Our Ask an Affiliate Manager segment has generated a lot of interest from affiliates, and this time around, we decided to go outside of our typical single-question-and-answer format. We decided to conduct an interview with Geno Prussakov. If you’re an affiliate marketer in tune with what's going on in the affiliate marketing industry, Geno will be familiar to you. He is an award-winning affiliate manager, an international speaker, and the author of Affiliate Program Management: An Hour a Day. We recently had the chance to chat with him about his latest venture, an affiliate marketing conference, and what to expect from the industry this year.

Share Results: It’s been a while since we last interviewed you on Share Results. What kind of feedback have you had with regard to your book since we last chatted?

Geno Prussakov: The book is getting some amazing reception: nearly 40 reviews on Amazon (with a 5-star overall rating), dozens of blog posts (and videos) from the industry's leaders; and I hear that it is already being used in MBA courses at some schools around the U.S. And if that were not enough, Affiliate Program Management: An Hour a Day has helped me land a couple of major (keynote speech) speaking engagements in late 2011. It has also been recently nominated for the fourth annual Reader's Choice "Small Business Book Awards" for 2012.

SR: What other new and exciting ventures have you been involved with lately?

GP: In December of 2011 I launched a brand new conference -- one geared specifically towards advertisers and affiliate program managers. It is called Affiliate Management Days, and in 2012 we are planning on having two of these conferences: one on the West Coast (in Spring), and one on the East Coast (in Fall). The West Coast one is, actually, taking place about a month from now - on March 8-9 in San Francisco, California. Our attendees are in for an unforgettable treat: two 10-hour days packed with a total of 24 sessions and 4 keynotes.

SR: How does AM Days differ from other affiliate marketing trade shows?

GP: Good question. We want to differentiate ourselves on two levels: (a) audience, and (b) opportunities. I've already mentioned that this conference is created primarily with the needs of merchants and marketing managers in mind. Since we won't affiliates in attendance (or will have very few - just the ones who are participating in our "Inside the Mind of a Super Affiliate" panel), this conference won't have affiliate recruitment opportunities. But that's not what its main goal is. The main objective is to provide the industry with a professional forum - a place for advertisers, digital marketing managers (and affiliate managers, specifically) to meet, share their knowledge and experience, and work out solutions to their most pressing problems and challenges.

SR: Tell us a little about the speakers you’ve got for the conference. What can attendees expect in terms of expert advice and experiences?

GP: The above-mentioned 28 speakers will include such affiliate marketing legends as Todd Crawford, Kim Rowley, Sam Harrelson, Jason Spievak, Karen Garcia, Rebecca Madigan, digital marketing celebrities such as Tim Ash, Joanna Lord, Linda Bustos, and Chris Goward, and experts from such organizations as Harvard, Google, eBay, Best Buy, J.C. Penney, and many others. Both keynotes and all breakout sessions will contain case studies that attendees will be able to learn from. We'll cover such topics as affiliate recruitment, fraud, adware, black hat techniques, web analytics, attribution data, landing page optimization, branding, influence and persuasion, trends and innovations, mobile, video, social, and much more. To get a better idea of what to expect I would encourage ShareResults blog's readers to take a look at AM Days SF 2012 agenda. It's gonna truly be a one-of-a-kind type of event.

SR: What do you think are some of the biggest mistakes that merchants, OPMs, networks – essentially those responsible for running affiliate programs – are making in the industry?

GP: If I were to narrow my list to, say, three, they'd be: (1) misreading (and, by extension, misunderstanding) "affiliate management" as "management of affiliates", whereas, in reality, it is the "management of the affiliate marketing channel", (2) treating affiliates as a "secondary" channel, and (3) failing to invest (time, resources, and/or money) into self-education.

SR: What has been the most valuable feedback you have received from affiliates about affiliate managers?

GP: "I don't open newsletters unless I have a personal relationship with an affiliate manager". This explains a lot, especially about such common problems as low open rates, lack of response to promos, difficulties of activating stagnant affiliates, and so on.

SR: What do you think are some of the trends we can expect to see with regard to affiliate marketing this year?

GP: Again, if I had to stick to three, I'd predict: (1) further rise of mobile, and especially among affiliates, (2) more mergers and acquisitions, and (3) attribution modeling getting more attention and wider implementation.

SR: From a technical standpoint, what new developments do you see networks, software providers and merchants having to make in order to accommodate more affiliates?

GP: Anything that's innovative and timely. I sit on the judging panel for Performance Marketing Awards (formerly, a4uAwards), and every year, as I review nominations, I am struck at the number of gems that are being discovered! Look at Coull, for example. This Bristol, UK-based start-up came on the scene just a couple of years ago (I still remember meeting them for the first time at Affiliate Summit West in January 2010). In May 2010 they were already working with buy.at transforming any video into an affiliate ad; and in November 2011 they got a $2 million investment, and "signed a deal with Google Affiliate Network, making them the only partner allowed to link YouTube videos with Affiliate links" (see this source at A4U.com). Is this impressive or what? It's all about seeing the hot trends and leveraging them. At this time, there are plenty of opportunities in mobile, social, and other strengthening channels. The ones who are gonna be there first (like Coull in video) are gonna win big.

SR: What’s up next for you in terms of new projects?

GP: I first want get through the launch AM Days conference. Based on how the San Francisco one goes, we'll start looking towards an international expansion, and, possibly, even doing more than two in North America.

By the way, speaking of Affiliate Management Days, I'd like to extend a 10% off coupon to all Share Results merchants, clients, and blog readers. The coupon code is SHARES, and it can be used while registering here.

Do you have a question for Geno or any of our affiliate managers? Any comments about the above interview? Leave us your input in the comment box below.

Many affiliate managers can attest to the challenges of managing an affiliate program. It's tough work, particularly in the early stages when a program has just launched and there is a need to attract affiliates and generate brand exposure. This requires strategic marketing, the ability to cultivate good relationships, and learning how to analyze metrics in order to optimize performance, among other skills.

A new conference founded by author and speaker Geno Prussakov has been launched and it’s made for those responsible for affiliate management (i.e. networks, advertisers, and the like). As some of you may know, Geno is an expert in affiliate management, which makes him the ideal person to be launching this event known as Affiliate Management Days or AM Days.

Here's what you need to know about this event:

The Who: As mentioned, the conference is the brainchild of Geno, but he is expected to have experts in affiliate management – like himself - speaking on the subject of affiliate marketing. Big names include the likes of Google, Kohl's, SEOMoz.org and Zappos.

The What: The conference is cited as a "must attend event for affiliate managers who are responsible for their company’s affiliate marketing strategy, management and operations." That pretty much sums it up.

The Where: The west coast - San Francisco to be more precise. The venue will be the Westin San Francisco Market Street at 50 Third Street.

The When: March 8-9, 2012.

The Why: Essentially, this event is aimed at making those in charge of affiliate marketing programs and overall strategies, better at what they do. This results in a successful program, and if the program succeeds, then the affiliates succeed.

We will be publishing a blog interview with Geno fairly soon. He will give us more details about this event, who it's targeted to, as well as his perspective on what affiliates really want from an affiliate program. Stay tuned for that blog next week.

Last week we had the pleasure of hosting the Affiliate Summit Montreal Meetup again. As we were mentioning in the weeks leading up to the event, Brian Rotsztein was the guest speaker of the event and provided attendees with a presentation on his Internet Success Model.

Our team put together a video of the presentation. We apologize in advance for the poor lighting, but the audio and slides from the presentation itself are in good shape. Overall, this is great information for how to move market your product or service online to generate revenue. This is not specifically aimed at affiliate marketers or online retailers. It's geared to any and everyone with a venture in the digital space.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqRKCylfRNE

What are you thoughts on the contents of Brian's presentation? Leave us your feedback in the comments section below.

Image courtesy of Meetup.com

We recently held the now quarterly Affiliate Summit Meetup in Montreal this past Tuesday, January 24, and as usual, these events are quite a lot of fun, especially for educational and networking purposes. If you look closely at Meetup.com, you’ll notice that there are not only Affiliate Summit Meetups, but many independently run online marketing groups throughout the US and Canada.

Some people are shy about going to an online marketing Meetup for the first time. It’s amazing how challenging it can be to transition from online to an offline setting. If you’re interested in attending a related Meetup, but wouldn’t classify yourself as a social butterfly, here are a few pointers on how to make these groups work best for you.

• In order to be strategic when networking, it’s a good idea to look at the guest list in advance of a Meetup. This gives you an idea of who is going and their backgrounds. Think of questions you want to ask the guest speaker or key individuals who’ll be in attendance. Doing this means you spend more of your focus on targeting the right people.
• Remember to smile. A friendly smile goes a long way. Make sure to carry one throughout the event. It can make the difference between people not wanting to meet you, because of a severe look, or warming up to you because of a pleasant appearance.
• Think about helping others. Online marketing Meetups are not just about you. Other attendees are there to learn something too. So, do a bit of onsite consultation if you’re an expert in your field, and help people who may not know anything about the digital marketing space.
• Don’t forget your business cards. A business card is a must for these types of events. When you can, get some made up and distribute them liberally at these events.

If you live in a city where no online marketing group exists, you can always start a Meetup! Sometimes not every Meetup will attract the 20+ attendees you are expecting. Even if you only have four people show up for the first time, all you have to do is ramp up your marketing via social media channels, email, and forums and blogs. Eventually, with a few runs, interested people will start to come out.

If you have any other advice on how to make the most of online marketing Meetups, we'd love to hear it. Please leave us your tips in the comments section below.

Just in case you may have missed it, the Affiliate Summit Montreal Meetup took place yesterday at Café République in the downtown core. This Meetup was definitely our most successful to date! We are very thankful to the good folks over at the restaurant for sharing their space with our guest speaker Brian Rotsztein, and our 30 attendees.

Brian shared very insightful information during his presentation, which definitely resonated with the crowd. We all were privy to a series of great tips and other information from his “Internet Success Model”, which we believe to be helpful advice to anybody who feels a little overwhelmed by the array of online marketing options. His model not only helps provide people with a framework to guide them through their internet strategy and plan, but it also highlights what aspects of the industry may be most valuable to a business.

Presenter Brian Rotsztein

For anyone who could not attend the Meetup, or does not have the chance to be in our location, we happen to have a full video presentation from last night. We’re still prepping the footage, so bear with us as our team works on polishing it up, so make sure to come back to our affiliate marketing blog to find out when it goes live. In the meantime, you can learn more from Brain by downloading his free Special Report: SEO for 2012, enrolling in one of his workshops or simply visiting his website. I know I will be doing all three!

Montreal is always known for it’s diversity, and we were thrilled to see such a great mix of individuals at the Meetup of all professional levels and backgrounds. They ranged from small business owners looking for guidance, to new and experienced affiliates, to online strategists.

This is definitely the go-to event in Montreal to learn more about the online industry. If you want to suggest a speaker for our next event which will take place on Tuesday, April 24, 2012, or if you would like to be the next presenter, please contact us by March 27, 2012, so we can schedule you in for our next event.

Brian Rotsztein

If you live in or will be visiting the Montreal area, you will be thrilled to know that we are hosting another Affiliate Summit Montreal Meetup. The event, which includes a guest speaker, will take place on Tuesday, January 24, 2012, at Café Republique. This is the go-to event if you are an internet professional looking to share ideas, learn new ones and network with like-minded people who are located within and around the Montreal area.

We are very excited to announce that Brian Rotsztein will be our guest speaker. He will be sharing tips from his forthcoming non-fiction book in which he shares the secrets to his "Internet Success Model." Brian is thoroughly knowledgeable about the digital marketing industry and has worked with various clients including Best Western Hotels, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Quality Inn, the Library of Congress, and the United Nations (to name a few). He’s an Internet Marketing Strategist with experience working as an SEO expert, website designer, systems analyst and social media consultant. Brian has been speaking, training, consulting and passing on his knowledge since the 1990s.

We invite you to come join us at Café Republique on Peel Street in the heart of downtown Montreal at 6pm.We are looking forward to seeing familiar faces and meeting new participants, but hurry, the list of attendees is growing quickly. To register, please do so quickly! Visit our Meetup Page to RSVP for this event today.

This time last week, the Share Results team worked through the Exhibit Hall at the Affiliate Summit West 2012 in vibrant Las Vegas. The Summit was held at Caesar's Palace this year, and took over most of the spacious and comfortable conference halls and rooms. It was the biggest Affiliate Summit West show to date, we could feel the expansiveness and crowds.

Both the Meet Market and the Exhibit Hall featured several recognizable players, as well as newer ones that gave the show a slightly different and fresh feel from past affiliate marketing conferences. They were packed with affiliate networks, fast traffic dealers, software providers, ecommerce suppliers, and several service providers alike. In terms of setup, a notable addition this year were the meeting tables distributed around the room that made impromptu catch-ups with clients and partners much more convenient.

Our focus at the show was to reconnect with several partners and to create new relationships. With great new growth objectives this year, we also wanted to highlight our significant expansion into network management services. A recent and successful example of this is with our managed program with The Bay, a large Canadian department store, which we recently launched on the Commission Junction network. This program is timely, since it fits within the emerging movement of Canadian retailers integrating the affiliate marketing industry, which was quite abuzz during the conference as well. Other much talked about trends were tied to mobile applications, mobile tracking, re-targeting and complete solutions (network, software, quality traffic and ROI considerations). Beyond the Exhibit Hall, several of the breakout sessions scattered throughout the Summit were fast paced and topical in regards to several of these trends.

At nighttime, a little entertainment and letting loose in Vegas is a must. We’d like to thank our fellow industry members for the great and unique events they held throughout the Summit which allowed us to meet and connect with both organizers and attendees. Namely, the ShareASale Under the Stars Party, at the Paris Hotel. The ambiance here was magical, with its terrace set under the Eiffel Tower, Renaissance style desert tables with live Marie-Antoinette centerpieces, and an accessory packed photo booth; there was the UFC Click Booth night at Randy Couture’s private gym; the Affiliate Ball with Nelly in concert at the Rio; and finally, the industry night OPM Pros party at the XS Club at the Encore Las Vegas.

Overall, it was great to reconnect with partners, publishers and colleagues across all events at the Summit. Thanks to all attendees for a great Summit. See you at the next one!

Update: We have photos from the Affiliate Summit West 2012 event. Check them out here via http://on.fb.me/yygoEf

Back in October we began our Ask An Affiliate Manager blog series, offering free tips and advice for affiliates. We then began with a question on the Best Sources of Traffic in Affiliate Marketing, where we explored some preferred methods for driving traffic. Today we continue our blog series, with the question: How can my website rank higher in Google?

So you’ve built a website and dedicated hours to writing helpful and interesting information for your visitor. But the traffic just isn’t pouring in as you hoped. This may be because you have not optimized your site with targeted keywords, resulting in a low search engine ranking, and making it difficult for visitors to reach your website.

In order to rank well in Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines, it is vital that you optimize your website for targeted keywords and keyword phrases. Keyword phrases are the words that internet users type into search engines to find needed information. Search engines then display the search results by using spider searches to locate websites that best match the keywords used. If your keywords are not targeted, you risk ranking low in these search engines.  Search engines look for particular items when calculating your page rank. Below are some helpful tips to ensure you’ve optimized your website for targeted keywords.

Title Tag– The Title Tag is by far the most fundamental SEO tag for your site.  Your targeted keywords or key phrases should be highlighted in the Title Tag of your page. Include your primary keyword at the start, followed by your secondary keyword. Ideally, these Title Tags should be between 10-60 characters.

Meta Tags
Meta Description Tag – This is an important tag for every page on your site. The description tag should explain what your website is about and contain roughly 200 characters. As a general rule of thumb you should take the first sentence or two from your body tag and use this for your meta description tag. Make sure that your targeted keywords are found in the Meta Description Tag.

Meta Keyword Tag- Although not all “crawlers” support the Meta Keyword Tag, it is still helpful to provide additional text for crawler-based search engines to index. This tag can also be useful to help support the terms on a page you think is important. For example, if you have a page about winter boots and use the words “winter boots” several times in your body content – then using the words “winter boots” in your Meta Keyword Tag may help increase your page rank.

Content – It’s imperative to make sure your targeted keywords and keyword phrases are found multiple times within the content on your site, particularly the homepage. It is also a good idea to bold targeted keywords.

Link Building - Once you've optimized your website for targeted keywords, you’ll need to start building links to increase your chance of ranking well. Inbound links are a crucial component to achieving success in website rankings.

What do you think?  Have you found these tips useful?  Would you like to ask an affiliate manager a question? Let us know by leaving your comments below!

Did you know that Morgan Stanley predicted that smartphone sales would exceed PC sales by the year 2012? Did you know that this sea change actually occurred at the end of 2010? Since smartphones allow users ready, on-the-go access to the internet, they allow marketers to pursue interesting new approaches for customer engagement. The most prominent of these developments is SoLoMo, a portmanteau of Social, Local, and Mobile.

SoLoMo targets customers mobile devices based on proximity rather than through the traditional search optimisation associated with desktop computers. Instead of you having to wait for customers to look for your products, SoLoMo advertising presents customers with products based on location. For instance, a person might walk past a clothing store and receive a message about a deal. The effectiveness of SoLoMo is its convenience; the customer is already there. Additionally, as apps like Foursquare have shown, SoLoMo’s rapidity allows for gamification, which generates a personal engagement with audiences.

So why is 2012 such a big year for SoLoMo? For the first time, SoLoMo has become entirely independent. Evolution is a process rather than an event, and even though smartphones have dominated PCs in sales for almost a year, the first SoLoMo applications were still built on desktop-marketing logic. This year, SoLoMo has embraced the uniqueness of the mobile device and is primed to come even more into its own.

As a merchant, SoLoMo is a great new development to supplement other endeavours. Audiences, especially younger ones, are enamoured with the proximity-based deal sites like Groupon and by offering SoLoMo-based deals, you can get ahead of the curve when it comes to embracing what seems to be a long-term marketing model. People might not always be next to a computer, but chances are they will have their smartphone with them, which means that SoLoMo gives a wider, more immediate impact in marketing efforts.