Monday, October 08, 2007

early evening

Idiot of the Day - BISSELL

I just received an email from BISSELL, bragging about how they’re helping Petfinder.  Let me tell you a little about affiliate marketing and then we’ll see how much bragging Bissell should be doing.  BISSELL tells me in their Petfinder advertisement (and yes, that’s exactly what it is, advertising on the back of Petfinder) email that my purchase can help Petfinder.  They think because I joined Petfinder that I’ll fall all over this part of their email, “Did you know when you purchase BISSELL products through the Petfinder.com website, 5% of the total sale will go directly to Petfinder.com? Nothing could be better than helping sheltered pets while making cleaning around the home a little easier!”

Whoo hoo, 5 whole percent?  Hold me back, I’m so excited.  Okay, I lied, I’m not excited at all.  I’m an affiliate for Sharper Image, and if I sell their products, I get a minimum of 8% (it used to be 10%, when we were actually making money from our Sharper Image traffic - funny how the percentage was lowered at the same time as our sales percentage was also lowered…mo’ money for Sharper Image, but this isn’t about them) to a maximum of 12%, and I’m just a person walking in off the street.  So, I went to BISSELL’S website to see what their affiliate program pays.  Yes, it indeed also pays 8%, so they’re stealing 3% from Petfinder, yet getting the benefit of advertising as a pet loving do-gooder through Petfinder’s email list.  Pretty crappy, huh?

Sure, I forgot to mention the tremendous giveaway of ten (10) free BISSELL/Petfinder shirts, if you register for the “BISSELL Pet Lovers Community”.  Whoo hoo, ten whole t-shirts.  If you buy the fancy-pants BISSELL ProHeat 2X Select Upright Deep Cleaner (which I’d love to have, by the way - although the Little Green Portable Deep Cleaner might be even better…and cheaper) for $250, the average BISSELL affiliate off the street would make $20; however, Petfinder would only make $12.50.  Not very pet friendly, is it?  Shouldn’t BISSELL be giving Petfinder a BETTER affiliate percentage than Joe Schmoe, who logs into the BISSELL website and immediately gets to make 8%?  I think that, at the very least, Petfinder should make 10%.  I can get $2 t-shirts at Michael’s to print cute BISSELL/Petfinder advertising on, so I’m not impressed by the ten t-shirts they’re giving away each month.

I was going to write to BISSELL myself, privately, but I was so offended by the crappy 5% that I needed to do it publicly.  The email acted like BISSELL was doing such a tremendous favor for Petfinder, when in fact, it’s Petfinder who is doing the favor for BISSELL.  Maybe Petfinder just needs to find some experienced affiliate marketers who know when companies are trying to cheat a pet rescue organization.  If you’d like to tell BISSELL how disappointed in them you are, here’s their contact form.

By the way, this isn’t to say that BISSELL doesn’t have excellent products - they do.  But, I would like them to be more generous to Petfinder…or at the very least, treat them as well as they’d treat any affiliate who wanders by their website to sign up for their affiliate program.

early morning

Hey, San Diego Chargers Fans, You’re Welcome!

I knew exactly what you needed to get Philip Rivers out of his slump.  I dropped him from my fantasy football team earlier in the week, to pick up a quarterback who had a bye.  I played Jon Kitna, who had an enormous 2.54 points.  Of course, he almost looked like a superstar compared to Larry Johnson (yes, that Larry Johnson) who had 1.5 points.  It’s been five weeks and Larry Johnson, who started the season ranked #3 in the whole league is now performing at #90. NINETY!  My kicker has more points than my superstar running back, and he isn’t even the #1 kicker.  My other players are getting injured left & right, and my team, no matter how hard I’ve tried and no matter how good they look on paper, they’re 0-5.  Normally, I’d blame myself, but these guys SUCK!  Seriously, how can I blame myself when Larry Johnson has yet to score a touchdown this season?  My team is so bad that I can’t even settle on what to name them.  I think I’m going to change the team name to Witness Protection.

At least the Leafs won on Saturday.  Oh, and Marl told me that the Wranglers signed identical twins, Chris & Peter Ferraro.  <---They've been playing so long that an article about them appears on an Angelfire site. Remember Angelfire? Oh, and here's a site more about the guys and less about the sad story of Chris’s wife, Jennifer.  But, it’s so old that it’s a Tripod site.  Remember Tripod?  Here’s the latest info from the Las Vegas Wranglers’ website - I like how the webmaster thought to him/herself, “They’re identical twins, let’s save space and only picture one of them.  Surely they won’t mind, they’re identical after all.”  Anyway, it sounds like they’re pretty good (if a bit long in the tooth) and will add some character to the team.

terribly early in the morning

Blog World Expo - I’m So Excited!

I’ve been waiting for the Blog World Expo for almost a year, and now it’s only a month away.  Unfortunately, the Executive & Entrepreneur Conference where you get the more advanced sessions, is OUTRAGEOUSLY (in my opinion) expensive.  So, several bloggers that I’ve personally signed to syndication contracts for Newstex…and Arianna Huffington, will have to just wait until next year (if I can even afford it then - it’s $695 before Oct. 19th and $895 after!) to have me as an attentive student in their sessions. Leigh-Ann and I paid for the poor people’s “Standard” conference, although my employer offered me a free pass that they received with their payment for a booth/sponsorship, but those don’t come with any sessions, which I’ve been looking forward to for a long long time, so we had to fork over our own cash.  I’ve wanted to get as much learning and schmoozing out of the conference as possible since I haven’t been able to go to any of the blogger conventions over the past couple of years.  Ah, that just reminded me, I need to make up new business cards.  “Flippy - Blogger Extraordinare or maybe just Ordinaire.

Here is my schedule (and Leigh-Ann’s too - we have similar interests for the sessions we could afford, although we probably would’ve taken some different ones if we could’ve afforded the Executive & Entrepreneur ones) for the conference next month: Thursday - 8 November OPENING KEYNOTE 8:45 AM 9:45 AM Good to Great: Blogging & Profit Potential 1:30 PM 2:30 PM How Online Conversations Change Markets 2:45 PM 3:45 PM Maximizing the Benefits of Small Business Blogs 4:00 PM 5:00 PM THE NEW MEDIA MOGULS ROUNDTABLE 5:15 PM 6:15 PM Friday - 9 November The Future of New Media Publishing Tools 8:45 AM 9:45 AM Using Social Media to Drive Traffic to Your Blog 1:30 PM 2:30 PM Building Relationships with Bloggers 3:00 PM 4:00 PM FEATURED SPEAKER KEYNOTE 4:15 PM 5:15 PM

Hmm, I just looked over the sessions list again, and we’ve signed five or six of the speakers whose sessions are too pricey for us.  That’s kind of sad.  Maybe we can wave at them from down the hall.