Hey Everyone.. just a quick note with our own holiday wish.. no hippie santa like AffiliateCrew but happy holidays none the less.

I want to thank all of our amazing Affiliates and merchants who have helped us build strong programs in 2006, and to help get our network sojme traction! We’re very excited about the year to come and I can’t wait to start posting some of the new and exciting developments to our blog.

Be safe and be Merry.

Very Sincerely,

Gary  & AvantLink

Haha check out the holiday wish we just got from Chuck Hamrick and our friends at AffiliateCrew.com (based in Salt Lake City):

AffiliateCrew Holiday Email 2006

Affiliate crew manages the Little Giant Ladders Affiliate Program that went live in our network recently..

Enjoy!!

Hot off the press from Altrec.com. These folks are running yet another killer promo to wrap up the holiday shopping season with authority!!

To follow on the ‘Up to 30% Off Great Gifts‘ promo already running, Altrec now announces the Get it there on time offer:

Get it there on time by offering Free 2-Day UPS Shipping Upgrades on all ground shipments. This will last until Wednesday at 3pm PST. At that time, I will replace this promotion with an Overnight Upgrade option.

On-time Delivery!

• Free 2-Day Shipping Upgrade - All domentic Ground orders. Customers must choose the upgrade at checkout.
• NOW - Tomorrow (12/20) at 3pm PST

Greg from Altrec has updated/added banners & text links, and updated the coupon feed. These creatives will be updated on Wednesday night with a new Overnight Shipping promo. If you have any questions get in touch with Greg:

Greg Toledo
Altrec.com Outdoors
541.316.2400 x146 | gregt[at]altrec.com

-

Gary & AvantLink

Introducing another great addition to the AvantLink network:

Favors by Serendipity

It’s likely we already had the strongest wedding favor-related category of any Affiliate network out there (and the best Affiliates in this category!), and now with the addition of Favors by Serendipity (visit their site…it’s very impressive) the deal is sealed. If you have a wedding, gala or favor-themed site it’s time to apply to AvantLink and get to work with our merchants in this category. Now is the time to prepare for the spring wedding season..which is a very profitable time of year for wedding & favor sales.

“Favors by Serendipity was one of the first companies to start selling wedding favors online. By partnering with us you will be partnering with a company with a proven track record of high sales and repeat business. We greatly appreciate the traffic that our affiliates send our way and we reward them accordingly.”

Read the program launch announcement on ABestWeb.

Drop us a line at AvantLink if you need anything, or contact Mark Langdon the AM for Favors by Serendipity. His email is: mlangdon[at]favorsbyserendipity.com.

Gary & AvantLink

On December 16th Google’s Stefanie Ulrike Dürr published a blog post discussing ‘Building link-based popularity’ on the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog. This resource uses the tagline ‘Official news on crawling and indexing sites for the Google index’. Now, that should grab your attention ;).

What it’s come down to isn’t too surprising. Google (et al) are giving more weight to links earned with good ole fashioned elbow grease. Whether it’s from posting a hand-crafted article to social networking sites like Digg.com (or other forms of link baiting…sounds like a negative connotation but it’s not) or taking the time to build a compelling resource that naturally gains links from relevant and reputable sources/sites. Basically, random link trading and link buying/selling is a big no-no and it will certainly do much more harm then good these days. The big G and the others are way too smart now. So roll up your sleeves, dig in, and write some thoughful content. (most of you reading this post know this already, though!!)

From the blog post: “But more recently, Google has tremendously refined its link-weighting algorithms. We have more people working on Google’s link-weighting for quality control and to correct issues we find.”

Read Entire Article: Building link-based popularity

Gary & AvantLink

Brian Boyd asked me to help him make sure Affiliates know about another great Gift Card promo that ToolKing.com is running:

All Gift Cards $100 and up Guaranteed Delivery before Christmas. This offer will start today and run through 12/20/06, valid on gift card purchases only. TK has updated their creative and the Dynamic Coupon Feed to feature this offer.

Drop a line if you have any questions, or feel free to contact Brian Boyd directly:

Brian Boyd
Affiliate Program Manager
303-963-4500×255
brian[at]toolking.com
www.toolking.com

-

Gary & AvantLink

Affiliates, here is a great opportunity to promote free money! The House Boardshop (The-House.com) is offering a gift card promotion from now through Dec 22nd. Here are the details:

From now through December 22nd…when your site visitors buy a $100 Gift Card they’ll get an extra $20 added on for free! Limit of two gift cards per customer.

This is a great gift opportunity and it’s not too late to cash in on it. Add this offer to your site today and your customers will love it. New banners and text links to highlight this offer have been added to the creative library in AvantLink. Also, the gift card offer has been added to the Dynamic Coupon Feed. If you’re using that you’re good to go.

Let us know if you have any questions, or contact Michael Schaeffer the Affiliate Manager for The House:

Michael Schaeffer
Affiliate Program Manager

The House Boardshop
300 S Owasso Blvd E
St. Paul, MN 55117
mikes@the-house.com
www.the-house.com
p.651.482.9995
f. 651.482.1353

-

Gary & AvanLink

AvantLink: The Datafeed People! Likely the most powerful tool we provide is our Web Service Datafeed Client, one of three options we offer Affiliates for publishing a merchant’s catalog. The other two include raw flat files that can be customized to Affiliate’s needs, and a JavaScript version that’s basically plug-n-play. This article is about the web service version, but more information and discussion on all three options may be found on our ABestWeb Datafeed Manager v3.0 thread, or the Datafeed Options thread.

Although a bit more complex, Affiliates who have mid-level web publishing skills should have no problem with the configuration, installation and template customization of the web service datafeed client. Once configured, the next step is to download and extract the client (we suggest using WinZip). The extracted files are a suite of PHP files, nothing more, that talk to AvantLink to serve up real-time product data.

There are several benefits of using this client including:

1. All pricing and inventory displayed on Affiliate sites will be accurate and up-to-date…it’s dynamic. Of course, this has a direct correlation with good conversion and it also helps to protect sensitive brands.
2. Once the web service datafeed client has been installed and customized, it’s literally hands off. This frees up Affiliate’s time to create unique content, network affect and other traffic drivers for their business.
3. The output content is basic HTML and fully spiderable by search engine spiders. This dynamic, yet indexible content helps Affiliates get their web pages scanned, indexed and ranked favorably…a huge limitation of the JavaScript version.

Perhaps one of the most powerful applications of this tool can be found on legacy authority sites that are not yet embracing the power of their reach in terms of Affiliate marketing. These are the web publishers who have spent years building content and archives about a specific area of interest…and ironically, they aren’t even active Affiliate marketers. In essence, this creates a whole new catagory of potential performing Affiliates that program managers can target in their recruitment efforts.

A good example can be found on HomeTips.com. They worked with us to install relevant ToolKing categories using this tool and it has become a valuable revenue stream for the site in just one year (check out the application of the Toolking feed and the PageRank!!). This is because HomeTips did the hard work over the years. They built the content, they got the following, and they established themselves as the authority in the home improvement category. Once they installed the dynamic web service feed, it was just a matter of linking up the ‘Store’ from their navigation and they were back to what they do best and that is writing home improvement articles and advice columns.

Of course, savvy and experienced Affiliate marketers can also benefit from a product that delivers real-time, dynamic, up-to-date and accurate pricing, inventory and sale items!

Are you interested in a tool like this to monetize content on your site? To sign up for a dynamic datafeed subscription simply login to your Affiliate account and click ‘Tools’ from the main menu, then under Datafeed Manager select ‘Sign-up for new datafeeds’.

If you’re not yet an active Affiliate in AvantLink you can apply here.

Happy Converting
Gary & AvantLink

This just in! ToolKing is offering free shipping on ALL ORDERS of $200 or more from today through December 13th. This should yield some great conversions. Be sure and grab the updated creative If you’re using the Dynamic Coupon Feed, this offer has been added for you.

Feel free to drop us a line if you have any questions.. or easier yet just get a hold of Brian Boyd (the ToolKing.com AM) directly. Here is his contact info:

Brian Boyd
Affiliate Program Manager
303-963-4500 x255
brian[at]toolking.com