Affiliate contests have become very popular in the last few years, as a way to motivate affiliates to make more sales for the merchant. There is nothing new to the concept, as its been used in offline commission-based sales industries for decades. Online merchants are offering incentives to their top affiliates, from vacations to Rolex watches to laptop computers, just to create a competitive sales drive. And it works.

Last week I sent out a note about an affiliate contest that I was involved with, and I also told you about it here on ClickNewz. The contest was for Stompernet affiliates, during their re-opening launch.

I took some heat for even mentioning Stompernet during their launch phase, which I’ll be discussing in more detail in an upcoming post. But I wanted to share the details of the affiliate contest with you first…

You may recall that I was specifically interested in winning a new Macbook Air, which they were giving away as a prize to anyone who achieved 500 opt-ins on one of their video release days.

I have 2 confessions to make:

First, I sent out the details on the wrong day. It wasnt a “video release day”. *oops lol* And second, I didnt reach the 500 mark.

Granted, I didnt do a full-on promotion for Stompernet. In fact, I mentioned it with full disclosure about the affiliate contest - specifically that I would love to win a new Macbook Air - and basically thought it would be cool to see if my community could pull together and make something like this happen.

There is a reason that I didnt promote Stompernet membership directly, by the way. Its not for everyone. Not at almost $800/month. But they did offer a free tool, and so it was a fun little 5-minute detour from our work-day to tell my readers about the freebie and the contest and see what kind of results we could get on this with a little “team effort”.

I didnt win a Macbook Air. I think I already made that obvious? Within an hour of sending out the note about the contest, I honestly didnt care if I won a ball-point ink pen. I received an overwhelming number of emails and comments that were worth far more to me than any affiliate prize…

THANK YOU for that. I cannot express how wonderful it was to have the support of so many of you - even just for a fun little contest. It truly made me realize the value of community.

Once all the dust settled on the Stompernet launch, I knew that I had won some kind of a prize. Outside of looking forward to seeing what that prize would be, I didnt think much else about it. It turns out it was a very nice prize though… I won a Westinghouse Digital Picture Frame. Wow!

Again - thank you.

But imagine my surprise when I opened an email from Stompernet that detailed out the prize standings in their affiliate contest… and realized that I had also won a brand new Samsung 50″ 1080p HD Television too!

WOW

It turns out that I was the big winner of the random affiliate drawing!

Cool, I know *grin*. So with that said, here is the rundown of the remaining affiliate contest prize winners for the recent Stompernet launch:

Frank Kern was the winner of the overall Affiliate Sales Contest, taking home a 70” LG high-def television. Here’s the whole rundown of the top 20 affiliates and the prizes they won:

1 Frank Kern - 70” LG high-def television
2 Rich Schefren - Palliser Trylogy Home Theatre Seats
3 Eben Pagan - Palliser Trylogy Home Theatre Seats
4 Jeff Walker - Richard Petty NASCAR Driving Experience
5 Dan Thies - Richard Petty NASCAR Driving Experience
T6 Ed Dale - Richard Petty NASCAR Driving Experience
T6 Howie Schwartz - Richard Petty NASCAR Driving Experience
8 Colette Marshall - Sony HDR-TG1 Video Camera
9 Matt Bredel - Sony HDR-TG1 Video Camera
10 Michael Rasmussen - Sony HDR-TG1 Video Camera
T11 John Reese - Wii Bundle with Wii Sports
T11 Keith Wellman - Wii Bundle with Wii Sports
T13 Cody Moya - Bose QuietComfort 3 Noise Cancelling Headphones
T13 Shawn Casey - Bose QuietComfort 3 Noise Cancelling Headphones
T13 Alex Mandossian - Bose QuietComfort 3 Noise Cancelling Headphones
T13 Jeff Johnson - Bose QuietComfort 3 Noise Cancelling Headphones
17 Jerry West - Apple iPod Touch 16gb
T18 Matthew Glanfield - Apple iPod Touch 16gb
T18 Ryan Deiss - Apple iPod Touch 16gb
T20 Scott Marlow - Garmin Nuvi 260 Automotive GPS
T20 Rudy Setiawan - Garmin Nuvi 260 Automotive GPS

In addition to these prizes given to the top 20 sales-driving affiliates, there were prizes given away to those who sent traffic and got “leads” (ie opt-in sign-ups). There were a total of 2 Macbook Airs given away, and those went to Frank Kern and Ryan Deiss.

Also given away were 17 Apple iPhones (8gb) w Apple Bluetooth, 4 Roomba Robotic Vacuum Cleaners, 16 Westinghouse Digital Picture Frames, and much more. Quite impressive.

Whether you’re a Stompernet fan or not I thought you might be interested in the affiliate contest standings. No doubt it created a bit of friendly competition between top affiliates, not only to earn those prizes - but also for the recognition as “top affiliate” in doing so. That in itself has incredibly high value for any super-affiliate.

Contests are cool and fun - and I’m pretty excited about my new 50″ TV and digital picture frame, of course - but if you walk away with anything from this post, let it be this:

In Internet Marketing, you either want to be a super-affiliate, or you want to attract super affiliates. And with that in mind, it pays to keep an eye on the top performing affiliates in any contest… and make note of who they are and what they are doing

Best,

p.s. I have quite a bit on my mind this weekend about this particular contest, the launch, and Internet Marketing in general. I am reviewing a few reports and making some notes of my own - so expect a full report on it all by Monday morning. I have quite a bit to share with you.

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In the meantime, have a great weekend!