Affiliate Summit East 2010, starting on Sunday, August 15th at the Hilton New York, is now sold out.

This conference makes it 15 times in a row that attendee registrations for Affiliate Summit have closed before the event, due to capacity.

As we process cancellations, the registration page will open up and additional registrations will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.

Check http://www.regonline.com/ase10 for availability. If you’re able to enter your registration — you’re good to go.

In the event registrations are open onsite, based on last minute cancellations, the rate will be $449 for a Silver Pass, $749 for a Gold Pass, $1,749 for a Platinum Pass, and $2,749 for a Diamond Pass.

More information on Affiliate Summit at http://www.AffiliateSummit.com

More Info: Click here

Lately there has been much talk about how affiliate marketing fits into the overall advertising and marketing industry. There has also been an increased effort to bring major brand advertisers into the space and how to best introduce more key advertisers to the opportunities (and profits) we can provide as affiliates.

It has been suggested that we have outgrown the simple term affiliate and should now call ourselves performance marketers.

Overall, this makes sense. Few people I encounter offline understand anything about what it is that we do. So I conducted a small experiment. While I was meeting with a few people at a local business networking event, I described my company as a performance marketing company. Someone (thankfully) asked, “What’s that”? So I gave the following explanation:

“Performance marketing is where advertisers, working through an agency, place creatives with publishers who accept payment (generally via a neutral tracking network) as a result of consumer action on the advertising instead of an arbitrary payment based on possible reader/viewership”.

The reaction was quite interesting in that everyone in the small group instantly understood the model. The similarities to traditional marketing and advertising channels made sense to them.

They were able to associate their existing knowledge and experience with their own business advertising with what it is that we do without me having to give a larger explanation of affiliate marketing.

Then I added that 90% of what my performance marketing company does is online. I ended up making a couple referrals to friends in our industry that day; businesses that understood what we do and needed to explore creating an affiliate program for their companies.

That experiment in self definition occurred a couple months ago when several affiliate tax issues were front and center. This got me thinking about how our self definition as affiliates has been hurting us.

TV stations regularly air infomercials during the weekend nights on a performance basis. So do radio, cable, and sometimes even newspapers will do a hybrid deal (fixed fee plus a performance “commission” for coupons).

And why were those performance marketers “left out” of the affiliate tax law proposals? And what would happen if we describe our industry structure in the terms of the rest of the advertising and marketing industry?

It seems to me (and I am not a lawyer) that by reclassifying ourselves as performance marketers and describing our structure like the rest of the advertising and marketing community, that if and when affiliate tax legislation is being debated it would be more difficult to separate us from the larger performance marketing industry.

This would mean that online, TV, cable, radio, and print media would be affected along with us and that we can stand united to fight unfair and burdensome taxation.

We’re all performance marketers. Whether a performance marketing affiliate, performance marketing network, performance marketing agency, etc. It’s time to redefine ourselves as performance marketers to help others understand our businesses, create larger opportunities with brand advertisers, and to help mitigate being separated, targeted, and taxed unfairly.

Scott Medlock is the Administrator of the AffSpot Affiliate Forum and Blog

Download the entire FeedFront issue 11 here – http://www.scribd.com/doc/29057000/FeedFront-Magazine-Issue-11
FeedFront issue 11 articles can be found here as well: http://feedfront.com/archives/article00date/2010/07

The eleventh issue of FeedFront Magazine is out, so we’re on to issue 12.

The next issue of FeedFront will be coming out in November 2010.

If you are interested in writing an article, go to the FeedFront proposal form to submit a one sentence summary on what you’d like to cover.

Articles are a maximum of 500 words – no exceptions. Anything longer will not be considered.

No ghost-written articles.

Do not submit a complete article now – just a one sentence summary.

You will be contacted whether or not your proposal is accepted for the next issue.

More Info: Click here

The agenda is up for the Audience Conference, which is taking place the day before Affiliate Summit East 2010 at world famous Caroline’s on Broadway in NYC on Saturday, August 14, 2010..

The Audience Conference is a one day event featuring an amazing line-up of brilliant minds and hilarious comedians.

Check out the agenda packed with the likes of Chris Brogan and Jason Calacanis, as well as a slew of funny people who have been featured on Comedy Central, HBO, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and Last Comic Standing.

You get all of the speakers, a light breakfast, bar food for lunch, and beer/wine for just $129 – space is very limited.

Register now for the Audience Conference.

More Info: Click here

You’ve been there; you see a product online and click the buy now link, but then you’re taken to a cart that you just don’t trust. The originating landing page may have looked professional, but the cart does not pass the security test.

This is an all too familiar situation. If you’re the affiliate, imagine the number of sales you have dropped and the revenue you have lost.

The quality of a merchant’s shopping cart, and more accurately the quality of an e-commerce website, should not be overlooked when evaluating which products to promote.

As an affiliate, you invest too much time and money to support sub-par merchants and their products. You should expect merchants to have a world class e-commerce solution to help convert the clicks you deliver into paying customers.

After all, as an affiliate that’s the core of your business. So, before partnering with a merchant, you should evaluate the merchant’s e-commerce website.

The Merchant’s Home Page
The first step is to evaluate the merchant’s home page. Ask yourself if the page is inviting? Does it feature an image of the product? Does the page look professional? Is the navigation intuitive and are all requisite elements included? Are global elements included and if so for which locals? Is the page translated? Are localized versions of the products available?

Key Elements
Next, look at key elements that are critical to the e-commerce portion of the merchant’s website. The most important elements for an affiliate are the product detail pages. Check to see if each product has a dedicated page and determine if the page is inviting, professional and sales focused.

Notice the page layout and if the product picture, description and call-to-action are located above the fold of the website. Look to see if consumers are provided with enough information to make an informed buying decision, such as independent references and user-generated feedback.

Product Detail Page Layout
Ensure the product detail page layout is well merchandised, clear and actionable. Consumers should be able to scroll through the featured details for more information about the product and again be prompted to take action.

Shoppers who are ready to buy should be able to make an immediate purchase without further navigation, while those in the information gathering stage should be able to read through the product features and once fully informed make a product purchase.

The Shopping Cart
The final step is to look at the actual cart itself. Determine if the cart page is intuitive and simple to use and if the products are accurately represented. Walk through the purchase process itself – and in some cases actually make a purchase. The ultimate litmus test is trust – do you trust the cart?

By following these steps, you will be informed before making your decision to support a merchant and their products.

George Hansen is the Director of Sales and Business Development for Digital River oneNetworkDirect.

Download the entire FeedFront issue 11 here – http://www.scribd.com/doc/29057000/FeedFront-Magazine-Issue-11
FeedFront issue 11 articles can be found here as well: http://feedfront.com/archives/article00date/2010/07

The six “metal” sponsors of Affiliate Summit East 2010 will have the used of a meeting room (the Gibson Suite) at the Hilton New York on Sunday (12-6pm), Monday (10-5) and Tuesday (10-4) of Affiliate Summit.

The sponsors who will have use of this meeting room are Epic Direct (Diamond Sponsor), ClickBank (Titanium Sponsor), ShareASale (Platinum Sponsor), Digital River’s oneNetworkDirect (Gold Sponsor), LinkShare (Silver Sponsor), and buy.at (Bronze Sponsor).

The Gibson Suite is located on the second floor of the Hilton New York, near the registration area and first floor of the exhibitor hall.

More Info: Click here

There is a new street address for Affiliate Summit effective immediately:

522 S. Hunt Club Blvd. #411
Apopka, FL 32703

Please update your address book.

More Info: Click here

Chris Brogan stated “Most major brands are doing some sort of affiliate marketing… are you?” at the recent Business Marketing Association 2010 Conference.

It was great to see people outside of performance marketing’s core challenging senior level marketers to learn about performance marketing. Certainly a sign that things are changing as the increasing volume of content online is reducing the reach and impact of traditional brand marketing channels.

As Chief Financial Officers scrutinize marketing budgets more closely, the opportunity exists for marketers utilizing emerging channels with superior ROI like affiliate marketing and search to advocate significant budget shifts away from legacy channels. However, this can only occur if you educate your senior level leadership teams across the organization about the economics and features that performance marketing provides.

With 2011 budget season just around the corner, here are some tips on how to advocate increased budgets to performance marketing channels. It’s important to consider that there are emerging channels like mobile and elsewhere where performance marketing principles will potentially to play a large role.

Here are a few things I do when presenting senior level strategy sessions to advocate more efficient marketing allocations and execution:

Explain the benefits of the performance marketing channel to budget team members – You are the expert. You understand the issues because you’ve attended the conferences, done the hard work in the trenches and busted your butt. The executive team doesn’t know what you know – YET! You must transfer the wisdom and knowledge so that others can understand.

Meet with all of these people individually BEFORE you meet as a group – People are at vastly different points on the learning curve in regards to online marketing issues. Respect that by simplifying concepts and encouraging questions. If you meet as a group, most people are afraid to ask for explanatory questions; meeting privately will create the opportunity for understanding. Most importantly, start with people at your peer level in each target group, then move to the actual budget team. You will get practice and learn valuable insights

Tie the conversation to the potential for improvement in business outcomes – Invite the people for coffee or lunch and say, “I’d like to explain to you what I do and how it affects our revenue, costs and profit”. Be sure to connect the conversation to trying to improve business outcomes; it will improve the odds of proper time allocation for your meeting and set the frame that you want to help everyone in the organization be more successful.

Encourage future communication and questions – If they view you as a helpful resource about the Internet, they will come to you with more questions and raise the profile and understanding about the great work you are doing in performance marketing.

These small steps create understanding and raise of the profile of performance marketing, which is ultimately good for everyone. Share this article and others like it; there is a long journey ahead. Enjoy the ride.

David Dalka is a business leadership consultant and marketing speaker.

Download the entire FeedFront issue 11 here – http://www.scribd.com/doc/29057000/FeedFront-Magazine-Issue-11
FeedFront issue 11 articles can be found here as well: http://feedfront.com/archives/article00date/2010/07

The deadline to get your marketing materials in all of the attendee bags for Affiliate Summit East 2010 is Tuesday, July 27, 2010.

For only $1,000, you can have one item inserted in each of the bags handed out to Affiliate Summit attendees when they check in to the conference.

If you want to take advantage of this sponsorship, you must act now – all inserts must arrive by July 27, 2010 in order to be included in attendee bags.

No exceptions – this is a firm deadline.

Book this sponsorship now and get your inserts out to the fulfillment house.

Please send 3,500 items to:

Queens Center for Progress
Attention: Affiliate Summit
81-15 164th Street
Jamaica, NY 11432

Visit http://www.affiliatesummit.com/10e-exhibitors/ for other sponsorship opportunities.

More Info: Click here

The Affiliate Summit East 2010 group rate at the Hilton New York is sold out, but you can still book rooms at the market rate at the Hilton New York.

Prices at the Hilton New York currently start at $329/night ($140/night more than the non-refundable rate that was available for months – book early new time!).

Alternately, there are many other hotels in close proximity to the Hilton New York, which is located at 1335 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019 (6th Avenue & 53rd Street).

Check out the map at http://goo.gl/maps/ldgg for some hotels in the general area.

And if you haven’t registered already for Affiliate Summit, be sure to do so right away – we’re on the verge of selling out.

More Info: Click here