Top Affiliate Challenge Wraps Up – An Overall Success

Yesterday the last of the Top Affiliate Challenge Contestants headed home.  I took a day today off the grid to ground myself back into real reality and refocus on saome other projects.

Over the next week or two we are planning to do a complete post-morteum on the show.  We are going to identify things that worked, things that could have gone better, and most importantly, re-edit some of the early episodes.

Just off the cuff, the show was an amazing success.  While we didn’t make a pile of cash or win an oscar or anything, we demonstrated that what we set out to do could be done.  Could it be done better?  Of course.  But to everyone who told us it could not be done at all, WE DID IT.

This was a pilot season designed as a proof of concept.  We needed to create a show that would draw the eyeballs of one of the most desired demographics in the affiliate marketing industry – up and coming affiliate marketers.  It was pretty clear that the experienced guys out there thought the show was a bit elementary for their tastes, but they were not our target audience.

There is no doubt in my mind that all 12 of the contestants on our show learned from the experience and are better affiliate marketers because of it.  Even our show’s winner, Jonathan Van Clute picked up some tidbits that he had never considered before.

While the show was a success through the prisim of its own internal goals, it is important to note that it was a success for our sponsors as well.

To be a part of the show this season, affiliate networks had to pay $1,500 to have their offers available to the contestants.  Just about all of the participating networks had $1,500 or more pumped back through their networks, making the show an extremely affordable advertising and awareness vehicle.

There are definately some things we will improve for Season 2, and interest from potential sponsors is already trickling in.  We should have an early-bird rate card by mid August.

Unless something massive changes, we do plan to hold the show in Nebraska again next season.  Knock it if you want, but its where the show is going to be because that is where over 70% of our sponsors were from Season 1.