Wiseaff

Forbes: How to Become an Affiliate

On the surface, affiliate marketing (also known as performance marketing) seems simple. Brands offer affiliate partners a percentage of every sale or lead the partners generate via their online promotional activity. Anyone can join these affiliate programs and easily monetize their online content and influence and get paid for promoting any brand they want.

If only it were that easy.

You can read the full article here

Yazing Reaches 50k Members!

Yazing, the influencer monetization and cashback shopping platform, launched by Adam Viener in 2015, recently announced that they have reached 50k members after a record breaking year in 2020.  Yazing now has over 3,600 brands on that platform that any member can instantly start promoting and earning cash rewards for generating sales.  Members have generated nearly $4 million dollars in commissions on the platform.

“Companies have long offered affiliate programs, but these deals can be difficult to navigate and out of reach for the average individual, influencer or blogger.” said Adam Viener, Founder of Yazing. “I believe that EVERYONE has influence and deserves to be compensated for the sales they help generate. I launched Yazing in 2015 with the goal of making these often elusive opportunities accessible to anyone looking to earn some extra money from home promoting and supporting the brands they love.”

Anyone with an email address and the ability to receive payments via PayPal is welcome to join Yazing for free and start earning money.

Yazing Opens Limited Beta

Yazing is a new platform that is turning every mommy blogger into an affiliate and allowing them to easily earn commissions recommending brands they love. 

With a quick easy signup, Yazing members get access to promote the latest deals and coupons offered by the site's growing list of brands.  Anytime someone referred by our members makes a purchase from one of those brands, the Yazing member earns the affiliate commissions for the transaction.

"Mommy Bloggers work hard to build their audiences and provide valuable recommendations.  We created Yazing to help them, and others, be fairly rewarded this value and the transactions they are creating." said, Adam Viener, Yazing's Founder.

Yazing is an ongoing work in progress, and they have recently opened up their platform to a limited number of beta testers.  If you want to test out the platform and start earning money on your recommendations, visit Yazing.com and click on Join at the top of the page.

Related articles

Introducing Yazing

Imwave Animation Explains Performance SEM and Affiliate PPC

We love talking with new potential partners at Imwave, and have found that many of these partners have the same questions.  What does Imwave do?  How can we work with you when our company does their own search campaigns, etc... 

We recently posted the following video animation that explains a lot of these questions about performance search engine marketing (affiliate ppc / affiliate search) and hope to produce another video in the near future that gets into some of the more technical details that eventually come up.

We hope you enjoy the video, please let us know what you think!

PMA Illinois Lawsuit Victory Upheld

The PMA has announced today that the Illinois Supreme Court has uphelp a lower court ruling making the Illinois Affiliate Nexus Tax unconstitutional.  Not sure what this mean for affiliates yet.  Stay tuneds.  Nice work PMA.

 

http://thepma.org/pma-illinois-lawsuit-victory-upheld/

 

Here is a link to the opionion:

http://www.state.il.us/court/Opinions/SupremeCourt/2013/Summaries/114496s.htm

 

 

Are you in a conference rut, like me?

Since I've been in the performance marketing space I've been going to the same conferences year after year. Not that these are bad, most are very good.

The question I've been asking myself lately is this, "are there better ones I should be going to."

Let's face it, unless you just like traveling the reason for conferences is education and networking....driving more business. So where is the best return on my effort?

This year I'm going to be looking outside the box, at some new conferences to review. Today and tomorrow in New York, the founders of A4U are putting Performance Marketing Insights http://www.performancemarketinginsights.com

I took a look at the agenda and it appears to be filled with relevant topics, good speakers and sponsors.

This will be my first new event in years. i guess we will see how it works out.

Scott Jangro Scroogled?

It's always fun when a friend in the industry puts up a funny picture, and you can grab it and have some fun with it.  This one's for you Scott!

New Conference for Affiliate Managers - Imwave CEO speaking

There is a new conference coming in March 2012 that is geared specifically toward affiliate managers who are responsible for their company’s affiliate marketing strategy, management and operations.

The conference is called Affiliate Management Days, hosted in San Francisco March 8-9, 2012.

This is an interesting premise as its focus is on the affiliate managers and how to run an successful and effective program.

Normally I leary of first year events, but there are some really great speakers lined up and the agenda seems pretty solid.   Also, I will be presenting a session titled:  Is your Affiliate Program an Afterthought? focused on how managers can fight for respect among the other sales channels within their organization and will also be also participating on a panel titled:  Inside the Mind of a Super Affiliate.  Not sure I know what a Super Affiliate really is, but we’re going go inside their mind ;-)

If you haven’t checked out the conference yet, take a look

http://www.affiliatemanagementdays.com/

…it may pique your interest. Early bird registration ends tomorrow!

If you are going, we’d love to see you there. If you are planning to go, let me know!

Google Taking Privacy Policies Seriously Now?

 

I've been working with a particular client for several years now doing their SEM on a performance basis.  Early this week, out of the blue, I received an email from Google with the following Subject:

    Your AdWords account: Site violation

Here is a short excerpt of the message:

We've reviewed your account and found that one of your sites is in violation of our Landing Page and Site Policies.

      Customer ID: XXX-XXX-XXXX

      Display URL: <client-url>.com

Please note that ad traffic to the above URL will be suspended and all new ads pointing to this URL will be disapproved.

This is the client's own website that has been running for years.  After reading the Google guidelines....AGAIN... I could find no reason for a site violation.

I contacted Google and was told that the "violation" was due to the lack of a "Privacy Policy."

I know that Google has always said they are in favor of Privacy Policies but I had never heard of an AdWords campaign being shut down for the lack of such a policy.

On top of that, the site in question DID have a Privacy Policy.  However, the link was not labeled "Privacy" or "Privacy Policy" it was simply labeled "Our Policy."

I was able to clear this up pretty quickly, but I thought it was interesting how seriously Google it taking Privacy Policies these days.  Perhaps this was part of some new algorithm?

Anyone heard of anything like this? 

 

 

Affiliate Tax Propaganda - Affiliates Continue to be the Human Shields

Well this tax issues continues to made news and most of the time it is misinformation and/or partial truths. 

Sadly this issue has continued to be branded as the Amazon Tax and as such has been positioned as a David and Goliath issue:  The Big Bad Online Only Retailer v. Mom and Pop America 

The problem is, this has nothing to do with Mom and Pop.   

In a recent issue of The Directors Letter, the following was written:

Goose and Gander  We recently wrote about Amazon's aggressive battle with various states to avoid collecting and paying sales tax. Amazon's technique is to eliminate relationships with local affiliates so that it can declare no presence in a specific state. In the latest development, competitors including Wal-Mart, Target and other large retailers have joined up to form the Alliance for Main Street Fairness. The Alliance is lobbying for legislative changes that would require Amazon to pay state sales tax.

Let’s analyze this a bit….

First this part:  “Amazon's technique is to eliminate relationships with local affiliates so that it can declare no presence in a specific state”

This isn’t just Amazon’s tactic.  Several online retailers have chosen this path.  What needs to be nailed down is that this isn’t just a tactic……doing this total absolves then from having to collect the sales tax that was the intent of these Bills.    

Here is how it works everywhere it has passed (except NY solely because of pending legislation)

1) Bill Passes

2) Nexus is created for Online Merchant

3) Affiliates Get Fired --- In many cases #3 actually precedes #1!

4) Online Retailer no longer has Nexus since it no longer has affiliates 

5) Online Retailer Collects $0 sales tax - no Nexus, no Sales Tax

6) Affiliate Loses Revenue

7) State collects less income tax from small business that have been financially hurt or put out business by passage of the Bill

This is pretty black and white….

Use Affilates to Create Nexus, Affilaites Fired, No Nexus created, Bill is useless............please tell me what I’m missing????

Second: “In the latest development, competitors including Wal-Mart, Target and other large retailers have joined up to form the Alliance for Main Street Fairness.”

So let me get this straight….The Big Box retailers that KILLED the Mom and Pop stores all across the country in the first place have now joined forces to create the Alliance for Main Street Fairness?   There is nothing Main Street about this fight.  A look at their website, which I will not link to, or course says nothing about Big Box Stores….it trots out a bunch of local business that have supposedly been hurt by the online retailers. 

For the record, I understand that sales tax issue.  It won’t be easy to solve, hopefully legislators will see it for what it is. 

It’s clear what this is.  It’s a fight between behemoths….Online Only versus The Click and Mortar.......

In the meantime,  it’s a shame that Affiliates continue to be the Human Shields in the war between Online Only Retailers and Big Box Retailers.