Steve Schaffer

The LinkShare Golden Link Awards are recognized as a sign of achievement in performance marketing. This year LinkShare received hundreds of nominations – the most ever. The awards were given today in New York. They were presented by members from one of the funniest comedy troupes working today, the Upright Citizens Brigade.

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I founded Vertive, Inc. in May 2003 in Palo Alto, CA. In Jan of 2004 my family and I moved to Austin, TX. I had gone to the University of Texas and graduated in May 1986. I had always liked Austin and we thought it would be a good place to raise a family and grow the business. Vertive grew at a nice pace in 2004 and 2005. We began publishing affiliate websites that each focused on a unique vertical. We built some good sites and technology.

While I attended my first CJU in Sept. 2003, I kept a pretty low profile in the affiliate industry until Sept. 2006 when I was on [my first panel at CJU]. After that I became more active and in April 2007 was asked to be an initial member of the CJ Publishers Advisory Board. In 2008 I helped launch the Performance Marketing Association (PMA) and I was elected to the board and serve as the first president. The PMA’s goal is to help grow the industry and raise the profile of performance marketing by demonstrating the value of this multi-billion marketing channel, which comprises more than 200,000 businesses and individuals.

I am now a frequent presenter and panelist at industry conferences. In 2009 I participated in 13 sessions at a total of 9 conferences, including Affiliate Summit Las Vegas & New York, LinkShare University, ad:tech San Francisco & NY. Topics I spoke on included The Future of Performance Marketing, Creating Lasting Publisher and Advertiser Relationships, Affiliate Marketing: A Better Alternative and others.
So after all this, have I decided I also need a Blog? I am not sure. I think part of it is that I have more to say and share than I can on panels and advisory boards.

I will be posting on such topics including: performance and affiliate marketing, starting a business, domains, marketing & branding, and other random observations. Please check back and feel free to comment on any of my posts.

The Beginning
Affiliate marketing largely began with niche and community Websites adding affiliate links to promote specific merchants or products. In the case of Amazon, any Website could add a “virtual bookstore” to their Website by joining and using Amazon’s Associate (Affiliate) Program.

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