: Outside the Office by Tom Wozniak
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