I’ve had the displeasure of meeting “Mikey,” the founder of FabulousSavings.com, at numerous affiliate marketing conferences over the years. I only use the word displeasure because the guy comes across as extremely arrogant and has always treated Pepperjam Affiliate Managers with disrespect.

I believe that treating others with disrespect is unacceptable when it’s without merrit.

Personality conflicts aside, I’ve always wondered why FabulousSavings.com has practically dominated the organic search results over the last 12 - 18 months, especially for merchant trademarks.

Linkshare honored FabulousSavings with the coveted Innovative Affiliate Of The Year Award in 2006. Linkshare gave the company another award in 2007 for Fabu.com.

Honestly, I give Mikey a lot of credit for being as aggressive as he is and for building a very large affiliate marketing company.

I don’t claim to know Mikey and I certainly wish him and his business well. My negative opinion of him is my own and has nothing to do with the real point of this blog post, which I’ll dive into right now….

I just completed reading a blog post written by Rand Fiskin, an industry friend and very well-known search engine marketing expert about Michael Yack “Mikey” and FabulousSavings.com. Rand documents the fact that FabulousSavings is employing a number of unethical link farming techniques and other search-engine optimization strategies that are clearly in conflict with every major search-engine’s terms of service.

For those of you who don’t know him, Rand speaks at conferences around the world and has addressed elite academic communities, including Stanford University. Rand’s clients include NPR and Geosign, among many other notables. Rand’s blog - SEOMOZ - is arguably the authority when it comes to search-engine optimization. I highly recommend SEOMOZ as a daily read.

Rand’s blog post about Mikey and FabulousSavings.com can be found HERE.

I’ll let Rand’s post speak for itself - “Michael Yack, Link Farmer, Makes it Big with FabulousSavings.com in the Toronto Star.”

Officially, this is the first time I have been tagged. Does it count when your fiancé is the one tagging, or should I refer to him as the President and CEO of Pepperjam. Yes, yes, that sounds better. I was tagged by the President and CEO of Pepperjam. Being that I am new at this, I will not divulge the juiciest information about me just yet. I have to keep you guessing, right? Here it goes…a little glimpse into the life of Robyn Martin.

1. I occasionally volunteer at the SPCA. (not court mandated)
2. Popcorn is my all-time favorite snack.
3. My mom is my best friend.
4. I am getting married on August 11th.
5. I would eventually like to open my own company. (Don’t worry Kris, it will not be a competing business!)
6. I own a turtle and his name is turtle.
7. It took me two years at Pepperjam to be named the Director of Affiliate Marketing.
8. I am about to marry the nicest and most sincere guy in the world!

I now tag:

Andrew Wee
Amit Mehta
Lee Dodd
Andrea Schoemaker

Here are the tag rules:

* Each player must post these rules first.
* Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
* People who are tagged need to write about their eight facts on their blog.
* At the end of your blog post, choose eight people to get tagged, list their names, and link to them.
* Don’t forget to contact them telling them they’re tagged. Also, point them to your blog post so they know what to do.

CNNMoney.com posted a story today called “How to beat Yahoo at its own game: Mining inefficiencies in the online ad market can be a great way to make a buck.”

The article mentions Pepperjam and I was quoted in the article twice on search arbitrage issues.

The original story was covered in this month’s Business 2.0 Magazine, which is on news stands right now.

Thanks again to author Paul Sloan for using Pepperjam as an authority on the important issue of search engine marketing arbitrage.

On other news, check out Shoemoney - he is profiled in the current issue of Business Week.

ValueClick (VCLK) announced today the aquisition of MeziMedia, which includes Super Affiliate websites Coupon Mountain and Smarter.com for $100 million in cash and up to an additional $252 million in performance-based bonuses. That’s a lot of cabbage.

Coupon Mountain is a very familar name in the affiliate marketing space having started somewhere back in the late 1990’s. In fact, Coupon Mountain is one of the first big players that I can remember back when I started in 1999.

ValueClick’s acquisition comes after the recent acquisition of Traffic Strategies by Linkshare, Commission Junction’s (a ValueClick company) chief rival.

What does this mean for super affiliates?

First, it is a testament that being an affiliate marketer is a legitimate business. Besides the potential of multi-million dollar buyout opportunity, affiliate marketing has immense profit potential with the ability to take those profits and create a much larger, scalable business. For instance, it’s amazing to think that I started Pepperjam as a solo affiliate marketer just seven (7) years ago and used those profits to create one of the fastest growing companies in the United States with nearly 100 employees. Without affiliate marketing there would be no Pepperjam.

Second, super affiliates aren’t just work-from-home serial entrepreneurs. Yes, the industry is made up of a lot of 9 to 5′ers who’ve had the pleasure of quitting their day jobs, but some of the biggest players are large corporations such as Upromise, Ravenwood Marketing, Clicks2Customers, eBates, and FatWallet, among dozens others. In the early days these companies would send 1 or 2 representatives a piece to industry conferences such as Affiliate Summit. Now, these same corporations send teams of people. Also, a number of these companies have taken on venture capital and / or have been acquired for millions of dollars by even larger corporations.

Third, this means that more acquisitions are on the horizon. I would say the following affiliate marketing companies have the best shot at an acquisition within the next 12 - 18 months: Clicks2Customers, Quit Your Day Job, Affiliate Summit, Shoemoney Media, and FatWallet. Of course there are other players that may get acquired or take on large rounds of venture capital financing, which is a precursor to being acquired, but these are just a few names I would be willing to invest in!

Congratulations to our friends at MeziMedia - it’s been a pleasure working with you over the years and we look forward to continuing our relationship with you as part of the ValueClick brand.

Other affiliate bloggers discussing this story include:

Shawn Collins
Lisa Picarille

Over the weekend I was tagged by Harrison Gevirtz. Harrison is a 14-year old superstar internet marketer - he blogs at CPA Share, is CEO of Gevirtz Media LLC, and is an occasional guest blogger over at Shoemoney.com. I am honored to have been named by Harrison as one of his top 10 internet marketing “heroes” and I’m happy to play along with his tag.

According to Harrison, here are the tag rules:

* Each player must post these rules first.
* Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
* People who are tagged need to write about their eight facts on their blog.
* At the end of your blog post, choose eight people to get tagged, list their names, and link to them.
* Don’t forget to contact them telling them they’re tagged. Also, point them to your blog post so they know what to do.

Random Facts:

1. I’m getting married in less than 30 days.
2. At Penn State University I was president of Psi Chi, the National Honor Society in Psychology
3. As an individual affiliate (no employees) I generated over $100 million in sales for merchant partners several years straight in the early 2000’s - after that I started hiring employees and you now know us as Pepperjam, a kickass online ad agency.
4. Pepperjam is the fastest growing privately held full-service internet marketing agency in the United States.
5. Pepperjam is approaching 100 employees. We started with 1 employee, that was me. Our second employee was Michael Jones, Pepperjam’s COO and General Counsel.
6. Michael Jones is not my brother. My real brother’s name is Rick and he and I cofounded Grandma Jones’ Originals, Inc. (a gourmet food company) in 1999 that was the basis for Pepperjam the internet marketing agency.
7. Robyn (my fiance) and I will be honeymooning in St. Lucia.
8. Aside from my mother and a few select friends, my greatest mentor is Tony Robbins.

I tag:

Robyn Martin
Michael Jones
Dean Karasinski
Christian Wenzel

Oh ya………….Meet the Pepperjam Team has hit the quarter century mark - 25 videos!!!

This time around we interview Chris Thomas, a Pepperjam Senior Sales Account Executive.

I had the honor of interviewing Chris during our recent trip to Miami, FL for Affiliate Summit - East. Actually, the video was shot on Saturday - the night before the start of the conference - in South Beach from the Penthouse Suite of Hotel Ocean on Ocean Drive.

Chris Thomas is an amazingly passionate and high energy guy. When he’s not at work he is working out, boating, or spending quality time with his large and very accomplished family.

Here’s a picture of Chris with Dennis Rodman on the last night of the Affiliate Summit Conference - the picture was taken at the Delano in South Beach during a small party sponsored by Pepperjam.

Here’s Chris’ video:

For those of you who don’t know the “rules” behind the Meet the Pepperjam Video Series, here they are:

Every Friday Pepperjam will post a new video interview of a member of our staff - everyone will be included - affiliates managers, executives, search-engine marketing managers, directors, software engineers, assistants, online media buyers, and interns. The person being interviewed won’t know he / she has been chosen until about 30 seconds before the interview - this way you’ll get an unrehearsed, real world look at the employee…hopefully, this will make it interesting and non-corporate, which is what we are known and respected for across the internet marketing industry.

Why are we doing this? Well, I am proud of our team and I think you’ll find them as interesting and intelligent as I do. Also, I’m a student of viral video and the social media space and I want to test the waters as it relates to what corporate america is doing (and not doing) to spread buzz and build next generation work places.

Finally, I just thought it would be cool to put some people in front of a video camera that have never done so before, have a little bit of fun, and see if Pepperjam can spread some additional buzz about why we are the leader in online marketing.

FYI - all videos will also be posted to YouTube. If you think what we are doing is outside-the-box and interesting please blog about it and share the story with the world.

Our previous videos include:

Maura Goodwin
Tara Lou
Dean Karasinski
Kim Noler (dated YouTube founder)
Stephanie Yachim
Roxy (Pepperjam’s English Bulldog)
Kris Jones
Katharine Dempsey
Ken Mohn Jr.
Mandy Foley
Tara DeGiusto
Robyn Martin
Kate Sarnak
Aaron Baker
Michelle Foley
Mike Jones
Maggie Oldziejewski
Daehee Park
Leslie Stewart
Trevor Brennan
Brock Siegel
Sarah Hohol
Matt Bradley

Other fun Pepperjam Vids:
“What would you do for a One Year Supply of Energy Drink”
Naked Crazy Man Video
Pepperjam Adds Ping Pong Table to Pepperplex
Roxy with the Tony Robbins Beach Ball

Seven members of the Pepperjam Team, including myself, Michael Jones (COO), Brock Siegel (VP of Bus Dev), Ken Mohn, Jr. (VP of Search), Aaron Baker (VP of Sales & Marketing), Robyn Martin (Director of Affiliate Marketing), and Maura Goodwin (Assistant Director of Affiliate Marketing) recently attended the 2007 Linkshare Golden Links and Symposium.

Special thanks to Brigade Quartermasters, a valued Pepperjam client, for sponsoring us at the Golden Link Awards and for spending time with us at the Symposium.

Here are the PICS - Enjoy!

OK, As some of you may or may not know I am a pretty big fan and student of social media. I enjoy just watching as news stories, websites, videos and people climb from obscurity to internet phenomenon. One site I have ALWAYS been a fan of is Facebook. I remember in college (yeah, about a whole year ago) when we first got Facebook on campus. I tried to resist as long as possible but eventually I fell to the power of Facebook as it is pretty hard not to when the question “Do you have (a) Facebook?” is second only to “Whats your Name?”

Since the beginning I have seen Facebook as the superior application to MySpace, I find MySpace bland, boring and cluttered with “pimped out pages” and “awesome tunes”. Recently, Facebook has been gaining notoriety as it has opened its doors from virtual college yearbook to social network of the masses AND not only that they have also opened their doors to third party publishers so that little programs and widgets can be integrated into your Facebook homepage. So it is quite interesting to surf people profiles and play with all the virtual toys floating around. Not only that they also have their own personal RSS feed, but not what you would normally expect fro man RSS feed, it is a feed of all the updates from your friends in your network so you can find out when someone changes their status or breaks up with their significant other or changes their profile picture.

With all of this going on it was only a matter of time before someone was going to notice Facebook, their have been rumors of Fox having buyers remorse from MySpace, rumors of an IPO from Facebook and even rumors of Google wanting to snatch them up because they “fear” them, here is an excerpt from an AdAge article entitled “23-Year-Old Mark Zuckerberg Has Google Sweating”:

Just as Google has become what some people call the operating system for search, Facebook is turning itself into the operating system for social networking. While Google knows what millions of people are searching for, Facebook has something the search giant hasn’t been able to grow: a network of connections between people that creates a viral distribution platform unrivaled by any portal or search engine.

Don’t think this point hasn’t made its way to Mountain View. It has certainly made it into the New York offices of News Corp., parent of Facebook’s chief competition. When asked recently by the Wall Street Journal whether newspaper readers were going to MySpace, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, who shelled out in 2005 what now appears to be a bargain sum of $580 million for MySpace, didn’t mince words: “I wish they were. They’re all going to Facebook at the moment.”

Mark Zuckerberg has seen offers rolling in from all over the place including a $1 Billion dollar offer from Yahoo! and various other ranging from $580 Million to $750 Million. Facebook does not seem to want to sell their baby at the moment, I think Zuckerberg is actually interested in seeing this company ushered into a new age of the internet and seeing his vision executed through his own means rather than through some company that will run it into the ground.

Sign up for Facebook and add me as a friend!

CLICK HERE to see Pepperjam’s Affiliate Summit - Miami Pics!

Affiliate Summit 2007 - Miami was without question the best affiliate marketing conference ever held. The host venue (InterContinental Miami) was an excellent choice, networking opportunities were abundant, and attendees included some of the most influencial leaders in both e-commerce, direct marketing, and internet marketing.

Special thanks to Shawn Collins and Missy Ward for constantly improving Affiliate Summit and for making sure that this event was the best ever.

Team Pepperjam was in full force with seven (7) members of our staff, including myself, Aaron Baker (VP of Sales), Brock Siegel (VP of Business Development), Robyn Martin (Director of Affiliate Marketing), Maura Goodwin (Assistant Director of Affiliate Marketing), and Kate Sarnak (Super Senior Affiliate Manager).

We had an amazing time with many of our industry friends, including Shoemoney, Kevin (Income.com / John Reese), Lee Dodd, David Adams, Shmuel Tennenhaus (YouTube Celeb), Asif Malik, Joel Comm (Next Internet Millionaire), Josh & Ken from DentalPlans.com, and too many more to mention.

Saturday: Robyn and I were already in Miami staying in South Beach since Thursday - the rest of the gang arrived on Saturday afternoon…I thought it would be nice to reward my team by flying them a day early and showing them what South Beach is all about.

Needless to say, we had an amazing time in South Beach!

Sunday: We spent some time at the Affiliate Summit Meet Market, which was packed with people and was great networking. We were a bit disappointed that we didn’t have a Meet Market table since many people expected us to and were looking for us - I guess there was some confusion with the fact that we wanted a table and it wasn’t included as an exhibitor. Anyway, the Meet Market was definitely a good time.

Sunday evening we went to a party sponsored by ShareASale and ABESTWEB - the party was really, really fun and I had the opportunity to meet a few handfuls of new friends, as well as spend some time with my friend Todd Crawford from Digital River and others. The entire Pepperjam Team seemed to be having a blast!

Monday: We arrived at the Pepperjam exhibit booth around 9:00a.m. so that the booth was ready to go and the energy drinks were cold….

One of the highlights of our booth was the fact that we were handing out Who’s Your Daddy Energy Drinks for FREE - a special thanks goes to Dan at Who’s our Daddy, Inc. for sponsoring Pepperjam at the event - honestly, the energy drinks were a huge hit and everybody was talking about how they rocked!

Our booth was staffed with our booth babes, which consisted of myself, NOT, Brock, Aaron, Chris, and the girls (Robyn, Maura, & Kate) - at Pepperjam, unlike other unnamed companies, we are proud of the fact that our booth babes actually work for us! The booth was crowded with people all day - once again, it went down as one of the most popular booths at the entire show - it’s like a never ending party at our booth wherever we go….people stop by to see where the parties are or to get VIP tickets; people stop by our booth for free swag; people stop by our booth to say hi, and prospective clients stop by our booth and are blown away by our energy.

We had a ton of attendees come to our booth since we were handing out VIP tickets to the party we were co-sponsoring later that night at Mansion.

The party at Mansion, which was sponsored by Pepperjam, WebmasterRadio, Copeac and others was amazing! A really classy event at a great venue. The evening definitely turned out to be a highlight of the conference and we consider it one of the best parties we’ve ever sponsored! Check out our PICS from the party! By the way - we sponsored an after party along with Zanox at Tantra that was also a great time - thanks to our friends, clients, and prospective clients who attended the after party with us.

Tuesday: After a late night Monday I started off Tuesday with breakfast in my suite, while the rest of the gang was down at the booth meeting with prospective clients. I had a series of meetings set-up throughout the day so I didn’t spend too much time at the booth, but I stopped by long enough to see the mob of people surrounding the Pepperjam Team.

Prior to my own presentation I attended a panel that included Jeremy Schoemaker and Lee Dodd on making money with community forumns. I was very impressed with Jeremy and Lee’s ability to offer so many sound money making tips - if you left that session without 10 new money making ideas you must have been wearing ear plugs. It was an outstanding session.

My session, which I did solo, was on “the Confluence of Search-Engine and Affiliate Marketing” and it was very well attended. At one point I asked the audience how many of them had made more than $10,000 by either reading this blog or hearing previous speeches I’ve given - I was blown away when about 10 or so people rasied their hand - I was deeply honored and it allowed me to give what I thought was a very informative presentation. I should also thank Who’s Your Daddy again here since one of the highlights of my presentation was the fact that everyone in attendance got FREE ENERGY DRINKS!!!

On Monday evening I did two private meetings…my favorite being a sitdown with Shoemoney, Lee Dodd, and David Adams to talk about Elite Retreat among other things.

Robyn and I were leaving the next morning so we all went to dinner and then Robyn and I went back to the room the pack our bags.

All in all the Affiliate Summit was one of the best conferences ever!

Want more reviews of Affiliate Summit? Here are some:

Click Consultants
Moose on the Loose Affiliate Marketing Blog
Shoemoney
Revenue Magazine Blog
ReveNews
The Affiliate Summit Blog
Shawn Collin’s Blog
ABestWeb.com
WebPro News
Rosalind Gardner
My Netrapreneur
Zac Johnson
Super Affiliate Mindset

Affiliate Summit - East kicks off tomorrow in Miami - the event runs from Sunday, July 8th through Tuesday, July 10th.

I arrived in Miami on Thursday and spent the last two nights relaxing in South Beach with my fiancée Robyn. Several other members of the Pepperjam Team arrive in Miami later tonight, including Aaron Baker (VP of Sales & Marketing), Brock Siegel (VP of Business Development), Maura Goodwin (Assistant Director of Affiliate Marketing), Kate Sarnak (Senior Affiliate Manager), and Chris Thomas (Senior Account Executive). We’ll have a total of seven (7) people representing at Affiliate Summit.

We are co-sponsoring “Affiliate Bash” on Monday night at Mansion with WebmasterRadio, FriendFinder, Moniker and others - learn more here. Want to get on the Pepperjam VIP list, sign-up HERE!

Pepperjam is also an Affiliate Summit exhibitor - please stop by our booth and say hello.

I am giving a presentation on “the Confluence of Search and Affiliate Marketing,” which is scheduled for 3:30pm-4:30pm on Tuesday, July 10. The presentation will take a look at the various synergies of search and affiliate marketing and will dive into how you can make lots of money with affiliate marketing search arbitrage.

Make sure to stop by and say hello to a Pepperjammer - if you see us at a bar and want a free drink simply tell us you read our blog and we’ll be happy to buy you a drink!