.

Over the next 46 days we are giving our valued affiliates an opportunity to validate their awesomeness by participating in the Peapod Awards. Your efforts will be acknowledged with a respected title and uber-cool Peapod merchandise.

New affiliates are welcome to participate by signing up to OfferForge

Each winner will receive a: Frisbee, Yo-Yo, Mini Flashlight, Gift Bag, Chip Clip, Plastic Bag Holder , T-Shirt, Antibacterial Wipe and Travel Mug

Prize Categories

1. Most improved affiliate – determined by the affiliate who shows the most growth.
2. Highest performing affiliate – determined by the affiliate that generates the most acquisitions.
3. Most loyal affiliate – determined by our oldest acquisition producing affiliate.
4. Most innovative use of Peapod advertising – enough said, blow us away and its yours.
5. Best Peapod viral video advertisement/vlog (video blog) – no porno, please.
6. Best blog entry, with Peapod affiliate link – think you’re a great writer/reviewer?
7. First sale generated – determined by a random draw of any affiliate that generates their first sale during the competition period that has not yielded an acquisition over the last 12 months.
8. Most consistent affiliate – determined by the affiliate that has consistently produced at least 10 acquisitions in the last 12 months.
9. Most innovative award category – determined by the affiliate that suggests the best category for the last prize.
10. The winner in the winning category suggested by the winner of category nine – yes, it does make sense.

N.B. To qualify for categories 4, 5, 6 and 9, you are required to email your entry (URL and/or copy) to peapod@forgebusiness.com.

Contact Info:
Reshall Jimmy – Account Manager
US: 1-800-841-1369
UK: 0808-234-7039
CA: 1-866-761-5644
Intl: +27-12-640-1000
peapod@forgebusiness.com

Terms and Conditions

(1) You must provide ForgeBusiness with your name, email or postal address if you wish to enter this competition. (2) ForgeBusiness will only ever use your personal details for the purposes of administering this competition, and will not publish them or provide them to anyone without your permission. (3) To qualify for categories 4, 5, 6 and 9, you are required to email your entry (URL and/or copy) to peapod@forgebusiness.com. (4) The deadline for receiving entries for the competition is final. No entries received after the given date will be considered. (5) The judge’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into. (6)Winners will be contacted personally. (7) The prize(s) must be taken as stated and cannot be deferred. There will be no cash alternatives. (8) ForgeBusiness does not accept any responsibility for late or lost entries. Proof of sending is not proof of receipt. (9) No responsibility is accepted for non comprehensible entries or entries made fraudulently. (10) This competition is not open to employees or contractors of Peapod or ForgeBusiness, any person directly or indirectly involved in Peapod or ForgeBusiness or the running of the competition, or their direct family members. (11) ForgeBusiness reserves the right to cancel this competition at any stage, if deemed necessary in its opinion, and if circumstances arise outside of its control. (12) Prizes that cannot be delivered due to incorrect details provided will be deemed to have been forfeited and the ForgeBusiness reserves the right to either offer the prize to the entrant whose name is next drawn at random, or to re-offer the prize in any future competition. (13) Entrants will be deemed to have accepted these rules and to agree to be bound by them when entering this competition. (14) This competition is administered by ForgeBusiness. (15) The closing date for the competition is 30 November 2008. (16) Only one entry will be accepted per person.

Summer – what does it mean to you?

Warm days spent by the pool? Having picnics and BBQs with family and friends? Getting active and stripping away the excess weight that found its way onto your body over the winter period?

Whatever summer means to you, be sure to catch the summer fever with our latest product, NutriFilter™. NutriFilter™ is already making a big impact since its launch. In case you’ve been hibernating the past few weeks, here’s the scoop on NutriFilter™:

NutriFilter™ allows the consumer to make smart food choices quickly and easily. It sifts through all products and highlights the products that meet the consumer’s dietary needs and nutritional requirements. No more reading labels or deciphering nutritional information – NutriFilter™ works that out for you.

By promoting NutriFilter™, you offer added value to your current visitors plus NutriFilter™ is a great product to use to attract new customers.

Once you make customers aware of NutriFilter™, NutriFilter™ sells itself. Why wouldn’t customers want to make their shopping more convenient, informative and nutritional?

Best of all, by promoting NutriFilter™ to your new and existing customers, you also give them the gift of more free time – to really enjoy everything that summer means to them!

Have fun!

Not part of the program yet? Click here to join

After walking your first full circle (you realize that you went around in a circle by landing up at the door that you used to enter the room!), you try again. This time you have better luck because the skin from your shins has left mental markers on the territory that you have already covered.

This experience is similar to promoting an affiliate program that does not offer item tracking. You have to do a lot of “ground work” (testing different keywords, banners, product links, etc) before you reach your goals. Item tracking simplifies this process by allowing you to see the actual items that you are selling. This provides you with a real advantage over your competitors because you are now able to target relevant products at you audience. Gone are the days of promoting a polka dot bikini to your visitor, who is a sandal-loving-surfer-dude. By targeting the products that your consumers are interested in, you will drastically increase your conversion rate. Couple this with our awesome product feed (available via the interface) and you are on your way to earning serious commissions!

If you have not have not absorbed the message yet – the Beckersurf.com affiliate program now offers item tracking!!! To all of our loyal affiliates that are already producing awesome results: Consider this as a “thank you”. To all new affiliates: Consider this as a huge titanium carrot…..seed. We have planted it for you; it’s up to you to grow it.

Let us know if you have any questions regarding item tracking or the product feed. For more information on the affiliate program, or to join, click here.

LinkConnector Welcomes Top 500 Online Retailer, Peapod, and Produces A Fruitful New Affiliate Marketing Program

The launch of the new Peapod Program in the LinkConnector Affiliate Marketing Network gives affiliates something to bite into.

Cary, NC – April 24, 2008 – LinkConnector (http://www.linkconnector.com/), a leading Affiliate Marketing Network with progressive solutions for merchants and affiliates, announced today that Peapod (http://www.peapod.com), America’s largest online grocery delivery and shopping service, has launched an affiliate marketing program in the LinkConnector Network. The recently launched Peapod Program offers affiliates a competitive per sale commission structure based on affiliate performance. The Peapod name garners strong conversion rates and drives a high annual sales volume. The online grocer gives testament to this with its position among the top 500 retail sites found on the web, according to the Internet Retailer’s Top 500 Guide.

Affiliates promoting the Peapod Program through LinkConnector will earn revenue while providing their visitors with a smart grocery-shopping solution for busy schedules. The Peapod program pays its affiliates a tiered commission based on the number of new customers the affiliate drives to the Peapod website. An affiliate earns $12 per sale when they drive their first new customer to Peapod, and then up to $20 per sale once they begin driving 50 new customers or more to Peapod. The online grocer is excited to reward its affiliate partners with this premium payout and can do so given LinkConnector’s cost effective service solution.

“Given that LinkConnector’s pricing remains among the lowest in the industry, we have greater flexibility to reward our affiliates more for their effective traffic,” said Reshall Jimmy, Senior Affiliate Manager for ForgeBusiness.com, the Affiliate Management Agency of Record that manages all the affiliate relationships for Peapod, LLC. “Our affiliates come first. With the high quality support we receive through our LinkConnector service package, we are able to go the extra mile for our affiliate partners. We expect to reach new goals in our affiliate channel, and increase both our bottom line and those of our affiliate partners.”

Founded in 1989 as a smart shopping option for busy people, Peapod today stands as the country’s leading Internet grocer, serving 18 U.S. markets, primarily in the Northeast. With more than 10,000 products for shoppers to choose from, Peapod boasts not just the expected selection of grocery basics, but also farm-fresh produce, restaurant-quality meats and much more. For a fee as low as $6.95, most customers can place orders for delivery as soon as next-day. “The biggest hurdle was convincing consumers they could shop online and still maintain control over the quality of their picks,” says Andrew Parkinson, company founder and president. “That’s been Peapod’s cornerstone all along.”

The Peapod Affiliate Marketing Program is open to PPC affiliates (although they do have keyword restrictions), email and coupon affiliates. Historically, these affiliate categories have been top performers. With the launch of their program in the LinkConnector Network, LinkConnector provides its affiliates with another Internet Retailer Top 500 Merchant offer, according to the 2007 edition of Internet Retailer’s Top 500 Guide to Retail Web Sites. Affiliates, it’s time for produce.

About Peapod, LLC
Founded in 1989 by brothers Andrew and Thomas Parkinson, Peapod has grown to be one of America’s leading Internet grocers. Peapod is a wholly owned subsidiary of international food provider Royal Ahold, and works in partnership with Ahold USA supermarket companies including Stop & Shop and Giant Food.

Peapod combines the value of a well-priced, diverse product selection with the ease of Internet shopping and delivery. Peapod serves 18 U.S. markets including the metro areas of Chicago, Milwaukee, Boston, Suburban N.Y. and Washington, D.C., and communities in the states of Illinois, Wisconsin, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, Rhode Island and New Jersey.

To join the Peapod LinkConnector Affiliate Program, visit: https://www.linkconnector.com/affiliateprogram.htm?mid= 23818.

About ForgeBusiness

ForgeBusiness is a specialist multi-network outsourced affiliate management agency that works with leading Fortune 1000 companies and high impact startups to develop innovative affiliate marketing strategies. The company manages Financial Services, FMCG, Health & Wellness, Apparel & Jewellery and many other programs in the USA, Europe, Asia and South Africa. Founded in South Africa by industry veteran, speaker, blogger and relentless traveller, Jonathan Miller, in 2001 the company has fast become a market leader in the affiliate management industry. Forge employs 26 Affiliate Managers, Recruiters, Technologists, Copywriters, Web,-creative, -development & supporting staff who toil relentlessly for 18 hours a day to forge relationships with affiliates in 24 time zones! For more information on Forge visit www.forgebusiness.com

About LinkConnector.com
LinkConnector is an Affiliate Marketing network, helping merchants and affiliates increase online sales. LinkConnector is redefining affiliate marketing with its ground-breaking technologies like Naked Link Technology®, Affiliate Connections^TM, Pending Sale functionality, and Virtual Affiliate^TM tracking. Naked Link Technology gives merchants a way to boost their organic rankings while they promote their site on LinkConnector’s Network. Affiliate Connections provides affiliates with a quick and dynamic system to determine optimal promotions for their sites. LinkConnector’s Pending Sale functionality opens up pay-per-sale campaigns to any merchant who begins their sale process online. Virtual Affiliate tracking allows merchants to track, in real time, virtual affiliates such as organic search engines. Equipped with LinkConnector’s new technologies, merchants and affiliates can take their affiliate marketing efforts to new levels of success.

Affiliates join free at http://www.linkconnector.com/affiliatejoin.htm.
For a limited time, Merchant set up fees are waived. To join for free, visit http://www.linkconnector.com/merchantjoin.htm.

Celebrate National Nutrition Month with Our New Shopping tool, Nutrifilter^TM!

Nutrifilter^TM is a powerful new tool that helps make smart food choices quick and easy. It identifies whether products conform to certain dietary plans or nutritional elements.

To help you promote this feature we have uploaded new creative which is targeted towards health-conscious and workaholic consumers who don’t always have the time to check the product labels when they’re shopping for groceries.

We are expecting NutriFilter to have a great impact on new customers. NutriFilter will definitely attract a lot of interest and we’re confident that it will allow our affiliates to take their efforts to the next level.

We have included some of the new creative in this newsletter along with a brief overview on NutriFilter.

New Creative

Here are some of the new banners

*If you can’t see the animations, please click on the banners to preview them in your browser

Nutrifilter™ Overview

NutriFilter helps you make smart food choices quickly and easily by sifting through all products and highlighting the ones that meet your nutritional goals.

It identifies whether products conform to certain dietary plans or nutritional elements. The plans may be popular diets that Peapod sets up for anyone to use, or the plan can be created by the user to achieve specific dietary goals.

Once the user has chosen which plan they would like to use (popular or custom), the items meeting the user’s profile will be sorted to the top of the product shelf and assigned a icon. This means that there is no need to read product labels or decipher nutritional panels; Nutrilfilter does all that for you.

Support Information

Let us know if you require assistance, have any questions or have any suggestions.

Kind Regards,

Reshall Jimmy
Account Manager

US: 1-800-841-1369
UK: 0808-234-7039
CA: 1-866-761-5644
Intl: +27-12-665-5088

From the desk of Mark Marovich, manager of Beckersurf.com

“Hey Mark, Keith is going back to school, you’re the new ‘affiliate guy’” – and so it came to be, Beckersurf.com’s manager, part time customer service agent, part time shipper, part time product packer, part time fraud analyzer, and part time logistics manager became Beckersurf.com’s part time “affiliate” guy. Yep, that’s a lot of “part time” duties but hey, we were having fun, orders were increasing at a rapid pace, and, come on, how hard can this affiliate business be anyways, I mean, if Keith was doing it!

Did I know the affiliate world or even know our own program? Not really, but what did I know about any of this online stuff a couple years back? With this high level of blissful ignorance I cracked opened the virtual CJ 101 textbook and introduced myself to our existing partners, quickly realizing the difference between not knowing anything about the affiliate world and not knowing ANYTHING about the affiliate world!

“I thought you guys had abandoned your program? Nice to meet you Mark, do you have any new ______(incentives, banners, promotions)? Is your payout structure going to remain the same? What about a tiered platform? Can I get on your CJ newsletter list?” The questions kept pouring in, then all the requests to join from a seemingly random assortment of affiliates (who were these people, there are thousands of them?!)….EPC, CR, Advanced Link, Advertiser Smart Zone, Coupons, AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

It quickly became obvious that I/we were over our heads with the limited time that could be afforded to our affiliates considering our size and growth. Shortly thereafter we were approached by our knights in shinning affiliate armor, Forge Business, just in time to re-resurrect an affiliate program on life support.

Wary of the sales pitches’ norm to any online operation, I can’t say that we had to restrain ourselves from immediately signing a partnership agreement with Forge, but we were intrigued and genuinely liked these guys. We are not a company that throws $’s at every marketing opportunity and approach each marketing/advertising avenue with a high level of skepticism. Ferdie and Reshall did not give us the hard sell, rather they explained to us the world that they and all the crew at Forge are deeply knowledgeable and active in, leading us to realize what we were leaving on the plate by not being proactive with our affiliate program.

With the go ahead from ownership (”this better work!”) and a hop of faith, we partnered with Forge Business in 2006 and the partnership began to pay off almost immediately. After some “getting to know you” sessions, validating one of Forge’s mottos that you must know your clients to succeed, our EPC, ratings within our categories, and sales started to move up dramatically and haven’t stopped. We are now at the point whereby we rest easy knowing this large segment of total sales is being handled professionally and competently. But there is no satisfaction with the Forge team for what’s been done, as all eyes are trained forward.

Could we have done this on our own? Not a chance without bringing someone in-house that has the knowledge necessary to run a profitable affiliate program…but at what cost? With the payment structure Forge provides (let alone the incentive to succeed that might not be there with an employee), we are assured that we are receiving a high rate of return, higher than adding a highly qualified (and highly compensated) affiliate staff member.

Considering where we were, where we are, and where we expect to be we have full faith that we made the right move by partnering with Forge Business and look forward, without hesitation, to our future affiliate endeavors.

Beckersurf.com is the on-line arm of the Southern California based retail operation Becker Surfboards Inc. Started in 1998, Beckersurf.com is the largest surf/California lifestyle e-commerce store on the web.

In the sophisticated arena of affiliate marketing, “you need a dedicated affiliate team, a great offer, a stable platform and cutting edge affiliate communications and recruitment tools. We manage your program, overseeing all day-to-day operations, develop offers and creative collateral, recruit and motivate top performing affiliates and much more.”

As part of our strategy of ‘relentless contact’ one of the devices we use are

newsletters.

A dictionary defines the term newsletter as:

“noun

[Origin: 1665“75; NEWS + LETTER]

There is a big difference between a newsletter and spam . These newsletters go out on a monthly basis highlighting campaign news, top performing creative, and include relevant links. If you are a browsing publisher, have a look. Beside the great payout offers (ka-ching!), there is a lot of other info that would convince you to join one – or both – of these programs. That is obviously, if you are not already part of our affiliate program.Click here to view the Beckersurf.com newsletter and here, to view the Peter Leeds newsletter

Beckersurf.com is listed in Commission Junction and Peter Leeds in Offerforge