Updates: Linkshare, DGM , AffStat report

A quick review of some of the recent developments and announcements in the last week or two.

Linkshare affiliates would have received updates a couple of days ago on their Athena registration system. The key changes involve the way Linkshare collects its legal name, which will be based on the entity type (i.e. sole proprietorship or partnership or a LLC, or a limited company); the various tax forms (I suspect it is more to do with affiliates in the United States) and lastly, the option for affiliates to indicate the channels they intend to use for marketing and the ability to edit and manage these channels. The last one particularly may be of great interest to professional affiliates that use multiple channels for their marketing programs.

Meanwhile DGM seems to continue to have its own set of problems. One of my earliest posts was on the migration problems encountered in moving from dgm to dgmpro, and this was way back in September. Yet, the volume of delusional voices just seems to be getting louder, as dissatisfied affiliates raise more complaints. It's time DGM took these seriously and got themselves sorted soon; back in September there was considerable promise for the future, and I hope they are able to live up to that promise.

Lastly, MarektingSherpa has brought out its AffStat 2006, Affiliate Program Benchmarks report, now in its fourth edition, and featuring "data (and anecdotes) from 189 affiliate marketing managers at mid-large merchants including retail, gambling, finance and travel sites". There's nothing quite like learning from fellow players and peers in the industry, which makes reports such as these useful. Check it out.

Until next time,

Ben Flux

posted by Ben Flux @ 1/30/2006 08:45:00 AM