I’m excited to announce that tomorrow (5/29) I am going to have the chance to sit down with John Marshall of EpiscopalBookstore.com to chat about the growing trend of states requiring online retailers to collect sales tax from shoppers. Coming July 1, 2008, this will be required of all online resellers in Washington State.

Taxation of online retailers has become a lightening rod issue with recent legal action pitting Amazon against the State of New York - with New York asserting that Amazon’s use of affiliates operating in New York (where Amazon has no offices, warehouses, etc) constitutes “Nexus” or effectively a corporate presence in state. New York argues that this entitles them to charge sales tax on Amazon transactions despite the fact that Amazon is Seattle WA based. For more coverage of this issue, I recommend following the story on the 5 Star Affiliate Marketing Blog - Linda Buquet has done an awesome job of info gathering on this.

This case has caused many merchants to react (over react) and fire all of their New York based affiliates to insulate themselves from this potential issue, and affiliates that are New York based to look into incorporating and doing business from New Jersey to exempt themselves from being dropped by merchants and networks fearful of a heavy tax bill.

I’ll speak with John on the Washington specific issues (this is messy) as well as what he knows about the nationwide movement of states to aggressively pursue sales tax from online retailers. Washington is a particular mess for this as many counties and towns/cities, etc also attach their own fractions of percentages points to the state sales tax to finance projects and the state appears to be basing the sales tax that needs to be gathered on the location of the buyer.

My conversation is at noon PT and I will try to have this edited and up by 3:00 pm PT

I’m definitely recharged after the long weekend, and I was excited that I had an early appointment this morning to chat for a while with Josh Wexelbaum of PositionLeap and the Scrappy Business Blog.

Josh is a Believer and an affiliate who makes his living promoting merchant offers via paid search with Google, MSN and Yahoo.  His affiliate work has enabled him to see the world through some really far flung travel that will be continuing shortly as he heads off to Shanghai for 6 months (have laptop, will travel)

I met Josh through some of his travels - he had actually rented a room with a former employers sister in Cape Town. South Africa.  We had the chance to meet in person at Affiliate Summit - with Josh joining us at one of the Christian Affiliate Marketing Association events.

Josh and I spoke today on a range of topics surrounding affiliate marketing using paid search - here are some bullets on what we covered:

• Josh’s entry into the business
• The travel friendly lifestyle affiliate marketing has made possible
• The basics of paid search based affiliate marketing
• Some of terms and conditions he likes to see from merchants and networks
• The importance of merchants placing conversion tracking code for Super-affiliates using paid search
• Some of the techniques he uses to test offers, then profit big from the ones that work
• Why merchants shouldn’t fear paid search affiliates if well regulated

I had a great time and we chatted for about 30 minutes - I hope you enjoy.

If you’d like to follow Josh and his writings and videos on online and affiliate marketing, you can check out his blog at www.scrappybusiness.com

 

 CAM Blog Podcast #8 with Josh Wexelbaum [32:01m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (176)

On Tuesday this week, I connected for a chat with Alejandro Reyes of Successfool.com. Alejandro is a Christian brother with a background in youth ministry (a passion of mine as well) who has a passion for helping people find success through exposing them to successful entrepreneurs who are willing to share their techniques and inspiration.

We chatted for about 30 minutes on a number of topics including:

• marketing with social media including Twitter and how he has been able to build a nice following for SuccessFool in a short time.
• the connection between ministry and marketing and how they are not exclusive, but complimentary
• the Illuminate Conference (July 29-August 1 in San Francisco) that looks to connect Christian affiliate marketers in fellowship and great content on SEO, social media, Affiliate Marketing as well as worship and fellowship
• the affiliate opportunity for Christian marketers to promote the Illuminate Conference

It was a cool discussion and I hope you enjoy it - please give me some Grace on the itchy throat

If you’d like to follow Alejandro on Twitter, you can do so at http://twitter.com/successfool

 

 CAM Blog Podcast #7 - Wade Tonkin with Alejandro Reyes on social media and Illuminate Conference [29:25m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (64)


I have been doing a lot of talking with folks lately on how to get started as an affiliate.   What is the best way to do it?  What tools do I need?  What skills do I need?   What does it cost?

I’m here to tell you that anyone out there can get started in affiliate marketing for close to free.  How?

Well, there are a few things that you need to get started in affiliate marketing.

1. a topic or topics that you care about
2. a platform for your marketing
3. a top level domain
4. a method for marketing to your visitors again
5. time to research affiliate offers to find the right ones for your site
6. time to write about your topic
7. commitment to write regularly

You’ll notice that I started with “a topic or topics that you care about.”  I should probably modify this to say a topic or topics that you are passionate about.   What does it matter?   It’s everything. The bottom line is this: being a successful affiliate takes time and effort and if you aren’t working in a topic that you are passionate about, and if you are just in it for the money, you will have a really tough time at putting in the time it takes to get traffic and more importantly, to get the trust of your visitors.

I’m passionate about promoting Christian merchants and building a niche market of affiliates who have access to the audience that the Christian merchants are looking to market to.  This makes it not just possible, but fun and inspiring to get on every day and write something about what I love.

I’m also passionate about food - so launching a site or blog that is centered on food and food related affiliate offers is easy to commit myself to as well.

What is your passion?   Have you studied the topic?  Are you someone your friends would consider an “authority” on it?

This is a great place to start.

Part 2 coming tomorrow - we’ll talk about a platform for your marketing effort that is super easy to get into in terms of both cost and technical skills needed.  We’ll also talk about top level domains and what I really suggest that you invest in one.

God Bless,

Wade

I got a skype chat from Jason Stanley Marshall last night asking me if I would be down with helping him out in a Teleconference tonight at 6:00 ET with some folks that are following his “Petey Project”

Jason is trying to help some folks get started with online marketing and asked if I would be up for jumping on with him to talk affiliate marketing as it’s one of the easiest ways to get involved in online/internet marketing. I’m all for helping my Christian brothers and sisters out, so I am happy to be invited to participate.

I wanted to post some resource links for people who might be involved in the call to follow - here are some links to info you may find helpful:

Blogging Resources:

Sherman Hu’s WordPress Tutorials

Blog Classroom

Affiliate Networks:

Shareasale

Commission Junction

Christian Affiliate Programs:

SinglesofFaith Affiliate Program

JesusBranded Affiliate Program

Piano Wizard

Parable Christian Books and Products

ChristianBook.com

Alpha Omega

Nest Entertainment

Tradeshows and Events:

Affiliate Summit

GodBlogCon

Illuminate Conference

I’ll touch a bit on all of these links on the call.

God Bless,

Wade Tonkin

I got the chance to chat with blogger, author, SEO stud and consultant Andy Beal recently.

Andy is the blogger behind MarketingPilgrim.com, the brains behind the Trackur reputation monitoring service and we actually worked “together” for a bit back in the day while he was at Websourced right after Think Partnership acquired Kowabunga Technologies. It appears we both left about the same time and it was actually out of his time at Websourced that his interest in reputation management and monitoring was kindled.We had a really good chat that focused on online reputation, how to monitor it, and why it’s important to do so.

We also spoke quite a bit about Andy’s new service Trackur- a really feature rich and easy to use reputation monitoring system that is also priced really affordably. Are you curious what is being said about your site on the web, in blogs, and in the social media? Give Trackur a try today.

To Andy’s credit, he also knew the answer to the last CAM Blog Twitter Giveaway question.

Enjoy!

 

 CAM Blog Podcast #6 with Andy Beal [25:16m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (23)

NOTE: This post contains affiliate links to Trackur - I recommend it because I use it myself and believe in the product.

I took some time last week to site down with Shawn Collins of Affiliate Summit and talk for about 25 minutes.

We covered a ton of topics including:

• Recap of Affiliate Summit West where a record number (~3000) of affiliate industry folks gathered in Las Vegas
• Look ahead to Affiliate Summit East in Boston in August including discussion of some new educational tracks that are being offered.
• Talkin’ Baseball - Shawn and I are both degenerate baseball fans and we’re excited to be in Boston and hitting a game in Fenway Park
• Talked at length about some new innovations including the new Amazon MP3 Widget and MyWedding Favors video integration with Qoof.com
• Quick discussion of Shawn’s video review site at WeViews.TV
• Talking a bit about how to get started in video blogging
• More talk on Affiliate Summit and what newbies to the business can expect out of the show.
• Talked about Affiliate Summit Twitter Giveaway
• Talked about the “Jim Kukral is ruining Twitter” controversy
• Shawn’s wife’s new blog at AsktheMama.com that has outpaced Shawn’s traffic out of the gate.

Read more »

 

 CAM Blog Podcast #5 with Shawn Collins: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (199)

 

 Jim Kukral on Finding your Voice in Online Video [19:57m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (42)


Last week, I had the chance to connect with longtime friend and mentor Jim Kukral to chat about online video and specifically, how people new to making user generated video can “find their voice” and use this to their advantage as marketers.

Jim and I discuss some of our favorite video bloggers as well as Jim’s new project OnlineVideoToolkit.com where he shares his techniques for generating quality online video on an entry budget of $200 or less.

Some of the video bloggers that we mentioned are:

Jim Kukral

Gary Vee

Tim Carter

If you are looking for a Christian example of awesome use of online video, search for “Mark Driscoll” on YouTube. Mark is the Senior Pastor at Mars Hill Bible Church in Seattle and is an awesome user of video to get both his sermons out, as well as some really fun shorter teachings and rants.

The main point of the discussion is that marketing with video is the wave of the present and near future. If you aren’t in the game, your competitor is or will be soon. The barriers to entry are low and you should not be afraid to jump into generating online video with passion on your area of interest.

To help folks who are new to the online video game, Jim has released a new free course at www.onlinevideotoolkit.com - check it out today.

God Bless,

Wade

I just got an email today that confirmed some suspicions I had after receiving emails from a few affiliates and merchants who were reporting login issues. After 2 years of making a go at running one of the first Christian focused affiliate/CPA networks in the industry, John and Jack decided to call it quits (at least temporarily) last week.

The email from John indicated that all affiliates owed $10 or more in commissions would have a check coming their way by May 31st 2008 to close out the books. He also indicated that the hope at USN would be to resume operations if enough well converting Faith and Family friendly offers were identified.

I’m sad to see this happen within 1 month of Manna Marketing also going under. John and Jack are great guys, were excellent to work for (even though things didn’t work out) and were inspirations to me in my faith walk.

Christian merchants will now need to look to the secular platforms for their affiliate programs or to self hosted software applications. My recommendations for affiliate networks of choice are Shareasale for the budget conscious merchant, or AvantLink for the really serious Christian retail merchant who is looking for advanced datafeed handling and merchandising features.

I know there is a pretty serious concentration of Christian affiliates at Shareasale that are working with IBS Direct and Faithwear as well as SinglesofFaith, and I would love to see a good core of Christian affiliates at AvantLink as well.

Any existing USN affiliates or merchants with questions should contact John Porricolo at jjp [ at ] unitedsharingnetwork.com

I am also looking into another promising affiliate/ecommerce system targeted at the faith-based market, but I have some tire kicking to do before I recommend it.

Good luck and Godspeed to John and Jack in whatever venture they decide to attack next.

From the CAM Blog Mailbag:

Wade - Why do you turn down application from prospective affiliates for the programs you work for? What can I do to make sure I get approved?

Great question - yes, I have been known to decline applications for affiliate programs that I manage. I’ve declined quite a few of them actually. Some ( a lot of folks on ABestWeb) would argue that this is a bad idea. They argue that you never know who your next big affiliate in development might be - and they may have a point in a few cases. I do have a few things that I look for in an affiliate application that I base my judgements on. Here is a short list:

• A live website or blog that I can look at and see some content
• Links live on the site from other affiliate programs
• I HATE “banner farms” and will decline any application from one. What is a banner farm? It’s a site that offers nothing but banner after banner after banner in a big long scroll monster, or even categorized.
• I look to establish actually ownership of the domain in question.
• PASSION - I love to work with affiliates who love their site topic and the products they promote
• Traffic levels - My clients want results - and sites with existing traffic (judged by a combination of tools like Quantcast and Compete.com)
• Blogs - I love active and well written and commented blogs. Well written blogs will have natural traffic from the search engines.
• Sites or blogs featuring product reviews, or better yet product reviews using video.
• If you are a Paid Search affiliate, send me to site where you explain how you drive traffic.
• Sites with a focus - if you try to be everything to everyone, chances are you won’t do well for any of them. If you love camping, blog or build a site on camping and camping products, etc.

If you have one or more of these things going for you, and the site you list in your application has something to do with the program I am managing, I will most likely approve you right away.

If you don’t, I will probably email you and ask you what you have in mind, and if you can show me any of your online properties that do match the program.

If I don’t see any obvious fit at all, or I see content that my client wouldn’t associate their brand with, I will probably decline. If I miss something, please email me and point me in the right direction or ask me to reconsider (professionally)

For best results, here is what I recommend that you do.

• Make sure to keep your network profile updated so I can see the right site or sites that you would like reviewed
• If the network (like SAS) allows you to make a note specific to the application, write me a quick note explaining what you have in mind.
• Email me when you apply - “Hey - I just applied for your program - here is what I do, here is what I have in mind, and here are some of the other programs I promote, and btw, I have 5 sites/blogs and an email list that I think would really work well for promoting XYZ.com’s products.

If you do this (with any program) you will have a great chance of getting approved.

God Bless and happy selling!

Wade