Welcome to the AffiliateTip.com Newsletter for January 2005. Be sure to check out the AffiliateTip.com blog for the latest news and information at http://www.affiliatetip.com/blog/

Topics in this issue:

1. Affiliate Tip - Write Content
2. Google Affiliate Policy Change
3. Free Data Cleaner Tool from AMWSO
4. Affiliate Tip - Stop Traffic Leaks
5. Affiliate Program News
6. Affiliate Summit 2005 Speaker Proposals
7. Top 10 Affiliate Programs - December 2004

1. Affiliate Tip - Write Content
One of the most effective ways to display affiliate links is to incorporate them into relevant content. This sort of contextual affiliate content can come in many shapes and forms, such as testimonials, reviews, and articles targeting a certain demographic.

In the case of datafeeds, it's essential that you build some sort of unique content around them when they are displayed on your site. Reviews or testimonials are a great way to differentiate a datafeed and make it unique to your site.

If you can put together a quality article on a subject that pertains to an affiliate program, you will find that inserting affiliate links into the article keywords will perform really well.

Visit http://www.affiliatetip.com/affiliate_tip_34.php for more details.

2. Google Affiliate Policy Change
After rumors have floated around for weeks, the hammer has dropped in the announcement from Google (below) that was issued last week.

Hello from the Google AdWords Team:

In January 2005, Google will incorporate a new affiliate advertising policy that is designed to provide a better user and advertiser experience.

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What is changing:

With this new affiliate policy, we'll only display one ad per search query for affiliates and parent companies sharing the same URL. This way, users will have a more diverse sampling of advertisements to choose from. As always, your ad will be displayed based on its Ad Rank for given searches, which is determined by a combination of your ad's maximum cost-per-click (price) and clickthrough rate (performance).

More details at http://www.affiliatetip.com/blog/archives/
google_adwordsa_announcement_affiliate_policy_change.html

3. Free Data Cleaner Tool from AMWSO
Chris Sanderson is at it again - making the lives easier for affiliates. Below is information from his company, AMWSO, about their new, Free Data Cleaner Tool.

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AMWSO is working on a suite of tools that are aimed at making it easier for affiliate partners to work with merchant data. We're aiming to resolve a range of issues and the first one we have focused on is "Getting the data clean"

Merchant data can contain a wide range of special characters, HTML, truncated HTML, hard returns and other symbols that can make it a real pain to work with, causing pages to break and databases to have minor freak outs. More details at http://www.affiliatetip.com/blog/archives/
free_data_cleaner_tool_from_amwso.html

4. Affiliate Tip - Stop Traffic Leaks
If you own your own domain, there are some common typos that can be stripping traffic from your site.

When people are typing in your domain(s), it's common for them to only type two W's or an extra W before the dot. And there are also plenty of folks that type the three W's, but accidentally don't type a dot before the domain name.

Visit http://www.affiliatetip.com/affiliate_tip_33.php for more details.

5. Affiliate Program News
AWMSO.com
http://www.AMWSO.com
Dedicated support across multiple merchants, custom creatives, fast launch support, data feeds, key word files, Live RSS news feeds and more, visit AMWSO today to learn more.

GoodTimes Entertainment
http://www.affiliatetip.com/out.php?pid=570&lid=2
Promote house hold names and Brand Name products from your site with GoodTimes Entertainment, from Billy Blanks to Kurt Warner to Charlton Heston and The Firm. Promote heath, fitness and education and make 15% doing it.

Hilton
http://www.affiliatetip.com/out.php?pid=597&lid=2
Hilton launched their affiliate program in early January 2005. The Hilton portfolio includes Hilton®, Conrad®, Doubletree®, Embassy Suites Hotels®, Hampton Inn®, Hampton Inn & Suites®, Hilton Garden Inn®, Hilton Grand Vacations Club® and Homewood Suites by Hilton®. Commission is 3% on consumed bookings.

KegWorks.com
http://www.affiliatetip.com/out.php?pid=187&lid=3
KegWorks.com, one of the leading online retailers of draft beer dispensing equipment, home bar accessories, refrigeration and more, is offering a 10% starting commission to all new affiliate that sign up through AffiliateTip.Com . Mail Allen.Miller@kegworks.com after you sign up to notify us.

UnitedShades.Com
http://www.amwso.com/united_shades.php
UnitedShades.Com , the leading online store for designer sunglasses, direct from the manufacturer, featuring 35+ of the world's top brands is offering a $20 first sale bonus to any new affiliate that signs up through AffiliateTip.Com. For generating 2 orders in any given month, we will give the affiliate a commission boost of 3% the following month, for a total of 10% commission.

6. Affiliate Summit 2005 Speaker Proposals
Affiliate Summit 2005 will be taking place on June 13-14, 2005 in Las Vegas. Details on the venue will be released shortly - we're working on the hotel bids now.

Speaking proposals will be accepted through February 13, 2005.

Submit your proposal at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=95545789006

We will contact speakers whose proposals have been accepted by the end of February 2005.

7. Top 10 Affiliate Programs - November 2004
Below are the Top Ten Affiliate Programs for December 2004 as tracked by the AffiliateTip.com Affiliate Program Directory.

The Top Ten affiliate programs are calculated by the number of clickthroughs each program received on AffiliateTip.com.

1. Great Expectations
2. InstrumentPro
3. ClubMom
4. Lightspeed Research
5. GoodbyeSpam
6. Tiger Direct
7. CPAEmpire.com
8. AllPosters.com
9. MaxBounty.com
10. eHealthInsurance

As always, I'd love to hear from you! Drop me a line and let me know if you have any suggestions or questions.

Take care,
Shawn Collins

shawn@affiliatetip.com
http://www.affiliatetip.com/
39 Clark Street, Summit, NJ 07901
908-522-0056