This week we’re excited to show you an interview that we shot in Austin with Joe Stepniewski of Skimlinks. If you haven’t checked out their product, you really should. Essentially, it allows publishers with websites and blogs to become affiliates without having to really know much about the ins and outs of traditional affiliate marketing.

Don’t forget about MediaTrust’s two new initiatives that can get you prizes and cash. First, our Lucky 11’s contest is going on – all you need to do is run any of the four offer listed and bring in the designated number of leads. The second is called Just Think Media Rewards. All you have to do is run any of JTM’s offers and for each sale you earn a point. Those points are good for all sorts of stuff including business tools and cold hard cash!

Finally, we head to Israel for Affilicon next week. If you’re going to be there, let us know so that we can arrange to speak to you on Relevantly Speaking. If not, don’t fret, we’ll be providing coverage right here on the blog.

Download or watch using Quicktime: iPod | Hi-Definition

Like what you see? Sign up to be an affiliate!

Affilicon Israel is just a couple short weeks away. If you’ve been watching Relevantly Speaking, you’ve surely seen Itay Paz’s (of Affilicon) videos about the state of affiliate marketing from around the world. You’re probably also aware that I’ll be there shooting interviews and blogging from the event. What you may not know is what else MediaTrust is up to at Affilicon.

MediaTrust is not only a platinum sponsor for the event, but we’re also moderating three panels as well. Check them out:

International Affiliate Programs – Monday 6/1 12:45 – 2:00 PM 

Online marketing has no boundaries. If you are successful with your local, domestic affiliate programs, it is time to start acting globally. In today’s competitive market finding the right niche and product is key to your success. This panel includes top industry experts who are willing to share their experience as vendors, affiliates, networks and super affiliate. Don’t miss it!

Moderator: Jivan Manhas, Head of Sales, MediaTrust
Speakers: Dush Ramachandran, VP of Sales & Business Development, Clickbank
Felix Leshno, Affiliate & Entrepreneur, Net Monster
Bill Yucatonis, Director of Affiliate Marketing, Everest Gaming
Ran Aroussi, CEO, Clickim College

Social Media Strategies

During the last 12 months social media became a key player in online marketing. Some would say that president Obama won the election through his involvement with Social Media. The panel will discuss the latest developments in this space.

Moderator: Jivan Manhas, Head of Sales, MediaTrust
Speakers: Sam Goldfarb, Founder & General Manager of Tradimax
Miriam Schwab, CEO of illuminea marketing & media
Oren Todoros, CEO & Co-Founder of HYPick.com

Why You Need to Be Good Friends with Your Affiliate Manager

Affiliate managers are your representative at the network. While being responsible for setting your commission structure and your special bonuses and promotions, the affiliate managers have access to the network’s resources and they can help you utilize them. The affiliate managers sit on the entire affiliate database and they clearly know what works and what does not. Join this session to learn what really matters and why you need to be good friends with your affiliate manager.

Moderator: Glenn Pagan, SVP Network Sales MediaTrust
Speakers: Shay Shevach, Affiliate Director, Rummy Royal

***

If you’re attending Affilicon, make sure you send me an email at sparentATmediatrustDOTcom. I’d love to get together and interview you for Relevantly Speaking. We’ll also be there shooting video for Affilicon, so who knows – you may end up on their homepage!

It’s not every day the CEO of your company gets mentioned in BusinessWeek among the 50 elite CEO using Twitter. This week we’re celebrating Peter Bordes accomplishment and his vision.

We’re also taking a look at what most companies overlook when they decide to implement an online marketing strategy. Matt Browne of Morefocus Group, John Geletka of Ratchet, Diane Deseta of White Knight and Chris Noble of Kompolt weigh in.

Finally, we’re launching two initiatives that will surely be of interest to our publishers. First is a contest we’re calling “Lucky 11’s.” Run any of the four offer listed, bring in the designated number of leads and get prizes. The second is called “Just Think Media Rewards.” All you have to do is run any of JTM’s offers and for each sale you earn points. Those points are good for all sorts of stuff including business tools and cold hard cash!

Download or watch using Quicktime: iPod | Hi-Definition

Like what you see? Sign up to be an affiliate!

This week we’re pulling the curtain back on a really cool contest for our affiliates. It’s called the “Lucky 11’s Contest” and here’s how it works:

1. You run any of these four offers on our platform: #2181 Winning Cash Flow Business, #2201 Sample Secrets, #2212 Microsoft Money Machine and #1757 Work From Home.

2. Bring in leads and collect prizes: 1500 leads gets you a Samsung 32″ LCD HDTV. 1000 leads get you a Flip Mino HD Camcorder. 500 leads gets you a $100 Amex gift card.

So, not only do you get paid to run some great offers, but you get guaranteed prizes if you achieve the leads listed above.

Really simple right? Ask you affiliate manager for more details. If you’re not yet an Advaliant Affiliate, you can sign up today!

MediaTrust CEO, Peter Bordes, Featured in BusinessWeek Article: CEOs Who Use Twitter

I’ve been with MediaTrust for just over two years. I was hired to outline and execute all facets of MediaTrust’s emerging and social media activity. This occured at a time when Twitter and Facebook were still niche services and companies were still trying to wrap their heads around the concepts of podcasting and online video. In short, two years ago was an eternity for social media.

Why am I telling you this?

Peter Bordes is the reason I have my job. He had the vision two years ago to see what social media could become. He knew that this was exploding into something that would change the way that business is done. Peter has always believed in transparancy, open dialogue and two-way communication and he knew that in order for MediaTrust to stay competitive and be a leader in our industry, the company would need to dedicate resources to building our social media presence. 

Over the last two years, we’ve launched a successful blog about the industry of online, and specifically, performance marketing. We’ve produced over 60 episodes of our video program, Relevantly Speaking, and we’ve adopted and encouraged Twitter and Facebook usage throughout our entire company.

These milestones were made possible by the vision of our CEO, Peter Bordes. It is incredibly validating for me that a publication like BusinessWeek recognized and highlighted the vision of Peter and other CEOs like him. You can read Peter’s portion of the profile HERE. You’ll notice he’s in good company alongside people like Virgin Group’s Richard Branson, Zappos.com’s Tony Hsieh, Alltop’s Guy Kawasaki, Mashable’s Pete Cashmore and Forrester Research’s George Colony.

Congratulations to Peter for being recognized, but most of all for his vision. We can’t wait to see what he dreams up next.

This week we’re talking about Oprah and her newfound use of Twitter - is it genuine or just another celebrity misstep? We’ll talk to John Geletka of Ratchet, Stephanie Agresta, Matt Browne of Morefocus and Mike Barash of Blurb to get their advice on how companies should tackle social media community building.

We also check in with Itay Paz of Affilicon from the Berlin Wall to get his take on affiliate marketing in Germany.

Finally, we announce the winners of James Connor’s book the Perfection of Marketing.

Download or watch using Quicktime: iPod | Hi-Definition

Like what you see? Sign up to be an affiliate!

Today I’m pleased to announce the first baby steps in a project that we’re calling MediaTrust University.

Every month we have conversations with dozens of affiliates about what they want in a network partner. Sure, they all ask for helpful tools, great offers and a stellar affiliate manager. But, more than anything, we hear about the need for education.

Whether you’re a super-affiliate or someone just starting out, we’re hearing the call from those that want to learn tip and tricks to run their business in a more efficient and profitable way. MediaTrust University (MTU) will try and fill that void.

You’ll notice a new icon at the top of the blog labeled “MT University.” If you click it, our blog will sort, in reverse chronological order, all the articles that have an educational or “how-to” component to them. No matter what type of affiliate you are, there are many flavors including SEO and SEM, best practices in sourcing data and ways to optimize your website for better conversions. These articles are written by leaders in the space that work the trenches every day so you know the information is sound.

Over time, you’ll see this repository continue to grow and we’ll be adding more topics as feedback warrants. In the meantime, if there is a topic you’d like more information on, please email me and let me know – sparentATmediatrustDOTcom. I’ll do my best to find an expert and post and article.

MediaTrust CEO, Peter Bordes, has joined the Affilicon’s Advisory Board. Below is Peter’s quote that appeared in the press release:

“The need for well planned and executed affiliate marketing conferences in the non US international market was not fulfilled until recently. Affilicon has read the map, identified the top emerging affiliate marketing markets and demonstrated dedication, professionalism and ability to cover this need,” says Peter Bordes.”I am pleased to join the advisory board and work with Affilicon to expand our industry and help build the international and emerging markets. Our industry is growing rapidly and expanding into new emerging markets. Affilicon is helping lead the way. I look forward to see how it is evolved and spend time at the conferences speaking with advertising and affiliate partners.” adds Mr. Bordes.

I’ve been working with Itay Paz, Founder of Affilicon, for the last few months and he’s really doing some interesting things. If you’re a regular viewer of Relevantly Speaking, you’ve no doubt seen his field reports from around the world about the various opportunities for affiliate marketing in different countries. The concept of Affilicon takes that curiosity and knowledge a step further.

Congrats to Peter on his addition to the advisory board of this very exciting organization.

We are pleased to announce that our unified corporate website is going live today! Advaliant.com traffic will now redirect to MediaTrust.com, the Advaliant platform’s parent company. The purpose of this update is to simplify our brand and our communications.

Your business on Advaliant will not be impacted in any way. It’s business as usual, simply a new place to login. As we go through this change, please be aware of the following:

1. Traffic will redirect from Advaliant.com to MediaTrust.com
2. Please bookmark: www.mediatrust.com as your new login for the Advaliant platform
3. Your Advaliant login (user name and password) will remain the same
4. All referral IDs will remain in place and working
5. All future emails from your affiliate manager or the company will come from mediatrust.com not advaliant.com, so please make a note of it in your email preferences
6. We will continue to receive all emails sent to advaliant.com

It’s a very exciting time for MediaTrust and the Advaliant Platform. We’d like to thank each of you for your continued support! Feel free to reach out to your Affiliate Manager with any questions.

This week we’re recapping the MediaTrust panel on Performance Marketing at ad:tech. It was a great discussion and we’ve included a couple of our favorite quotes from the session.

Itay Paz of Affilicon has been checking in from across the globe recently about the state of affiliate marketing. He’s reported from China, Amsterdam and Sweden and this week he’s in Mumbai, India to give us the lowdown. Don’t forget, there’s still time to register for Affilicon in Israel on June 1-2.

Finally, we’re getting ready to tie up our contest for James Connor’s book “The Perfection of Marketing.” All you have to do to enter is leave a comment in the shownotes. I’ll pick six winners and announce them on next week’s show.

Download or watch using Quicktime: iPod | Hi-Definition

Like what you see? Sign up to be an affiliate!