Part 1 : Affiliate marketing, the "cavemen" and the future

Hi Wayne, thanks for "talking" with us. Most sites dedicated to affiliate marketing look like Times Square, NY on New Years Eve - a mess of ads and referral codes. AffiliateHelp.com is much more low key - what's the thinking behind the site?
Hi Mark. Glad to be here. You are correct that AffiliateHelp.com does look a bit different than some industry sites. We changed the focus of our site long ago to cater to the middle and larger affiliate. These individuals are looking for an objective view and for stories, ideas, and general chatter to help their business. Our most popular feature so far has been Marty and Joe, an industry satire that highlights problems with e-commerce in general.

We really want to differentiate ourselves by focusing on relationships and having fun. So far our strategy has been extremely successful and our quality base continues to steadily grow. Objectivity remains the core of our focus. Naturally some people get upset when we hammer away at popular concepts or programs, but we don't let that deter us.

And how did you get involved in affiliate marketing in the first place?
That is sort of a strange story. Back in late 1996 my little son was on the way. My wife (Kim) and I decided that one of us had to stay home to take care of the baby, since we didn't want to shuffle him off to a daycare. My job as a psychiatric nurse left me worn out because I worked so many late and odd hours. I took the challenge to stay home and start building a business and take care of Anthony. It wasn't easy. It took us about two years to acquire the skill set, contacts, and experience to do it successfully. Kim continued her college teaching post and we eventually moved to our present home in Kirtland, Ohio. Kim now teaches part-time and assists with writing and editing while I run operations full time.

The main reason we like affiliate marketing is the freedom it gives us to pursue a schedule we like with our family. We still have sit-down dinners, summers to travel and the other perks that the demanding swing schedules destroy. I have to give a lot credit to Kim who was very patient and supportive while our business was incubated. We literally started on a shoestring and a lot of people didn't think we could do it. As soon as I can get a truly mobile solution we hope to spend most of our summers at our family island in Canada, or on the beach.

Let's talk about affiliate marketing in general. The industry continues to be plagued by merchants going out of business, cheating on both sides of the relationship, poor service, and yet there are also many, many success stories - what's your take on the future?
Affiliate marketing has been around since the beginning of time. Let's look at the early cavemen. Grog makes and sells wheels. Looking down the road we find Ogg and Nog who sell axles. Ogg decides to approach Grog one day and offers him 10 clamshells for every customer he sends over from the wheel shop. That sounds good to Grog, since many customers ask him where they can get good axles. Both Grog and Ogg benefit, and the cave-people are happy.

Today we have more sophisticated technological architecture in which to execute these relationships. There is a common misconception that networks like Befree, Linkshare or Commission Junction are the end all, be all of affiliate marketing. This is totally wrong. They are merely convenient systems that allow us to rapidly execute and manage mutually profitable relationships. The technological architecture is only one important aspect of the affiliate marketing formula.

The future all depends on the market and the merchant. We will see more advanced affiliate systems, private label sites, more portals and large web properties embracing revenue sharing, as well as unique and innovative technology to deploy the revenue sharing model. One of the most exciting aspects to affiliation I think we will see is the use of "fluid inventory", my own coinage for net advertising marketing deployed in unusual places.

Advertising companies have somehow trained merchants to believe that everything can fit in a neat, tidy banner or button and can be brokered on this basis. In reality, advertising or affiliate marketing can be in product help files, e-texts, software products, java applets, active-x controls, demos, ftp sites, games, Flash shorts, WAP apps, auto-responder replies, unique javascripts or any new technology. It still surprises me how linear advertisers think. In the "dirt-world", any inventory can be carved and sold. The same holds true for the Internet, only the ad companies haven't figured that out yet. This is where powerful affiliate marketers excel. Working on performance makes one think and work creatively. Ultimately, the people who can deliver the results, not promises, are the ones who will shape the future of Internet marketing.

Continued...