I wanted to wish everyone a happy holidays and Merry Christmas to those that celebrate!

I’ve been pretty busy the past week due to the holidays and trying to get some landing pages ready for the new year.

January is the start of the “new years resolutions” and you should know what does well during that time! Weight Loss/Fitness, stop smoking etc…

In early 2010 I hope to finally get an eMonetized.com site redesign complete. I also have several more good interviews to post.

Take care and again, have a safe happy holiday!

One of the newer affiliate blogs I’ve really enjoyed reading is that of Logan Thompson. I love the design (he is a designer too) and the content isn’t the same stuff you see everywhere else.

You can check out Logan’s blog at LRThompson.com and follow also follow Logan Thompson on Twitter.

An Interview With Logan Thompson

How did you get started in the industry?

Back in 1996 I taught myself how to design websites. The first site I ever created was about all of the inconsistencies in the show Saved By The Bell, and was more of a personal type of site that had very little traffic. I never really looked to monetize it or any of the other sites I was messing with at the time; until I heard about Linkshare. It wasn’t until 2001 when I made my fist commission check for 72 cents. Since then I’ve been hooked on affiliate marketing (although that was probably my last check using Linkshare). After spending time at a few jobs as a web designer with companies like GiftTree.com and Dotster.com, I realized affiliate marketing was much more satisfying than working for someone else.

What was your biggest learning experience to date?

Earlier this year I launched a Facebook campaign that went against what most people said would be successful on Facebook. Basically it was a cost per sale campaign on a product that was around $100. While most people would say that probably wouldn’t work, that 1 campaign earned me more in 3 months than I made in an entire year at my previous job. I learned that you have to try things out for yourself instead of just copying what other people are doing. What works for one person might not work for me. What works for me, might not work for you, etc.

What was your biggest success to date?

To me, my biggest success is just the fact that I am able to work for myself, choose my own hours, and support my family. I love that I don’t have to work for someone else and that is success to me.

How did you learn the business? (eBooks? Webinars? Membership sites? Freebies? Paid services?)

Most of what I have learned is through my own trial and error. Although I spend some time reading blogs and a few forums, I generally like to learn by testing things on my own. Aside from that, I learn a lot just through networking with other affiliate marketers and by trying to learn something from everyone I come in contact with.

What do you think is the true value to consumers in affiliate marketing?

If done correctly, affiliate marketing adds value to consumers by helping them find the information they are looking for in the buying process faster.

Do you think sponsored conversations have their place in the industry?

I’m torn on this. As a marketer I like it. As a consumer it annoys the crap out of me.

Besides yourself, who do you think is the most valuable resource to the affiliate community?

There are a ton of great people in the industry it would be hard to select who is the most valuable. I like to check out AffBuzz.com on a regular basis to keep track of whats going on in the industry.

How do you balance professional v. personal?

I make sure that I set working hours so that when I “come home,” I am out of work mode. I still spend time working late at night, but I make sure to spend plenty of time with my wife in the evenings, and spend time volunteering with middle school kids every week to get me out of the house.

How often did you check your stats….1 month in? 1 year in? Today?

I check my stats way to much. In the beginning it was like every 5-10 minutes. Now I probably check them every hour during the day and set my alarm every 2 hours to wake up in the middle of the night to check them (just kidding about that last part).

If Hollywood made a movie about your life, whom would you like to see play the lead role as you?

Maybe Justin Timberlake. I can’t sing, but maybe he would make my life seem more interesting.

OK, now who would REALLY play you?

Doh, probably Clay Aiken

What are some of the key differences between a ’super affiliate’ and the veteran, less successful affiliates?

I’m not a huge fan of the term super affiliate. As far as the difference between a successful and unsuccessful affiliate is that successful affiliates work their butts off until they are successful and learn how to test things for themselves. They also don’t rely on others to be successful.

Is where you are now where you thought you’d be…10 years ago? 5 years ago? A month ago? Why/ why not?

Pretty much. Ever since I was in high school I always knew I wanted to work for myself. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do, but I knew that being an employee of someone else wasn’t my style. I’m in love with what I’m doing now and wouldn’t trade it for pretty much anything else (other than a contract with an NBA team).

Explain affiliate marketing so a child would understand it.

*Note- Please don’t just say I make money online. Assume the follow up to that would be ‘How?’

Affiliate marketing is basically when a business compensates an affiliate (me) for each customer or lead that is brought about by the affiliate marketers efforts. You probably have heard of Amazon.com, but you might not be aware that they were one of the first companies to offer an affiliate program. Since Amazon has so many products, what I would do is create a website based around a certain product or similar products. Lets say I create a site about computer speakers that has all kinds of information on the newest products available. I’d than create links to Amazon.com through special links they give me so when people click on them, they will track that the customer came from my speaker site. Now if that customer makes a purchase from Amazon, I get paid a commission.

—————————

Logan, thanks for doing the interview with eMonetized! Keep up the great work on the blog! You can visit Logan’s blog at LRThompson.com and follow also follow Logan Thompson on Twitter.

Because social media is such a new field, anyone with a Twitter account can claim to be an expert. Like any other industry, you have to find a strategy that works for you. Here is some honest feedback on how to conquer the world- and Facebook, too.

1. There ARE no experts.

While there are, of course, some people more qualified to speak on the subject then others, not one of them is an expert. Why? Platforms change daily. Twitter works fantastic for some brands, LinkedIn is best for others. Every expert pitches what’s worked for them; if you’re not following the same business plan with the same goals, it’s probably not going to work for you.

2. Tools to get you thousands of followers don’t pay the bills.

Think really hard about this one. If you sign up for a follower application that automatically gets you 5,000 followers, all you’re getting, is 5,000 people who most likely, are uninterested in what you’re pitching. They’re jumping on the bandwagon because it looks good. Would you rather sell to 500 qualified followers who are genuinely interested in what you have to say, or 5,000 followers who have 4,999 other tweets to read and will likely miss what you have to say.

3. If you want to be SOCIAL, you have to talk…and LISTEN.

There is still a stereotype around social networks that they’re just noise, but look at where you get the vast majority of news and information these days. Are you: Watching tv? Listening to FM radio? Reading CNN stories online?

Face it, if the media thinks there’s a future online, there IS a future ONLINE. You can make fun of what your friends who use Facebook or Twitter to post what they ate for breakfast all day, but to build a business, you have to network. Whether you do that online or off is your call, though both is best. Are you really going to tell me there’s no value to social media platforms when one of the newest has 350 million+ users, or are you just afraid if you take the plunge, no one will want to engage with you?

4. You don’t have to do it all. Just do it.

You shouldn’t sign up for every social network. If you did, there is 100% chance they won’t all work for you (there are social networks dedicated to singles, married individuals, married couples, gay, straight, bi, undecided- are you all of those at once?).

Decide what your goal is. Do you simply want to increase your brand exposure? Do you want to make money directly from your efforts? Do you want to connect with an international audience? Each platform has its own specific purpose(s)- pick the ones that will get you to your goal effectively. Most importantly, just pick one!

5. If you give away freebies, you’ll get more subscribers.

Almost every blog or brand has tried it at some point- hosting a contest with prizes ranging from a toilet wand to a Macbook Pro. Don’t do it unless you’re going to do it right. Pick a sponsor that’s going to fit your audience and their needs, and promote effectively from there.

Also, don’t make the entry barrier too difficult- people are lazy! If you’re asking for an entire blog dedicated to the wonders of clown makeup, you’ll be lucky if you get one reader. Make it as easy as possible for your readers to enter, and plan your ‘sticky’ factor in advance. While most subscribers you get will stick around after the contest is over (lazy, remember?), they’ll eventually drop off if the only thing you post all year is that one contest.

6. Begging.

This is one of my biggest frustrations when it comes to utilizing social networks, and we’ve all witnessed it at some point. You get a DM on twitter, on InMail on LinkedIn, or a comment on your blog: ‘Please RT, share, post, Digg, Stumble, love’

I’m happy to do favors for friends, but if I’ve never encountered you before in real life or the online world, your first interaction shouldn’t be to ask for favors. Unless you’re curing cancer or saving cute animals, don’t bother. Part of the genius of social platforms, which YouTube does a great job of promoting and more people should take advantage of, is the viral factor. If your content is quality and relevant, people will naturally want to share it. If you’re begging for eyeballs, you don’t deserve them.

7. Me, me, me syndrome.

If all your messages consist of ‘I did this, I want that, I love this post, this idea worked great for me…’ you might as well cancel your accounts now. We’ve all had this friend before- they call to ‘check up on you’ and you don’t even finish saying the word hello before they launch into three hours of their soap opera drama. That exists online too, believe it or not.

Remember the SOCIAL in social media. Heck, remember the SOCIAL in conversations and real life engagement, too.

8. You have to give some to get some.

This can also be relevant to the tip above, but let’s face it- if you want to make real money, you have to spend real money. Monopoly dollars don’t work for Facebook ads, and while the IZEA team loves chocolate, gold coin candies aren’t official Sponsored Tweets currency.

If you want to be the next big thing, you have to take some risks. Test some ads for your eBook, bid on some keywords in a new PPC campaign, or promote yourself through a sponsored platform. They won’t all be winners, but no one I’ve met personally has been able to turn water into wine. Think the same way about your product or service.

This is a  short review/interview of the Adbuyer.com advertising network.

I’ve used Adbuyer off and on this past year and have seen some nice success with some campaigns. It all comes down to testing and tweaking.

My best campaign with Adbuyer this year earned $62,910 off a $51,094 spend. It’s not a huge profit or return on investment but it averaged about an extra $1,000 profit each month and it all adds up. I also use the American Express Plum card which pays me 2% cash back on spend. With more tweaking I could increase those margins.

I met the owners Jessica and her husband in person at Adtech 2009 and they are a great team. If you have any questions about Adbuyer just ask them here or email accounts@adbuyer.com

What Is AdBuyer.com?

AdBuyer.com is a platform that allows marketers to create and optimize campaigns in the major ad exchanges. We connect to the largest ad exchanges to provide access to inventory from Right Media, DoubleClick, AppNexus and OpenX.

Why Should You Work With Adbuyer.com?

We make ad exchange buying easier and more effective. We offer a single platform for campaign creation, results tracking, and reporting, as well as sophisticated analytical tools that help improve your campaign results over time.

What Forms Of Advertising Does Adbuyer.com Accept (CPM + banner sizes), CPC etc)?

We offer CPM advertising across all placements in the 5 major sizes (300×250, 728×90, 160×600, 120×600 and 468×60). We also offer CPC across most placements and CPA to a few clients who are able to demonstrate an effective conversion path after a test of a few thousand dollars.

What Makes Adbuyer Unique?

The ad exchanges are a better way to buy display advertising, used successfully by many of the largest advertisers. We’re trying to make it easier for every marketer to take advantage of the benefits offered by an auction-based environment with a huge amount of liquidity. To do that, we offer two tools that are unique and compelling: Audience Scores and impression-level bidding.

Audience Scores help to find your target audience faster by restricting your campaign to only targeting settings that have worked for marketers like you in the past. For example, targeting a minimum Audience Score of 70 for Education advertisers means that you’re targeting only the top 30% of impressions that we know about. This can include site-targeting, contextual-targeting, and behavioral targeting.

Our impression level bidding makes sure we put the right price on every impression. We measure your campaign to see how well it clicks and converts across a wide variety of placements and targeting options, building a predictive history as we gather data. This lets us vary the price that we pay for each impression, ensuring that we’re always paying the minimum possible for your campaigns. The more we gather data, the richer these models become, encompassing geo-targeting, site-targeting, demographic and behavioral data, time of day, day of week, etc.

What Verticals Would You Suggest Affiliates Getting Started with?

The biggest verticals for us tend to be education, insurance, health & beauty, financial services, and a bit of mobile. But the mix is changing constantly as we have access to so much inventory.

Methods of contact?

You can reach us at accounts@adbuyer.com. We will find the appropriate person to help you get started.

Anything Else You Want To Share?

We’re a startup, and always looking to improve the service, so we’d love feedback from past, present, and future advertisers. We’ve recently launched better creative tools, will be launching better reporting and click-fraud protection shortly, and have more in the works thanks to suggestions from advertisers. Keep them coming!

Click Here To Visit Adbuyer.com Now

Have you used Adbuyer?

I’ve never met Chad Frederiksen in person but I’m a long time reader of his blog at CDFNetworks.com and a big fan of his blog.

If you are not reading his blog yet then you should be. There is a wealth of good information and quality posts so be sure to browse the archives.

You can also follow CDFnetworks of Twitter here.

An Interview With Chad Frederiksen of CDFnetworks.com

1. How did you get started in the industry?

I got started building adsense sites in my spare time while working at my day job back in 2004.  I quickly switched to affiliate marketing with pay per click and things really took off from there.

2. What was your biggest learning experience to date?

Basically, every time I try a go in a new direction with the business it’s a learning experience.  I’ve lost tons of money trying different things but those lessons have contributed to my successes in other areas.

3. What was your biggest success to date?

I had a lot of success very early on.  But I’d say my biggest success has been keeping that momentum going year after year.  As different things stopped working, I have been able to rotate in new profitable areas while continuing to expand.

4. How did you learn the business? (eBooks? Webinars? Membership sites? Freebies? Paid services?)

I’m self-taught.  I’ve never read an eBook or used any paid learning sites.  Everything has been 100% trial and error or just searching for information on the Internet.

5. What do you think is the true value to consumers in affiliate marketing?

I guess the value to consumers is increased visibility of an offer that they might have been interested in.  Also some affiliates add value before the sale by providing more information about the product or service.

6. Do you think sponsored conversations have their place in the industry?

If done in a non-intrusive way, yes.  I don’t have a problem seeing an occasional sponsored tweet from a personal account.  When, it becomes the primary focus, it’s not good.

7. Besides yourself, who do you think is the most valuable resource to the affiliate community?

Honestly, I don’t think any one person is.  I would say Google is the most valuable resource for finding anything you need to know.

8. How do you balance professional v. personal?

Personal time is very important to me.  I like to get outside and exercise every day and spend time with family and friends.  Luckily the nature of my business is that I can work at various times throughout the day and still do what I want, when I want.

9. How often did you check your stats….1 month in? 1 year in? Today?

Usually twice a day, morning and night.

10. If Hollywood made a movie about your life, whom would you like to see play the lead role as you?

I’m not sure, the only famous person I have been told I resemble is Wayne Gretzky but he’s not an actor!

11. What are some of the key differences between a ’super affiliate’ and the veteran, less successful affiliates?

I still have no idea what super affiliate means.  I’d say if you can support yourself with the lifestyle you want (whatever that may be) then you are a success.

12. Is where you are now where you thought you’d be…10 years ago? 5 years ago? A month ago? Why/ why not?

No!  10 years ago, I expected I would be doing research in biology, publishing papers, making big breakthroughs.  That was my goal for after college.

5 years ago I had the new goal to run my own Internet marketing business and that has gone as I hoped, and even better than I expected.

13. Explain affiliate marketing so a child would understand it. *Note- Please don’t just say I make money online. Assume the follow up to that would be ‘How?’

I usually just say it’s getting paid a commission to bring new online customers to a company.

——————–

Chad, Thanks for doing the interview with eMonetized.com You can follow Chad Frederiksen on his blog CDFNetworks and on Twitter.

I was reading a guest post by Jonathan Volk titled “How I Made Over $1,500,000 Using A Free CSS Template” over on the ShoeMoney blog and some of the comments are pretty ridiculous.

Yes, the post title shouldn’t have included the word “HOW” and it was short on substance but Jonathan was simply trying to make a point that you don’t need to be a design expert or programming guru to make a ton of money online.

Really the actual sites visual design plays a very small part in how much you can earn. It’s more about what you say than any type of flashy design. But that’s not what this post is really about. It’s about some of the comments left on the post.

Here are a few snippets from some anonymous repliers:

The only way he could get anyone to read his blog or have any level of credibility is to constantly flash those gross numbers. If anyone knew what the real profits were I doubt he would have much of a reader base. As his main campaigns are now defunct he is leveraging his blog by doing paid reviews, guests posts, etc.

and

You are a joke. Everyone who matters knows this. When you post shit like this it just makes you look worse. For those who are interested, his profit margins were close to 5-10% and all his numbers are gross.

Notice how volk always speaks of his PAST numbers. This is because he currently makes close to zero and has been for many months now.

He is a person who got lucky with one method, did not once change or adapt his strategies, and as a result is now a complete loser and a total washout.

and

Anybody can show off a few numbers.

My question to these people would be if THEY have Made 1 Million+ Dollars Lately? EVER?

If so, then congrats! Six figures in a year? Still, Congrats! The measly 3 figures a month you probably make a month?

Here is what the haters say (and there is a LOT of them):

1. He is only posting Gross numbers!

Gross or Net, who cares! Even at 10% net that’s still a nice $150,000 profit which is far more than most affiliates make gross revenue in a year. His actual net was a lot higher than 10% so I suspect his profits were $300,000+

How much did you make lately? If a whole lot more than that then that’s great but don’t be jealous because he gets attention for it and you don’t. Otherwise start a blog.

2. Anybody can show off a few numbers.

That’s far from true. Let’s see your revenue numbers? A lot of big affiliates choose not to share their revenue numbers but a lot of affiliates have nothing real to show if they wanted.

3. He got lucky or He Made a bunch of money once but doesn’t make shit now.

I love luck. And regardless of if Jonathan is still making 7-figures or 6-figures he has still reached a ton of revenue goals many affiliates can only dream of. Affiliate Marketing is a roller coaster. I’ve gone from $350,000+ revenue in one month to like $30,000 the next and everywhere in between in other months. Today things suck for me. Tomorrow could be huge. You define what your own success is anyway.

4. All he does is post paid reviews or push affiliate links.

The answer to this is simple. Unsubscribe and don’t read the blog if you don’t like it. They won’t miss you and while you bash them, you are probably still a subscriber. There is a difference if you are blogging to just express your thoughts or blogging as a source of income for your business. Examples: John Chow and Zac Johnson. You might not like what they post half the time but what they are doing works and it makes them a nice amount of money. It’s business. If you don’t like it then just don’t read it.

Quit all the hating and jealousy. It doesn’t make you look cool. Get to work and make some money.

Today is December 1st 2009 and it’s the official day that some new endorsement and testimonial FTC rules go into effect. These rules won’t apply to every type of site or affiliate campaign but it will greatly effect the CPA affiliate marketing industry as a whole. I am NOT a lawyer and don’t take any of my comments as legal advice!

Here are a couple important snippets:

Under the revised Guides, advertisements that feature a consumer and convey his or her experience with a product or service as typical when that is not the case will be required to clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect. In contrast to the 1980 version of the Guides – which allowed advertisers to describe unusual results in a testimonial as long as they included a disclaimer such as “results not typical” – the revised Guides no longer contain this safe harbor.

So basically it looks like saying “results not typical” in tiny text in your landing page footer isn’t going to be enough. This is going to a tough rule to follow if you are pushing diet products (for example). There are hardly any diet advertisers that don’t boast exaggerated claims of weight loss and people don’t like to buy “Typical” results. This rule also applies to testimonials found on many affiliate sites. Here are a couple ideas:

1. Leave out SPECIFIC amounts or claims. For example, if you are a weight loss affiliate instead of exaggerated specifics use generic phrases like:

“Get A Flatter Stomach in 30 Days” That’s certainly possible.

“Get Ripped in Just A Few Weeks” This one is a close call but a few “weeks” could mean 4, 6 or more. Someone who is already in decent shape could conceivably get some nice abs in 6 weeks time. Just make sure you also include somewhere that at least some working out is required or this could fall into the deceptive category. If someone actually believes they can get ripped abs in 2-weeks without any type of workout they need a reality check.

2. Use only testimonials found on the advertisers website (there’s no need to use a fake comments section). For example, “When doing my research on these products here are some things actual users had to say…”

3. Get real testimonials sent to you from the advertiser. Most advertiser don’t do this but it would make things a whole lot easier.

The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed.

This guideline should be pretty easy to follow. Just add something like “yoursitename.com is an affiliate of “product name” and receives compensation from orders through this website.” If you are a blogger you now must also disclose the material connections you share with the seller of the product or service.

FTC states a possible fine of up to $11,000 per infraction.

What does this mean for the future of rebills and the future of affiliate marketing?

The game has already and continues to change for the good in my opinion.

You have the Google Bans:
It’s a good thing that Google is cleaning up their sponsored ads. However I certainly don’t agree with all the lifetime Adwords account bans. As long as the landing pages are FTC compliant they should allow most rebills in my opinion.

Yahoo and MSN are cracking down:
Yahoo has recently been cracking down more on ads sending messages such as “All price claims made in an ad must be clearly and accurately substantiated on the landing page. Ad creatives or landing pages that contain “free,” “complimentary” or synonymous offers must disclose the pertinent terms and conditions associated with the offer in close proximity to the offer.”

Affiliate Networks Are Losing Offers Like Crazy:
Many advertisers (including some of the biggest) are pausing or removing their offers all together until they are updated for FTC compliance. Although some advertiser simply don’t care and they are making so much insane amounts of money that a law suit means very little to them.

Ad Networks :
Many ad networks such as Adsonar/Quigo require strict guidelines (and they have for awhile) for affiliate landing pages (not mention of the word free without an *, advertisement text on the top of the page, full re-bill terms in the footer).

Re-bills/continuity programs are not the problem. Re-bills will always be around and they are certainly not all shady or lump into one group.

It’s the non-compliant advertisers with completely hidden terms and impossible cancellation policies that caused most of the current problems in my opinion. Some advertisers also need to drop all the crappy invisible upsells. If you have to pay affiliates less then we’ll deal with it. Heck, you might even have more affiliates pushing your offer if customers didn’t get the upsells and you could actually cancel the trials. Charge a higher price on the front end if you need to. The affiliate networks and some of us affiliate ourselves hold our share of blame. Without each other as a group the shady re-bill offers would go nowhere.

Most affiliates flock to the highest paying and highest converting advertisers which often times is also the shadiest. The compliant advertisers who also may not have the invisible upsells just can’t compete because of the lower payouts and lower conversion rates. If the networks refused to work with those non-compliant advertiser and those that add non-visible upsells this wouldn’t be as much a problem. Many CPA Affiliate networks already have and will continue take a revenue hit with all these changes as well. How fast will they evolve?

By the way, you are probably assuming that based on my examples above that I am currently running weight loss re-bills. The answer to that is no, I am not. I study ads, landing pages and methods in various verticals everywhere. I do run some re-bills (along with tons of non-rebills) in other verticals but I believe it is up to the individual person to decide how and what offers they feel comfortable running.

What’s your thoughts on the new FTC rules and the future of re-bills in general?

Just a quick update that I now have 5 free Google Wave invites to give away. If you want an invite all you have to do is Twitter about the contest. Details here.

I’m going to end this contest this Friday at 12pm U.S. eastern time. Currently there have only been a few tweets sent out so it’s probably going to be pretty easy to win a free invite (5 winners).

Who Is Andrew Wee? Andrew lives in Singapore so he only makes it to the states once or twice a year. I first met Andrew Wee at a Market Leverage Dinner at Affiliate Summit West 2009. We talked a lot and he is a really smart guy that’s been working in the affiliate marketing industry for a long time now. One thing that Andrew is well known for is his weekly Friday Podcast with affiliate and internet marketers. You read more about Andrew Wee on his blog, WhoIsAndrewWee.com and also follow Andrew Wee on Twitter.

An Interview With Andrew Wee of WhoIsAndrewWee.com

1) How did you get started in the industry?

In 2006, I stumbled up affiliate marketing and making money online seemed like a good gig, especially since other performance-based job (offline sales, marketing, direct selling) requires a lot of face-to-face followup. I liked the money, but the amount of time spent closing the deal was more than I was willing to invest. The online gig was a good match.

2) What was your biggest learning experience to date?

If by “experience”, you mean failure, I’m getting them every day. Testing something out, having it fail and having invested time and money into it, is a good way of remembering lessons. You’ll learn more than any book or course or conference could ever teach you.

3) What was your biggest success to date?

I don’t have a “biggest success” because I like to set big goals and do my best to meet and beat them every time. Being able to set goals for every project and meet and exceed them counts as a success each time.

4) How did you learn the business? (eBooks? Webinars? Membership sites? Freebies? Paid services?)

All of the above. In general, I think you kinda get what you pay for. Most free stuff can be the most expensive, because when you try out someone’s crazy theory disguised as fact, you can spend a lot of time, energy and money going down the wrong path.

I’ve probably got the most value out of the premium courses and learning materials I’ve invested in, plus networking with experienced affiliates and marketers.

My “secret sauce” has probably been my Friday Podcast series (http://whoisandrewwee.com/podcasts) where I’ve been given license to kil, er, probe the thoughts of some of the most successful affiliates, networks and advertisers in the affiliate industry.

I’ve recently launched a new project, the Internet Marketing Cookbook (http://InternetMarketingCookbook.com) to share strategies with new and intermediate level marketers.

5) What do you think is the true value to consumers in affiliate marketing?

They say the great product is useless, unless it’s put in the hands of the right consumer. Affiliate marketing, being a part of the distribution/marketing system can connect consumers with a problem with the appropriate solution – a product or service – marketed by affiliates.

6) Do you think sponsored conversations have their place in the industry?

The key issue with online conversations is that they should be on-topic, relevant and appropriate to the audience. Sponsorship can help prioritize an advertiser’s message because writers, bloggers and webmasters have many requests for coverage/publicity.

Because there’s not overall editorial body overseeing webmasters/bloggers, some writers with less-than-stellar ethics might choose to prioritize scoring the sponsorship, rather than placing their readers first. If you persistently do this, your readers will vote with their feet…out your online door.

7) Besides yourself, who do you think is the most valuable resource to the affiliate community?

I don’t think I nor any other one person is the most valuable resource to the affiliate community. On an individual level, there’s no substitute for experience as the most valuable resource.

On a community level, organizations like Affiliate Advocacy (http://affiliateadvocacy.com/) helmed by Melanie Seery, are out there looking out for affiliate’s interests.

How do you balance professional v. personal?

It’s depends whether you’re blogging for yourself as a cathartic exercise, venting your frustrations, cheering when you achieve benchmarks, or if you’re attempting to brand yourself professionally.

I like to inject some of my personality into my online presence, although I’m mindful that I don’t want to bore people with what I ate for lunch (unless it was something unique like centipedes or whale blubber). My core audience seems to like the industry content I put out, so that’s usually about 90% of my content. The other 10% consists of what happened in the latest episode of Gossip Girl, the latest XP service pack breaking my computer, or other fun stuff.

9) How often did you check your stats….1 month in? 1 year in? Today?

I probably don’t check my stats as often as most affiliates. I treat affiliate marketing as a long term business and have a longer perspective than most. So unless I’m running a major ad campaign, I might check my stats once a week, or when an affiliate I referred to a network tells me they had a really big run this week…

10) If Hollywood made a movie about your life, whom would you like to see play the lead role as you?

Myself.

11) OK, now who would REALLY play you?

Myself.

12) What are some of the key differences between a ’super affiliate’ and the veteran, less successful affiliates?

You’re running your own business at the end of the day, so whether you’re calling yourself a super, thuper or super duper affiliate, what matters most is the results you achieve. I’m a little sick of the phrase “Super Affiliate” because most of these guys don’t have heat vision, invulnerability or can leap tall buildings at a single bound. Heck, I haven’t even met one who can fly yet!

On a more serious note, a lot of it has to do with the mindset/perspective that more successful affiliates have. If they have the perspective of a business owner, rather than a work-at-home mom or dad, it will force you to think more organizational in nature and adopt more systems-based approaches. Both types of affiliates can be successful, the key factor is the scale of action they take and the scale of results they achieve.

13) Is where you are now where you thought you’d be…10 years ago? 5 years ago? A month ago? Why/ why not?

It’s a mix of expectation and surprise.

Expectation because I’m open to all opportunities – I’ve previously helped to manage a TV production studio, a software developer, a training company, a real estate team and one of the first portals in Asia (in the late 1990s), managing 10 vertical sites. So I am ready for whatever tomorrow throws up (or at me).

At the same time, it’s surprising the roads I’ve tread on and I might not have imagined it 10 years ago.

14) Explain affiliate marketing so a child would understand it. *Note- Please don’t just say I make money online. Assume the follow up to that would be ‘How?’

Make Money, Get Paid.

I have a 3 year old daughter.

Here goes.

Daddy makes a special place on the internet called a website.

And he brings people to the website to buy things.

When they buy things, the people who make those things gives daddy some money for helping them sell the things.

And that’s how daddy buys you all that Disney Princess stuff.

[I am still working on explaining “Management” to her…]

Make money, get paid.

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Thanks for doing the interview Andrew. I look forward to seeing you at Affiliate Summit West 2010! Check out WhoIsAndrewWee.com for blogging, affiliate marketing and free traffic strategies. The Friday Podcast is available at: http://WhoIsAndrewWee.com/podcasts. Follow Andrew Wee on Twitter.

I just wanted to make a quick post and wish a safe and Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate this holiday.

I have a whole bunch of interviews to post from both top affiliate marketers and social media bloggers. I’ll also have several posts coming related to media/advertising networks.

I’ll do my best to post a new interview or two over the next couple days if I get some spare time.

Have a great holiday!