Listen to host Deborah Carney in a roundtable discussion about how affiliate marketing got started and how it has evolved with some of the people that have been in it since the beginning. Are they in the same place they were when they started? Where do they see the industry going?

Listen as panelists Todd Farmer, Todd Crawford, Connie Arnold, Scott Jangro and Brian Littleton have a lively discussion, history you probably don’t know, and as they answer some burning questions about the beginnings of our awesome industry. Our industry is so young that we want to capture the thoughts about it’s growth some of the leaders in the industry. No one currently in our industry wanted to grow up to be an affiliate or affiliate manager, the jobs didn’t exist. But now, there are many young people whose parents are in the industry and they kinda would like to do what Mom and/or Dad does.

Let us know what you think about this format! Who would you like on a future podcast in this style? Or would you just like to hear more from this crew? 🙂

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Merchant ABCs is well under development, with several podcasts of interest to merchants that are considering launching an affiliate program or that already have one. Merchant ABCs podcast #5 is all about what a merchant should expect from their affiliate program, realistic goals and results. While we would love to be able to offer consulting and coaching for every company that contacts us, realistically many companies just aren’t ready. So we created Merchant ABCs podcasts to give those companies a place to start.

We are also considering launching a training series  that will train merchants on what an affiliate program consists of, what they need to do to implement one, and how to decide if they should manage their program internally or hire a dedicated employee or an Outsourced Program Manager (OPM). Some companies want to “do it themselves” so we decided to help them do just that for a fraction of the cost of one on one consulting and managing. Sign up at Merchant ABCs to be notified when the training is live.