eComXpo has come and gone, what a ride.  I spent a great deal of time working a booth for a client of mine, I would have to say every minute was worth it.  We had some of the greatest people come to our booth to inquire on our program.  We had some amazing results for recruiting, most of which have already got active in the program and are sending good traffic to our site. 

Meeting these people made me realize that all of the forums and communities jammed pack full of what they call active affiliates or full timers is but a drop in the bucket of people maximizing affiliate marketing.  I probably spoke to over a hundred affiliates and only 10% of those affiliate marketers actually are actively posting on Abestweb or AffiliateBoards.com.

With that said we have already begun planning a much needed startegy to reach out to this quiet yet effective group of affiliate marketers, they welcomed the opportunity to work with a proactively managed program, all we needed to do was have a great venue to present it to them in.

The second eComXpo is planning on being in October.  Merchants, if you are struggling to acquire datafeed or couponers into your program than take part of this upcoming event!  You won't be sorry.

Last weekend I met a gal that owns a business developing Affiliate Marketing specific web templates.  Check out http://www.goldenpinecone.com, she has some of the easiest to use templates that guide users to include important specific SEO tactics.  I created a demo site at http://www.fineirishjewelry.com, took me very little time, I would highly encourage everyone interested in building niche websites with ease to buy these templates, they are state of the art, W3 compliant and ready to go for any niche website you need.

Tell her Ian sent you!

Wow, Google getting into the affiliate game!  Now that says a lot for our industry.  I have always wanted Google to get into it, I think someone could make a bundle refering small websites into adwords.  Here is their opening statement:

The Google referral program (beta) is for businesses whose customers and visitors include small to medium-sized businesses, and who want to help those companies become more successful by running Google AdWords, or serving ads with Google AdSense. The program works by giving approved sites unique links to Google, then compensating the referring site for passing on a new AdWords advertiser or AdSense publisher.

I can't wait to see what happens with this.  Google is a trend setter, and when they come on board, they are bound to make some inovations.  I applied for the program, I will keep you informed of what they have to offer.

You know when I first started managing affiliate programs professionally I honestly had no idea who was running these tracking software companies.  Not affiliates, and definetly not merchants.  Latetly there have been a few companies that are just coming out with a new feature for their affiliate tracking software...Encrypted Affiliate Links...Its about damn time.

You know what critical step they have ALL (but one) forgot to do?  Encrypt the cookie!  Stop parasites and adaware by encrypting the cookie that causes all the problems.  I have been lucky enough to know a guy that has developed the state of the art system called Netffiliate (http://www.netffiliate.com).  He is has the only known system that will actually encrypt the cookie and eliminate any tampering by matching up the cookie, original ip, and other information so even if some computer nerd could figure out the encryption, he would have to go through several other steps to snatch a commission from an affiliate.  I see this is as the solution we need!