Future Communications from Affiliate Manager to Affiliate presented by Carsten Cumbrowski at eComXpo October 24-26, 2006

Classic Forms of Communication  Website (Own Website or Network)  (Individual and Bulk Mailer)  Phone, Cell Phone, Voice Mail  Fax (rarely in use today, Signed Contract, W9)

Type of Information provided  General Merchant and Program Information  Terms, Commission Structure etc.  Merchant or Program News  Links, Banners, Creative's  Coupons, Promotions  Product Links  Reporting Data

Some of the Notorious Problems  Affiliate Inboxes are flooded  A lot of s remain unread  No time to visit the Merchants site or even the Networks periodically Provide Information to Affiliates when they need it!

New and Emerging Methods of Communication and Content Delivery  Blogs and RSS Feeds  Instant Messenger vs. or Phone  Product Data Feeds  Coupon Data Feeds  Reporting Data Feeds

Blogs/RSS Feeds and their Advantages  generally inexpensive  generally easy to setup  easy to use (WYSIWYG Editors, CMS)  automatically generated feed (ATOM or RSS), to which affiliates can subscribe to via feed reader software or (special service*) * Use Feedburner to format the Feed and allow Subscription for the Affiliates that still prefer .

Classic Product Datafeeds Usually Delimited Text Format, some also use XML Format for the Product Feed Files Common Network Product Datafeeds  Commission Junctions Product Datafeeds  Linkshare Merchandiser Service  Performics FeedLabs sm  ShareASale Product Datafeed.

Classic methods for delivering Links Code, Banners, Creative's, Coupons and Promotions to Affiliates  (Newsletter)  Own Website or Network Website Coupons are probably the main reason for Affiliate s being sent out by AMs to their Affiliates. Remember the Inbox Problem? Coupon Feeds are relatively new but already widely in use today and growing.

Reporting Data Access via Feed  Feeds for Reporting Data are still not very common today  The exception (Big Networks) is Commission Junction who provides optional Reporting Data Access via FTP, Transaction and Commission Report Data (If you already have access to the product feeds via FTP, contact regarding the reporting Feeds)

The Future: Existing Affiliate Web Services  Amazon Web Services (AWS)  eBay Web Services  Commission Junction Web Services  Linkshare Link Locator Service

Advantages and Benefits of Web Services  Real Time Information on Demand  Standardized Interface  Supported Automatically by more and more platforms  Simplified Distribution Method (http)  No FTP  No Files to Transfer from Computer A to Computer B  Dynamic Queries  Bi-Directional

Usage of Web Services  Real-Time Queries to Merchant Product DB  Product Information Look-ups  Price Requests (Price Comparison)  Coupon/Promotion Request (per Product/Category/Site etc.)  Providing Reporting and Statistical Data Dynamically  And a lot more …

Affiliate Managers your job includes providing:  Documentation of Feeds, Web Services  Different Types of Documentation for different Types of Affiliates  Sample Source Codes  Data Structure and Format Documentations  Links to Tools and Resources  Tutorials and How-to Guides  Educate Affiliate about the Benefits using the new Technologies Embrace the new Technologies when they make sense and everybody’s life easier!

Closing Words. Affiliate Managers don’t bite! Get Access to:  Additional information and details for the products and services mentioned in this presentation  the PowerPoint slides of this presentation (Download)  Large amount of additional resources to this and other topics ... and more. Visit: Thank you Carsten Cumbrowski Skype #: ccumbrowski