1. What's New with the Program?
The Trilegiant affiliate program has taken off quickly. The most effective piece of creative so far is the Circuit City gift card 120x90 button.

This button has an EPC on CJ of $32.94 since the start of the program.

Get those offers up today - feel free to contact me if you need help.

Also, there will be a few Trilegiant folks on hand (in addition to me) at Affiliate Summit 2005. We look forward to meeting any affiliates that will be there.

2. What is RSS and Why Should You Learn About It?
You may have heard about RSS, but had no idea what it meant or what it was all about. Well, now is your chance to learn why you should get familiar with RSS.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and it's a method used by blogs to syndicate information.

Take a look at the Trilegiant Affiliate blog to see an example. On the right hand side, you will see the following buttons:

        

These buttons enable somebody to subscribe to a blog via the RSS feed. So if you click on the MyYahoo button, you can see the Trilegiant Affiliate blog information that would be syndicated right into your MyYahoo account (if you have one) if you were to subscribe.

Get a complimentary copy of The Business Case for RSS at http://www.affiliatetip.com/rss_the_business_case.pdf

3. Affiliate Tip - Data Feeds for Newbies
Data feeds are a great tool for affiliate marketers to build robust sites dedicated to an individual merchant. The data feeds enable affiliates to create database driven sites with up to date product information for a company.

The catch is that it's not easy. There is a learning curve to either use an off the shelf product like WebMerge or to build your own solution for converting data feeds into HTML pages.

However, there are options out there that make data feeds more accessible to the average affiliate. Cusimano.com Scripts are available for a variety of merchants that enable affiliates to use the cgi-bin Perl scripts into existing websites or to create standalone websites.

Visit http://www.affiliatetip.com/affiliate_tip_43.php for more details. 4. It's an Affiliate Thing, You Wouldn't Understand
Most any affiliate marketer has tried to explain to family and friends what they do for a living, and they inevitably are met with blank stares.

I suppose the uniqueness of this space plays a role in the various tight knit online communities for affiliate marketers. Nobody else knows what we're talking about.

So anyway, I've created a limited edition t-shirt to celebrate affiliate marketing. It reads: It's an Affiliate Thing, You Wouldn't Understand.

Visit http://www.affiliatetip.com/blog/archives/
its_an_affiliate_thing_you_wouldnt_understand.html for details on getting your very own affiliate t-shirt.

5. Affiliate Tip - Google Alert the Companies You Promote
One of the biggest challenges for an affiliate is to determine which affiliate programs to push and when.

You can guess and speculate, but that sort of scattershot promotional effort will likely result in poor returns.

One of the keys to identifying and capitalizing on trends is to watch the headlines and leverage their coverage.

You will want to know when there is good news about a company, so you can put more marketing muscle behind them.

Visit http://www.affiliatetip.com/affiliate_tip_44.php for more details.

I'd love to hear from you! Drop me a line and let me know if you have any suggestions or questions.

Take care,
Shawn Collins

Trilegiant Affiliate Manager
trilegiant@affiliatetip.com
http://www.trilegiantaffiliates.com/
AOL IM: affiliatetip
ICQ: 297448317
MSN: shawn@affiliatetip.com
Yahoo: affiliatetip
908-522-0056