GTO Management

Today on the podcast, I was joined by guest host Ian Larsen of IanLarsen.com to chat with Gary Marcoccia of the AvantLink affiliate network.

Here at GTO we’ve recently launched the C28.com affiliate program on AvantLink and we’ve been really impressed with the tools that they provide to both affiliates and merchants. Gary and Ian and I chatted on the history of AvantLink - as they have roots as both affiliates and affiliate managers, which I think contributes the the practicality of the AvantLink tool and some of the cool datafeed handling tools that AvantLink offers.

We talked in detail about a few features in particular, the Affiliate Link Encoder (ALE) which allows bloggers, webmasters and forum operators to put affiliate tracking in place for any AvantLink merchant without having to actually login to the affiliate UI or so any special coding. Once the ALE javascript is in place, the affiliate tracking is put in place on the broswer side of the equation. Gary told a great story of an affiliate who operated an Outdoor Sports focused online forum. Using the ALE script, he was able to place affiliate tracking on many of the links that both he and his forum members placed over several years of content… all with a quick copy and paste. Talk about easy money. This feature is the blogger or review affiliates dream.

We also chatted about AvantLink and their on-board support of video creative and some of the cool things that they do with RSS syndication and tying affiliates to referrals from feeds that they host from merchants. This is really cool stuff - effectively, AvantLink has provided affiliates with a "long tail" creative.

In addition to some of the big tools that AvantLink provides, they have also put some little things into the mix that are pretty cool. For instance - as a merchant, you can subscribe to RSS feeds that give you transaction info and affiliate application information. They also provide FireFox and Thunderbird extensions that scroll program stats at the bottom of your screen so you are never out of touch with your affiliate program data.

Ian chimed in with his experience as an affiliate and applauded the flexibility of the AvantLink datafeed tools and the accessibility of support and development to get what you need as an affiliate. Gary applauded the affiliates out there for driving innovation.

We had a great time chatting and I look forward to speaking with Gary again. If you are a retail merchant with a product catalog and you are looking for a really powerful, but reasonable priced affiliate network with some awesome tools included - check out AvantLink.

Enjoy the podcast!