I have been in the affiliate industry and online marketing industry for about 14 years now. I have been able to make a good living for many years with a variety of different sites, merchants, promotional strategies, marketing ideas, and so on. As an affiliate I think I have a pretty good handle on what it takes to succeed as an affiliate.

But after doing something for 14 years a change of pace can be a good thing. Of course there has been many different changes over the past 14 years but they have pretty much all been related to being an affiliate. I don’t know if it is burnout or complacency or what but it has been a while since I have woken up excited to work on one of my affiliate sites so over the past few months I have been looking to make a change.

I had some interviews with a few local companies about doing various tasks including running their affiliate programs, managing their PPC, setting up their ecommerce operations, and various other online marketing functions. Some of those things I think I would have been great at, others would have taken some learning on my part which I was excited to do. But for one reason or another none of these companies seemed like a good fit for me.

So I started looking through some different affiliate managers and OPMs I respected and started to put out some feelers as to what it would take for me to work with them. After being an affiliate for so many years I thought I could bring some value to an OPM and would be a good fit since I knew what affiliate wanted in a program. After a couple weeks of discussion I came to an agreement to come on board with Roger Snow and Snow Consulting.

Why would I want to make the change? Why change gears like this? Glad you asked. Here are a few different reasons:

1. Stability – There were many things I loved about being an affiliate but the big swings month to month were taking their toll. I have had months where I have made $80,000+. I have had months were I have made under $200. With a wife and a new baby I kind of wanted something a bit more stable and a bit more secure. Yeah, the highs probably won’t be as high but the lows won’t be as low either and that is important to me right now.

2. A Need for Quality Affiliate Managers – Over the years I have written many times about the shortcomings of affiliate managers on this blog and complained about numerous topics. The more I wrote about the more I realized that one of the main problems is the lack of quality, experienced affiliate managers. Yeah, some of them purposely make bad choices, some of them don’t care about ethical issues and only want to see their sales increase, and some of them really do think they are making good decisions when in reality they are bad. But more and more I am realizing they just don’t know any better.

Since I have been around this industry for so long and know what works for affiliates I think I would really be a good voice in the merchants ears. Of course I will need to learn more about what goes on from a merchant perspective and why they make some of the decisions they do that seem destructive from an affiliate perspective but I want to help them see things from an affiliates point of view and see that many of their decisions negatively impact their bottom line.

There needs to be more quality affiliate managers out there and I think I can be a good 0ne. I have a lot of learning to do and will probably make a lot of mistakes but I will always be doing my best to make any affiliate program I work with affiliate friendly but also beneficial for the merchant.

3. Merchants Need Education – I touched on this a bit in the previous point but there are so many merchants out there who really need more education on how powerful the affiliate channel can be in generating sales. Two of the companies I talked to seem to place a low value on affiliates but that is because their only exposure to affiliate marketing is the negative stories about spammers and lawbreakers that are always coming out. They don’t see how a good, well managed affiliate program can add sales and not just cannibalize them from other sales channels.

It is hard to re-educate a merchant who is set in their ways but hopefully I will get the chance to change a few of their minds. When a solid merchant has a poorly run affiliate program or no affiliate program at all it makes me die a little inside.

4. Gone as Far as I Could as an Affiliate – Maybe this is just coming from the stagnation I have been feeling lately but maybe I have gone as far as I could as an affiliate. I can crank out niche sites, I can build datafeed sites, and I can still drive some sales but when I look at the bigger affiliate sites and some of the other marketers in this industry I feel like I am still a few years behind. I don’t have the programming knowledge to build anything amazing, I can’t just sit and crank out hundreds of pages of content, I hate building links, and I have trouble giving up control and outsourcing those things I am not good at which are becoming a more and more important part of building quality affiliate sites.

I will still keep a few of my sites running but many of them will now fall by the wayside. I won’t be able to put in the time they need and I just don’t have the energy to put into that many sites anymore.

This might just be a bit self-deprecating though. I know if I really wanted to put in the effort and time I could build some really good affiliate sites but I need a break from it for a while. No idea how long though.

5. Learning Another Facet of this Industry – One of the things I am really looking forward to is learning yet another aspect of the affiliate industry. I have seen it from an affiliate’s point of view for so many years maybe it will be good for me to see things from the other side. I have been interested in the affiliate management side of things for quite a while and I am really excited to be in a place where I can work directly with affiliates and help them improve their sales. Affiliate managers who really know their stuff are always appreciated by their affiliates and I am hoping I can learn enough to put myself in a position where I can be in that group.

Overall I am very excited to be part of the Snow Consulting team. I am very grateful for this opportunity and hope to excel as an affiliate manager. There will be stumbles along the way but I am looking forward to the challenge.

Back in January when Pinterest was the talk of the town (it kind of still is) I wrote this:

“With Pinterest it really wouldn’t be hard for an affiliate to take a merchant datafeed, write some sort of auto-pin script, and flood Pinterest with thousands or even millions of pins. It wouldn’t take long before Pinterest becomes useless.” 

That was from my post “Can Pinterest and Affiliates Have a Happy Marriage”

Then this morning I was reading on BusinessInsider.com about an affiliate who is making over a grand a day using some automatic pinning scripts and Amazon. Basically he is posting thousands of products from Amazon with his affiliate links and then repinning and liking from multiple accounts to push the items to the top of the listings and on to the popular items.

You can see kind of what he is doing in this article on Total Pinterest and read more of the interview with him on Daily Dot.

So when I predicted some affiliate somewhere would start using some sort of automated script to flood Pinterest I was correct. But in no way am I surprised. If there is money to be made some affiliate somewhere will figure out how to do it. It has happened with other sites before and it will happen again.

In some ways it makes me mad when affiliates do things like this and the public equates “affiliate” with “spammer”. Just this morning I was having a conversation with a web developer for a large retailer who said something to the effect of “I have seem some affiliate sites and they just post some amazon links and spam the page everywhere”. I can’t remember the exact words but something to that effect. The sad part is that is the public perception of what an affiliate does assuming someone even knows the term affiliate.

But there is also another side of me that is jealous of this guy who came up with these scripts. I kinda wish I would have figured out how to do it months ago. And I am guessing most other affiliates out there had a flash of “dang, why didn’t I think of that” when they read this article as well. That is part of the problem though.

It does get so tempting sometimes to tread into murky waters when there is money involved. It will usually involve breaking some terms of service or at least breaking the intent of some terms or an agreement. It will sometimes involve some sort of deception of the consumer or breaking of consumer trust. All in all it will probably be something that would be deemed “unethical” but usually not illegal.

I don’t think there is any way to get around the fact that there will always be people that end up giving the word “affiliate” a bad name. Rebranding the industry to something like “performance marketing” isn’t the answer and I don’t think there is an effective way to properly educate the world on all the issues that are in play.

Maybe we will have to think of it like they way used car salesmen are thought of. The common perception is they are a bunch of cheats and will do and say anything to make the sale. But the truth of the matter is it is a multi-billion dollar business and while there are some crooked used car salesmen there are also many, many more who are legitimate salesmen just trying to put food on the table for their families and really do want to help their customers.

Affiliate marketing could be one of those industries that always has a black eye but I know for a fact that some of the best people I have ever met are in the affiliate marketing industry and I would trust them completely. So yeah, there are some people who give this industry a bad name but there are many more people who do great things for this industry, for their customers, for their families, for charity, and for society everyday.

I was on Facebook earlier today and saw this ad block:

Now I am sure what order ads are displayed is somewhat random but how much higher do you think the click through rate of the knicks.fanatics.com link is with arrows on the ads above and below it pointing right to it?

For years people have used arrows in advertising to emphasize what the advertiser really wants you to see and here Fanatics got it for free. They didn’t have to waste any of their valuable ad space. These other advertisers did it for them!

Just thought this was kind of a cool coincidence that I would share. And yes, I did get sucked into starting a new site selling Jeremy Lin jerseys so that ad caught my eye even more. I knew I said I wasn’t gonna buy any new domains for a while but how could I pass up an opportunity to jump on the Jeremy Lin bandwagon?

Well, sorry for no update last week. It was one of those crazy weeks where you are busy the whole time, you are productive for the most part, but nothing really seems to get done.

Just to give you a few updates (check the past couple weeks to see the projects I have been working on):

1. I finished up the site for a local client and they are already ranking well. Time to keep it going and work on some more local stuff for them (Yelp, Facebook, etc.)

2. Been talking to a few more local companies about their websites. Even with all the attention being paid to local search by so many people there is still a great need for useful, simple, effective sites for so many companies. While looking at some potential clients I see so many sites that might look nice but their effectiveness is pretty horrible. They have spent thousands on these sites and they are missing so many essential elements of a good, usable, effective site.

3. Another client I have done some work for these past couple years asked me if I ever heard about Pinterest. So I had to educate her a bit about it, integrated some Pin It buttons into her site, and now we are putting the framework together for a Pinterest contest involving her site and some other local related vendors. Once this is done I will walk through how I put it all together and how effective it ended up being for these sites.

Speaking of Pinterest, there were a lot of sites I wanted to work with on this that have their images shown by Flash or something along those lines that make the images un-pinnable. Big time fail by the designers on that one.

4. An opportunity to help get an affiliate program set up for a guy came up. Still not sure all the particulars and what it will involve moving forward but I think at least I will be helping him get it all set up. I am a bit skeptical if it will be effective for him or not and still don’t exactly know what he will want me to do but I should know more in the coming week.

5. Why didn’t anyone warn me being a dad takes a lot of time? Just kidding. I knew it would take a lot of time. And I love going upstairs and hanging out with Clyde for a bit while my wife takes a nap. He is starting to smile a lot more and he seems to be so happy for long periods in the day which is awesome.

So that is pretty much what the last week was comprised of. Did you notice there was very little related to my own affiliate sites? Yeah, I noticed that too.

This week here are the things I want to accomplish:

1. Continue putting together the Pinterest contest. Still gotta line up a few more vendors and get it all up and running. If nothing else it is fun trying stuff like this.

2. Build a new site. I haven’t put up a site in a few weeks and want to get at least one up and running. It doesn’t need to be anything amazing either. I just need to pick one of my empty domains and do something with it.

3. More writing. I am well over half way done with my writing project and hopefully can get it wrapped up before the end of the month. Then I need to build the 5 supporting sites. No idea how long that will take. Writing is tough. Writing about something you don’t know about is very tough. Writing about something you don’t know about or care about is excruciatingly tough.

4. Write 10 posts for some various sites. This should be the easiest task.

So that is it for the week. Not a ton to do but it should still be a very productive week. What is on your To-Do list this week?

Just a few random tidbits I have learned this week:

1. It is very easy to be busy but not get anything done.

2. The most rewarding thing about building sites for clients is when they pay me.

3. In some ways I like working on sites for clients because I can test things to use on my sites in the future.

4. The premade pizza dough balls from Winco are actually pretty good. Much better than the lame ones at Trader Joe’s.

5. Writing is hard

6. Writing about something you don’t know much about is very hard.

7. Writing about something you don’t know about and don’t care about is very, very hard.

8. People seem to like this Pinterest thing.

9. Hey Peyton Manning, if you are reading this I give you permission to sign with the Seattle Seahawks if Indy cuts you.

10. The Super Bowl commercials were better as a whole than the last couple years.

11. If you put too much bacon in your clam chowder it just turns into bacon chowder. Not that that is a bad thing.

12: Always have more guys than girls at your parties so they eat all the food you buy.

13. On second thought scratch that one. Left over bacon chowder is still good.

14. I like having a baby around.

15. I wouldn’t enjoy a job where I couldn’t be home and be around the baby. He changes so much every day I would hate to miss any of it.

16. So many other people in the affiliate marketing industry are much smarter than me.

17. That just means there is a lot more room for me to improve.

18. Contentment: Realizing that what God has seen fit to give is gracious and plenty

19: 90% of visits to restaurants are disappointments

20: Dominis is an exception. Awesome food every time I go there. Why don’t I go more???

21. Scheduling anything around a baby that needs to eat and sleep 2 out of every 3 hours is kinda tough.

Just a few minutes ago Greg Hoffman (one of the better affiliate managers out there) put a post on Facebook: “As an affiliate manager, I don’t give a rats ass about Pinterest, but I’m glad you like it so much“.

And then a discussion cropped up about how an affiliate manager can benefit from Pinterest. Very good question. I don’t want to get into another Pinterest post but the question is valid so I will tackle it on a bigger level: Is Pinterest a viable traffic source and should affiliate managers be concerned with where traffic is coming from for their affiliates?

Well, yes, Pinterest is a viable traffic source. Depending on the niche and how it is used it can bring in some very solid traffic. According to Shareholic it produced more referral traffic than Youtube, Google+, and LinkedIn combined. And over on Mashable there is a good infographic about Pinterest and traffic. So yeah, it can generate traffic. It still lags behind Facebook, Twitter and other more established social sites but it is growing very quickly. I have no idea if it is sustainable or just a flash in the pan but for now it can be a good source of traffic.

So the second question: Should affiliate managers be concerned with where the traffic comes for their affiliates? The simple answer is Yes. Here are a few quick reasons why:

1. To develop terms of service for their merchants – Do you think there were many PPC restrictions back in 2000 when Adwords started? Probably not. But now nearly every affiliate terms of service contains some restrictions on what words can be bid on, if direct to merchant ads are allowed, and so on. There are a few merchants who have some restrictions on posting links on social media sites and now affiliate managers and merchants need to decide what to do with sharing and curation sites like Pinterest. If an affiliate managers doesn’t know about it how can they advise their merchants?

2. Help their affiliates generate traffic – Of course an affiliate manager isn’t there to hold the affiliates hand and give them all the training on every traffic source but the more traffic sources an affiliate managers is familiar with the better than can direct their affiliates. This doesn’t just go for Pinterest but includes SEO, PPC, Facebook, Youtube, PPV, display advertising, and anything else that can generate traffic and sales. Obviously an AM won’t be an expert in all these areas but they should at least be capable of looking at them and figuring out how they can help their affiliates.

3. Combat fraud – If there is traffic and sales to be generated there is sure to be someone who will be looking for a shortcut. An AM should be aware of any suspicious spike in sales and traffic and research it to see what the affiliate is doing. I haven’t heard of any affiliates who are doing anything too shady on Pinterest yet but you can be sure it is coming. And an affiliate managers needs to be aware of Pinterest (or any other traffic source) so they can follow up on any suspected fraud.

4. Open up new traffic channels for a merchant – Many AMs are responsible for a merchant’s PPC efforts, social media, and other traffic generation methods. Every traffic source an AM knows about the more services they can offer to a merchant. And most likely they won’t handle it directly but will outsource it to someone else but if, during a sales presentation, an AM can show the potential of a place like Pinterest and develop a marketing strategy using that traffic it is yet another value added to the deal.

Basically I think that an AM should be concerned about new traffic sources like this. If they don’t care about it now they will be in trouble in a few years if they have to play catch up. They don’t need to be experts in every form on online marketing but if they aren’t aware of what is going on out there with new sites like Pinterest they could be missing the boat on the next long term, sustainable traffic source.

Well, let’s first start off with a recap of last week and how I did. I had 6 main things I wanted to work on last week and while there are always gonna be other things that come up week by week I really want to try and start knocking more and more stuff off my list systematically rather than just whatever I feel like working on if that makes any sense.

Here is a recap of last week:

1. Finish up some work for a local client – I got the site done and now I just need to move it over to their host. But a majority of the heavy lifting is done on this one. So I will give myself a “complete” on this one.

2. Set up sites for 4 incoming NFL rookies – I got two sites set up, one mostly set up, and one more to go. The sites are nowhere near complete but I did get over half done of what I wanted but still I have to give myself an “incomplete” for this one.

3. Write 2000+ words for an ebook – Only got 500 words done. It is some OK progress but I need to do much better this week. Incomplete.

4. Write 8 product descriptions (200-500 words) – Never got started on this. Fail. Incomplete.

5. Update the datafeed on 5 old sites – I got two sites updated but they were some of the bigger (150,000+ pages) and more time intensive sites to update so I will give myself a “complete” on this one.

6. Work on getting a new client – I have been talking to a couple local businesses about this so I will say complete.

Overall I completed a bit more than half of what I was hoping to. Not good. I will need to do better this week. Yeah, I did get some other stuff done that isn’t on this list that needed to be done so the whole week wasn’t a waste. But I do need to do a better job this week.

So here is my to-do list for this week:

1. Get the first draft done on the ebook – I am guessing I have at least 2,000 words (maybe up to 5,000) to go to get the first draft done. It isn’t hard to crank out 500 words so I just need to do that a few times and I will be done. This is one of those projects that just hangs there taunting you and you always know you should work on it but you avoid it whenever possible. It would be nice to get this one off my plate.

2. Update 5 more old datafeed sites – This should’t take more than a couple hours. Just have to pick the sites I want to update.

3. Transfer that client site – Site transfers are the type of thing that can go super smooth or they can totally take way more time than they should. Hopefully this one goes quick. Once I transfer it I will need to meet with the client and teach them the basics of WordPress so that might take up a decent chunk of time. I will only be showing them how to add posts, add pages, and simple stuff like that. I really should have charged them more. Seems like I always undervalue my time on projects like this.

4. Write Product Descriptions – Any more than a few a day and I start losing my mind. So if I can get 8-10 cranked out this week I will be happy. I will probably need 30-50 for the site so ideally I can have that site launched by the end of February and then add to it as I go. I really want to do a good job writing these descriptions so they will take a bit of research which could be time consuming.

5. Come up with a plan for an old site – Maybe I should just let this old site go but I just can’t let go! It was one of my first affiliate sites to make any sort of decent money and it has been performing very well up until a few months ago. Panda killed it and I need to rebuild the site, restructure it, and make it more Panda friendly. If Google wants content, freshness and links I really gave them none of that. They loved this site for so many years and then kicked it to the curb. How can they be so shallow and callous? Time to spruce this site up and get it cranking again. I have until April to get this site back and ranking and I really want to do it right.

6. Start revising my datafeed ebook – Last summer I wrote about 20,000 words on how to build a successful datafeed site. The final product was pretty rough and I never really did anything with it but I think it could be useful to some people so I need to dust it off, clean it up, and do something with it.

I think all that could keep me nice and busy this week. Lots of writing in there and hopefully I can focus enough to crank a lot of it out so I can spend next week doing some more exciting stuff.

What else should I do this week?

From everything I have seen Genesis and Thesis are the two most popular premium WordPress themes out there. I use both of them regularly (this site runs on Thesis) and regularly recommend both of them (and not just because I get an affiliate commission).

Overall both of these premium themes are very SEO friendly, somewhat easy to use, flexible. But what makes me decide to use one vs the other? Here are a few strengths and weaknesses I see in each for different applications. And yeah, I know there are probably ways to make each of them do what I want in certain situations and from time to time I do mess around with the PHP code and CSS but for the most part I usually want to just install it and go.  And keep in mind I am speaking in big generalities here. But here is when I use each theme and what makes me decide to use one vs. another:

1. If I am going to update the site on a regular basis (like this site) I will use Thesis. I think overall the layout is more conducive to a “real” blog. I like the nice,  clean layout, I like how everything is displayed, and I like the simplicity. Order Thesis today

2. If I want something that looks a bit more complex I will use Genesis. With Genesis when you get the “Pro Pack” you also get access to 45 different child themes. These all look quite different, all have some cool widgets and features, and are all suitable for different projects. BTW, on February 1st the price of the Pro Plus pack will be going up. For the next few days you can get the Pro Plus pack which includes Genesis and 45 child themes (plus all future child themes) for $299.95. And if you use the code TEN you can save 10%. So if you are thinking about getting it do it now and save yourself a few bucks. Order the Genesis Pro Pack today.

3. For a datafeed based site I will usually use Thesis. I like the way the archive pages are displayed in Thesis and the layout is a bit more functional for me when I am dealing with a bigger datafeed based site. I do have some datafeed sites using Genesis but for the most part I use Thesis for those ones.

4. For a hand written content based site I will usually use Genesis. I really like some of the fancy widgets and sliders and stuff you can use on the Genesis pages with many of their child themes and think that in many cases it can add a nice finishing touch to a site.

But then again a lot of what I use is just based on what I feel like at any given time. And many times I will start building on Genesis but switch over to Thesis and vice-versa. I really do like having the flexibility of both premium themes at my disposal and I would definitely recommend having multiple options to work with whether it is these two or some other premium themes.

The Genesis Pro Pack is a bit spendy at $299.95 vs. $164 for Thesis but the abundance of child themes makes the price much more tolerable.

Order Genesis Today

Order Thesis Today

So what factors do you consider when deciding which theme to use for your affiliate sites? Leave a comment and let me know.

Like I mentioned in a post last week I want to keep you updated on what I have planned for this week. After looking at all the stuff I have to do I decided a set schedule of tasks isn’t the way to go. I just need to prioritize the different projects and sites I have out there and start working down the list.

Also it is hard for me to really work on any one task for more than a couple hours so rather than say “On Tuesday I will write 5000 words” or whatever I just want to make more weekly goals than daily tasks.

So for this week I have a few tasks I need to get done:

1. I have a local client and I need to finish their site. It is mostly done but I do need to move it from the test server to their server and that can always cause a huge set of headaches. Hopefully it all goes smoothly and doesn’t take more than a couple hours.

2. A few weeks ago I registered 6 domains of college players that should be coming out in the NFL draft this April. Two of them decided to stay in college for another year (How dare they get an education and not let me use these domains this year!!!) but there are still four of them who will be drafted in the first round. So I need to get some sites built for them. I don’t think I will do too much monitization on these sites yet (there can be issues using the names of college players like that) but I will get the framework of the sites built, start adding in some content (mock drafts, teams that could use them, etc) and once they get drafted in April I can load them up with jerseys, shirts, etc. But for now I want to get some content on them and start the aging process.

3. Write 2000+ words for an ebook. I have about 1600 words done but haven’t written on this project in a couple months. I would like to get more content in it and hopefully be done in a month or so. I am guessing it will end up around 8,000-10,000 words when it is all finished. I am not totally sure what I will do with it (give it away to build an email list, put it up on Kindle, sell it for a few bucks, etc.) but it will be nice to get it finished so I can start working on the sites related to it.

4. Write 8 product descriptions (200-500 words) for one of my old domains I need to revive/rebuild. There has been nothing on this domain for years but it was registered in 2005 so it has some good age to it. I want to use this domains to pick the best 8-10 products in each category for this niche, handwrite some content, and see what happens compared to just throwing up a 5,000+ item datafeed. It will probably take at least a couple weeks before I have enough real content to set this site up but I want to have the content ready to go for it.

5. Update the datafeeds on 5 old sites – I probably have about 20 that could use an update but I will start with these 5. For a couple of them it will just involve downloading a new feed, making a few modifications, and loading it up. Others might take a bit more work. But I should be able to spend less than 3-4 hours on this.

6. Work on getting a new client – Since I will be finishing up that one client this week (well, mostly finishing. There will be a bit of ongoing work.) I want to find one more client to take on. Maybe it will be another local company I can do some SEO stuff for, maybe it will be some sort of consulting work, maybe I will work with some affiliates to review their sites and help them improve, or maybe I will help out a merchant. If you are interested in any of these services or if there is anything I can do for you be sure to check out How Can I Help You.

Maybe I am being too ambitious, maybe I am setting the bar too low. I guess we will see on Friday when I recap how this week went.

Many times in the past, either here or on Twitter, I have railed against the bad affiliate management out there. It is just a part of doing business in this industry but you can’t escape the fact that many affiliate programs are being mismanaged by people who really don’t know anything about the affiliate industry.

Affiliate program management isn’t just a position in your company you can throw anyone with a couple spare hours a month. It is much more than just looking at the sales reports and telling the higher ups in the company how many sales were generated. Affiliate program management is a very specialized marketing position that should be filled by someone who knows what they are doing.

One problem is there is very little quality training or educational opportunities out there for affiliate managers. Most affiliate managers I know basically just learned on the job or were just thrown into the position without knowing what they were doing (read Daniel Feinberg’s story) and had to learn on the fly. There have been a few training opportunities in the past and there is always some great information at Affiliate Summit for affiliate managers but just like most other professions an affiliate manager needs some sort of training.

Recently there have been two big steps forward towards properly training affiliate program managers. We need more of these but these two are a start:

1. Affiliate Management Days – Geno Prussakov has started a conference specifically for affiliate managers. It is a two day intensive training conference with some great speakers like Todd Crawford, Sarah Bundy, Karen Garcia, TimAsh, Rebecca Madigan, Sam Harrelson, Kim Rowley, and others who have many, many years in this industry and have some awesome knowledge to share. 

I recently asked Geno three questions about this conference and here is what he said:

Why do you see a need for this conference? 

Because affiliates need educated affiliate program managers. Remember the quick Twitter exchange we’ve had between you, me and Tricia Meyer? That one exemplifies the (crying!) need perfectly well.

Besides the educational component, Affiliate Management Days, becoming a regular conference (we’ll start with two conferences in the U.S., but hope to gradually add a third one, as well as an international one) will provide something else. The industry is dynamic, and new threats, issues, and challenges spring up nearly weekly. AM Days is also meant to become a professional forum for affiliate managers and merchants to discuss the most pressing questions, and collaboratively come up with solutions to the biggest problems.

Is this for experienced AMs or people just looking to get into affiliate management?

Both. If one takes a look at the AM Days San Francisco 2012 agenda they’ll see that we’ll give attendees some choice there. The keynotes will be perfect both for people who are new to affiliate marketing, and to the savvy and experienced ones. While with breakout sessions we’ll offer two tracks, and regardless of an affiliate manager’s (or merchant’s) professional maturity level, everyone will be able to pick something of interest.

What do you hope people will take away from this conference?

Three things: (1) inspiration/motivation, (2) a truly holistic approach to affiliate as a way of online marketing, and (3) actionable knowledge — to come back, apply it, and reap higher revenues, as a result.

So all in all this will be a great place for current and prospective affiliate managers to gain knowledge, information, and connections with other great people in this industry.

Today is the last day to get the early bird registration ($1,195) and tomorrow it jumps to $1,495 so save yourself $300 and register today.

2. Affiliate Management Trainers – According to their site “Affiliate Management Trainers (AMT) was created to fill the need for professional and personalized affiliate management training for Internet Retailers around the world.”. So here we have a group of experienced affiliate managers who want to train other affiliate managers.

They are offering one on one training as well as other consulting services. From what I have seen a brand new affiliate manager will learn much more from a one on one approach like this than they could ever learn in a classroom.

Sarah Bundy, Matt McWilliams, and the rest of the trainers are some of the top affiliate managers in this industry and have a ton of knowledge they can share with anyone who wants to learn.

I really do believe both of these opportunities will help train up some new, awesome affiliate managers. How many affiliate programs are out there? 10,000? 20,000? And how many quality affiliate managers can you name? 20?30? Maybe 50? There is a huge need for trained affiliate managers out there and Affiliate Management Days and Affiliate Management Trainers will both help get those people a head start on their job.

Just to illustrate how there is a need for quality affiliate managers: I recently talked to a local manufacturer/merchant about their affiliate program. They do have a private program but they don’t publicize it at all. Overall they have about 20 affiliates that barely produce any sales. I offered to help this company get their affiliate program up and running, recruit new affiliates, set them up on Shareasale, and as much else as I could do for them. I am by no means an expert in affiliate management and I was gonna cut this guy a great deal since I would also be learning on the job.

But as an affiliate for the past 14 years or so I do have quite a bit of knowledge and experience that would have been valuable to them. But they decided to just let their website manager run the program. I have little doubt I could have turned their affiliate program into a very viable sales channel for them and am pretty confident I could increase their affiliate revenue by at least 10x what they are doing now but they decided to let someone who has no clue about affiliate marketing run their program. Just imagine what a properly trained affiliate program manager could have done.

Sadly this is not an uncommon tale. We need more good affiliate managers!