Tips and Tricks coming soon!

Meet Gavin.

Gavin is the VP of education at LinkTrust. For most of our partners, he's the first introduction to the system. Working with our partners he hears about the common issues that a lot of you might come across. Look for posts from Gavin explaining answers to common questions and even a few tips and tricks to make LinkTrust work better for you.

When Gavin isn't training new partners or figuring out the best way to make LinkTrust work, he raises bees and chickens in his backyard.

Welcome to the blog, Gavin!

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas to all from the LinkTrust team!

January Features

Bryan asked me to post this for him today:

I wanted to comment on a recent change that was made to the 6.0 Partner Center Login Page. We have some exciting features coming in January. Our development staff is putting the final touches on this great release.

The most exciting features are the Affiliate Fraud Scoring, Custom Affiliate Sign Up Filters, Affiliate Payment Log and Mass Creative Import.

Affiliate Fraud Scoring will allow you to see if an affiliate application matches a previously denied sign up or suspended affiliate throughout the LinkTrust system. It will also check for duplicates among existing affiliates in your account.

Custom Affiliate Sign Up Filters allow you to automatically deny applications which meet criteria you enter.

The Affiliate Payment Log will allow you to track payments made to affiliates. Affiliates will be able to see information on these payments in the Affiliate Center. This is the first of several features we are working on to help with accounting.

The Mass Creative Import will allow you to upload a tab-delimited file with creative information.

These are just a few of my favorite enhancements. More details will be posted here and on our support site in the next few weeks. Happy Holidays from the LinkTrust Technology Department!

SAN Project Update

I am pleased to post that the second phase of our SAN project was completed successfully Tuesday night. After a full day of monitoring, things are running great. Everything went well with the move and the performance gains are awesome.

Coordinating everything within a short maintenance window can be a challenge. Our careful planning paid off though, and we had the Partner Center, Affiliate Center and Merchant Center back up within 45 minutes. This will be the last phase of the SAN project we complete until after Christmas.

LinkTrust SAN Project

I'm excited to share some details about my latest project at LinkTrust, something we've been calling the SAN Project. Hopefully this will be the first of many posts on what is going on behind the scenes at LinkTrust.

My brain is always thinking about something. About a year ago it started pondering how we store all the data in LinkTrust. At the time we had about a terabyte of data and it was growing fast. I realized we needed to start looking at a new storage solution.

The problem for us isn’t so much that we have a lot of data. Our problem is we need to access the vast amount of data quickly. Performance and reliability are key to keeping LinkTrust running well for our partners.

These considerations lead me to begin looking at a SAN. In a nutshell, a SAN is a big black box full of hard drives that work together. It provides high-performance data storage with a high degree of reliability and redundancy.

We began the project by evaluating different SAN vendors. We had to separate what the sales people told us from what their products actually do. The importance of this decision meant we had to carefully look at all our options. In the end we decided to go with Compellent. Their product offers some very unique flexibility and optimizations that I felt made it our best choice.

Once we decided on a vendor the real work began. There are a myriad of configuration choices to be made when implementing a SAN. I really wanted to make sure we got this right. It was important to me we didn’t have any single points of failure.

To ensure every piece of the system worked well, we also upgraded our switching fabric to a new set of Juniper switches. I purchased new Cat 6 network cables to ensure we weren’t bitten by an old cable starting to give out. The devil is in the details as they say. Every little piece must be considered to ensure success.

Whenever we embark on a project I want it to make things better for our partners. It needs to be worth the time effort and money we spend on it. I also don’t want there to be a lot of pain associated with upgrades or changes we make.

I work hard and plan meticulously to ensure successful project implementation. With the efforts of my great team we successfully moved our first database to the SAN last week.

To ensure success we started relatively small. The database that was moved was selected because it allowed for a seamless move with no visible impact to our partners. At the same time, it had enough load on it we could see a visible benefit when it was moved to the SAN.

Even I was surprised to see we were able to index more than 20 million records in a matter of a few seconds with no impact to user performance. This was something our previous infrastructure couldn’t do.

There is still much work to be done. We’ve grouped remaining tasks into a series of phases to allow for minimal impact to our partners and maximum success. The next phase, which will begin this evening, will require we take the Partner Center, Affiliate Center and Merchant Center offline for about an hour. This is to ensure no changes are made to configuration settings while the move is occurring.

This project really started about nine months ago. Looking back it has been a long road. We can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. We can tangibly see the benefits that this new infrastructure will bring to the LinkTrust system. We’ve been able to make the upgrades with minimal impact to our partners. I’m thrilled to see the success we’ve had with this project thus far. I’m sure I’ll only be more excited by the final outcome.

Hello from the LinkTrust Technology Department

Meet Bryan.

Bryan Call is the VP of technology at LinkTrust. He's responsible for overseeing the implementation and architecture of the LinkTrust system. When he's not working on the latest version of LinkTrust, he watches reruns of Star Trek or takes his wife ballroom dancing.

We're excited to have him become our first contributor to our blog... and bring some exciting news that will help LinkTrust perform at an even higher level. You'll definitely want to keep an eye out for his posts about the new SAN and what that means for you.

Welcome to the blog, Bryan!

LinkTrust Wire-- December Issue

The second issue of the LinkTrust Wire was emailed to our subscription list today. Want to read the Wire? Sign up for the LinkTrust Wire here!

In each issue we have four sections:
TRADE, featuring a LinkTrust partner.
INSIDER, spotlighting a LinkTrust employee.
TICKER, the latest feature releases.
JUST IN, industry events and news.

In our TRADE section we featured RevStars Media, a long-time LinkTrust partner. Find out more about them in the Wire.

For an INSIDER look at our new account manger, Jody Sears, check out this article.

Follow the TICKER to see a few highlighted features that were recently released.

Find out how current LinkTrust partners can win a ski trip from LinkTrust in the JUST IN section of the Wire. Or email sales@linktrust.com for more information about how you can win!

Thanksgiving

In keeping with the timeless American tradition, LinkTrust employees tell us what they're thankful for this year.

Bret: "I am thankful for my wife and children; a great place to work with friends; driving in snow and blizzards and Christmas lights!"

Gavin: "I am thankful we have such a great LinkTrust team to work with!"

Nate: "I am thankful for my freedom and those who provide it for me, grateful to live in this country and for my health and to have great family and friends, and a job I love."

Jeremy:"I'm thankful for APIs, banana cream pie and four-stroke motors."

Carol-Lyn: "I'm thankful for skiing so I don't completely hate the snow." :)

Gary Gray: "I'm thankful for help at work and four days off to spend time riding four-wheelers with my family."

Nathan: "I'm thankful for my beautiful wife and two cute kids, an awesome job with incredible co-workers, my health, and for the freedoms that we enjoy."

Kacie: "I am thankful for football, turkey and my family."

Myong: "I'm grateful for Windows 7."

Art: "I'm thankful for getting to work in such a dynamic, fun company."

Christina: "I'm thankful for having a loving boyfriend, some really awesome friends, and a great job."

Sarah: "I'm thankful for those moments in developing when the code just works. And Cookie Dough- Fudge Ice cream."

Lee: "I am genuinely thankful to have the job I do and to work at Burstabit"(the parent company of LinkTrust.)

Mindy: "I am thankful to get paid to meet and talk to people from all parts of the world every day. Especially the ones that are sitting on the beach while we are in the middle of winter here in Utah!"

Kyna: "Thank goodness for clean water, fresh vegetables, late winters and trips to warmer climates. And of course, my family and friends."

Jody: "I'm thankful to work with a company that I love...with people I love! If you have to spend the majority of your life away from those you would most want to be with-- it's amazing to spend that time in a place you love to be!! Thanks LinkTrust 'family'!"

Halloween

Nothing tells you about the creativity of the people you work with like a Halloween costume/pumpkin carving/potluck bringing party. The day started with the fire alarm chasing us all out of our offices-- apparently construction dust and smoke look the same to an alarm. While the lights flashed and alarms sounded we made a visit to the local McDonald's (even the kids gave us funny looks in our costumes).

At the office we had Star Trek captains (plural), witches, batman, some guy in lederhosen, and a vampire. The food was delectable: butternut squash soup, Korean barbecue and even Klingon Bloodwine from Bryan.

At noon it was time for pumpkin carving. Some of us took the easy way out and used the patterns included in the carving kits. Everybody else let their creativity run wild and used the classic Sharpie to plan their masterpiece. Nate's flame pumpkin won the contest. In my book, Frank's pumpkin gets an honorable mention, it was full of LinkTrust spirit.

Users' Group Wrap up

As one of LinkTrust’s newest employees, I looked forward to the LinkTrust Users’ Group last week for a couple of reasons. One, I was excited to meet a few of our partners (I know how much everyone else here likes them). Two, I’m still getting used to the system and was interested to see the unique features of version 6.0. Three, we decided to broadcast the entire conference as a webinar (mainly my responsibility).

It was great to meet some LinkTrust partners in real life instead of just following them on Twitter or chatting on IM. It was fun to learn why Jose from Revenue Gateway chose to work in affiliate marketing and five minutes later discuss Canadian hockey players with Geoff Clay from RevStars Media.

A few of the partners, especially those still on 5.7, were just as interested as I was to see the features of version 6.0.

The webinar was a great option for the partners that couldn’t make it out to Salt Lake City. We will make the recorded sessions available soon. Until then, you can run through some of the exercises at www.linktrust.com/training.

For the networking dinner we invited members of RMAMA, LinkTrust partners and other local affiliate marketers to board the LinkTrust airline. The airplane we built in the historic Joseph Smith Memorial Building was a sight to see. For more pictures, check out our Facebook album. (Become our fan too!)

Each attendee got something different from the training and activities of the Users’ Group. Allan Stone from Restoration Media says he is excited to migrate to 6.0 as soon as possible. Bert Seow of RateSpecial, says he enjoys coming to Users’ Group to get to know the LinkTrust team better. The Q&A with Bryan Call, vice president of technology, about where LinkTrust is headed gave Caryn Stoll of GetAds an opportunity to discuss the accounting reports that would make her job easier.

It was great to get so many suggestions and make some new friends. If you have any questions about the Users’ Group or suggestions for improvements on LinkTrust let us know, we’re listening!

Industry Resource: ApogeeInvent

For the increased success of each partner, LinkTrust recommends using professional online design when developing campaigns, creatives and company web sites.

ApogeeInvent is an enterprise development company that offers premium quality online design, marketing and web development solutions. From building technology platforms with professional designs to offering business consulting and management, ApogeeInvent has been instrumental in the growth of many companies, including several on the Inc. 500 list.

ApogeeInvent has a full digital product line and provides a wide range of services, including custom programming, web/print design, social media marketing and SEO optimization, content management and copywriting, hosting and e-commerce. It serves niche markets through subsidaries Auto Search Technologies, Inc. and Product2Web, Inc. View the company web site at www.apogeeinvent.com.

ObservePoint

Now more than ever, you have to maximize the ROI of your traffic. Whether you buy or sell, online traffic costs money. More often than you think, traffic is driven to slow or unresponsive pages, creating a loss of revenue.

LinkTrust recommends ObservePoint to monitor redirects, offers and pixels 24/7, and send alerts to anyone you want, worldwide whenever a link, offer or pixel is broken or slow.

ObservePoint gives you a competitive edge by maximizing your Internet traffic. Get ahead-- monitor your own, your partner's and even your competitor's urls.

With ObservePoint, you can track key pages, get notified of issues and take action. No more lost conversions due to down pages, long load times, broken redirects and missing tracking pixels. Monitor any offer for pennies a day.

Industry Resource: RingRevenue

In today's world of online and offline advertising, American consumers still make hundreds of millions of purchases over the phone. Advertisers spend more than $200 billion a year in offline marketing to reach those consumers.

Tracking and managing offline transactions was outside the realm of ad networks until now.

LinkTrust and RingRevenue have teamed up to offer another dimension of tracking. All LinkTrust partners can now get the benefits of measurable, performance-based media buys for products and services that have traditionally been harder to sell online through affiliate campaigns.

With LinkTrust Pay-Per-Call, affiliates can now get credit for any lead they generate, whether it's a call or a click. Because phone leads typically convert at a much higher rate and a higher average ticket price than online leads, merchants pay substantially more for a high-quality call than they do for a click.

The LinkTrust Pay-Per-Call service gives you true real-time data-rich reporting and analytics to track customer details and phone lead quality. You can even track the ROI of specific media placements. You set the price. You determine the target profile of your inbound callers and get unprecedented control over your campaigns. All with the click of a mouse and with no complex technology integration. The LinkTrust Pay-Per-Call service means more high-quality leads and sales for merchants, more commissions for affiliates and more transactions for networks.

LinkTrust Pay-Per-Call is easy to set up, easy to use and integrates seamlessly with your current LinkTrust platform and online campaigns. Best of all, it's from LinkTrust – a partner you already trust.

UnsubCentral

The discussion about email marketing is not a new one in the affiliate marketing world. Many LinkTrust partners run successful email campaigns, reaching targeted consumers resulting in high conversion rates.

With regulation on email marketing constantly evolving, staying on top of compliance is critical. We recommend partnering with a company that will make sure you're doing everything you're supposed to and nothing you're not.
UnsubCentral, a recognized leader in email compliance solutions, has helped hundreds of customers, from the Fortune 500 to leading Internet businesses, including many LinkTrust partners, comply with CAN-SPAM and data privacy regulations.

UnsubCentral solutions simplify email compliance and suppression list management across multiple parties through a secure and automated platform that gives you the flexibility, control and reporting you need to deliver your messages with confidence.

For more information, check out their web site: http://www.unsubcentral.com/

Updated Webinar Scheduled Times

We're excited to have you join us for the LinkTrust Users' Group. If you're joining us in person or virtually through the webinar, we want to make sure you have the most up-to-date schedule available. We will update the posted the schedule as necessary.

Click here to register for the webinar!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

10 a.m. Welcome from Bret Grow, President of LinkTrust

10:15 a.m. System Overview

1:15 p.m. Exercise in Campaign Building and Management

2:45 p.m. Affiliate Management

4 p.m. Reporting

7 p.m. Meet, Greet and Eat (Register Today!)

Thursday, October 22, 2009

9 a.m. Pixel Tracking/ Trouble Shooting Domains

11 a.m. Industry Resource: Ring Revenue

1:15 p.m. Passing Data through URLs and Pixels

3 p.m. Industry Resource: UnSubCentral

4 p.m. Random Domains

Friday, October 23, 2009

9 a.m. Industry Resource: Apogee Invent

9:30 a.m. The Future of LinkTrust 6.0

10:45 a.m. Industry Resource: WebAssure

11:30 a.m. Industry Resource: ObservePoint

Click here to register for the Webinar!

Meet, Greet and Eat

As part of the 2009 LinkTrust Users' Group, we are inviting affiliate marketing professionals from the Rocky Mountain area to join us for an evening of networking, good eats and fun.

Don't miss this opportunity to mingle with industry leaders in your own backyard! Register now!

Date: Wednesday, October 21

Time: 7 p.m.

Place: Historic Joseph Smith Memorial Building

9th Floor

15 E. South Temple St.

Salt Lake City, UT 84150

Cost: $40

This exciting event is around the corner. Reserve your spot today!

Register now!

For additional event information, please contact:

Carol-Lyn Jardine, 801-331-6945 x 1106

Kyna Taylor, 801-331-6945 x 1118

We look forward to seeing you there!

Users Group Schedule

Excited for LinkTrust Users' Group in two weeks?

Click now to Register Today!

Here is the order of events you can look forward to:

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Welcome from Bret Grow, President of LinkTrust

System Overview

Exercise in Campaign Building and Management

Affiliate Management

Reporting

Meet, Greet and Eat in downtown Salt Lake City.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Pixel Tracking/Trouble Shooting Domains

Industry Resource: Ring Revenue

Passing Data through URLs and Pixels

Industry Resource: UnSubCentral

Random Domains

Dinner Groups

Friday, October 23, 2009

Industry Resource: Apogee Invent

The Future of LinkTrust 6.0

Industry Resource: WebAssurance

Industry Resource: ObservePoint

One-on-one time with LinkTrust Gurus

Click now to Register Today!

New LinkTrust Recruits

We are excited to welcome Sarah Borden and Christina Dessi to our development team.

Along with being a talented software engineer, Sarah volunteers for many different organizations including the Civil Air Patrol where she participated in many different search and rescue missions.

A natural on the stage, Christina loves to join theatrical productions in her local community when she's not creating new code for LinkTrust products.

To read more about their talents and experience they bring to the table, read our newsletter article.

Meet IMG Academies

Many of the world's top athletes, including Freddy Adu, Kobe Bryant, Maria Sharapova and LaDainian Tomlinson, have trained at IMG Academies, the world's premier destination for sport, training and education. Every year, more than 12,000 junior, high school, collegiate, adult and professional athletes from more than 80 countries choose IMG Academies to facilitate their athletic and personal improvement.

With the launch of their new online pro shop, IMG Academies is releasing several new offers to promote merchandise for each of the sports. The Academy's affiliate program also includes a commission for each person who registers for an IMG Academies program.

Get involved in IMG Academies' affiliate program today. Contact either David Portnowitz (941-752-2509) at david.portnowitz@imgworld.com or Ron Trytek (941-752-2462) at ron.trytek@imgworld.com.

Meet LinkTrust Partners

In every issue of the LinkTrust newsletter and every week on our blog we will be getting to know a LinkTrust partner. For the first spotlight we talked to David Portnowitz at IMG Academies. Their full story is in the October newsletter and another blog post.

If you would like your company to be spotlighted in the upcoming weeks, leave a comment here or contact me at kyna@linktrust.com.

Check back often to meet the many LinkTrust partners!

LinkTrust version 6.1 summary

With the release of version 6.1, we updated and added several features to LinkTrust. Check out our October Newsletter where we've highlighted a few of the most anticipated updates.

The list was too long for our newsletter, so if you're a LinkTrust partner, be sure to check out the home page of the help center for the entire list.

If you don't have your password for the help system, please visit the Help page of the LinkTrust Support Desk. If you are new to the LinkTrust Support Desk, please register to take advantage of this great addition to our services.

User's Group - Book your seat

Join us for the annual
LinkTrust Users' Group
Salt Lake City
Oct. 21 - 23, 2009

Don't miss your opportunity to:

• Learn the ins and outs of LinkTrust 6.1 Discuss upcoming development plans for beyond 6.1, including lead generation
• One-on-one trouble shooting to address your most challenging LinkTrust questions
• Discover solutions offered for common industry issues by LinkTrust preferred service providers
• And so much more!

The cost of the conference is $125, which includes training materials, lunch each day and dinner at the Meet, Greet & Eat on Wednesday.

Register by Oct. 10, and save $25.


Register Now!

Events:


Wed., Oct. 21


• Training events geared to beginner-level users
• Meet, Greet & Eat

Thurs., Oct. 22


• Training events geared to all-level users
• Dinner groups

Fri., Oct. 23

• 
Be Heard! User input on where LinkTrust should go in future versions.
• One-On-One Guru Time. Sign up to pick the brain of your favorite LinkTrust guru.


Register: www.linktrust.com/usersgroup

Affiliate Day Winner

Congratulations to @nickthrolson, the winner of the LinkTrust laptop bag and t-shirts.

We were excited to see all of the tweets announcing the winners of Affiliate Day sponsored by Affiliate Summit. With so many prizes donated for the first year, we can only imagine what next year holds.

Affiliate Day, September 14

Look good sporting this LinkTrust swag as the lucky winner of the contest sponsored by Affiliate Summit on September 14, newly crowned with the honor of being recognized as Affiliate Day.

To win all you have to do is tweet something on September 14 and include the hashtag: #affday09. According to the Affiliate Summit Blog the winners will be notified on September 18 by direct message, if you're following @affiliatesummit.

There are some other cool prizes up for grabs to, check out the Affiliate Summit Blog and see what else has been donated.

Treasure Hunt

One of the first emails of the day today started the entire office on a treasure hunt with the following clues:

Work Driving you crazy? Take a break!
The newest way to Cruise away the afternoon isn’t on the lake.
X doesn’t mark the spot at the end of this Road, look instead where the wild things Grow.
Race around the office, look high and low.
One more clue if I may,
The surfboard points the way.
You don’t have to go a mile,
You just have to find the right file.

Now we can practice our driving skills if we get tennis elbow or bored of baseball. Thanks for the MarioKart, Nate!

Users' Group Registration Available

Whether you've been on the system for years or are just starting to get the hang of it, we hope you'll take advantage of our Users' Group.

We will be hosting LinkTrust partners for three days of training. A tentative agenda follows:

Wed., Oct. 21
Training events geared to beginner-level users.
Meet, Greet & Eat
Thurs., Oct. 22
Training events geared to all-level users.
Dinner groups.
Fri., Oct. 23
Be Heard! User input on where LinkTrust should go in future versions. One-On-One Guru Time. Sign up to pick the brain of your favorite LInkTrust guru.

Go to: www.linktrust.com/usersgroup and register today!

Murray Newlands Interview

Murray Newlands, an affiliate blogger, recently caught up with Bret Grow, president of LinkTrust, for an interview.

Murray asked a lot of questions about the basics of LinkTrust and how we fit into the affiliate marketing industry. Bret was happy to share, giving his view of the industry, the areas that are ready to grow and even a little about himself.

Go here to see what Bret had to say: http://www.murraynewlands.com/index.php/2009/09/linktrust-president-bret-grow-an-interview/

Murray is an avid blogger who makes connections with many people in the industry, we're happy he could talk to Bret too!

Wii Baseball Tourney -- Round 1 Blowout

We are well underway in the LinkTrust Wii Baseball Tournament. The Round 1 match up we were all anticipating didn't disappoint. In a 6-0 blowout, Gary crushed Jeremy's dream of a third straight Wii Tournament championship.

Sporting the LinkTrust Threads

Mike Norman, from one of our fantastic partners Underground Elephant, showed up for work today in his LinkTrust shirt. We gave the shirts away at Affiliate Summit East in New York a couple of weeks ago.

More shirts will be available at our Users' Group in October and Affiliate Summit West, Las Vegas, in January.

Save the Date

Attention LinkTrust Partners:

We have spent the last year developing tips and techniques that will help each of you use LinkTrust 6.1 more effectively.

A great team of LinkTrust experts will be gathering in Salt Lake City, Oct. 21 - 23, 2009 for our annual LinkTrust Users' Group. During this incredible event, the LinkTrust team will be available for:
- Teaching the ins and outs of LinkTrust 6.1
- Discussing upcoming development plans for beyond 6.1
- One-on-one trouble shooting to address your most challenging LinkTrust questions
- And so much more!

In addition, we welcome your suggestions for sessions you would like to see. Please post your ideas in the comments section.

A more detailed outline of the training schedule and conference agenda will be coming shortly.

We hope to see you there!

Noodles and Company

A journey around the world for eight people? And absolutely free? Sure, sign me up!

Recently Bryan and seven lucky LinkTrust employees were treated to a noodle tasting at the Draper franchise of Noodles and Company. In a moment of inter-department bonding, the development team, Sicily from Accounting, Gavin from Business Services, and Kyna from Marketing and Sales experienced the unique tastes of the Asian and Mediterranean sections of their menu. Thanks to Bryan who threw his business card in the bowl, we all got to try some delicious food and talk to some people with whom we don’t interact on a daily basis. Nothing like Noodles to bring a company together!

ASE09: The making of the LinkTrust booth

Here is a video of the making of the LinkTrust booth. Enjoy!

Affiliate Summit East 2009

We’re back from Affiliate Summit East 2009 in New York City and have so many pictures, videos and stories to share; we decided to make the first post on the new LinkTrust blog dedicated to one of the biggest affiliate marketing conferences this year.

In our mega-booth at Affiliate Summit East this week we shared a forty-foot space with nine of our partners. Those nine partners were: BlinkAds, GetAds, Healthy Payout, MobiKlix, NicheMarketers, RateSpecial, Restoration Media, RevStars, and Underground Elephant. With so many networks in one booth everyone got the chance to meet new people and solidify relationships with old friends.

Some of the highlights of the trip include:
· Lunch at the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park

· BizMarkie
· Meet Market
· Exhibit Hall

The LinkTrust crew, Mindy, Carol-Lyn, Kyna, Frank, Jeremy and Bret, ready for the exhibit hall to open.

This picture is pretty dark, but you can see how many people were in the booth the whole time.

We are so excited that the booth turned out well and it was beneficial to everyone. We are already registered for Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas and plan to have even more partners in our booth. Contact Carol-Lyn if you want to find out more information: carol-lyn@linktrust.com.