I found a new service that I am truly excited to talk about. The service allows companies and consultants/freelancers to meet on a common platform to find/complete work.

The company’s name is EsalesGuru, and they are the creators of the platform that makes the world of outsourcing very simple. You can sign up either as an Employer or as a Professional.

Employers simply apply for a free membership and for every project that you post and is accepted than you will pay a $15 project fee, which will be reduced to a $10 fee if you pay within 5 days.

Professionals have a number of different options for signing up, ranging from a free account to the Elite Plus account level for $35 a month. Refer to the Professionals Sign up page to see the account details.

The services that Employers can look to acquire through EsalesGuru include:

• Affiliate Marketing Management & Consulting
• Search Engine Marketing & Optimization
• Website / Landing Page Design
• Interactive Advertising Design (Banners, Rich Media, HTML)
• Online Lead Generation
• Business Blogging and Social Media Services
• Podcasting / Mobile Marketing
• Internet Marketing Planning Analysis and Consulting
• Online Business Planning /Internet Start-up Consulting
• And more …

EsalesGuru’s outsourcing Marketplace is an incredible opportunity for businesses offering work and for business professionals looking for freelancing or consulting work. Employers pay the professional through the EsalesGuru billing system once the contracted work is complete or by other arrangements.

The marketplace offers a chance for businesses to offer work opportunities for people that could be short term contracts of even permanent arrangements. If you are a professional and have any of the skills listed above, then you should absolutely join EsalesGuru’s Free Trial at the very least. Same goes for businesses looking to outsource, it doesn’t cost any money to sign up, and you only pay when a project you post is taken by a Professional.

My advice is to sign up for the Free trial at www.esalesguru.com, test the service and see if it is beneficial for your needs.

This is a question that has been hotly debated in past, but what do you think?

I ran across a site today that is clearly an online retailer, with their own affiliate program, and yet, they have a page with about 15 Affiliate links.  Not only that, but they have masked their links to funnel sites that re-direct to the merchant’s site.  And on top of everything else, the Affiliate sites aren’t even remotely related to the retailer’s website. They make it possible for other Affiliate marketers to lose sales because they are wildly promoting other sites under false pretenses.

I won’t reveal this retailer, as I personally won’t stoop down to their level, but the fact is that this retailer seemingly makes plenty of money off of sales and advertising, and the fact they hide Affiliate links sickens me.

So I ask you, do you think it is ethical for retailers with Affiliate programs to promote someone else’s Affiliate program?

One of the best and most effective ways for an Affiliate Manager to keep in touch with their Affiliates is to send out an Affiliate Newsletter at least once a month. Affiliate newsletters allow the Affiliate program to share their thoughts, program news, and broad Affiliate support and tools with their Affiliate database.

I ask you, as an Affiliate, do you read Affiliate newsletters, or do they get forwarded straight to the trash bin?

At the very least, you should take a peak at a Merchant’s newsletter, see if there are any customer or Affiliate promotions that you can use to your advantage. You also might find that Affiliate incentives are thrown into Affiliate newsletters, and you might be missing out on some extra cash by avoiding the newsletter. Affiliates, try and make it a habit to read through your Affiliate newsletters, you never know when you will come across something that could increase your profits.

In this month’s issue of Internet Retailer, they dive into a common Affiliate Marketing issue. Can an Affiliate Program have too many affiliates?

While presenting both sides of this issue, they show how some affiliate programs and networks say it isn’t worth working with Affiliates who have been inactive for over 6 months. It is wise to cut these affiliates from your program and bring your program down to a size your company can manage.

They also took a look at the Affiliate managers and companies who believe that it is foolish to cut Affiliates from your program just because they have been inactive. The sentiment being, you never know when one of your affiliates, active or inactive, may become the next Super Affiliate.

I agree with the second group of people in saying that Affiliates shouldn’t be cut from a program because of inactivity. Rather, segment your affiliates into different groups, and manage each group accordingly. Three possible groups could be “Super Affiliates”, “Active Affiliates”, and “Inactive Affiliates”. Try and appeal to all three groups and continue to grow your program. In my opinion, there is no such thing as an unmanageable program. Even if you are a small company, there is no reason that your Affiliate manager can’t spend the time to separate your Affiliates into groups and reach out and market and support them.

E-consultancy is an online publisher of best practice internet marketing reports, research and how-to guides. E-consultancy, named Publisher of the Year at the 2006 AOP Awards, also publishes buyer’s guides and has a directory of 100,000+ third party internet marketing white papers. More than 700 E-consultancy users responded to the research email.

The merchants that responded to the email came from a wide variety of industries, including financial, retail, and travel. The findings of this survey address Affiliate Marketing conditions in the UK, and while there may be some differences between Affiliate Marketing in the U.S. and the UK, but this report does give a picture of the Affiliate Marketing industry in the US and the UK. But do keep in mind these numbers portrayed are in respect to the UK.

• 67% of responding merchants have increased sales from 2 years ago.
• 78% of responding merchants are spending more money on their Affiliate Marketing campaigns then they were 2 years ago.
• 78% of responding merchants also said they will spend more money on Affiliate Marketing in the future.
• 50% of responding merchants will add to their Affiliate management team
• 95% of Merchants say that Affiliate Marketing is the most cost-effective way to attract new customers … Email marketing and Paid Search Marketing trailed in this respect. (more…)

In my opinion this is a very easy topic to deal with.  Affiliate marketers who bid on a company’s trademark are in the wrong unless specified in the Affiliate program’s Affiliate guidelines.  If it is identified in the Affiliate program’s terms of service, then the Affiliate Marketer (Publisher) is in the wrong.

However, if the Affiliate program isn’t managed, and the Affiliate marketer gets away with it over a period of time, then I don’t feel past sales should be stricken from the Affiliate marketer.  The advertiser is responsible for managing their program, and if they aren’t then they deserve the foul practices that will occur from a poorly managed Affiliate program.

If the Affiliate program is managed well and the Affiliate uses PPC and bids on the trademark name, which is clearly forbidden in the program’s rules, then I feel the Affiliate should get one warning, and the second time they do it they need to get the boot.  It is stupid in my opinion to ever let the Affiliate bid on a company’s trademark, but you need to make mistakes as a business to succeed.

Phone tracking for Affiliate sales is not an all too common practice for merchants presently.  It isn’t necessarily difficult to implement, it just requires a script added to the merchant’s site.  The biggest hurdle is getting the phone representatives to ask for the code from customer.  You can also set up an exclusive “800 number” for each affiliate, with the last 4 digits of the phone number being the Affiliate ID.

This is a great tool that I feel should be used by more Affiliate programs so that credit is given to whom it is due.  “800 Numbers” increase overall conversion rates and offer the customer a sense of security.     If you are an Affiliate manager I strongly recommend adding this feature to your site.

Affiliate Marketing is a very simple concept, however, setting up a successful Affiliate site can be difficult for people who have never designed a website.  Where are the best places and what are the best resources for learning more about Affiliate Marketing?

The Internet of course.

There is a wealth of knowledge just a few keywords away and it won’t cost you a dime.  Affiliate Marketing forums, such as ABestWeb and 5 Star Affiliate Programs, offer a wealth of knowledge, much of it straight from industry leader’s mouths.  Blogs, such as this one, offer opinions and many other thoughts on Affiliate Marketing.  Go out and participate, read as much as you can and practice what you have learned.

I stay away from E-Books because the information contained within can generally be found for free on the Internet.  Most E-Books offer regurgitated information, rarely with an original thought offered by the author.  Two of the few exceptions I have found are E-Books for Affiliate Manager.  One is by Shawn Collins and the other by Geno Prusakov.