Associate Programs Newsletter #177

Thanks to all of you who wrote commenting on my item last week about the terrorist attack. Obviously, it's still at the forefront of our minds and will be for a long time to come.

As many of you have said, we can't let it crush us, so today's edition is a "getting back to business" one, with a mixture of good and bad news and some very interesting opportunities.

CONTENTS:

1. Be Free rewards predatory advertiser
2. How I made 103 sales in 4 days
3. iBoost won't pay Sponsorships.net affiliates
4. CarPrices.com months late with payouts
5. New Australian affiliate network attracts merchants
6. Create your own dating site
7. New LeadCrunch grows fast
8. CJ makes its links IE 6 and P3P compliant
9. New worm is dangerously different
10. How Slashdot survived the attack, and other news
11. Useful resources: September 11 links
12. Thought for today: Pessimists and optimists

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1. Be Free rewards predatory advertiser
=======================================

Be Free has rewarded a persistent user of predatory advertising, ConsumerInfo.com, with an "Acclamation Point".

Consumer Info is one of a small group of companies still using eZula's predatory advertising, which places advertising links on web sites without the owner's permission.

This predatory advertising by eZula, Surf+ and Gator has angered web site owners. Prominent figures have accused these "scumware" companies of theft. At the very least, what they're doing is unethical.

Sadly for the affiliate marketing industry, Be Free's new "Acclamation Point" does NOT mean Be Free is warning you to avoid Consumer Info.

Be Free LIKES Consumer Info - a LOT.

The Acclaim Program is designed to promote "exemplary business practices" in the affiliate marketing industry.

In Be Free's new Acclaim Program, merchants receive an "Acclamation Point" if they reach and maintain a specific set of "affiliate-friendly" criteria.

The criteria range from timely and accurate reporting and payment to regular affiliate communication and responsive support.

Jennifer F. Roy, Director, Corporate Communications at Be Free, says the following merchants have been awarded an Acclamation Point:

True Credit
WebRx
800.com
Bass Pro
Birthday Express
Deluxe Business Checks
eHealth Insurance
Reader's Digest - Gifts.com
Musician's Friend
Payless Shoe Source
PetsMart
QwestDex
Zixmail
Microsoft (shop.microsoft)
NetFlix
Thompson Cigar
Consumer Info

As far as I know, Consumer Info is the only company on that list which is using predatory advertising.

Two days ago I e-mailed Jennifer and asked her if she agreed with me that predatory advertising is unethical. I guess my question is sitting in someone's too-hard basket. I haven't heard back.

I hope Be Free will have the good sense to revise the criteria in the Acclaim Program.

Any company using dirty tricks doesn't deserve to be acclaimed for anything.

You can read more about Be Free's Acclaim Program here:
http://www.befree.com/company/pressroom/releases/2001/081501.htm

Catch up on the outrage over predatory advertising here:
http://www.scumware.com

NEXT WEEK:

I hope to have Commission Junction's thoughts on predatory advertising.

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2. How I made 103 sales in 4 days
=================================

Longtime readers of this newsletter will know that I have a passion for lifetime commission affiliate programs - ones which pay you over and over again.

Here's a classic example.

Two weeks ago, Ken Evoy launched "Make Your Site SELL! 2002", the ultimate reference manual for anyone selling anything on the Net.

Before I lifted a finger to promote the ebook, I had achieved 103 sales in 4 days, mainly to repeat customers.

Ken made the sales for me - and then paid me commissions on the sales.

That's the beauty of lifetime commission programs. The customer is "yours" for life.

"My" customers have learned to trust Ken. They have learned that in every product he produces he OVER-delivers, offering unsurpassed value.

So when his new product came out, they rushed to grab it.

(Even if he modestly calls it an update, it really is a new product. MYSS has DOUBLED in size and is now more than 1,500 pages of top-notch strategies, resources and info that anyone selling anything needs to know.)

Here are my sales stats just after the launch:

September 07: 35 sales
September 08: 36 sales
September 09: 19 sales
September 10: 13 sales

Total sales in 4 days: 103.

What's really important here is that these sales were all made BEFORE I reviewed "MYSS! 2002" in my newsletter.

BEFORE I began promoting this ebook, Ken was busy making sales for me, and yet he pays me the commission for those sales.

Does YOUR favorite affiliate program do that?

I'm not saying you can achieve repeat commissions like this with ANY old lifetime commission program.

Lifetime programs work powerfully for the affiliate ONLY when you have exactly the right conditions:

The merchant must offer terrific VALUE - providing high quality products.

The merchant must have won customers' TRUST, so that they will return and make repeat purchases.

The merchant must know how to SELL.

When those three factors are combined with lifetime commissions, the result is pure magic.

If you've already joined Ken's 5 Pillar affiliate program you'll know that when it comes to looking after his affiliates, he always goes the extra mile. Here's how:
Aren't you fed up with merchants who use you to attract visitors and then divert them to another site without paying you a commission? Ken NEVER does that.

Aren't you also fed up with affiliate program managers who keep trying to sell you things instead of helping you succeed? Ken doesn't do that either. When he recommends a product or service in his newsletters, he NEVER uses an affiliate link.

In all the 1,500+ pages of "Make Your Site SELL! 2002", in which Ken recommends a huge number of useful resources, Ken NEVER uses an affiliate link. You can be absolutely positive he's recommending the resource because it will help you achieve sales.

This may seem crazy at first glance, but SiteSell's web pages are NOT optimized for search engines. Why? Because Ken doesn't want to compete with his affiliates in the search engines. He's willing to miss out on free traffic to help his affiliates achieve more sales.

I don't know of any other affiliate program which works so hard to support its affiliates.

Ken's 5 Pillar program really is special.

Check it out here:

http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/affiliates

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3. iBoost won't pay Sponsorships.net affiliates
===============================================

Affiliates owed money by Sponsorships.net have received bad news from the parent company, iBoost. They won't receive any cash.

Some affiliates are owed thousands of dollars.

The iBoost network has bought a number of companies including LinkBuddies.com, BizBlast.com, FitnessLink.com, Associate-It.com, W3Nation.com, eBoz.com and TheFreeSite.com.

iBoost says on its web site that it receives 1.6 million unique visitors a month.

In May, iBoost closed another company which it had bought, Website Sponsors, and directed affiliates to sign up for Sponsorships.net.

When the Sponsorships.net program closed in July, the company said it would start paying affiliates at least a portion of their commissions in two to three weeks.

Now they've been told they won't receive ANY payments.

In a letter to affiliates, iBoost discusses the decline in online advertising, dot-com failures and job cuts.

"Like you, although we have lost much, we too do not want to give up on the promise of eCommerce. However, due to the unforeseen economic events, iBoost is currently not in any position to pay you cash. In that respect - and in lieu of any payments owed to you - we have worked out a solution that we feel is fair to all parties involved."

Instead of cash, affiliates are being offered a marketing package which includes banner impressions, search engine submissions, content, newsletters, website utilities, reference guides, and bonus credits with pay-per-click search engines.

Affiliates determined to be paid the money they are owed have been studying the affiliate agreement.

Unfortunately for affiliates, the agreement says:

"In the event iBoost fails to receive payment(s) due from third party advertisers it shall have no obligation to pay you."

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4. CarPrices.com months late with payouts
=========================================

Several affiliates have complained that they haven't received their checks from CarPrices.com.

Here's a typical complaint posted on the Associate Programs Message Board by "Pete":

"I have not been paid by CarPrices yet. I joined them in Feb. 2001. They owe me about $600. I have other things going and didn't take the time to check up on them. They are five months late paying me. They aren't replying to my e-mail. Kind of makes me sick. Especially the way they lead us on."

I asked Nikki Atchison of CarPrices.com if the company is still paying affiliates. Here's her reply:

"Yes, Carprices.com is still doing its payouts. We are using a prioritization method of doing payouts at this point in time due to the challenges we are all experiencing. All of our partners will be paid in due time and we thank them for their patience."

======================================================
5. New Australian affiliate network attracts merchants
======================================================

A new Australian affiliate network launched in July, CyberAffiliates, has attracted several new merchants, including companies well known in Australia.

Merchants signed up so far include Dymocks, Drive.com, Chaos music, Florists Australia, Picturestore, Sports Online, Computer Best Buys, Leading Edge Books and Bodywise Underwear.

"New merchants about to sign are Cellarmasters and Greengrocer," says Peter Hamilton of Pinpoint, the parent company.

CyberAffiliates is using ConnectCommerce technology under license from Performics.

Performics made a mistake in its news release in July - http://www.performics.com/about/press/pr_07-11-01.html [UPDATE: This link no longer works.] when it said that CyberAffiliates had 200 merchants.

Performics was confusing CyberAffiliates and Pinpoint's CyberRewards.com, a rewards program for online merchants and shoppers, which does have 200 merchants signed up.

CyberAffiliates:
http://www.CyberAffiliates.com.au

==============================
6. Create your own dating site
==============================

Here's a new affiliate program which has interesting possibilities and pays a high commission - DatingTech.

It's a dating/personals site on which you can put your own branding. You can promote it as a stand-alone dating site or as part of an existing site.

The two-tier program pays a whopping 55% and 10% residual commissions, paid bi-weekly with no minimum.

The program is free to join.

If you're wondering if it's too late to get into the dating field, consider these facts from the company's site:

There are over 85 million singles in the United States, alone.

Of the single adults in the United States, nearly 65% of them have daily access to the Internet, if desired.

The Internet online dating industry has doubled each 12 months for the past 3 years and is expected to remain at this growth level for the foreseeable future.
Online dating sites will produce revenues exceeding $300 million in the year 2002, the company says.

When you set up your dating site, please don't just use the material provided by DatingTech. That's what the unsuccessful affiliates will do. Remember that affiliates who do something special - something creative, useful and memorable - will be the ones who succeed.

Here are a few ideas to get you started.

First, decide who you're writing for.

Then have fun writing a series of keyword-rich articles or interviews, such as "My Blind Date From Hell", "10 Things You Must Do On Your First Date", "How to Re-enter the Dating Scene at 40" and "Our Romance Began in Cyberspace" ... you get the idea.

Consider adding some of the following: surveys, quizzes, contests, a message board and a newsletter to your site.

Aim to make your visitors feel good about visiting your site and encourage them to provide articles for you.

Study a few magazines for useful ideas.

Be a little bit outrageous - and funny if possible. See if you can persuade complementary sites to link to your articles, and offer your articles to ezines, magazines and web sites.

You'll want a memorable domain name. To help you find one, use the Deleted Domain Search at http://www.whois.net .

The following names were all available a few hours ago:

MatchmakingWorld.com
AmericasDatingService.com
1stForDating.com
AreYouDating.com
BestDatingTips.com
DatingBuzz.com
DatingClassifiedAds.com
DatingAroundTheWorld.com
DatingEngine.com
DatingEzine.com
DatingGrapevine.com
DatingHound.com
DatingFind.com
DatingGuide.com
DatingVibes.com
MyDatingTips.com
VeganDating.com
UniversityOfDating.com
DestinationRomance.com
GetMeRomance.com
RediscoverRomance.com
RomanceHelper.com
SensationalRomance.com

...and that was just a small selection of those I found very quickly.

Perhaps you can think of a livelier name.

It's good to see that the DatingTech affiliate agreement meets all the Affiliate Union certification requirements - including banning predatory advertising.

(By the way, if a program meets all the Affiliate Union criteria, that by itself does NOT automatically guarantee it's a good program. The union encourages merchants to DISCLOSE what they're doing. It doesn't tell them what to do. So you still have to read the affiliate agreement.)

One sentence in the DatingTech agreement says this:

"Either you or we may terminate this Agreement at any time, with or without cause..."

So, as with many affiliate programs, you could put time and effort into promoting it, and then quite legally be dumped for no good reason.

However, other clauses in the agreement indicate that the company is striving to treat affiliates well, so the over-all impression is good.

You should be able to have a lot of fun with this one.

You can join the DatingTech program here:

http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/datingt

============================
7. New LeadCrunch grows fast
============================

New pay-for-performance network LeadCrunch is off to a flying start. Only one month old, it already has more than 30 offers from which you can choose, and a wide variety of linking methods.

CEO Brian Welch says many more offers will be added over the next couple of weeks.

[UPDATE: In July, 2005, LeadCrunch was acquired by JP Sauve's CPA network MaxBounty.]

============================================
8. CJ makes its links IE 6 and P3P compliant
============================================

Commission Junction's qksrv.net ad serving and tracking links are now fully compliant with Microsoft IE 6 and P3P, says Todd Crawford of CJ.

This means anyone using an IE 6 browser with the privacy settings set between "accept all cookies" and "high" will track sales and leads.

"The old commission-junction.com ad serving and tracking links are not P3P compliant and CJ suggests you switch over to the new format (qksrv.net). Currently, the old commission-junction links do track but are not P3P compliant," Todd says.

"All links generated by the CJ system since the middle of January 2001 are in the new qksrv format."

If you haven't a clue what this is all about, read this article by Neil Durrant:

"New Privacy Issues Will Affect Affiliate Tracking"
affiliatemarketing.co.uk/may01.htm

====================================
9. New worm is dangerously different
====================================

I don't usually report new viruses or worms, but this one is dangerously different. It's a mass-mailing worm that uses multiple methods to spread itself.

More details:

wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,46944,00.html
internetnews.com/dev-news/article/0,,10_886981,00.html
newsfactor.com/perl/story/13607.html
symantec.com/press/2001/n010919.html

(I recently switched from McAfee to Norton anti-virus software from http://www.symantec.com . It's working nicely in the background deleting viruses received in my email.)

====================================================
10. How Slashdot survived the attack, and other news
====================================================

From Niche Site to News Portal How Slashdot survived the attack
ojr.usc.edu/content/story.cfm?request=641

Think Fast, Be First - How Amazon Responded
clickz.com/brand/brand_mkt/article.php/885711

Monsters messed with wrong family
accessatlanta.com/ajc/terrorism/voices/0913pitts.html

You have a choice, says Declan Dunn. Do what the majority of people are doing (which fails), or...
clickz.com/aff_mkt/aff_mkt/article.php/884321

========================================
11. Useful resources: September 11 links
========================================

Shirley Kaiser has collected a list of September 11 discussion lists and related links:
http://www.brainstormsandraves.com/attack/index.shtml

MediaMap has compiled a list of links to resources specifically for those covering the events of September 11. The page is available at http://www.mediamap.com/Sept11.asp. MediaMap says it will update the page continuously for the foreseeable future.

===============================================
12. Thought for today: Pessimists and optimists
===============================================

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." - Sir Winston Churchill.

All the best

Allan Gardyne