From the Colorado State Senate hearing on HB 1193. This about sums it up. Excellent clip of Sen. Greg Brophy (R) District 1 arguing against the Amazon Tax.

To help fight the Amazon Tax nationwide please complete the Performance Marketing Association’s Advocate Form. Get involved even if these new tax laws have not been introduced in your state yet!

Attention Outdoor Affiliates

We’re going to have a big day on January 23rd at the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market 2010! We already posted about the Outdoor Retailer Educational Seminar we’re sponsoring that day. But in addition to the educational seminar we are also having our second Outdoor Affiliate Meet & Greet at the Salt Lake Hilton’s Trofi Restaurant from 5-8pm that evening.

Check out previous blog posts here and here for info on our first meet and greet this past July. This event worked out very well, with many AvantLink Affiliates and Merchants getting quality face time. As a result of such a good turnout, we have extended the time by one hour and doubled the food and beverage budget.

Hope to see you there! Please RSVP if you plan to attend by emailing support/at/avantlink.com.

As an AvantLink Affiliate who operates an outdoor related website, we would like to invite you to join us on January 23rd for our second Outdoor Affiliate Meet and Greet at the Salt Lake City Hilton!

This event will take place Saturday evening from 5-8pm during the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market 2010 across the street from the Salt Palace Convention Center. The idea is to get a strong contingent of AvantLink Outdoor/Recreation Affiliates and merchants together to meet face-to-face and talk shop. We will have hors d’oeuvres, cocktails and give-a-ways from participating merchants.

Sponsors of the Outdoor Affiliate Meet and Greet include Altrec.com Outdoors, Backcountry.com, Massey’s Professional Outfitters, The House, and the Rocky Mountain Affiliate Marketer’s Association. If you are planning on (or considering) attending the 2010 Outdoor Retailer Winter Market, we would love to have you.

Please RSVP by Emailing support/at/avantlink.com

We are sponsoring an educational seminar at the 2010 Outdoor Retailer Winter Market on January 23rd. It’s an introductory session for retailers and direct-to-consumer brands in the Outdoor/Recreation category. Although anyone can attend. Here are the seminar details…

Intro to Affiliate Marketing (for Outdoor Retailers)
Saturday, Jan 23, 2010 – 12:00PM to 1:00PM

Type: Seminar
Track: Retailer Seminar
Location: Salt Lake City Marriott Downtown, Salon E

Learn the fundamentals of performance-based Affiliate marketing from the leaders in the industry. We will talk about how your web store can utilize the most cost effective marketing channel online, the processes for getting started, and how to make the program a long-term success for your company. If you’re curious about performance-based marketing for retailers, already running an Affiliate program or looking at getting a program started, don’t miss this! The seminar will include short presentations and Q&A from some of the top web marketers in the Outdoor category.

Drop us a line if you have any questions about this event. We’re also having an Outdoor Affiliate Meet & Greet that evening – same day. Here is some info on our first OR meet and greet this past summer…more on that soon!

On October 20th we announced the program launches of Mountains Plus (mpgear.com) and TinyTrekker on AvantLink. These are SOLID Outdoor/Recreation programs with an Affiliate powerhouse reputation, and you should definitely be sure to get their links or feeds added asap this Q4.

To facilitate communications and distribute promotions, Mountains Plus and TinyTrekker recently sponsored a dedicated, branded presence on AvantShare.com. Click the Mountains Plus logo below to visit their dedicated blog category, and we also included a list of all the blog posts they have published so far.

Latest Affiliate blog headlines from Mountains Plus and TinyTrekker:

• Mountains Plus is in the Avantlink House!
• Just in time for snow – New Atlas Snowshoes
• Osprey Talon Moonlight Blue – Midnight Sale!
• Get down with cool gear for Tiny Trekkers
• You got the candy, now here is something sweet!

Merchants, we offer a communication  channel that allows you to reach beyond your existing Affiliates. Have a look at our company blog at AvantShare.com. Although the network email tool is effective, functional and easy to use…it’s only reaching your existing Affiliates. You could (and there are times when you should) use our integrated Affiliate Recruitment Tool to reach out to our network wide opt-in recruit list, but there is a better way to acquire new Affiliates while branding your Affiliate program at the same time.

Sponsor A Branded AvantShare Blog Category

This is a one-off service that gets you a dedicated and branded category on our Affiliate network blog. Post to and link from your Affiliate program blogs at-will. This is a unique value proposition for our merchants because:

1. It’s affordable.
2. It’s a mechanism for not only communicating effectively, but branding & link building.
3. It’s a powerful new Affiliate acquisition tool.

Each of your blog article headlines feed to the login screens/dashboard for every network Affiliate, not just those active in your program. This means that any Affiliate who logs in will see your news and offers. There is also a broader value in having the link building tool, ie, link directly to product pages by name for search engine optimization. All merchants who sponsor a dedicated AvantShare category get a login, and two categories for posting. Drop us a line for more info and pricing, and in the meantime take a look at the existing Merchant Affiliate Program Blogs to see how it works (browse each retailer via links in side bar).

Gary M

Merchants, you may have noticed we have been publishing a series of program management tips recently. This is not a coincidence. With the quickly approaching 4th quarter and holiday shopping season, now is the time to start getting your Affiliate program dialed in and ready for strong sales.

Note: If you’re a retailer who has an Affiliate program on auto pilot, it’s never too late to start putting more into it! But perhaps Q4 2010 would be a more realistic goal for a fully optimized and cranking program. So read on…

With this post I would like to write about how to optimize your existing Affiliates in AvantLink. Often times this is overlooked and Affiliate managers go on to cold recruit, when in fact it’s likely that there are many quality Affiliates already active with your program(s)…who have yet to add links or send traffic. Remember these Affiliates came to you, so at some point they had an interest in promoting your products. Maybe all it takes to find your new top-performing Affiliate, is reaching out to your inactive list person-by-person with an email.

To access a list of Affiliates who are active, but not yet sending traffic. Follow these steps:

1. Login, and click on “Affiliates” in the main menu.
2. Click “Affiliate Program Applications”.
3. Filter “Affiliate Status:” to “Active”.
4. Sort the “Recent Traffic” column header (click that twice and all Affiliates tagged as “No” for recent traffic will filter to the top of the list).

The next step of course would be to browse that list of inactive Affiliates, emailing those you want to engage and start a relationship with. I am willing to say that 9 of 10 merchants on AvantLink can increase sales volume substantially just by engaging already active Affiliates, to get them fired up! Drop me a line if you have any questions…

Remember, we will be offering three Management Tools Review Sessions over the next several weeks. Drop me a line (click link above for details) to sign up for one!

Gary M

Attention Merchants: Be exceptionally prepared for Q4 and the busy holiday shopping season by signing up for one of three free sessions designed to help you take full advantage of the Affiliate management, organization and communication tools available in AvantLink. As of today, there are 15 slots open on each of the following dates & times (mountain time) over the next several weeks:

• Monday, September 28, 2009 (11am)
• Monday, Octber 5, 2009 (11am)
• Monday, October 12, 2009 (11am)

These sessions will include basic-level presentations, and Q&A format. Yours truly will cover tools like the merchant-managed coupon/deal feed, Affiliate  tagging/group administration, emailing Affiliates and more. New and experienced AvantLink program managers alike will benefit from these review sessions.

Note: Screencasts on program management tools are already available in the merchant interface by clicking “Support” on the main menu (login required). These sessions will go more into each of these topic areas, and address direct questions in a interactive setting.

If you’re interested, please drop me a line to sign up for the date of your choice. I can be reached by email (gmarcoccia/at/avantlink.com), or you can use the contact form on our site to sign-up/RSVP. We will be using GoToMeeting.com to facilitate these sessions.

Gary M

Just a quick post to follow-up on our Outdoor Affiliate Meet and Greet that took place on July 22nd, at the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market. We had more Affiliates and retailers than we expected, and it was a great time to talk shop, eat good food, and have a few cocktails. It looked as though everyone enjoyed networking and putting faces to names. It’s always a special opportunity to meet the folks face-to-face that you do so much online business with otherwise.

I for one had the priveledge of meeting several people that I’ve known from the web for years, but only got to meet for the first time last week.

Thanks to the Salt Lake Hilton for hosting this event, and for their great service. We would especially like to thank our sponsors:

• Tahoe Mountain Sports
• Backcountry.com
• Altrec Outdoors
• Masseys Professional Outfitters
• Rocky Mountain Affiliate Marketers Association (RMAMA)

Look for bigger and better events like this in the future, and let us know if you have any feedback!

Attention All Outdoor Affiliates

(Especially those Affiliates in Utah, or those coming to Salt Lake City for OR!)

We organized a Meet and Greet for Outdoor Affiliates and merchants, at the Salt Lake City Hilton on Wednesday, July 22nd from 5pm-7pm. This event coincides with the 2009 Outdoor Retailer Summer Market at the Salt Palace Convention Center.  Here is the invite that went out to our opt in Outdoor category Affiliates. If you are interested in attending please RSVP by emailing support/at/avantlink.com…

As an AvantLink Affiliate who operates an outdoor related website, we would like to invite you to join us on July 22nd for the Outdoor Affiliate Meet and Greet at the Salt Lake City Hilton!

This event will take place Wednesday evening from 5-7pm during the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market across the street from the Salt Palace Convention Center. The idea is to get a strong contingent of AvantLink Outdoor/Recreation Affiliates and merchants together to meet face-to-face and talk shop. We will have hors d’oeuvres, cocktails and some cool schwag and give-a-ways from participating merchants.

Sponsors of the Outdoor Affiliate Meet and Greet include Tahoe Mountain Sports, Backcountry.com, Massey’s Professional Outfitters and Altrec.com Outdoors. If you are planning on (or considering) attending the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market, we would love to have you.

Please RSVP by emailing support/at/avantlink.com if you can join us.

Gary Marcoccia
AvantLink.com