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.

The Direct Marketing Association's (DMA) Internet Marketing Advisory Board announced a Best Practices for Online Advertising Networks and Affiliate Marketing.

The DMA list is a simple five rules, but important rules that set a generalized guildline for the Affiliate Marketing Industry � something sorely lacking.

The only rule I see as having possible difficulty in obtaining,is the full disclosure of their eligible sites. These Marketing firms keep their sites a virtual secret to stay on top of their game � not something they would readily share.

Affiliate Blogger launches a new performance marketing blog focused on performance based marketing and marketing that converts.

[ClickPress, Thu Aug 31 2006] Affiliate Blogger launches a new performance marketing blog focused on performance based marketing and marketing that converts.

Bobbie Grennier, widely known as the Affiliate Blogger (http://affiliate-blogger.com), is following on the heals of Jim Kukral (revenews.com/Forge) who recently announced the acquisition of BlogKits (blogkits.com).

"The shift into performance based marketing for bloggers looking to earn income through blogging has taken a big step forward," said Grennier. "I wanted to be an active voice in helping to shape this transformation within the blogsphere."

Bloggers spend hours each day researching and writing about their topics just as any copywriter or journalist does. The desire for bloggers to earn income from their efforts is growing, though there are divisions between those bloggers wanting to be paid to blog and others who prefer to earn income through affiliate programs or selling ad space on their popular blogs.

In a 2005 survey by BlogKits, 73% of bloggers acknowledged that using affiliate links on their blog was acceptable.

Bobbie Grennier brings a discerning eye to the affiliate space and now to the performance based marketing space. In addition to having years of experience as a media buyer and lead generation solutions provider, she has also racked up many years within the SEO/SEM search engine strategies side of marketing (http://www.seo-writing.com). Bobbie's SEO writing websites, blogs and articles consistently appear in the top ten natural search rankings in Google's search engine for "SEO writing" and "SEO writer" keywords.

The new performance based marketing blog will discuss such topics as media buys, multi-channel marketing, affiliate partners and publishers, search engine strategies, datafeed marketing, lead generation and marketing solutions that convert to sales.

About Bobbie Grennier:
As the Affiliate Blogger, Bobbie Grennier is the driving force behind the Affiliate Guild (http://affiliate-guild.com), an online free guild for affiliates to find a common bond, tools of their trade and an educational environment to learn and fine-tune their skills. Grennier is an Internet Strategist who often consults with merchants, helping them to develop SEO and affiliate marketing strategies, in addition to a focus on affiliate partner relationships through recruitment and management of affiliate programs. Bobbie's articles are widely published throughout the Internet and she offers free reprint articles at the Article Repository Directory (http://article-repository.com).

http://www.clickpress.com/releases/Detailed/17552005cp.shtml

We don't need no stinking badges! Or do we?

Jim Kukral at BlogKits has come out with a new viral idea to help the blogging community gain integrity while still earning an income from blogging. They're offering a BlogHonor banner for free with the following pledge by the blogger:

Thank you for reading my blog. You're here because you've clicked on the "Blog Honor" badge on my blog.

What does Blog Honor mean? It means I have chosen to pledge to you the following:

I will endeavor to continue to bring you the highest quality content that I am capable of

I promise to attempt to disclose or clearly mark any content or advertisements or other monetization attempts that help me keep my blog operating

I pledge to never write "fake" blog content solely for the purpose of trying to generate revenue without complete and clear disclosure. With exception, my blog may exist for business purposes, therefore I use it to talk about products & services that relate to my business, thus assisting me in generating leads & sales for me indirectly
In return, I hope that you will continue to read my blog with the knowledge that I produce my blog out of a passion for the topic I write about, and not because I'm hoping to fool you into making money for myself.

Please note, I have nothing against generating revenue from my blog, in fact, your ongoing support of my sponsors and advertisers (text links, partner ads, etc…) helps me keep my blog operating so that I may endure to create better content for you.

I do appreciate your support. Continued thanks for your readership.

According to BlogKits, the reason for the honor badges is that … right now we are at a critical juncture in the blogging community, where we (bloggers) can either find ways to band together to keep our integrity intact, or continue to let blogging get a bad name.

Blog Honor Badges were conceived by Jim Kukral, publisher of ReveNews.com and founder of the BlogKits Affiliate Marketing Blogging Network. Badge Artwork conception and creation by Whitecapstudios, specialists in blog design.

The big question is how to enforce abuse of the honor badge … If you believe you've found a blog that isn't practicing what they preach, then send it to us with your comments at info at blogkits dot com. We'll investigate it when we can and if we believe the blog is not representing our core values, we'll ask them to remove it. Beyond that, what can we do? We're not the blog police.

Bloggers, if you want to display this banner on your blog, then you need to stop cloaking those affiliate links and hiding them inside your content areas. Even in this post, I have keywords lighting up that link to my other resources. Does it matter that they're affiliate links or not? What I'm seeing other bloggers do is post a visable and static message on their blog "This Blog contains Advertisements" or they're adding this tag as the first line of their post if the post contains monetization links. It seems to be the path taken by top-notch bloggers.

But, what I really want to know is … Jim, when are you going to get BlogKits live?!!

I have forum thread started on the topic of BlogHonor at 5 Star Affiliate Marketing Forums that you might want to join in.

CORRECTING and REPLACING Internet Retailer's Top 500 Guide to Retail Web Sites Reveals Online Merchants Prefer Commission Junction to Other Affiliate Marketing Providers
Wednesday May 24, 8:02 pm ET

SANTA BARBARA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–May 24, 2006–Please replace the release dated May 23, 2006 with the following corrected version due to multiple revisions to the headline and first graph.

The corrected release reads:

INTERNET RETAILER'S TOP 500 GUIDE TO RETAIL WEB SITES REVEALS ONLINE MERCHANTS PREFER COMMISSION JUNCTION TO OTHER AFFILIATE MARKETING PROVIDERS

Commission Junction Powers More Programs Than the Next Two Providers Combined

ValueClick, Inc. (Nasdaq: VCLK - News), one of the world's largest integrated online marketing companies, today announced that its affiliate marketing division, Commission Junction, is used by more advertisers on Internet Retailer's Top 500 Guide to Retail Web Sites than the next two affiliate marketing providers combined. In addition, Commission Junction leads in powering programs for 10 of the 13 market categories being used by advertisers to expand reach and increase online revenues. Among Internet Retailer's list of top retail Web sites, Commission Junction powers brand names such as SonyStyle.com, Zappos.com and Real�.

Performance marketing continues to be one of the most cost-effective channels for driving online revenues. As a result, it has been widely adopted by the online retailing industry with 324 of the top 500 retailers running affiliate programs either through networks like Commission Junction or in-house solutions. Commission Junction powers more of these affiliate programs than any other single network provider, and is the preferred provider for the majority of the advertiser categories tracked by Internet Retailer, including Apparel/Accessories, Books/CDs/DVDs, Computers/Electronics, Flowers/Gifts, Hardware/Home Improvements, Health/Beauty, Office Supplies, Specialty/Non-apparel, Sporting Goods and Toys/Hobbies.

"Internet Retailer's independent survey reaffirms Commission Junction's leadership in providing affiliate marketing programs to the top 500 advertisers. Our CJ Marketplace is specifically designed to assist our clients in increasing their online revenue and expand their reach into market segments best suited for their target audiences," said Tom Vadnais, general manager of Commission Junction and Mediaplex. "We are committed to meeting our clients' needs. As the channel grows, Commission Junction will continue to develop, deliver and drive the best affiliate marketing solutions in the industry to support our clients."

About Commission Junction

Commission Junction (www.cj.com) provides advanced performance marketing solutions that help marketers increase online leads and sales. By facilitating strategic relationships between advertisers and publishers, Commission Junction leverages its proven expertise in affiliate marketing and search marketing to drive measurable results for its clients.

About ValueClick, Inc.

ValueClick, Inc. (Nasdaq:VCLK - News) is one of the world's largest integrated online marketing companies, offering comprehensive and scalable solutions to deliver cost-effective customer acquisition for advertisers and significant revenue for publishers. Through its individual brands, ValueClick's performance-based solutions allow advertisers and publishers to reach their potential through all online marketing channels, including display advertising, affiliate marketing, lead generation, search, e-mail, and comparison shopping. ValueClick brands include Commission Junction, HiSpeed Media, Mediaplex, PriceRunner, ValueClick Media, and Webclients. For more information, please visit www.valueclick.com.

This release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, ValueClick's ability to successfully integrate its recently completed Fastclick and Webclients mergers, trends in online advertising spending and estimates of future online performance-based advertising. Actual results may differ materially from the results predicted, and reported results should not be considered an indication of future performance. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements are detailed under "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission made from time to time by ValueClick, including: its Annual Report on Form 10-K filed on March 31, 2006 and amendment to its Annual Report on Form 10-K/A filed on April 21, 2006; its current report on Form 8-K filed on February 27, 2006; recent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and Form 10-Q/A, other current reports on Form 8-K; its amended registration statement on Form S-4, filed on September 27, 2005; and its final prospectus on Form 424B3 filed on September 28, 2005. Other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the risk that market demand for online advertising, and performance-based online advertising in particular, will not grow as rapidly as predicted. ValueClick undertakes no obligation to release publicly any revisions to any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

Contact:
ValueClick, Inc.
For Media:
Ronda Grech, 1.818.575.4511
rgrech@valueclick.com
For Investor Relations:
Gary J. Fuges, 1.818.575.4677

Join the World's Largest Gathering of the PHP Community!

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October 8-11, 2007, San Francisco, California

Fellow PHPers, you'll be interested in attending this event if you happen to find yourself in San Friancisco at this time.

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The ZendCon exhibit hall is the best place to see new products from industry leaders. Meet with the vendors in person and receive one-on-one briefings from exhibitors such as Adobe, IBM, Filemaker, Microsoft, MySQL, PayPal, SugarCRM, Sun and Yahoo.

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