This is great news for all current and soon to be Masseys Professional Outfitters (and 800-SKI-SHOP, theflipflopper, WeGotYourPack) Affiliates. You all have a raise! Massey’s Outfitters is now paying 9% baseline, with incentives. And the three others will payout a generous 11% baseline, with incentives. That may just be the highest baseline payout anywhere in the outdoor industry.
Massey’s Outfitters Commission Change
I’m excited to announce that there are some major changes with Massey’s affiliate programming.
- Starting August 1st, Massey’s will be moving all affiliates into a single program. We have chosen to standardize on Avantlink because of the fantastic support we have received in the past year from their professional and accessible staff.
- We are Raising ALL Commission Rates. Since we no longer have to support the administration (and costs) of managing two programs, we are pasing that savings on to our most loyal affiliates. The new commission structure is as follows;
MasseysOutfitters.com will start at 9% and transition up to 11% for higher sales tiers. 800-SKI-SHOP.com, theflipflopper.com, and WeGotYourPack.com will START at 11% and transition to 13% for the best performing affiliates.
I will remind everyone: WE DO NOT REVERSE ON RETURNS! This means if you make the sale, you will get paid. Only in the case of fraud or abuse will we reverse.
You don’t have to do a thing. Your rates are already changed.
Look for additional Massey’s affiliate news coming out in the next few weeks.
Please contact me if any questions.
Mike Massey
For more Affiliate program information from Masseys Professional Outfitters, or to Apply, click on the store logos:
We recently completed an overhaul of our product search functionality (used primarily in our ProductSearch API module, but also as an accessory to some of our other tools like the Product Display Builder). As anyone who has tried to implement a keyword search of large amounts of data will tell you, the problem is not a simple one, and our solution is by no means perfect. But, having gathered feedback from our affiliates since the launch of our ProductSearch API over a year ago, we think we’ve made great strides toward improving the accuracy and performance of our offering.
To highlight a few of the key changes that were implemented in this revision:
- A complete ground-up rewrite of our keyword parsing and searching algorithm, resulting in performance gains of 200-300%.
- Improved handling of “exact” vs. “inexact” matches. Our original search algorithm differentiated between “exact” matches (where the keywords were all found in the product name) and “inexact” matches, and restricted search results to just the former if possible. While accurate, that behavior resulted in a lot of under-populated searches. The new algorithm scores matches differently and allows for a much broader (though still accurate) range of results for the same keywords.
- Simpler methods of specifying lists of merchant datafeeds to search. By default, the ProductSearch API will search through the datafeeds of all merchants for whom you are an active affiliate. If you have a large active merchant listing that’s a lot of data to search through which is undesirable for two reasons: (1) it results in a slower search, and (2) the chance of spurious search results is increased (for instance, by searching a wedding favors merchant for “backpacks”). To alleviate this, the API module has always supported specifying lists of merchants or lists of datafeeds to restrict the search to. As additional alternatives, it’s now possible to specify:
- a list of custom merchant group ids (see the “Account” -> “Merchant Tagging/Group Administration” page in your affiliate interface if you’ve never used custom merchant tags), or
- a list of merchant category ids (these ids correspond to the groupings like “Apparel” and “Outdoor/Recreation” that you see in our merchant directory).
- Better support for “interleaving” of merchant results. Interleaving is used when multiple merchants’ datafeeds are searched, to spread the results out evenly between the various merchants. In other words, if you searched merchants A, B, and C, the search results would probably be randomly ordered between the different merchants (e.g. C, C, B, A, A, C, B, B, etc.). Using the “interleave” option coerces the results into a more predictable order so that your results would alternate between each available merchant (e.g. A, B, C, A, B, C, etc.).
- Wildcard searching for small datasets. It’s now possible to specify a search term of % to indicate a wildcard search. This allows you to use the API to retrieve listings of products using all of the other filter criteria available in the module (e.g. department, category, pricing, etc.) in specialized circumstances. The number of products returned from such a search is capped (at 1500 records); if you want full product listings (and better performance) you really should configure a full datafeed subscription that you can download periodically and process locally.
According to some of the feedback we’ve seen already, these changes have made it possible to solve some problems that couldn’t be handled with the ProductSearch API previously. As always we welcome feedback from our affiliates on these changes - it’s that kind of input that helps us drive our offerings forward!
David & AvantLink
At this time we thought it would be appropriate to get into detail on our new Managed Solution service level we now offer merchants. We know what works, and what doesn’t, in terms of program management. Here are the key points and information on this full service management and branding package we offer…
Earlier this month we announced that as of July 1st we were providing Affiliate program branding & management services for two Active Sports, Inc. stores on our network. These two stores are The-House.com and Proboardshop.com, and both are high-converting sites selling popular brand name outdoor gear and apparel. It’s been so far so good, and you can bet the sales volume for both programs will continue to improve.
This is namely because the cornerstone of this unique proposition utilizes a branding strategy with proof of concept to not only effectively brand a program as the authority in their category (which naturally attracts and retains the highest volume Affiliates), but also provides an array of communication and distribution channels for sale details, coupon offers, promotions or otherwise general Affiliate and business news related to the program. This is all the content that is exactly relevant and important for Affiliates to have at their fingertips in a timely fashion, and on a regular basis!
Merchants, when you contract with AvantLink to handle day-to-day Affiliate program management and branding, you’ll be assigned a dedicated, experienced and focused program manager. The emphasis will be on incremental and consistent growth in AvantLink, and you won’t be pushed to any other network where you’ll invariably shell out thousands more to get started.
The keys to bottom line growth in the Affiliate channel include dedicated management, regular communications, program branding, and of course patience. Despite what you may have heard otherwise, building a strong Affiliate program for your business is a process, and it will take time. Especially if you’re starting from scratch.
Below are the two main elements included with our Managed Solution…
- A Dedicated Program Manager - An experienced individual with dedication to your bottom line success in AvantLink. This person’s management role will be a pro-active one with emphasis on the distribution of optimized promotional and news content through several high profile channels. Your AvantLink program manager will…
- Review and approve Affiliate applicants, screening them for suitability and offering our expertise in properly integrating and using our tools.
- Provide branding for your Affiliate program(s) through the posting of campaigns, specials and other vehicles (see below).
- Manage the campaign and collateral materials in the merchant interface.
- Discuss strategy and campaigns ideas on a regular basis.
- Provide day-to-day relationship management for affiliates.
- Manage correspondence with affiliates.
- Full Branding Package Utilization - A package with proof of concept that offers branding and communication opportunities above and beyond what managers can otherwise find in the network. We’ve partnered with Haiko de Poel, Jr., owner of ABestWeb.com, to offer merchants a substantial discount on several ABestWeb service levels. As well as access to some of the one-off services in AvantLink. Distribution channels that come with the Branding Package include…
- AvantShare Branded Merchant Affiliate Program Blog - $500 value
- AvantLink Featured Merchant Homepage Placement - $250 value
- ABestWeb Sub-forum of a Category - $1,500 Annual Value
- ABestWeb Merchant’s Blog Inclusion - $1,000 Annual Value
- ABestWeb Run of Site Banner Rotation - $1,500 Annual Value
- ABestWeb Recruiting Email - $800 Annual Value
For pricing information on our Managed Solution drop us a line. We’re also happy to answer any question you may have on the unique value proposition of what we’re offering. You certainly don’t want to spend too much on program management, or otherwise adding your program to multiple networks. Both of which can put you in a very challenging position in terms of seeing an acceptable ROI for your Affiliate marketing efforts!
Gary for AvantLink
We’re excited to announce that we’re now managing the day to day Affiliate operations for The-House.com and ProBoardShop.com (Active Sports, Inc.)! Mark Kalbach will be handling these accounts on staff for AvantLink, and there are some exciting things coming for both programs including a branded presence on ABestWeb and AvantShare. Mark is working closely with a representative from Active Sports to get regular promotions, sale details, news and coupons pushed out for Affiliates through these channels. Look for exciting bonus opportunities, cool contests and more!
We look forward to helping these two programs grow with our in-house Managed Solution Service Level that’s now available. If you have any questions for Mark, or just want to say Hey, the new contact email for these two programs is now activesports/at/avantlink.com.
Our Managed Solution includes a staff member who will fully utilize our Branding Package for merchants, and a dedicated program manager in place to handle day-to-day management and program branding. If you would like to discuss the details of how a focused and experienced Affiliate manager from AvantLink can help you grow your program, drop us a line.
Gary & AvantLink
Introducing a new exclusive AvantLink merchant:
MyCleaningProducts.com is the leading manufacturer of green cleaning products in the state of Florida, and they also run a high converting web store that you can now promote through AvantLink, using all our advanced Affiliate tools! MyCleaningProducts.com manufacturers many unique organic cleaning products such as rust removers, mold cleaner, mold treatment products, tile and grout cleaners and much more. We’re VERY impressed with their site, which certainly backs up their claim of a near 5% site-wise conversion rate on all traffic.
With an organized and attractive site, a product line (natural cleaning products) that’s in demand and a high payout and conversion rate, this is definitely a good opportunity. I should also mention that the management team is experienced, and they know how to support Affiliates. You’re in good hands. The baseline commissions for Affiliates is 15%, with a 120-day cookie and (ready for this?) the potential to earn up to 25% with performance incentives!
From the MyCleaningProducts Affiliate program description:
Not only do we offer rewarding commissions, we have a full time affiliate manager that’s easily accessible. Our affiliate manager can offer strategic data on high selling products, great copy to use for your website visitors, and even performing keywords to assist affiliates with their campaigns and conversions. We understand our success is based on you…
Read the program launch announcement on ABestWeb.
Let us know what we can do to help you get started promoting MyCleaningProducts.com. Contact anyone at AvantLink or the program manager Erik Skupeika, sales/at/propertyperfections.net.
Gary & AvantLink
For the next Affiliate Best Practices article I’d like to discuss our Affiliate Link Encoder (ALE) tool.
Bloggers and forum owners should pay special attention to the ALE, but any Affiliate site can benefit from this innovative tool we rolled out in October of 2007. In a nutshell, the ALE allows webmasters to place one line of Javascript on any page and/or site-wide template, and if a direct link (without Affiliate tracking data) to an AvantLink merchant exists on the page, the script will automatically convert the direct link to a tracking link on the end user’s browser. The script scans the page for domain matches, than does it’s thing.
Please note with the ALE that Google and the other search engines will still see the direct link as it exists in the html code. So if you mouse over a store link on an Affiliate page utilizing the ALE, you’ll see (in the browser status bar) the tracking details. However, if you view the source code of that same page, all you’ll see for the merchant URL is the direct href link code. And if you look hard enough, you’ll see the ALE Javascript on that page as well! To see a great working example of the ALE in action check out the ALE information page on our site.
Now on to the best practices for the ALE…
For bloggers and/or forum owners, the benefits should be easily apparent. In fact, with direct input from Greg at AlpineZone.com (read Greg’s testimonial on this blog), and a few other valued Affiliates, it was apparent that they were sending loads of traffic (and sales!) to merchants without necessarily getting credit. This was because their community members would often post direct links to outdoor retailers that are a part of AvantLink. Rather than editing the content of the community, Greg was more interested in finding a way to convert the click on the fly to one that would rightly set a cookie and credit him for any subsequent sales.
So for forum owners that may be in the same boat, here’s the secret. And it’s quite complicated…not! Simply login to your Affiliate account and generate an ALE script for a particular site configured in the network. Once you have the one line of Javascript, simply place it in a site-wide template (for example, your header or footer) and wala. Instant tracking on any direct to merchant link that exists anywhere on your forum (as long as the merchant is in AvantLink). You should also note that this include ALL direct to merchant links, even archived links from months or years ago!
For bloggers, same concept. You might have years worth of archived content that can be monetized just by adding this one line of Javascript. Talk about easy money. And we do have multiple success stories already in regards to bloggers benefiting greatly from the ALE. Here’s just one example: Lou runs a legendary blog for backcountry skiing enthusiasts called WildSnow.com. Over the years, Lou has posted links to Backcountry.com and other retailers quite regularly when he reviews products, etc. Since Lou’s a blogger, and not necessarily an Affiliate marketer, the thought alone of logging into a network to generate a tracking link every time he linked to a retailer was tedious. So he added the ALE and instantly began generating revenue on years worth of archived content. Of course, this includes the links people posted in the comments’ section of each post.
General use of the ALE is also encouraged for people custom building many optimized pages. Rather than taking the time to use our Custom Link Builder tool (which, btw, is easy as pie), simply include the ALE Javascript in your base template. Once that’s in place it’s just a matter of writing your editorial, using the merchant image source for the product, and adding a deep link to the product detail on the merchant web site. No logging into the network for link code is necessary.
So there you have it! To generate the Affiliate Link Encoder for your site, follow these simple steps:
- Login as an Affiliate, and click “Tools” from the main menu.
- Under “Ad/Link Tools”, click on “Affiliate Link Encoder”.
- Select your website, and add a custom tracking code (which is optional).
- Click “Get Html”, and you’re done!
I hope this helps and Happy Converting!
A couple months ago we rolled out the Specialty Datafeed Administration tool that lets you create targeted datafeed subsets to feature things like top sellers, etc.
This last week we added a couple more features to this datafeed administration tool.
1. Merchants can now download the current feed as it exists in our database in either CSV or XML formats.
2. We’ve added a “Last Updated” time stamp so that you can see when we last imported/updated the datafeed file you supply to us.
Scott & AvantLink
Last week I spent around 30 minutes talking to Wade Tonkin of GTO Management and Ian Larsen. We talked in depth about some of the innovative Affiliate tools that Scott and David have worked hard to create, of course with the direct input from our valued Affiliates and merchants. The podcast is available on the GTO Blog, directly below a nice post by Wade. Here’s a snippet…
We talked in detail about a few features in particular, the Affiliate Link Encoder (ALE) which allows bloggers, webmasters and forum operators to put affiliate tracking in place for any AvantLink merchant without having to actually login to the affiliate UI or so any special coding. Once the ALE javascript is in place, the affiliate tracking is put in place on the broswer side of the equation.
Ian chimed in with his experience as an affiliate and applauded the flexibility of the AvantLink datafeed tools and the accessibility of support and development to get what you need as an affiliate. Gary applauded the affiliates out there for driving innovation.
Read Wade’s entire blog post & listen to the podcast: GTO Podcast #3: Gary Marcoccia of AvantLink
Gary for AvantLink
Just a quick post to highlight an upgrade to our Affiliate Recruitment tool. For those who may not be familiar, in AvantLink merchants have the ability to send out recruitment offers to Affiliates that have chosen to opt-in to these recruitment offers.
We do not disclose Affiliate contact information, however; until the Affiliate has applied, or is active, with a program. The recruitment tool uses an email form we provide in the management interface to send out offers to the email addys Affiliates have configured in their AvantLink account.
At the request of Krystofer from the REI Affiliate program, and some other merchants, David added a filter option that will allow you to select from among “Available recruits”, “Pending offers”, or “Declined offers”.
Hope this is helpful to the program managers out there!
Gary & AvantLink
Introducing a new exclusive AvantLink merchant:
Started in 2004, Alpaca Direct is a leader in Luxury Alpaca and Pima Cotton apparel, accessories and yarn for fashion oriented men and women as well as craft oriented knitters the world over. Alpaca Direct’s apparel line is a unique luxury offering available only through the AlpacaDirect.com website. At Alpaca Direct your customers will find warm and durable socks from Dahlgren footwear, luxury Pima cotton apparel, Peruvian jewelry and luxury yarn and wool rovings for knitters and spinners.
Folks, this is a category with little competition. Add Alpaca Direct to the mix right away and be one of the first Affiliates promoting their unique product line! Combine the low competition factor with a high-converting web site, widely searched for products, great promotions and dedicated program management; and you can’t go wrong.
Please note that this program offers an 8% baseline payout with performance incentives available. Cookie life is 120 days, and all orders over $50 are shipped for free. Alpaca Direct has also launched their program with an active Deal of the Day campaign which will populate daily with products at a minimum of 30% off the retail price.
From the Alpaca Direct Affiliate program description:
Alpaca Direct’s staff is committed to customer service can provide relevant, experienced help to satisfy the customer’s needs best. Alpaca Direct provides customers with superior products, terrific prices, top-notch customer service and risk-free shopping…
Read the program launch announcement on ABestWeb.
Let us know what we can do to help you get started promoting Alpaca Direct. Contact anyone at AvantLink or the program manager Jim Hobart, jimh/at/alpacadirect.com.
Gary & AvantLink
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