While I was away at Affiliate Summit, the State of Indiana was making a pretty big deal that could have an impact on my business. Governor Mitch Daniels announced last week that Amazon and Indiana have reached an agreement whereby Amazon will begin collecting sales tax for purchases in Indiana starting in 2014. Although the issue does not directly impact affiliate marketers in the state, I see it as fairly good news. Unfortunately, a new affiliate tax bill has also now been written.

Why was the Amazon agreement good for affiliates? First of all, much of the argument in favor of taxing all online purchases in Indiana was based on Amazon having fulfillment centers here. The issue of whether true out-of-state merchants whose only contact with Indiana are its affiliates became muddied into the discussion. The average voter/consumer did not understand where the physical location argument stopped and the alleged “nexus” argument began.  (See my full post Internet Tax Looming in Indiana?)

Second, while numbers are very speculative, as much as 1/3 of the total amount of uncollected state sales taxes as a result of online purchases in Indiana will now be collected by Amazon. That significantly lowers the total amount uncollected, which makes it less lucrative for the state to pass an affiliate tax that would result in affiliates losing their income. It’s even more likely that the state would lose money overall now if it were to pass an affiliate tax.

Third, we at least know that if an affiliate tax is passed, we will not be dropped as Amazon affiliates.

Why wasn’t the agreement good for affiliates? First, we no longer have Amazon fighting on our side since they will be collecting the taxes anyway. Second, the issue continues to get so much attention that a new House Bill (No. 1119) was introduced January 9, 2012, and referred to the Committee on Ways and Means that would require out of state merchants to collect sales tax if they have affiliates in the state. The language specifically includes as affiliates of retailer anyone who “whether by a link on an Internet web site, an in-person oral presentation, or otherwise, to the retail merchant.” Although it includes exclusions, similar ones in other states were not enough to keep merchants from dropping affiliates.

This isn’t the first time that Indiana state legislators have pushed for an internet tax, and in the past it has not gotten anywhere. We need to continue to contact our state legislators and support Senator Luke Kenley, who has been at the forefront of the push for federal legislation.

We’ll be discussing this issue further at the Affiliate Summit Indianapolis Meetup on January 31 at RAM in Fishers. Please RSVP if you are interested in attending.

Although I’m suffering through a nasty cold and still behind on sleep, I couldn’t let the day go by without recapping the incredible experience that I had at Affiliate Summit West. Life’s about choices and here are some that I made in the last few days about which I am most happy.

Time With Friends

Affiliate Summit is about business, but for me that business is about working with friends. Whether we were chatting over a meal, bonding over sports teams, shaking it on the dance floor, singing along to karaoke, or just reconnecting in the hallways, the time that I spent with friends (both old and new!) at Affiliate Summit was invaluable to me. I especially enjoyed all of the time that I spent with my mom (Cindy Ballard) and Ashleigh both from a personal and a professional aspect. It’s always an adventure!

Meeting New People

It’s easy to get into a rut where you only talk to people you already know or work with people you have worked with before. Affiliate Summit is the place to refresh old relationships but also start new ones. I am busily sending LinkedIn connection requests, following people on Twitter, and friending people on Facebook today.

Mastermind Groups Presentation

Working with Eric Nagel and Todd Farmer was one of the best decisions that I made in all of 2011. I sincerely hope that came across in our presentation. My Mastermind group was at the root of much of my success this year, and I know that it can be the same for people who learned from us and try it on their own in 2012. I was grateful for the chance to share what we have learned with the people who attended our session. And I was especially grateful to be on a panel with two of my favorite people!

AWeber Session with Hunter Boyle

I don’t attend a lot of sessions because I figure that I can watch them later on video, but I wanted to attend this one because I know that I can’t wait for the video to come out to stop being lazy with my AWeber account. Hunter Boyle did not disappoint. He gave some great examples about how to make the most of my newsletter. If you have an AWeber account (and you should), you need to be sure to keep an eye on what he is saying because there isn’t any reason to do it if you aren’t going to do it right.

Newcomer Program

I consider the Affiliate Summit Newcomer program to be one of the best kept secrets at Affiliate Summit. Even though they publicize it a lot, not nearly enough people take advantage of it. I was teamed up with a great newcomer and enjoyed seeing Affiliate Summit through her eyes. I also enjoyed the meetup on Sunday where 80+ veterans and newcomers could get together in a laid-back atmosphere and talk about the conference and our industry as a whole. If you haven’t participated in this before, you need to add it to your list for Affiliate Summit East. Kudos to Daniel Clark in taking it over this time!

Using Available Technology

One great way to make the most of Affiliate Summit that people often overlook is to follow the hashtag on Twitter. I was able to see what was going on in other rooms, figure out who speakers were, and be more of a part of the whole conference by keeping my eye on it. You can now see everyone heading home and following up if you follow #asw12. When will we make the switch to #ase12?? Foursquare was also helpful because I could see where people were heading, who was in the same place as me, and who I needed to connect with.

Staying at Caesar’s

I know I have said it before, but I truly love staying at the conference hotel. I like being able to pop up to my room between sessions or meetings. I like being in the same place as the majority of the attendees. If you can get reservations in time and your budget permits, I definitely think it is worth it. Thankfully there were also some really good options right around Caesar’s this time, too.

Dancing Upstairs at the ShareASale Party

I’ve been to a lot of ShareASale parties, and I have to say that this one was definitely a classic. The view from upstairs while we were dancing was amazing! I heard that there were desserts somewhere, but I couldn’t bear to leave the dance floor long enough to find them. Thanks to Brian Littleton and his crew for again throwing a memorable event. And thanks to everyone who shared the dance floor with this midwest mom.

Leaving Time Open in My Schedule

At some Affiliate Summits past I have scheduled everything down to the minute. If anything ran over, I was thrown off track. This time I scheduled just enough to have a plan but also left myself time for setting up last-minute meetings and even just hanging out in the Blogger’s Lounge. I felt much less frenzied and was also able to talk to people that I might not otherwise have been able to.

Eric Thomas’s Keynote

I don’t usually attend a lot of keynotes, but I am glad that I went to this one (and not just because I received a Pinnacle Award!). Although I never faced the adversity that Eric Thomas did, I still appreciate his optimism and spirit. I love that he stressed that you have to visualize what you want and then work to achieve it because no one is just going to hand it to you.

Thanks on a very personal level go to Shawn and Missy for all that they have done for me (minus the country music). You truly make Affiliate Summit what it is, and my business and brand would not be what they are today without Affiliate Summit.

What did you do at Affiliate Summit that you are glad about in retrospect? Sessions, parties, presenting, people you met?

It’s that time of year when we talk about who is on the “Naughty” list and who is on the “Nice” list. In the last 48 hours, I’ve decided that there are some merchants who belong on the Naughty list. Because of the nature of retaliation in affiliate marketing, I’m not going to name a lot of names. On the flip side, affiliates need to know just what is happening with certain merchants so that they don’t end up getting taken advantage of the way that I have been.

First on my naughty list, and I have no problem naming names, is Disney Movie Club through Commission Junction. I have no idea how the program is or is not actually related to Disney because it is not run by the same people as the Disney Shopping or Disney Games accounts. But to make a long story short, I had 100% of my leads reversed for October and was told that they reversed 78% across all affiliates that month. The reason wasn’t fraud or cancellation but rather that the leads “didn’t show up in their reports.” I’ve been in affiliate marketing for over 7 years, and I can’t make heads or tails of this rationale. I tried to get more information but in the end just decided to stop promoting them because clearly they don’t care about affiliates.

Next on my Naughty list is Snapfish. What better time of year to promote picture printing than December, when people actually remember to use their cameras? And yet it is during this exact time that Snapfish cut commissions on pictures in HALF out of the blue. Of course we got the same excuse that we always do about how they will be able to make their promotions more aggressive as a result of the cuts. But really what happened is that I lost half of my commissions. A friend of mine at Zumba summed it up best last night. “Isn’t Shutterfly paying 4X what Snapfish is now? Simple, I’ll shop at Shutterfly.” Thankfully in this case affiliates have a choice and can promote someone else pretty easily.

Third on my Naughty list is a satellite program on CJ that shall remain nameless. Their tracking is such that you get a placeholder credit in your account when a lead is generated and then as long as the person completes the activation and stays on for 30 days, you get paid within 60 days. 75 days passed on one of mine and I hadn’t been paid. I contacted them and, of course, they didn’t respond to my email. I checked their CJ stats and strangely enough their EPC is $0.00 for the last 7 days. Either they are supposed to be batching sales and didn’t bother to do it, or they are about to make a quick exit out of CJ without paying their bills. Either way, it stinks and is a naughty business practice. At over $100 a lead, you should pay when you say you will.

Lastly is my biggest beef right now and unfortunately a merchant that I have put so much into promoting in the last 30 days that I can’t afford to be dropped from their program. And that REALLY makes me angry because there is nothing that I can do. I had my commission dropped from 15% down to 5% today because I own a rewards site. But the site that I am heavily promoting them on is a niche site. And we had an agreement that I would promote the merchant at 15% on that site. Now that I am getting multiple sales each day, my commission is all of a sudden lowered by 2/3 with the fact that I own the rewards site being the justification for lowering it.

I’m a business owner. I understand that business decisions have to be made sometimes to keep businesses profitable. But in the cases of all of the above, the merchants just flat took advantage of me as an affiliate. And they are likely taking advantage of many other affiliates as well. Every time we open our mouths (or our blogs) to complain, we take the risk of getting dropped from programs or whole networks.

Stay tuned because you just know there’s going to be backlash on this one.

After thinking about it all week, I decided today to take the plunge and sign up with the Affiliate Marketers Give Back Team to walk the 40 mile Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. I’ve got roughly 340 days to get ready to walk 40 miles in 2 days in New York City plus raise at least $1,800 for my team. You might think the whole thing sounds a little bit crazy, but I know in my heart that it is the right thing to do and I feel so compelled that it was hardly even a choice. I have been wanting to do it for years but every date conflicted with some kind of family obligations that I couldn’t get out of. I don’t have any excuses for next year. It’s time I step up. Why do I feel so strongly about raising money for breast cancer? 

This is a picture of me with my Grandma Rose. For personal, family reasons, I never got to know her growing up. I didn’t meet her until I was a teen and she lived in another state. I only got to see her about 3 times and this picture was taken on that 3rd time. In the picture she is surrounded by grandkids, and she is dying of cancer. What started as breast cancer went undetected and spread throughout her body. It was the 3rd time I saw her and the last time.

Grandma Rose

Contrast that with the next picture. It’s my Grandma Emma. She also had breast cancer but they caught it early enough and through the right treatment process, she came out on the other side. It’s been so many years since she had it that I can hardly even remember. Maybe 25 years? In the picture below you see my Grandma Emma surrounded not only by grandkids but GREAT GRANDKIDS. And recently she became a GREAT GREAT GRANDMOTHER!

Grandma Emma

These two women aren’t the only friends and family of mine to be diagnosed with breast cancer. But the contrast here is clear. Breast cancer can be dealt with when it is detected early. And when detected early and treated, women can live on for decades to see their grandchildren, great grandchildren, and even great grandchildren be born.

The key is education and treatment. Through this walk I will be raising money along with others for Breast Cancer research, treatment, awareness, and community programs. If you can find it in your heart to support me in any way through donations or even just spreading the word, I would greatly appreciate it. I want to do all that I can to make sure that my daughters have the best chance possible of living long, happy lives without the worry of breast cancer cutting them short.

Tricia’s Avon Walk for Breast Cancer Donation Page

Several months ago after speaking to my state representative, I wrote a post about Indiana and the Advertising Tax and the fact that affiliates in Indiana were safe for the time being because our legislature had repeatedly refused to enact an Internet tax and had actually made a deal with Amazon not to make them collect the taxes in exchange for Amazon building distribution centers here. A lot has changed very quickly in the last week.

The IBJ reported yesterday that Simpon Property Group filed suit against the Indiana Department of Revenue to force the state to begin collecting sales tax from Amazon. While I haven’t yet seen the suit, the article made it sound like the issue was mainly about the distribution centers but hinted a bit about an affiliate nexus. My fears were confirmed today when the IBJ reported that an Indiana state legislator is now filing a bill that will force Indiana to collect taxes from online retailers that “have a physical presence or affiliate distributors” in the the state. The exact “nexus” language is not there, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that this legislation in basically going to call for an affiliate tax.

This is a complex issue for many reasons. First of all, most people do not even understand why online retailers do not currently have to collect the tax for purchases made in the state if they do not have a physical presence here. The short answer is that in Bellas Hess v. Illionis and Quill Corp. v. North Dakota the Supreme Court held that it was unconstitutional. The second part of the equation is that most people do not understand the issue of affiliate marketing and how it relates to taxes.

As I posted in a comment on the IBJ site, here are the potential ramifications of Simon winning its lawsuit and/or the Indiana legislature passing an internet tax:

“We have two issues here. The first are the incentives given to Amazon to build their fulfillment centers here. Those included not collecting sales tax on the purchases made online. If we had not agreed to those incentives, the plants would not have been built here and we would not have gotten the jobs. It’s not illegal. It’s business. If the state all of a sudden decides to start collecting the taxes, Amazon will 1) pull the centers and take away the jobs, and 2) sue the state for breach of contract. At that point, we will lose the jobs and have to pay to defend the suit and STILL not be able to collect the sales taxes because there will be no local distribution centers to trigger the tax law. How does anyone in our state win in that situation? Sounds like we will only LOSE money.

The second issue is the fact that Indiana does not force the merchant to collect taxes for online sales when the company is out of state. This is consistent with a Supreme Court decision that held that a state CANNOT tax an out-of-state merchant for in-state purchases unless that merchant has some kind of agent selling for them in that state. Simon wants to argue that because we have people in Indiana who own internet sites that post advertisements for those merchants that those sites become agents, establishing a “nexus” so that the state can tax those purchases. However, a few other states have tried it and it is failing miserably. The end result is always that those merchants just cut their ties with the internet advertisers. What does that mean? There is no longer a nexus and they don’t have to collect the taxes. Then add to that the fact that all of the internet companies have lost their contracts and you now have a lot more unemployed Hoosiers–something we definitely do not need. We actually saw other companies move from Illinois to Indiana (bringing more jobs here) in the last few months because Illinois passed an internet tax. Do we want to now lose those jobs, too? ”

Current Status

The Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board (of which Sen. Luke Kenley of Noblesville is the President) has been meeting in D.C. this week to discuss a federal solution that would keep us from losing jobs in Indiana. In the meantime, Indiana legislators are going to push forward to enact a state solution that could be devastating to our economy due to the number of jobs that would be lost in Indiana.

We need to make sure that we do what we can to 1) educate ourselves, 2) educate all of the legislators, and 3) make sure that the public understands what really is at stake and what has happened in other states.

The Affiliate Summit Indianapolis Group will be meeting at the end of November and we encourage others in the industry to come meet with us and discuss the issue. In the meantime, I will continue posting updates as I get them about what is happening and what we can all be doing.

Last week we continued growing our Affiliate Summit Meetup Group in Indianapolis with a meeting held at the RAM Restaurant and Brewery in Fishers. We had about 15 attend, which was our biggest turnout so far.

Erich Stauffer Speaking

Thanks to Erich Stauffer for being our presenter. Erich runs a technology consulting business that offers marketing, web design, and computer support. He has been doing affiliate marketing since 2009. Here are some of the key takeaways from his presentation on How to Start an Affiliate Marketing Business:

• Start with Keyword Research and Analysis. Narrow down your keywords and then purchase a domain, set up WordPress, install a theme, and add plugins.
• Write strong content around your keywords with at least one page and five posts. Include at least one relevant picture per post and wrap the text around the picture.
• Sign up for affiliate networks including Amazon, Linkshare, ClickBank, Commission Junction, Google Affiliate Network, and ShareASale.
• Find the products you want to promote relative to your keywords and start writing content around them.
• Create backlinks including through social bookmarking sites.
• Establish a social presence.
• Measure and refine your site using Google Analytics.

Informal Networking and Q&A

After Erich spoke I made some announcements on behalf of Affiliate Summit include the Affiliate Summit Free Webinars, registration for Affiliate Summit West, and the Affiliate Summit West Scholarship program. I was also lucky enough to give out some prizes. Through a random name draw, Erich won an Affiliate Summit Gold Pass and Blake Ensign won a set of DVDs from Affiliate Summit East (which I have on good authority he has already started watching!)

Networking continued for quite a while and I think most of the group ended up being there 3-4 hours. We are looking forward to getting together in November in Castleton.

For more information about our group, visit the Indianapolis Affiliate Summit Meetup page.

(Thanks to Blake Ensign of Blaze Communications for the pictures!)

Affiliate marketing can be lonely when you are a solo business owner spending most of your days on the computer. Social media can complicate matters when it feels like a “chicken/egg” scenario of trying to get followers by showing that you already have followers. The one thing that can help solve both of these problems is building up a “tribe” around yourself.

What is a tribe? Most people would agree that at its core a tribe is a social group that exists on the basis of shared interests to help support each other. Since Seth Godin wrote about tribes in business, the terminology has evolved from primarily anthropological terms to more colloquial.  I was reading an article today entitled “How to Build Your Tribe – Finding ‘Your People’” and it really struck me how much we use tribes as affiliate marketers and how we should use them even more.

Building tribes in affiliate marketing can happen both informally or formally. You may start to notice a core group of people who retweet your posts and +1 your sites for you without you even asking. In return, you are naturally doing the same for them without even thinking about it. Conversely, you may set out intentionally to create a group of people who chat via private forum or secret Facebook group about a specific issue such as SEO or blogging best practices.

What sets a tribe apart from a plain old group of people is that they support each other based on common interests and help propel each other forward. There aren’t any rules about how to create your tribe or how many people should be in it. You don’t have to set up meeting times or regular accountability check-ins. Instead, the tribe members are passionate enough about what they are doing to participate to their own ability levels or eventually be ignored out of the tribe. People who don’t participate as fully won’t be given as much exposure or information by the other tribe members. People who give a lot to the tribe will likely get more back out of it.

How can you use the tribe mentality in your affiliate marketing business? Do you need a group of people to help you in your social media efforts? To help you test software or plugins in return for you testing theirs? Can you build a group of followers of your brand that will work with you to grow your business? What are you passionate about that you would love to share with others and have them share back with you?

Take the lead and start building your own tribe based on what you love as well as what you need. You don’t need to create deeply personal relationships with the other tribe members. You just need a mutual respect for the purpose of the group and an eagerness to help everyone in it achieve that purpose.

This week I was lucky enough to give a webinar through Affiliate Summit entitled “Monetize Your Blogging Skills with Affiliate Marketing.” The intent of the webinar was to teach bloggers how they can easily move from blogging to affiliate marketing with a little bit of important information and some easy tools. It was not a basic seminar about what affiliate marketing is (see my Start Monetizing Your Blog video for that information). Rather, it was food for thought about disclosure statements as well as some helpful plugins and network information.

Below are some notes and links from the presentation as well as a YouTube replay of the seminar.

• Disclosure statements are necessary for any bloggers who start recommending products or merchants. The FTC requires that they be “clear and conspicuous.”
• Visit disclosurepolicy.org to help you formulate one.
• The Exec-PHP WordPress Plugin is useful for inserting php into WordPress pages and posts.
• Use it in conjunction with GoldenCan and PopShops to create SEO friendly shopping pages or coupon directories.
• The Pretty Links plugin is great for redirecting affiliate links and cloaking (if you use the old version).
• Sub-identification tracking will help you better understand your conversions. Each network does this differently.

I think this webinar will be helpful to both brand new affiliates as well as those who have been in the business for awhile because we all do things a little bit differently and have different tips and shortcuts. Thanks to Affiliate Summit for giving me this opportunity!

Last year I was lucky enough to participate in a panel at Affiliate Summit West with two industry veterans, Kristin Kinsey (affiliate manager and owner of MadHatter Consulting) and Carolyn Tang Kmet (now the affiliate manager for Groupon), and moderated by Marty Fahncke. Our presentation was entitled Start Monetizing Your Blog Today and is a great primer for new affiliate marketers. A few things have changed (Carolyn got married!) but the basics of the presentation are still solid.

Carolyn started the presentation with an introduction about the basics of affiliate marketing, who the players are, and how it all works. I then discussed ways that bloggers can use affiliate marketing including banner and text links. Kristin finished up by explaining the role of affiliate managers and Outsourced Program Managers (OPMs).

Areas Covered

• Affiliate Marketing 101
• Stakeholders
• Evaluating Merchants
• Types of Creative
• The Affiliate Site
• Extreme Site Makeover
• Resources
• Contact Info

Below you will find both the PowerPoint (via Slideshare) and the actual video of the presentation thanks to Affiliate Summit.

my philosophy

I’ve recently been talking to a number of bloggers who are having a hard time understanding the types of products that they can promote through affiliate marketing. Many of them associate affiliate marketing with either ebooks or diet pills. I decided to try a little experiment and see how many products I used in one day that I could easily blog about and include affiliate links. Some of these products I would just mention in passing in a blog post. Others could be an entire written or video review. I actually got tired of writing them down there were so many. Here’s are some of the highlights.

• Took a shower using philosophy senorita margarita shampoo, shower gel, and bubble bath
• Got dressed in my favorite jeans-1969 long and lean from Gap (which also happen to be on sale as part of their Columbus Day Sale)
• Straightened my hair with my Sedu Ionic Ceramic Pro Flat Iron that I got from Ulta
• Put on my favorite perfume, Pink Sugar by Aquolina (purchased from different places depending on who had it on sale, usually Sephora)
• Made a cup of tea using my Teavana Perfect TeaMaker
• Got some work done on my Dell computer with my two Dell monitors
• Listened to music I had downloaded from Amazon and iTunes
• Opened some packages with my Slice Box Cutter
• Read some of The Iron Witch by Karen Mahoney
• Got dressed for Zumba in my Tek Gear shirt and pants (from Kohls) and my Saucony running shoes (from Shoebuy)
• Spruced up with Black Candy Apple body lotion from Bath and Body Works
• Watched recorded movies on my DirecTV DVR with my husband

I could go on and on. But the point is that these are all products that I really use and could easily write about. They fit into niches like beauty, moms, home, reading, entertainment, exercise, food, etc. And this was only about half of what I even wrote down. In a given week I would also have affiliate marketing recommendations for travel sites, kids’ clothes, toys, gardening, football, cooking, finance, and more. It’s all about looking at your site and figuring what fits into it and then where to find those links.

If you need more help making that transition from blogger to affiliate marketing, I’m doing a webinar for Affiliate Summit on October 19th, 2011, at 12pm EST entitled Monetize Your Blogging Skills with Affiliate Marketing. It is free but there are limited spots available. I also did a webinar as part of the Blogging ABCs entitled 5 Affiliate Marketing Benefits for Bloggers that you can view on replay.