I met Marc Chase in a affilaite focused forum. He's an Affiliate Manager trying to fire up a new affiliate program for MyCreditGroup.

Marc's got some strikes against him, as he's got a spanking new affiliate program in a niche that's flooded and really hard to rank in.

Marc's Affiliate Program is in the Finance niche with a focus on Credit Repair, Debt Settlement and Mortgages. It's one of the toughest to break into, and most expensive to participate in.

I know this niche very well as I used to own a business that generated leads for Merchants as large as Bank of America. I used to earn upwards of $50 per lead. That's per lead, not per sale. Money was good way back then, but not anymore if you're new to the game.

So, when I saw Marc's post announcing his offering to the affiliates … I saw some really good things and I saw a few things that could be better.

Marc's post read something like this…

We've put a lot of effort into building a flawless reputation before launching our affiliate program.
We put just as much effort into creating support for our affiliates. 

Some Features:
- Multi Tiered: $50.00 per 5% second tier
- $1000.00 bonus per 100 sign ups
- Additional bonuses of 500.00 for second conversion
- Huge industry and we are hands down the most trusted.

We're even working on health benefits (lots of details of course)

The affiliate page can be found here:
The Best Credit Repair Affiliate Program - My Credit Group

Feel free to research our company thoroughly and you'll see the effort we've put into ethics and integrity.

If you have any questions, or suggestions we'd love to hear from you.

Thank you in advance
Marc Chase

• They're listed with Dunn and Bradstreet.
• They have a flawless seven year old BBB record, which in that niche is unheard of.
• They are registered with the Attorney General and Secretary of State.
• They offer the affiliate a lot of incentives.
• They offer the affiliate revenue potential for the client's many possible trasactions.
• Their payout for sales seems generous.
• They offer a second tier opportunity.
• They don't compete with the affiliates.
• They are very responsive to their affiliates.

What I didn't see caused me to ask Marc a few questions and offer some suggestions:

• I wanted to see a short form for affiliates to put onto their websites to generate sales easier.
• I wanted to see a 365 day cookie set because in this niche clients take a long time to sell to.
• I wanted to see a first-in cookie so that affiliates who really work it can benefit and not have to worry about cookie theft.
• I wanted to know what states they could service, because this niche has lots of legal limitations.
• I wanted to know who owned the company.

Marc was prompt to respond to all my questions, and lightning quick to supply all the elements I suggested. He also gave me some more insights into his company and their ethics:

Debt Settlement. Its rather lengthy so I'll paint some broad strokes
1) Greed - average fee is 14% we charge 8%. It still makes a ton of money. I dont understand 14%.

2) Because we have a credit repair mentality, credit scores are first things we think of. So, while client is saving their "settlement" money, we keep the debts tied up with validation, method of validation, FCBA requests etc. What this does (not always) is prevents them from marking the accounts late while they are saving. Goal being to get them debt free and preserving their credit.

3) Greed again: Settlement companies get paid on the total amount of debt settled. Many debts that arent even necessary to settle are included because its more commissions. We work on repair first (where applicable) if we can get something removed, then its less the client has to pay. Again, still a ton of money.

4) We always attempt to pay for deletions (credit repair mentaility). Collection agents usually just care about money and will delete the tradeline entirely as long as they get paid.

Again, settlement companies don't do credit repair, so those things aren't their concern. Since we want everybody to eventually turn to a mortgage, it is in our best interest to perfect their score no matter what service we're providing.

I am impressed with company's business model, and after chatting with Marc, I'm also impressed with their attention to details and customer service for their affiliates.

I decided to join their affiliate program and if you have finance sites that focus on CPS more than CPM/CPA, this would be a good affiliate program for you too … very ethical todate.

Aug 20-23, 2007  |  San Jose Convention Center

Early Bird Special: Register by Aug. 3, and save $150.

At Search Engine Strategies San Jose delegates will be invited to focus primarily on search-related promotions – both organic and paid – for 4 full days, taking away all of the innovative search marketing strategies and tactics used to reach potential customers online. Case studies and best practices will be presented by SEM/SEO industry experts and representatives from the search engines themselves. To learn more, please visit www.SESSanJose.com.

This is our 8th annual San Jose event, and this time around, we'll be presenting 100+ exhibitors, 200+ speakers and 75 sessions. As the industry converges for a week of networking, spirited discussion and high-level learning, here's what else you can expect:

Keynote Conversation with Jim Lanzone, Ask.com
Ask.com CEO Jim Lanzone talks with conference co-chair Danny Sullivan about Ask.com's challenge to its more trafficked peers to steal away searchers, including how the launch of its new Ask3D interface.

Keynote Conversation with Marissa Mayer, Google
Marissa Mayer, Vice President, Search Products & User Experience at Google, talks with conference co-chair Danny Sullivan about Google's moves in search, including recent changes to add more personalized and "universal" search results.

Search Engine Marketing & Optimization Training
Students will be provided with guided, hands-on exposure that puts theory into practice in a highly interactive environment. These workshops are taught by world acclaimed search engine marketers Shari Thurow, Matt Bailey, Jennifer Laycock, Debra Mastaler, Sage Lewis, Christine Churchill and Jim Gilbert will provide you with the practices, applications, and hands-on exposure you need to become (and remain!) a top performer in your field.

Special Events and Networking Opportunities – the Google Dance, Search Bash and more… details to be announced soon.

The Lexington Law affiliates program is going to offer a free training for their affiliates … don't miss out ….

About 30% of Internet commerce is driven by affiliate marketers.
But 90% of marketing affiliates make barely enough in commissions to pay their water bill.

WHY?

It’s not their fault. Anyone can put together a group of affiliates. But few companies take the time and effort to create a powerful cadre of affiliate marketers and provide them the specific, proven action steps that drive more business.

At Lexington Law/Progrexion, we don’t think our affiliate marketing is successful unless the program produces a healthy revenue stream for you. And we’re going to show you exactly how to do that.

On Thursday June 28th at 2:00 EST you can attend a F*REE training webinar, and learn from “super affiliate” Russell Brunson of DotComSecrets, Inc.and the Lexington Law team the closely guarded secrets for raking in huge affiliate checks.

Russell took $20 and a simple idea and created DotComSecrets, Inc, a multi-million dollar online company driven by affiliate marketing. He normally charges $1000 an hour to train the top affiliates in the world…BUT simply by registering for this Lexington Law Firm/Progrexion webinar, you can learn his affiliate tactics absolutely F*REE.

Give us 1 hour – we’ll give you the affiliate marketing secrets that will take your affiliate program to the next level, better your cash flow and boost your bottom line.

REGISTER NOW! If this link does not work copy and paste this address in your browser http://www.dotcomsecrets.com/affiliatetraining.htm

To your success,

The Lexington Law Affiliate
Management Team

P.S. Webinar slots are limited.

WordPress announces WordCamp…

It's been a pretty exciting year for WordPress, and we're pleased to top it off with another WordCamp. You can check it out here:

http://2007.wordcamp.org/

We've got some very interesting speakers lined up, and we're doing 2 days instead of 1. I hope to see many of you there again this year.

P.S. You're getting this email because you signed up for the 2006 WordCamp mailing list. This is the last message I'll send out to that list, so farewell and hope to see you again.

MyBlogLog ranks amongst the best in social networking sites, helping to increase your traffic and your social circle. 

They provide a dynamic interface that helps their members to build professional and personal relationships.
You can get to know members who visit your profile page and website/blogs. 

MyBlogLog offers widgets for your website/blog that shows their visitors to your site. 

How MyBlogLog help its members: 

● Helps your blog presence irrespective of posts. 
● Better personal relationship with your readers and to the authors of your favorite blogs.
● It's a nice SEO tool as well.
● Encourages participation in blogs, and encourages new visitors.
● If people find your blog interesting, they join your community.

I really appreciate the MyBlogLog visitors to my blog!