Commission Explosion

I recently read another timely article on Perform Insider about Pinterest a popular and fast growing website where according to their website “People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes”.

Nothing really new about the service that hasn’t been tried before by similar community share platforms but why is Pinterest suddenly raising eyebrows? Apparently, their practice of automatically replacing any user generated product or retailer links with affiliate links of their own.

From Perform Insider: “Several blogs have questions this, not only as being deceiving but a possible violation of FTC rules that require that disclosure when content is disguised as an advertisement. Pinterest’s argument could be that they themselves are not actually promoting the product, they are changing the code and thus it’s not a real placement. Either way, its something they need to address because the FTC has already shown they don’t appreciate when people hide advertising in content without telling users about it.”

My overall concern is built on the whole user-generated ‘content’ aspect. I can appreciate website monetization challenges but I believe I am right in my assessment that the practice without notifying your users in clear language throughout is wrong in my own personal opinion.

Pinterest responded to the building criticism on their blog: “Online communities need ways to generate revenue to support their operations, and the preference is always to earn this revenue without disrupting their users or detracting from their UI with flashy advertisements. Creating a beautiful, user-friendly site, as Pinterest has done, mandates a non-intrusive way to make money.”

Now that that’s aside let us move onto the service they purportedly use called Skimlinks (affiliate link). Datafeed programs and javascript offerings tried in the past (albeit not exactly like this) have been around for a number of years, mostly small operations with a few dozen merchant offerings like Goldencan (who you still have to have an established merchant relationship with).

No program as far as I know has the reach of Skimlinks with a stated merchant program base of 18,000+ merchants and 32 affiliate Networks. Another enticing feature is that as a publisher, approval into Skimlinks then gets you ‘instantly approved’ to promote so many different merchants with just ‘one’ simple javascript placement. The cost to use the service is a straight 25% revenue share from any sales resulting from your publishers link.

What is your opinion of Skimlinks. What about the disclosure process? Even more important does it work for your website, blog and your content type ? What about the programs transparency? Do you feel confident sending your traffic through them as a provider? Do you only send select traffic or go all-out?

+Nick J. West

There are your competitors and then, there are your customers. What happens when your customers are also part competitor?

The retail department store model of the 60′s- 70′s was slanted to empower the retailer. Offer the best and newest products in mass presentation, actively demonstrate those products and their can’t live without features and they were often sold at markups that would make today’s retailers drool.

With discounters and do-it-yourself and bulk warehouses rise in popularity through the 80′s and 90′s the shift for pricing control moved in-favor of the consumer being firmly in-control of actual sales price.

Amazon recently introduced an App (smart-phone program) designed to get customers into your store, but the app strongly encourages them to not buy by dangling a discount above offering or locating a better price if they order via Amazon after leaving a brick-and-mortar business.

In addition to recruiting a customer, the Amazon App utilizes crowd-sourcing to collect pricing and product data from smaller retailers. This alone is a powerful tool and one surely to be explored by other retailers looking to capitalize on the wealth of data that can be generated in this fashion.

So upset about the Amazon App is one small business advocate that she took to the website Change.org to launch a petition denouncing the App and asking Amazon to remove it and apologize to America’s Small Business owners. See Jasmine Johnson’s petition here.

Though smacking of unfair competition tactics like this are sure to become commonplace as technologies advance, just look at the mass number of tools and similar apps currently available to consumers everywhere.

What is your opinion on this new Amazon App, does it hint of unfair competition? Is this a win-win for the consumer? What about the idea of using crowd-sourcing for data collection?

+Nick J. West

CityDeals, a daily deal Groupon type company located in Salt Lake City Utah suddenly and abruptly closed its doors on Wednesday leaving customers and merchants in the dark.

Customers were briefly being redirected to the DealsThatMatter.com website but customers were not able to access their accounts or to print certificates from their CityDeals.com accounts. A check of number 800-970-8824 is currently a non-working number.

Some local merchants are still honoring the certificates, other merchants who were never paid are not sure they can afford the loss of giving away services or products. Customers are advised to call-ahead.

Owners of Deals That Matter have said they have no affiliation with City Deals however they were apparently in-talks at one point about acquiring CityDeals.com but withdrew from the deal for an undisclosed reason.

A few reviews sited on Google from early August and none are positive. One says it all from the merchants perspective: “Still waiting to get paid for this company on product they sold for me over two months ago. Fortunately, we only ran our ad for two months. When we sign a contract, we expect each party to hold up it’s end.”

Is this possibly an area that the state legislatures needs to look at a bit closer, maybe requiring daily deal sites to maintain a bond or guaranty? I am all for free enterprise but the fast cash in this business model leaves little room for insuring the public trust. Without it, the entire daily deal industry could suffer greatly and or even disappear.

+Nick J. West

Fold3 (formerly footnote) is migrating from Linkshare to CJ. The big news is that the commission for early adopters is 40%. Get your links active now to take advantage of this offer. Click here to apply for the program.

As a website owner you probably buy traffic in one form or another. Many do so initially by using PPC ads, hopefully they convert into sales for you but for many websites getting traffic is an on-going enterprise with or without conversions.

Recently a number of good resellers have come into play that allow you to buy great ad space, at a huge discount without losing any of the tracking and placement controls you have come to expect.

Resellers and remnant ad space sellers like those listed below allow you to buy impressions for as little as $0.04 cpm which can greatly increase your exposure on a very limited budget, as low as $500 for an average campaign block.

The following are two of the best resources that I have found for quality remnant ad traffic: SiteScout and AdBuyer

The As Seen On TV store affiliate program is now available. Promote hundreds of top selling products from your visitors favorite infomercials. Affiliates receive 8% commission on purchases. To become a partner, sign up for the As Seen On TV store affiliate program on the Google Affiliate Network.

ATTENTION GOOGLE ADWORDS ADVERTISERS, EXISTING ADWORDS USERS can register to receive up to $100 in matching AdWords credits. Click here to register your AdWords account before December 31st, 2010 and be sure to set up at least one AdWords Tracking code to be eligible for this rare offer.

DotComSecrets claims to help ‘students’ learn how to make money online. As anyone in the industry knows, the learning curve to successfully generate a live-able or even greater income strictly from an online enterprise requires a lot of time, money, hard-work and maybe a little bit of luck along the way.

In other words, it’s not often that someone ‘stumbles’ upon a way to make $thousands$ online overnight without the experience to back it up.

So, does DotComSecrets live up to what it advertises? I don’t know, but after spending some time receiving their e-mails, signing up for a product or two all I can say for certain is that their site offers a lot of resources in one place (or several connected tutorials) that any beginner can utilize to get up to speed on the various marketing sources, techniques and even a few tricks.

Does spending money on everything that they recommend make sense? In my opinion, no. But to each his own, what one person may find useless information and sales material, to another may be the spark of creativity that sets their future fortune earning online empire into motion.

Visit DotComSecrets by clicking here to judge for yourself.

In my time on the web I’ve watched trends come and go, technologies, magic “solutions” and quick fixes appear and then vanish.

Everyone CLAIMS to have the “answer”!

So, how do you know WHAT and WHOM to believe?

Two words: Longevity and relationship.

Longevity: Web sites that have been on the web for a considerable period of time (e.g. feedyourhungrymind has been online for 7 years) indicate stability, continuity and success.

Relationship: Email the webmaster with a question. Do they respond to you in a positive way?

Are they interested in HELPING you with your problem? Are they interested in establishing a longterm business relationship with you? Do they treat you with respect, or are they just trying to sell you stuff?

Buyer Beware! Always conduct your due dillgence before you buy.

Internet marketing forums are the best means to get questions answered and become known within the internet marketing community. I suggest that