Worlds Collide: Mahalo and Affiliate Marketing
11 March 2008 – 12:08 amSaw this in Twitter tonight
I’m no longer an affiliate. Jason Calacanis is now an affiliate. My head is spinning. At least equilibrium is retained. You win one, you lose one.
(OK, if you haven’t been keeping up, I am actually still an affiliate marketer, among other things. I was just making a point last week.)
This is actually really good, and the sort of stuff that comes out of the discussions that get started from controversial events like Jason’s keynote at Affiliate Summit.
Coming off that talk, where Jason promoted strongly the importance of disclosure of affiliate links, he’ll now be faced with that same question on Mahalo. And thanks to the astute Shawn Collins, he’s facing it already:
I replied, and would say more there, but i don’t think he’s following me. Alas.
If he groups them all into a single section, they’ll be easy to label as “sponsored links”.
But affiliate marketing allows for such tighter integration, down to a text link embedded into some copy, like on the much more text-centric Mahalo how-tos. Disclosure on those sorts of links get a bit trickier. Label the link itself? Put a disclaimer at the page level somewhere?
It’s on pages like how-tos that affiliate marketing, disclosed or not, can pay off. But will such easily tuneable monetization cause bias on pages like this?
Further, affiliate Marketing has some nice features that Jason may be able to apply to Mahalo and the Greenhouse model. Every transaction that happens through an affiliate link can be tracked and traced back to the exact click. From here he can track exactly what’s working and what’s not, ditch the losers, keep the winners, and even implement a rev-share with the editors. Oooh.
Careful though. Money changes everything. You don’t need to look much beyond Squidoo to see that.
Added: Sam caught this too.
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26 Responses to “Worlds Collide: Mahalo and Affiliate Marketing”
My head just imploded.
By Seduction Tips on Mar 11, 2008
haha! that is super, mahalo how has the opportunity finally actually turn out to be a profitable startup.
Best of luck to jason as he finds out how cool “this affiliate marketing stuff” is.
By Pranav Chavda on Mar 11, 2008
Thanks for information here, I think gaining understanding for this subject is really important. The more we know the better we deal in different type of situations that we come across.
By Hag Smileys on Mar 11, 2008
That is so funny….
By Vlad on Mar 11, 2008
He better hide those links in redirects
It’s going to be instant revenue stream with the traffic Mahalo gets (http://alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/mahalo.com), rev share with editors is probably the way to go as you suggested, and you r right, money changes everything, hello Squidoo 
By Damien on Mar 11, 2008
I’m anxious to see how it turns out.
I’d say it’s a branding win for CJ that they seemed to epitomize affiliate marketing to Jason.
By Shawn Collins on Mar 11, 2008
Ya, I also noticed that his Amazon links are now affiliate links too. His amazon id is mozilla-20.
By Jason Forthofer on Mar 11, 2008
Good catch, Jason. I looked at the amazon links specifically when this stuff all started a few weeks ago and didn’t notice any associate id (with the telling “-20″) on there.
So yeah, I do believe that’s new.
By Scott on Mar 11, 2008
I looked up the definition of “Mahalo” and found…
Mahalo: Thank you. Seen on the lid of trash cans.
Irony seems to follow me around these days.
By Pat Grady on Mar 11, 2008
I don’t notice the amazon affiliate links on everything, but where I do see it, it’s not labeled “Sponsored”. I was looking on his ‘disney movies’ page.
By Jason Forthofer on Mar 11, 2008
Right, I was looking for the “sponsored” designation before, but since they weren’t affiliate links, it was ok.
Now it seems they are affiliate links, and clearly things are in transition.
Personally, I’m cutting him slack as he figures it all out.
By Scott on Mar 11, 2008
Calacanis bought 20.com while working at Sequoia and coming up with the idea that would become Mahalo. I’m guessing he registered the Amazon stuff while the working name was 20.com.
By Sam Harrelson on Mar 11, 2008
I think that’s a coincidence, Sam.
If I remember correctly, Amazon does, or did, for some reason have a -20 on the end of the associate ID in the links. Mine always had jangro-20 in them.
It’s been years, so I could be remembering that wrong.
By Scott on Mar 11, 2008
LOL, and this is the reason I will never ever use Mahalo for search. Also, somewhat related, one day google will have to break into three companies (adsense,adwords,search). They say sites that use adsense dont rank higher in organic SERP, but do you really believe that?
By Marc on Mar 11, 2008
Sam - coincidence I believe. I’ve created recent affiliate tags in amazon and they all end with the -20.
By Jason Forthofer on Mar 11, 2008
Yep, my amazon links always had -20 as most do.
“Ya, I also noticed that his Amazon links are now affiliate links too. His amazon id is mozilla-20″
Don’t think that’s his id. Mozilla is Firefox and company.
By Jonathan (Trust) on Mar 11, 2008
I think mozilla-20 is the Mozilla Foundation’s Amazon affiliate code. In other words, any Amazon affiliate links on Mahalo send potential income to a non-profit organization that “provides support for Mozilla open source software projects.” (Quote from mozilla.org.)
Full disclosure: I’m one of the Community Managers of the Mahalo Greenhouse. http://greenhouse.mahalo.com
By Matthew Wayne Selznick on Mar 11, 2008
> If I remember correctly, Amazon does, or did, for some reason have a -20 on the end of the associate ID in the links. Mine always had jangro-20 in them.
Newbie - when did you join Amazon’s program?
My original account is over 10 years old and I don’t have the -20.
By Shawn Collins on Mar 11, 2008
newbie, huh?
It was probably about 10 years ago for me.
By Scott on Mar 11, 2008
Matthew, thanks for the info.
What does that mean?
Mahalo is donating commissions to Mozilla?
Seems like the sort of thing that disclosure on affiliate links might clear up, eh?
By Scott on Mar 11, 2008
I’m new to this “work from home” business and still learning everyday. Thanks for the info.
By work from home on May 7, 2008
Not to resurrect this post, but just noticed that Mahalo now has affiliate links to amazon and they are marked (Sponsored). Amazon id is mahalo-20
By Jason Forthofer on May 9, 2008