My Job Chart is a great example of a useful site powered by affiliate marketing.

The site is a tool to manage chores for kids and provide them rewards, some of which are available through Amazon affiliate links for parents to purchase for their kids.

I’ve found My Job Chart to be a fantastic resource, as it makes my life easier in keeping tabs on chores with my four kids.

And they enjoy it, too, as they are able to monitor their progress and work towards goals. While it used to be a grind to get them to do little jobs, they now ask for extra things to do, so they can log them into their My Job Chart account.

My Job Chart solves a problem, which is one of the ideal purposes for an affiliate site, and my appreciation makes me happy to go through their links.

I was curious to find out more about My Job Chart, so I asked Founder and CEO Gregg Murset how he got started and the monetization of the project:

www.myjobchart.com was created out of necessity. We have 6 kids and trying to keep them all organized and understanding the value of work and a dollar is a challenge. I am also a CFP (Certified Financial Planner) and know that the younger generation is growing up with some weird ideas about work and money. So My Job Chart was born.

In a little more than a year we now have almost 130,000 kids registered and hundreds more joining each day. This is my first project using affiliate marketing and we have utilized Amazon from January of 2011. We have also done some work with ING Direct opening Kids Savings Accounts in our SAVE area. We had some really incredible results opening accounts.

Our message board system is new and we are refining it. A kid can click on the sticky note that is on their job chart and send a message to their parent. The parent can in turn send a message back and a closed loop communication sequence takes place with the kids. This is a great way to encourage and reinforce good behaviors and make something like chores more of a positive experience.

I’d imagine other affiliate programs will be lobbying Mr. Murset for inclusion on the site.

More details on My Job Chart at http://www.myjobchart.com/.

Speaking proposals for Affiliate Summit East 2012, taking place August 12-14, 2012 in New York City, are now being accepted.

The submission deadline is April 20, 2012. Any submissions after this date will not be considered.

Accepted speakers will be notified no later than May 11, 2012. If you have not been contacted by May 11, 2012, your proposal was not accepted.

Submit your speaking proposal at http://www.affiliatesummit.com/12e-speakers/.

This week on the Affiliate Thing podcast, Lisa Picarille was joined by Todd Farmer and Vinny O’Hare, while I snuck away for a long weekend.

They talked about Vinny and Todd’s respective sessions at Affiliate Summit West 2012, what Lisa learned from each of them, how Erik Hom was afraid to be on the podcast, and trying to find a way to monetize Pinterest.

Lisa, Todd, and Vinny also gave a shout out to Trisha Lyn Fawver and Melanie Seery; chatted about Super Bowl ads, mastermind groups, and work schedules.

Show Links

• The growing need for affiliate education
• Team Loxly
• VideoGameKid.com
• My Content Pro
• Pinterest
• Affiliate Summit Meetups
• Affiliate Summit Central
• The Dreaded C-word

Subscribe to the Affiliate Thing RSS feed or listen on iTunes. You can also send a blank e-mail to affiliatething@aweber.com to get each podcast delivered by e-mail.

FeedFront Magazine is now available on iPad.

Now you can read the current issue of FeedFront and any of the past issues on an iPad, as well as online.

Check out issue 17 (January 2012) of FeedFront on your computer or iPad.

You can access all of the past issues of FeedFront at http://issuu.com/affiliatesummit/docs.

The magazine issues can also be downloaded as PDFs and printed.

If you’d like to receive print editions of FeedFront in the future, sign up for your free subscription (U.S. addresses only).

Feel free to embed FeedFront to your site, and please click the Facebook Like button on issues you enjoy.

Affiliate Summit has created a dailymile Challenge where we will donate $1 to benefit the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in support of Affiliate Marketers Give Back team for each mile cycled, run, swam, or walked (up to $5,000).

dailymile syncs with Garmin (205, 305, 310xt, 405, 405cx), Nike+ device and iPhone app, as well as a number of iPhone and Android clients.

You can also manually enter your exercise efforts.

In order to participate in dailymile activities, you will need to friend me on dailymile and I will invite you to the challenge.

Do you accept the Race to Affiliate Summit East 2012 Challenge?

Affiliate Summit East 2012 is taking place August 12-14, 2012 in New York City.

The participant with the most total miles at the end of the challenge will receive a VIP Pass to Affiliate Summit West 2013. 2nd to 5th place finishers will each receive a Networking Plus Pass to Affiliate Summit West 2013, and 6th to 10th place finishers will each receive a Networking Pass to Affiliate Summit West 2013.

Please note that all information you provide as part of the contest is public and may be used by Affiliate Summit in our marketing efforts for this event.

Affiliates were asked “Do you cloak/redirect links?” for the 2011 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report.

The majority of respondents, at 59%, said no, and the remaining 41% indicated they do cloak their links.

I’ve been cloaking affiliate links for as long as I can remember – first through meta redirects, then via an .htaccess file, before I moved on to using a WordPress plugin called Pretty Link.

I also came across another useful affiliate redirect WordPress Plugin called ThirstyAffiliates last fall.

Additionally, I use bit.ly Pro, which is a free service that enables me to use my own domain to make redirect links. I use aff.bz there.

Over fourteen-hundred affiliates were surveyed on their methods, preferences, and strategies for the 2011 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report.

More details on AffStat at http://affstat.com/.

Daniel M. Clark, Founder of QAQN, will be the Emcee at Affiliate Summit East 2012, which is taking place August 12-14, 2012 at the Hilton New York.

Daniel M. Clark is a podcast production consultant and the founder of QAQN, a collection of informative and entertaining podcasts.

A resident of the internet since 1992, he either is or has been: a t-shirt designer, an art reviewer, a system administrator, a video game designer and programmer, a blogger, an affiliate marketer, a podcaster, a space cowboy, and a gangster of love. He has, in fact, gotten his lovin’ on the run.

Mostly what Daniel is right now is a work-at-home dad, raising two kids, ages 6 and 3 with his wife, Angela. Daniel has written articles for FeedFront magazine and Blogworld.com. He publishes a variety of podcasts at QAQN.com, including Inside Internet Marketing, his most frequently downloaded show.

Daniel’s first Affiliate Summit was Affiliate Summit East 2006 and he has been a speaker at four Affiliate Summits since 2008.

More details soon on Affiliate Summit East 2012 at http://www.affiliatesummit.com.

I’ve gotten questions from lots of folks in the past day who have donated or are thinking about donating to support me in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer.

They were all wondering whether the Avon Foundation for Women is affiliated with Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

The answer is no, according to a post from the Avon Foundation for Women on Facebook:

The Avon Foundation for Women is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and is not affiliated in any way with Susan G. Komen for the Cure. The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer event series is a project of the Avon Foundation and has no connection to any Susan G. Komen event. We invite you to learn more about our events and the breast cancer research and access to care programs we fund at www.avonwalk.org and www.avonfoundation.org

So there y’all go.

If you haven’t already pitched in to help fight breast cancer, I’d love if you’d support me in the Avon Walk For Breast Cancer with a donation of any amount. I’m trying to raise $25,000 towards our team goal of $80,000.

The money I raise will be managed and disbursed by the Avon Foundation Breast Cancer Crusade to help provide access to care for those that most need it, fund educational programs, and accelerate research into new treatments and potential cures.

Get more details on where the money goes from funds raised in the Avon Walks.

Also, we need affiliate marketers, as well as their friends and family, to join us out there on the walk or at our cheering station.

More details on joining or supporting the team: 2012 Affiliate Marketers Give Back Walk to #SaveTheBoobies is On!

Affiliate Summit has incorporated games into the Affiliate Summit forum, where everybody can earn points for doing various things on the site.

Just jump into the forum and participate to earn points for visiting, posting, etc.

Along the way, you’ll accomplish achievements and be able to cash in points for rewards

Details on the Affiliate Summit Rewards Program and eligibility requirements will be posted in the near future.

Affiliates should be split testing their landing pages, but many I’ve asked have never bothered.

For the uninitiated, split or A/B testing is a process where you serve up different versions of your page to different visitors to determine which is more effective.

I’ve tried various ways in WordPress and found they were largely a hassle, until I came across the Simple Page Tester plugin.

The plugin lives up to the name, as it was simple to set up and start a split test.

You just choose an existing page and then choose to duplicate the page, create a fresh page to test against, or choose another existing page.

Then you determine how many people see each version of the page by adjusting the percentage in either direction.

It’s up to you to track conversions from each version. After you run a test, you can declare one page the winner.

At that point, the winning page becomes the new master page and the old variation is deleted for you.

Simple as that.