But delve a little deeper and a multi attribution model throws up more questions and subjective dilemmas than there are answers to.

An advertiser may find that two or three affiliates may be involved in a typical sale. Do you apportion the commission accordingly (by halving or dividing by three in this case) or do you weight it subject to a possibly arbitrary scoring system that attributes a ‘value’ to individual affiliates? What would then be the basis for this system; individual affiliate performance such as new customer acquisition numbers, average basket amounts, frequency of purchase?

From an affiliate’s perspective there are obvious concerns. If you run a cashback, loyalty or reward site and need to publish a commission rate what do you advertise when you don’t potentially know what you’re getting? What about affiliates working in the paid search space who need a guaranteed rate of return so they can account for their click costs and work their campaigns profitably?

By all means try to understand what value your individual affiliates contribute at various stages to your sales but rather than talk about dividing a commission according to an arbitrary click measurement why not just try to appreciate the value of each of your affiliates; both the volume drivers and by affiliate categorisation?

As multi-attribution continues to pose more questions than it answers many advertisers are getting on with the business of running their campaigns. The savvier are taking a step back, understanding the wider picture and apportioning commission rates that reflect the perceived or actual ‘value’ of their different affiliate types.

And ultimately that’s what performance based marketing is all about.

Guest Post by: Kevin Edwards of Affiliate Window.

With every penny ever more precious, with every cent being counted, would the greater focus by merchants on return from marketing spend see an industry seeing significant year on year growth make the shift to a dominant mainstream channel? Or would overall reduced marketing spend mean affiliates would suffer along with press, radio and TV?

For a while it seemed that affiliates were at least safe, and were at best coasting to a better, and richer, future. As one might expect, merchants were increasingly enticed by the idea of a channel that only pays out on a tangible return. However, overall reduced marketing spend has seen a more significant shift as merchants have shifted focus on other media to CPA and ROI targeted campaigns. Aggregators, PPC and traditional display-based advertising are delivering on CPA and ROI based models that have begun to return lower CPAs than affiliates and higher ROI.

There’s a simple lesson to be learnt from this; it is no longer enough to simply drive sales. Whilst this represents a sea change in thinking for many, for affiliates to capitalise on the current economic condition it is imperative that two things are addressed, and soon:
Quality of traffic
Costing Models

Without a significant increase in the quality of traffic, or the way that traffic is handled, the opportunity that is available to affiliates, that sweet silver lining, is likely to evaporate. By changing the overall perspective of a volume driving channel to one that is linked to profitability, ultimately doors will be opened rather than shut.

This is not to say that fundamental upheaval is necessary. However, publishers need to accept that positioning and potential will need to be increasingly tied to the needs of the merchant rather than CPAs and EPCs as merchants become more educated.

A simple example of this would be loyalty sites, a group that have seen huge successes in recent times, but who have also left a bad taste in merchants’ mouths that have been burnt one too many times. Simply by developing offerings that tie into the LTV of a custome, for example an insurance bounty that only pays out on renewal of a policy they can create a harmonious model that would make significant steps toward realising the huge potential growth for affiliates that is currently available.

The affiliate channel currently sees itself at a fork in the road; partially through its own impressive and intrinsic growth, but also through unforeseen global economic changes. By acting quickly and sagely, it can make the move from being a specialist part of the marketing mix to something that consistently sits at the heart of all merchant’s overall media strategies.

Guest Post by: James Atherton of Vizeum.

Imagine I’m buying a Pay As You Go mobile phone. First of all I’ll probably read reviews of two or three new handsets I’ve heard about (for simplicity let’s say I’ve visited one review site, although in reality it may be several), clicking through to retailers and back in the process. Having decided I want the new Nokia I’ll then go to my chosen comparison site to find the best deal on it, before clicking through to the merchant. Wait a minute though, here’s a box in the checkout for a voucher code… I’ll just pop back to Google to find a current code for that merchant, which will involve clicking on the site and hence dropping a voucher code cookie, which will win the commission for the whole sale. Wouldn’t it be great if the merchant could store the three cookies (this is possible) and then automatically split the commission three ways on completion? I guess it would be more popular with the review sites but then they probably work a lot harder to put their content together than the voucher sites anyway.

I’ve deliberately omitted another stage of the buying process here, the cashback or reward site. The problem is they need to know what the CPA is in advance in order to offer it to their members, so it would seem they would need a different set of rules altogether – and they may be the sites who prevent this idea from ever getting off the ground. The other problem with this method if it became the norm is that it’s open to abuse. What’s to stop unscrupulous affiliates linking to merchants using a link that momentarily visits another of their own sites, because if the commission is going to be split they might as well bag another share to make sure?

I don’t know the answer to this big question, but I look forward to the debate.

Guest Blog by: Richard Buckton of Digital TV Advice

I fondly remember back to a conversation that I had with a Sr. VP of Sales at a leading newspaper roughly 5 years ago (who I was an Online Specialist for). It went something like this:

What do you think will happen moving forward with the newspaper, the magazine and the sites?

My response was “watch out because the Avalanche is coming”. What I was referring to was that with online audiences growing steadily and newspaper and magazine ad revenue (and readership) dropping like a stone, it was pretty clear that any irrelevant media source would be wiped out. It wouldn’t happen overnight but it would definitely happen, magazine by magazine, paper by paper, city by city.

“Readers” weren’t readers anymore, they’re now people. They didn’t like yesterday’s news or to be told what was happening. They no longer bought the media, they controlled it, they made the media, had voices and they reached out to places where they could be heard. They used to think we were nuts that we went to YouTube or Blogged, now it’s called things like User Generated Content, Tweets or Postings and these dark dungeons are now called Billion dollar companies. Imagine the pleasure I had back then in being a webhead. How much for a button thingy on the front page? how do I find Google on the web? I must have short man’s syndrome or something but it’s amazing now that people are living the dream – people read newspapers, people watch TV, people listen to the radio but people USE the Internet.

Now that we are USING the Internet we’ve taken media to an absolutely new level. That new level has been incredibly fun for my peeps, my fellow webheads. Before you put on your party hat and print your revolution t-shirt, stop and think for a second about something that this growth has created – Advertisers’ pain. They can’t find you anymore. They’re having difficulty learning how to speak WITH you instead of speaking AT you. Come on tidy demographics, can’t you just congregate at the local newspaper like you used to? It was so much easier when one phone call would buy media for millions of people in a specific demographic.

To make things worse, the economy has gone from “the challenge area” to the “Don’t lose my job at all costs” phase and now these Marketing Managers and agency folk are pressed to sell more products with each Marketing dollar spent. That’s right, selling products is important again. Pass the Rogaine, people are losing their hair out there. The avalanche is here and the snowboarders are winning! It’s ok, we’ll help them out right.

You never know, maybe they’re reading your blog right now, clicking on an ad and helping you make a few affiliate bucks.

Guest Post by: Mike Carney of MediaTrust

In the Day to day world of an Affiliate publisher it’s very similar to being at closing time on a Saturday night – who should I commit all of my charm and resources to? Sometimes that choice becomes more difficult because your friends are giving you the nudge, nudge and hyping the beauty across the room. Trust me on this one, look past that one a little further before making your decision. Be a playa’, enjoy life a bit more.

If you’re going to date the Cleansing twins – Acai and Colonia – you have to at least once in your life - find out what else is available and then date them all. A little speed dating action if you will. Shortly you will see which one is your Mrs. Chucky and which one will make you brag to your friends. Just the other day I saw a clear example where a publisher followed the hype, jumped in with both feet with an offer – while throwing little at a comparable offer – and made (chewing their arm off) LESS by running the hyped offer. A LOT LESS. Don’t let this happen to you. Ask for the full roster in each offer category and then do a little speed dating. The one that performs the best in a head to head competition is the one that you should marry your traffic to.

Don’t be blinded by the highest payout, play the field, try different channels, check your head to head EPC’s and laugh all the way to the alter – and bank.

Guest post by: Mike Carney of MediaTrust.

Let me know your thoughts and feedback and my Affiliate Marketing 101 presentations!

Famous people on Twitter seem to have the same magical influence over their Follower base that they have over every other kind of media- public fascination. Ashton Kutcher’s @aplusk profile is the ideal example of this. After his much publicized race with CNN to 1 million Followers he then skyrocketed to over 2 million just 6 weeks later. 6 weeks! Celebrities use Twitter however they want to- just the other day @aplusk tweeted (to his 2 million + Followers) that his friend was writing a book and could really use some feedback on the first chapter. I don’t know the numbers, but if even ½ of 1% of those Followers clicked through to the book, that’s 1000 people looking at a book they probably wouldn’t have otherwise heard of.

Social media does beg a different marketing approach, and the presence of famous people on Twitter has both profound and under-the-radar effects on Twitter marketing. The presence of famous people on Twitter and how they use the micro-blogging service exerts an influence over the etiquette, the approach and the metrics of Twitter Marketing.

Here’s how Famous People on Twitter Influece Twitter Marketing:

1. Tone- Famous People on Twitter utilize the personal tone that is the calling card of Twitter. On any other media platform, their relationship with the general public is carefully scripted. Twitter’s essence is real-time, personal connection, and that changes how famous people on Twitter interact with their Followers, leading to an expected tone with marketers. Marketing messages on any media are traditionally scripted as well, refined to get attention and evoke a call to action These kinds of messages on Twitter are not as effective. Top-down entertainment doesn’t work, and neither does top-down marketing. If famous Twitterers can teach us anything about tone it’s that there is power in the personal.

2. Personality and Trust- Famous People on Twitter have large numbers of “Followers” just because they are already famous. That’s just how it is- they are celebrities. As I have said, Twitter is based on personal interaction- old marketing techniques and a lot of newer online marketing is premised on delivering a message TO people. While there have always been spokespeople or brand representatives, never before has there been such an emphasis on personal reputation and trust- what Chris Brogan called “Trust Agents.” Marketers on Twitter represent themselves and a group of products rather than the product in a group of people. Personal branding people and bloggers utilize strong personal branding abilities to grow their own Follower base- they themselves become famous people on Twitter by using Twitter effectively.

3. Conversation- People on Twitter expect conversations and respond to them positively- even @aplusk or @THE_REAL_SHAQ are talking to people they probably haven’t met in person. Most messages in traditional marketing have been one-way and top-down. Again, just as famous people on Twitter interacting with people who aren’t famous and breaks the content delivery mode of traditional entertainment, so is the normalizing of conversation on Twitter challenging marketers to change the traditional content delivery mode of marketing.

My own blog competition has seen a lot of traffic from even semi famous people on twitter tweeting about it to try and get votes. And as Twitter continues to grow, the influence of what one trusted person has to say will only grow.
The personal nature of Twitter is changing how we view our relationships with famous people on Twitter, and that changes the way people expect marketers to act and interact on Twitter.

Guest post: Murray Newlands works in affiliate marketing and affiliate management. You can find out more about him at www.MurrayNewlands.com.

Brandverity has many excellent features that you simply must check out. Whether you allow affiliates to bid on your brands and trademarks or not, it’s great to be able to monitor what is going on and be in “the know.” It’s very affordable and in my humble opinion an absolute must, check it out here.

Thank you for reading! Let me know if you have any questions. I can connect you directly with the people at BrandVerity to discuss any special needs you may have or to answer questions. If you need anything from me you can always reach out to me anytime.

Promoting carbon offsetting with solar panels is an important way you can use your skills and talents to save the environment. Solar affiliate is a pioneer in the affiliate marketing world who understands how to use their affiliate marketing expertise to promote ventures that make sense both for the Earth and for their business.

Going green and encouraging others to go green is close to my heart. One way for anyone to start earning money in a way that helps the Earth is to become a solar affiliate. It’s good for the planet, good for the people who live here (Us!), and it can be good money. Businesses in the green world are embracing a concept called the Triple Bottom Line- People, Planet, Profit (PPP). Becoming a solar affiliate means becoming part of that conservation-minded business model.

If you are interested in a solar affiliate network, here are two networks to look at:

1. EDF Energy
EDF Energy is Britain’s largest electricity generator. They have committed to a 60% reduction of the intensity of British electricity production carbon dioxide emissions from by 2020. They currently provide customers the Eco20:20 green option as well as other green and environmental friendly products.

The EDF Energy affiliate program has a great solar affiliate commission structure that pays £40 for dual fuel (electricity and gas) and £20 for electricity only. This is a fantastic opportunity to become a solar affiliate and do something that helps both your commissions and the environment. And further, they give you access to micro-generation technologies like solar thermal panels to generate your own electricity.
The EDF Energy affiliate program is available on Affiliate Window, one of the sponsors of my blog competition.

2. GoGreenSolar.com
GoGreenSolar.com is another fantastic opportunity to become a solar affiliate. Their website is an active and responsive online destination for solar panels, wind power and energy efficiency. They have great customer service support, a wide variety of products, and a community forum that is thriving and frequently updated.

They offer customers products, services and financing to reduce their energy expenses. For a solar affiliate, each purchase by a referral from your website equals a 5% commission. Some of their best selling products are solar panels, complete solar energy systems, inverters/chargers, and even wind turbines.

If you know of any other quality solar affiliate programs, please contact me with the information in the Author Bio.

Author Bio: Murray Newlands is a blogger and online marketing expert. www.MurrayNewlands.com is his blog about social media and online marketing, from the affiliate side to the green world. The blog is widely read by bloggers, online marketers, affiliates and people trying to change the world. The blog regularly features interviews with prominent bloggers and reviews of social media apps and affiliate networks.

Find him on Twitter @MurrayNewlands.