1. Jellyfish.com is a fantastic example.

So too fatwallet.com,

Also, check out mog.com which is one of Rhapsody's largest affiliates.

Posted at 1:57PM on Mar 3rd 2008 by Niki Scevak

2. I guess it's tooting my own horn, but I think I do a good job on www.22books.com

It's a new site so not making a ton of money yet, but from a revenue to traffic ratio I am happy.

I went against my instinct to make easy book link an affiliate link to Amazon, and instead added the blatant Buy from Amazon button on a book landing page. I think if you click a big button called Buy from Amazon you should assume there is some sort of affiliate program involved.

I also let users add their own amazon associates id so they can make money from their own lists, an idea right out of your book of rewarding your contributors.

Posted at 2:05PM on Mar 3rd 2008 by James Avery

3. Flamingoworld.com

Started as a way for the owner to share coupons with her friends and family. Now a large money-making business with multiple locations and employees and several other niche sites doing well in other verticals and countries.

That's what you get from being peristent and doing the right thing.

Posted at 2:39PM on Mar 3rd 2008 by Missy Ward

4. I think the way you've framed this request is intellectually dishonest, not so different from a push poll.

What exactly is the standard that merits a site being considered "upfront and honest with people about what they are doing"?

A disclaimer in the footer? A note in parentheses after each affiliate text link?

Do you consider it deceptive if a site displays AdSense and the "Ads by AdSense" is not showing above the fold?

Posted at 2:41PM on Mar 3rd 2008 by Shawn Collins

5. My blog, a rather popular book blog, includes this next to our above-the-fold Amazon search box: "Support The Millions by starting here when you shop at Amazon." And it includes this on our about page: "Most posts at The Millions contain affiliate links to Amazon. You can support The Millions by entering Amazon via those links when you shop there." I also periodically send out notes to the site's Facebook fan group updating the members on site news and inviting them to support the site via Amazon.

We've found that when your audience connects with your content, they are excited to have the ability to support the site by the act of buying products they were interested in and going to buy anyway. That is the essence of using affiliate marketing to support quality content.

As far as writing about books goes, the affiliate programs of Amazon and others make it possible, and our readers are thankful that there are great places to read about and talk about books online.

http://www.themillionsblog.com

Posted at 2:58PM on Mar 3rd 2008 by Max

6. http://www.responsibletravel.com is a very successful affiliate. The key thing is that they genuinely do research and hand pick the holidays that they offer so there's a true value-add for the customer. They are also in the process of rolling out design improvements to more clearly explain how they're different from a tour operator or travel agent website. Good ethics are in this company's DNA. For example, an early investor was Anita Roddick.
(disclosure: responsible travel are a client of mine, but it's all true :)

Posted at 3:11PM on Mar 3rd 2008 by Tom Nixon

7. There are tons of them. And the ones that are really kick ass are incredibly useful sites.

One I use a lot is Deal News (also sub sites Deal Mac and so on).

www.dealnews.com

Basically any time I'm considering buying consumer electronics I go here and type in what I want and almost invariably I get to the best deals in the category.

I don't know where they make their affiliate money, some of the links clearly are affiliate links, not sure about all of them. But it's still useful. As a shopping site it's pretty clear what's going on (to me) though I don't know if they're "up front" about it in the way you describe. You might have to know what to look for.

Posted at 3:34PM on Mar 3rd 2008 by El Flailey

8. http://www.tripadvisor.com/ - I think this is probably the best example (but I suppose you're already aware of it).

Posted at 4:02PM on Mar 3rd 2008 by Giorgio Baresi

9. There are a lot of deal sites out there such as:

PinkDeals.net - A great resource for women's stuff
BensBargains.net - One of the oldest Tech Deal Sites around

It really isn't too hard to find these kind of sites as everyone has them bookmarked in one way or another.

So Jason, are you trying to justify your blanket statement about affiliates at ASW?

Posted at 4:32PM on Mar 3rd 2008 by Gary lee

10. I already gave you the biggest possible examples on the post I made right after your keynote. If those are not "good" affiliate sites, well - no business in this world probably is good enough for you, probably not even your own.

Posted at 4:51PM on Mar 3rd 2008 by Pranav

11. I've always thought this one was a great example of how to add value for the consumer, be honest with reviews, provide a forum and great interaction between the site staff and the readers.

Shefinds.com
http://shefinds.com/blog/

Posted at 7:23PM on Mar 3rd 2008 by Michael Buechele

12. ebates.com
couponcabin.com
retailmenot.com

Any coupon site usually makes money via an affiliate network like Commission Junction or LinkShare. Not all of them are front about it though.

Posted at 8:15PM on Mar 3rd 2008 by Psycho

13. Jason:

Affiliate Marketing should take a good hard look at VRM (Vendor Relationship Management) in its efforts to outgrow the semi-spam perception it has gained in recent years.

VRM is a way for customers to manage their relationships with various retail companies. It is the opposite of CRM (Customer Relationship Management).

What I would suggest is that one of the social shopping websites, say ThisNext (hello Gordon), develop an online VRM database program which enables members to manage their relations with their favorite companies.

Jason, take your relationship with Tesla. You recently bought a Tesla and there's probably a ton of data related to your ownership of that car. Specs, warranty, user manual, oil change, etc.

Currently, you would probably have a user account on Tesla's corporate servers. They would control that information and nobody would know that you own a Tesla, except for what you write and blog about it.

However, if you were able to "host" that information at ThisNext and you choose to make your Venedor Relationship public other This Next members would know that you own a Tesla.

The passive nature of this "endorsement" is what is key. The schlock and spaminess of traditional Affiliate marketing would be gone. Instead, the fact that you list your relationship with Tesla at This Next would lead others who know you and respect you to take a look at Tesla.

The benefit to you would be an online database which you control which would be a central "control center" for all the relationships you have with companies.

Take hotels, or rental cars, or airlines. With each relationship there's dozens and dozens of bits of information. Currently, we use a standard address book, perhaps with customized fields, to manage those vendor relationships.

Each vendor record at This Next could actually be a web widget. This Next would serve as the hosting location for people's vendor relationship web widgets.

The traditional affiliate marketing companies would work with vendors/companies to create those widgets and also marketing campaigns.

Within each vendor widget would be an opt-in section where the vendor/company could offer you promotions, special deals, etc. The vendor/company could use RSS for the actual distribution of this information. The customer profiles would be created by each ThisNext member and companies could therefore do very targeted campaigns.

Affiliate Marketing + Social Shopping + Web Widgets = VRM 2.0

Posted at 3:44AM on Mar 4th 2008 by Timothy Post

14. no doubt i'm pointing out the obvious here -- and please don't shoot the messenger -- but if you want the likely origin of it all, look porn-ward, young man. maxcash was one of the very first to think of the economics of moving eyeballs (and getting a bump as a result).

Posted at 8:20AM on Mar 4th 2008 by m

15. My favorite new social shopping site - Kaboodle.com.

Everyone in the business knows the list of the top guys who use a CPA business model to drive strong loyalty or other shopping oriented sites. Upromise, Ebates and iGive for example. One key point is to remember that consumers are clearly going to these destinations to SHOP. These are the publishing partners I work with regularly who ADD VALUE to the merchants (advertisers) I work with.

Posted at 8:44AM on Mar 4th 2008 by Stephanie Agresta

16. I believe my site http://www.musiclovr.com is upfront and honest with its affiliate links. Musiclovr provide users with different options to purchase music while presenting similar artists the community is listening to. Traffic has been up and down but the site generates some "OK" income.

Posted at 10:46AM on Mar 4th 2008 by Tony Starks

17. Jangle.net is an Amazon.com affiliate site. I started it as a usability/programming experiment: could I create a very simple site with better usability than Amazon.com.

Now I'm not sure it is 20% better than any other Amazon affiliate site, or Amazon.com , but I think it offers a better experience for many users. It's also somewhat unique in that there is no content other than basic product listings. Every product listing on jangle.net points directly to Amazon.com. There is no intent to deceive or hide anything from anybody.

So the experiment turned out to be a success and I'm also making a little money. I also learned a lot more about web-based marketing.

For instance, last year I would leave brief comments about jangle.net on pertinent, on-topic articles listed on Digg.com. Examples of Digg articles I would leave a short comment on were "Finding Secret Amazon Discounts" and "Become an Online Power Shopper." Throughout 2007, I commented on a couple dozen on-topic Digg posts. I could not help but notice that whenever I left a comment about jangle.net on digg.com, my traffic at jangle.net would spike. A lot!

I was happy to get more traffic from Digg, albeit very infrequently over the course of last year. Then early this year Digg dropped its shopping category and let me know they considered me a comment spammer. Oh the humanity!

Now I don't consider myself a spammer, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe my two-dozen or so comments on Digg over the course of a year were a bit too much. But I do know this. I don't want ANYONE to consider me a spammer. I very much want to play by the rules.

So jangle.net is doing what I consider a fair job at making a little money while trying to be upfront and honest. It's been a blast working on the site and learning a lot along the way. I cherish the journey and would like to think I've taken the high road thus far.

Posted at 3:51PM on Mar 4th 2008 by J.D. Deutschendorf

18. Ken Rockwell is the best. He has a photo site and he's up front in every article about how he makes his living on this and that the links help him pay for the great info he's providing.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/

Here's an article example:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d40.htm

Posted at 9:04AM on Mar 5th 2008 by Ian Landsman

19. http://getclicky.com/

Posted at 3:49AM on Mar 6th 2008 by Kelly

20. Perhaps when they do product placements in Movies and TV shows, they should stop the show and say "This product placed here from our coporate sponsors?"

If a company provides a commission opportunity and you are going to link to that site, you would be stupid not to make it an affiliate link and get paid, the end user still get's where they wanted to and you get a piece of the action.

As an affiliate imwave primarily focuses on paid search direct to our merchants, so we try to land customers on their merchant's page as opposed to landing pages whenever we can.

We have also recently launched http://www.dealzam.com and will continue to improve it over time.

I enjoyed your keynote though Jason!

Adam

Posted at 3:37PM on Mar 6th 2008 by Adam Viener