Performance marketing technology provider Impact Radius announced the publication of a “Top 25 Performance Marketing Influencers” list.  Here is the infographic they provided in their press release:

According to their release,

“Designed to help advertisers, agencies and media companies seeking expert guidance in improving their revenue from performance marketing, the list, based on an Impact Radius independent analysis of the influence of more than 400 prominent performance marketing thought leaders, identifies the top people whose blogs, tweets and social metrics provide the most influential insights and advice for the industry.”

While I appreciate being included in the list, I’d like to go on record with my thoughts about this list, and lists such as this. This is not meant to be disrespectful to the folks at Impact Radius (and I know that they won’t take it as such) but in my opinion, it’s lists such as these which can lead to confusion, especially to those outside of the performance marketing/affiliate marketing industry, as well as to folks new to the industry itself. And, the last thing we need is more confusion.

Heck, we still can’t even agree on what we call ourselves in our own industry.

As I’ve been an affiliate marketer since the late ’90′s, I’ve been around the block a few times, so I’d like to share some points that I strongly believe should be taken into consideration when interpreting this list.

Caveat Emptor When it Comes to Folks that have “Made the List”.

I do not mean this as an insult, but there are people on this list that are simply NOT influential in the affiliate marketing/performance marketing space. They know who they are and they are likely wondering to themselves why they’ve been included.  That does not mean to say that they are not impressive in their respective areas of expertise; it’s just not affiliate marketing.  Just do your due diligence. OK?

Ranking People Using Social Scoring Does Not Give You the Whole Picture

Sadly, this list only used online social metrics to determine authority ranking.  Big mistake for many reasons:

1. Using social scoring immediately discounts the long term effects that the truly influential people have had for many years before Twitter, Klout and Peer Index existed.  And trust me, when these leaders do speak, their message is not only heard, it’s respected.
2. This list does not take into account a person’s offline influence or authority in alternative online sharing platforms, such as forums.  Just because these people do not choose to participate in Twitter, etc. does not mean that their influence is any less powerful.  
3. Klout, Twitter and PeerIndex can all be manipulated — easily. [Bots, frequency of posting instead of quality of posting, etc.)
4. Social scoring does not segment a person’s ability to influence within an industry, but rather provides just a single number to rank them across the board. So folks with large Twitter followings, high Klout Scores and PeerIndex scores in general, will likely outrank people that are truly influential in a specific industry.

For the reasons above, I’d like to recognize a few people who should have been included in this “Top 25″ list, as they actually have driven action and continue to drive the affiliate marketing / performance marketing industry.

• Brian Littleton, ShareASale.com
• Kellie Stevens, AffiliateFairPlay.com
• Todd Farmer, AffiliateMarketingPlan.com
• Scott Jangro, MechMedia.com
• Pat Grady, RhinoFish.com
• Eric Nagel, EricNagel.com
• Todd Crawford, ImpactRadius.com  (Yes, the Co-Founder of the company that put this list out, who has propelled this industry for many years, didn’t even make the list.)

Who do you think is missing from this list?

Shawn Collins and I will be manning the Affiliate Summit booth (#1455) during ad:tech New York on November 4-5 at Javits Center.

In addition, we’ve partnered with Murray Newlands of MurrayNewlands.com (interviewer extraordinaire) to conduct video interviews during the event that we will host on the Affiliate Summit Blog as well as on GeekCast.fm.

Murray will be roaming the ad:tech floor looking for folks to talk about affiliate marketing, social media, search marketing and more and would love to interview you. So, if you see him, flag him down!

Additionally, you can swing by the Affiliate Summit booth to pick up some Purell®, eat some of our leftover Halloween candy and schedule a time to interview with Murray.

This is a great opportunity to share your insights on the industry with the rest of the Affiliate Summit audience.

We look forward to seeing you. Oh… and this is Murray. He’s not hard to miss.

If you’ve checked out FeedFront Magazine, Issue #7, then you know that Shawn Collins and I were spontaneously inspired to create Affiliate Day — a day to recognize the power of Affiliate Marketing.

We will be holding several fun-filled promotions over the course of the day, designed to increase awareness of the industry and reward affiliate marketers with all sorts of goodies, including passes to Affiliate Summit West 2010 in Las Vegas.

More information will be made available leading up to the event, so stay tuned.

Together we’ll give Affiliate Marketing it’s day in the sun.

Just back from vacation in Key West and was delighted to find the video that RippleKey Productions (Affiliate Summit’s videographers) created for us, featuring highlights of Affiliate Summit West 2009.

So, to the folks that haven’t attended an Affiliate Summit conference before, that always ask me to show them what they’re missing.. here ya go.

Enjoy.

ShipToTroops.com now features even more online retailers that ship to APO/FPO addresses, while bargains bagged give boost to Operation Homefront.

I have some great news to announce. ShipToTroops.com, a site that I own along with Shawn Collins, has partnered with FlamingoWorld.com to provide additional money-saving opportunities for web-savvy buyers that need to ship their purchases to APO/FPO addresses.

A portion of each online purchase at ShipToTroops.com is donated to Operation Homefront - an organization which provides emergency assistance and morale to servicemen and women, to the families they leave behind, and to wounded warriors when they return home.

Shawn and I launched this cause-focused site earlier this year as we recognized that painless giving, made easy and convenient, allows everyone to participate and make a tangible difference in the world.

I’m looking forward to leveraging the relationships and negotiating power of FlamingoWorld.com, so that ShipToTroops.com can offer access to over 1,000 online retailers providing discounts to buyers looking for that special gift to send their loved ones stationed overseas.

Connie Berg, the President of FlamingoWorld.com is excited to partner with ShipToTroops.com to help us raise money for Operation Homefront, a cause that we all believe in strongly.

The timing of this partnership couldn’t be more appropriate given the need for buyers to purchase holiday gifts early due to overseas shipping schedules.

Retailers available via ShipToTroops.com include the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble, Bass Pro, BlueFly.com Circuit City, Dell, Foot Locker, GNC, Macy’s, RitzCamera.com, ToysRUs and hundreds more.

Some additional information about all the companies involved:

ShipToTroops.com, which uses the ForMeToCoupon.com technology, powered by FlamingoWorld.com, is owned by Shawn Collins and Missy Ward, co-founders of Affiliate Summit, Inc., who have made a pledge to raise monies in innovative ways for a range of charities devoted to assisting children, fighting cancer, and helping the families of stateside and deployed servicemen and women. Organizations which have benefited from Collin’s and Ward’s altruism include Big Brothers/Big Sisters, March of Dimes, Susan G. Komen Foundation, Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation, The LEAGUE and Operation Homefront. More details are available at http://www.shiptotroops.com/.

FlamingoWorld.com is an online shopping resource providing shoppers with online and printable coupons and rebates for over 1,800 retailers. ForMeToCoupon.com is a technology provider offering automated feeds of updated, real-time coupons, rebate, and specials, available at nearly 2,000 merchants. More details can be found at http://www.flamingoworld.com and http://www.formetocoupon.com.

Affiliate Summit Social Media 2008 is now one for the books. As our first niche event, we were excited to present content that focused on leveraging social media in affiliate marketing.

The keynote was presented by social media and blogging expert, Don Crowther who provided a ton or great information. I walked out of there with 3 actionable items that can immediately help my marketing efforts on a couple of websites that I own.

After the keynote, there were four panels covering video, social media case studies, monetizing social media, and working with social networks. The sessions that took place can be found here.

The keynote and all of the sessions were videotaped and will be posted up at AffiliateSummit.tv in the coming weeks.

Thanks for everybody who came out and look forward to seeing may of you at Affiliate Summit 2009 West in Las Vegas.

Here are the photos from the show:

Without any further ado,
Here’s FeedFront, Issue 2:

Download FeedFront, Issue 2

The online version is whopper size, topping out at over 107mb. So be patient, it will load.

Why don’t you go grab yourself a cup of coffee or an ice cold beer. You deserve it.

Better yet… sign up to get a free copy of FeedFront sent to your door to read at your leisure.

Enjoy.

Almost everyone knows that I’d do anything for my friend and business partner, Shawn Collins. He is the yang to my yin when it comes to our business relationship.

It is with those heartfelt feelings that I am begging the online marketing community to help me, help Shawn stop creating these goofy videos, like the one above.

I don’t know how it started and I’m really not sure how it got to this point. All I know is that it’s completely out of hand now and I’m calling on the help of everyone I know to make it stop.

Please help me, help Shawn. Post your prayers and pleas for him to stop either here or on Obama2.com

Friends don’t let friends make goofy videos.

Shawn and I just gave birth to our new love-child, FeedFront Magazine. It’s something that we’ve talked about for a long time, and to see it come to fruition is nothing less than exciting for me.

FeedFront Magazine, the Official Magazine of Affiliate Summit, is all printed and in the mail now to subscribers.

If you attended Affiliate Summit this past February in Las Vegas or last August in Miami, and live in the U.S. (and your address hasn’t changed), you should be getting the first issue in the coming weeks.

The magazine is dedicated to bringing ideas, resources, and opinions from Internet marketing innovators to you before your next project or venture.

FeedFront is for the futurists; the next-gen marketers; the early adopters in affiliate marketing.

That’s you, right? Get your free subscription.

Anne Kadet, senior writer for Smart Money just wrote an article that appears in the May issue (p.110) ferociously entitled “A Penny For Your Clicks? Affiliate marketing: so easy even our dog can do it.”

To count the innacuracies in her article would be a very time-consuming task. Instead, I’ll get back to being one of those“dogs”, or rather one of those “regular folks who work from home, posting online ads and promotional-text links for thousands of brands…” and “earning less than $100 a month.”