New Affiliate Graphics Coming!
Monday, January 31st
It's been a long time coming, but in exactly one week from today, we'll be unveiling some new affiliate graphics that new affiliate team member Chris Smith has put together. The new graphics will replace the old graphics that we have available right now with updated designs, so if you're really attached to the current models, please take this week to save these images and host them somewhere.
We are making this replacement for two reasons. First, the old designs are pretty outdated and do not match the current theme of the zZounds site. We believe that the new designs, which are much more in line with our layout, should lead to better conversions. Second, by replacing the old designs directly, there is literally no work involved for you to change your old designs to the new ones.
In addition, we'll also be offering an expanded selection of our graphics to help you promote current zZounds drives like our Gear For Life giveaway, our installment payment program, and several other new initiatives launched in recent times.
Have a great week!
-Josh Kalvelage-
Affiliate Manager
zZounds.com
affiliate@zzounds.com
AIM: zZounds Affiliate
Phone: 877-626-1494
GearLink Affiliate Program
Wednesday, August 25th
As of today, the new GearLink Affiliate Program will replace the zZounds Affiliate Program.
There's no change for you:
- You continue to promote zZounds
- You continue to get paid the same great rates
- I will remain your contact
In short, you wouldn't even know if I didn't tell you.
GearLink has been handling our PayPal payments already and now will formally operate the affiliate program and issue all commission payments.
This change is now reflected in the affiliate agreement from your affiliate portal. If you would like a copy of the affiliate agreement prior to this change, please let me know, and I'd be more than happy to provide it to you.
Have a great week!
-Josh Kalvelage-
Affiliate Manager
zZounds.com
affiliate@zzounds.com
AIM: zZounds Affiliate
Phone: 877-626-1494
Changes to Affiliate Agreements
Wednesday, August 4th
In order to clarify certain aspects of the affiliate agreement, we have added a new term to section 4 of the existing agreement. We have added the following paragraph:
CSE Advertising Restrictions: You may not list zZounds products on any third party comparison shopping engine, whether linking directly or indirectly to zZounds.com. We reserve the right to suspend or deactivate any account from the program until your account is in compliance with this section of the agreement.
If you have any questions about this addition or anything affiliate program related, feel free to contact me!
Have a great week!
-Josh Kalvelage-
Affiliate Manager
zZounds.com
affiliate@zzounds.com
AIM: zZounds Affiliate
Phone: 877-626-1494
zZounds Now Ships to Canada and U.S. Territories!
Friday, March 19th
As of today, zZounds is now able to ship to Canada and more U.S. Territories! Now, you can target a wider selection of your traffic. We expect that these new customers, especially Canadian customers, would be a great audience for our affiliates to reach.
Some things to note:
- Not all of our products are eligible to ship outside the U.S. Products eligible to go to Canada are marked on our site with a Canadian flag -- both in search results and on the product pages.
- While Free Shipping is a huge selling point for many of our U.S. customers, there will be additional fees when shipping outside the U.S. If you choose to promote both Free Shipping and shipping to Canada / U.S. Territories, please make this distinction clear.
If you are interested in promoting to Canadian traffic and have any questions, feel free to contact me!
Have a great week!
-Josh Kalvelage-
Affiliate Manager
zZounds.com
affiliate@zzounds.com
AIM: zZounds Affiliate
Phone: 877-626-1494
Affiliate Reports Just Got Faster!
Tuesday, March 9th
Our developers have been working hard behind the scenes to improve our reporting system, and some of you may have already noticed faster loading times on your affiliate reports. If there are any other areas that you think could use improvement, let me know by email at
affiliate@zzounds.com. I'm always looking for ways to improve the program.
If you have any additional questions regarding anything else related to the affiliate program, feel free to send them my way.
Have a great week!
-Josh Kalvelage-
Affiliate Manager
zZounds.com
affiliate@zzounds.com
AIM: zZounds Affiliate
Phone: 877-626-1494
PayPal Payment Option Now Available!
Tuesday, February 16th
We're pleased to announce that the zZounds affiliate program is introducing a new way to receive your affiliate commissions. Starting this month, we will now be offering PayPal as a payment option through a new service called GearLink. PayPal offers a fast, paperless way to receive your commissions. If you'd still prefer to receive commission payments by check, there is no need to reply.
To sign up for PayPal payments:
- Please send an email to affiliate@zzounds.com indicating that you would like to switch your payment method from check to PayPal transfer.
- Include your affiliate ID and the PayPal email address where we can transfer the funds. We recommend that if your PayPal email address is different from the email address on file with us, you authorize us to switch the email on your affiliate account to your PayPal email address.
If you have any additional questions regarding the new payment method, or any questions or suggestions related to the affiliate program, feel free to send them my way.
Have a great week!
-Josh Kalvelage-
Affiliate Manager
zZounds.com
affiliate@zzounds.com
AIM: zZounds Affiliate
Phone: 877-626-1494
New Affiliate Team Member!
Thursday, June 11th
zZounds is happy to announce the newest member of our affiliate department, Liz Lasko! Liz has been doing a great job thus far helping to administrate our growing affiliate program, and her addition to the staff will allow us both to continue providing the best level of service we can to all of our partners in an even speedier manner. You can reach Liz via the
affiliate@zzounds.com Affiliate Program email address.
Please don't hesitate to contact us with any questions or requests that will help improve your affiliate marketing efforts. We love to hear from our affiliates, so if you've got program feedback or just want to bounce ideas off of us for future campaigns, let us know!
Have a great week!
-Josh Kalvelage-
Affiliate Manager
zZounds.com
affiliate@zzounds.com
AIM: zZounds Affiliate
Phone: 877-626-1494
zZounds Affiliate Contact Info Update
Hello Affiliates
*New Affiliate Contact Info*
As some of you may know already, Mike Payne has parted ways with the zZounds affiliate program to pursue some of his own endeavors, which have been highly successful for him. Mike played a massively integral role in the development of the zZounds affiliate program and he was always very helpful, knowledgeable and personable -- almost making up for the fact that he's a Detroit Pistons fan. We wish Mike continued success in the world of affiliate marketing.
I will be stepping up to fill Mike's big shoes as zZounds affiliate manager, and as always, you can feel welcome to come to me with any questions, suggestions and consultation requests. I've updated my contact information and have a new toll-free phone number and instant messager. The new info is listed below.
I look forward to hearing from you all, and wish you all a successful 2009!
-Josh Kalvelage
zZounds Affiliate Manager
AIM: zZoundsAffiliate
E-Mail: affiliate@zzounds.com
Phone: 877-626-1494
zZounds Affiliate Starter Kit
Hello Affiliates!
*zZounds Affiliate Starter Kit Now Available*
When joining a new affiliate program, most affiliates are provided nothing more than a few links and banners from their merchants. Even less offer special tools like deep linking, data feeds and otherwise. Less so actually provide a human affiliate manager (much less two) that you can work with to build a profitable partnership. Fortunately zZounds has always been one of these programs. Over the years, we've learned so much from our affiliates and have shared so many tips, pointers, suggestions and ideas with our partners. But if an affiliate didn't pick up the phone, email us or send us an IM-- they'd be missing out on all these tips and tricks... until now, of course.
We'd like to formally introduce the zZounds Affiliate Starter Kit-- a 9 page PDF document that acts as an informative orientation to the zZounds affiliate program. In this starter kit, we provide details such as these:
- Why shoppers choose zZounds
- Why affiliates choose zZounds in our niche
- The different methods affiliates use to promote zZounds
- How to use the zZounds website as a marketing research tool
- How to target zZounds customers and keywords
- How to use content and datafeeds to promote zZounds
- How to use zZounds affiliate managers to help your PPC campaigns
- How to integrate zZounds into your mall/coupon site
- How and why to communicate with your team, the zZounds affiliate managers
The Affiliate Starter Kit is not just designed for new affiliates, it was developed with all zZounds affiliates in mind. I encourage you to take a look, enjoy the quick read and share with us your thoughts. See that link to the left sidebar, showing Affiliate starter kit? Click on that or the handy link in that last sentence-- and enjoy. You'll need Acrobat or other PDF software, which you can get from Adobe. Oh, and as an added bonus, you'll get to see what your humble affiliate managers would look like as cartoon rock stars!
Take a moment, read the starter kit, and contact Josh or myself to discuss! Thanks affiliates, here's to a big month in April!
-Mike Payne-
Affiliate Manager
zZounds.com
affiliate@zzounds.com
...and Josh!
-Josh Kalvelage-
Affiliate Admin
zZounds.com
affiliate@zzounds.com
AIM: GearAffiliate2
Holiday Season Bonuses, Affiliate Starter Kit on the Way!
Hello Affiliates!
The holiday shopping season is underway, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday right around the corner. We expect this to be our greatest holiday season yet, and we're excited to have our affiliates participating for huge commissions. We've love to work with you to set a target and a bonus for your December performance of this year. If you were with the zZounds affiliate program last holiday season and wish to set up a private target and bonus, email myself or josh at
affiliate@zzounds.com. We'll set a target compared to last year's performance and reward you accordingly.
*Affiliate Starter Kit*
We've been hard at work on developing a starter kit for new zZounds affiliates. This starter kit is packed with information on how to be a success with the zZounds program. We encourage even our oldest and most successful zZounds affiliates to take a peek- you might learn a trick or two on how to make even more money with zZounds. We expect this to be available by the end of November, so keep your eyes peeled here for updates. We'll be sending out a newsletter announcement as well, so either way you're bound to hear from us!
Have a happy Thanksgiving everyone. We look forward to a very profitable holiday shopping season for our partners. Best of luck!
-Mike Payne-
Affiliate Manager
zZounds.com
affiliate@zzounds.com
AIM: GearAffiliate
...and Josh!
-Josh Kalvelage-
Affiliate Admin
zZounds.com
affiliate@zzounds.com
AIM: GearAffiliate2
New Affiliate Manager Contact Info, New Member of our Staff!
Wednesday, March 14th
The zZounds affiliate program continues to grow, thanks to our affiliates! To ensure that we can continue to provide a top notch level of service, we've added a new member to our affiliate management team. zZounds welcomes Josh Kalvelage to its affiliate marketing department. Josh is new to affiliate marketing, but he fits the role very well, and has done a great job to help keep our partners happy. Feel free to say hello and welcome Josh to the family.
Thanks for reading, and have a great week!
Have a great week!
-Mike Payne-
Affiliate Manager
zZounds.com
affiliate@zzounds.com
...and Josh!
-Josh Kalvelage-
Affiliate Admin
zZounds.com
affiliate@zzounds.com
AIM: GearAffiliate2
Affiliate Checks will be mailed Wednesday, January 31st
Tuesday, January 30th
Hi all! Affiliate payments for commissions earned in November will be mailed tomorrow, Wednesday, January 31st. While we typically mail checks around 45 days after the close of a month to allow for returns to accrue, we'll be mailing them later than usual this month. In February, payments will resume their normal schedule on or around the 15th of the month. For other questions about our payment schedule, see our FAQ here:
http://www.zzounds.com/aff--FAQ
Have a great week!
-Mike Payne-
Affiliate Manager
zZounds.com
affiliate@zzounds.com
AIM: GearAffiliate
Viva Las Vegas, Affiliate Summit West 2007
Friday, January 19th
I will be out of the office between Monday, January 22nd through Wednesday, January 24th, attending the Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas. If you'll be there, I'd love to meet you! You can reach me on my cell at 312.404.1592 during the conference. If you can't attend, feel free to give me a call at 312.276.0180 after Thursday, January 24th. I'll be happy to share any news, tips, or resources I bring back from the Summit.
Have a great week!
-Mike Payne-
Affiliate Manager
zZounds.com
affiliate@zzounds.com
AIM: GearAffiliate
Winter NAMM is right around the corner!
The Auto Show of musical instruments is just over a week away. This year, over 1400 music gear manufacturers will show their wares to music retailers and musicians alike in Anaheim, California. Winter NAMM always brings big news, as the top musical instrument brands will be releasing some lusty new products.
What does that mean for zZounds affiliates? Your visitors will follow the NAMM news pretty closely, and want to know what new guitars, keyboards, microphones or studio software will be coming out. While much of the newly announced gear may not be immediately released, we'll keep you informed on when it hits retail and when your visitors will be ready to buy. By early February, we'll be releasing a spring marketing guide which will show you what products we expect to be hot for the coming year. Until then, have a happy new year- and keep your eye on the NAMM news!
-Mike Payne-
Affiliate Manager
zZounds.com
affiliate@zzounds.com
AIM: GearAffiliate
