• million dollar portfolio has a simple contest to enter for a chance to win a Flip Video Ultra Series Camcorder, 60-Minutes (Black)
• uber affiliates marketleverage contest
• Enkay Blog has a contest ending on August 4. They are giving away a brand new Asus EEE Laptop PC, a $50 AMEX Rewards Card and 3 2GB USB Pens.  As with many contests this summer, Market Leverage is the affiliate network impetus for the contest. Let me tell you… the laptop in this contest is actually something I crave!

I didn’t play in all of them, but have dabbled for sure. I wonder as to how successful these contests are, and will surely keep up with them after the fact to see the final results.

Site Usability

I always like to check out the website for usability before I sign up for any service. I figure, rightly or wrongly, that if a company that wants my business can’t have a site that works cleanly, they obviously don’t want my business (this goes for online stores and ad networks alike). It’s a pretty enough looking site, and I understand from other posts that this is a redesign from a previous incarnation. Looking back at the archived versions of the site, it is definitely an improvement, but to me functionality is more important that smoke and mirrors.

The site worked fine enough, and I could generally find my way around the site with just intuition. As mentioned above, I think a little more history in the “About Us” section would lend some credibility for someone who just stumbles on the site. I did like that they had a calendar of events, and I can see where I might find them at upcoming conferences (maybe Affiliate Summit east in August in Boston!).

Sign Up

Next step… sign up. Since I had done some prior research and saw nothing that led me to doubt their viability, I initiated a sign-up (about 9:40p EDT — 5/5/08). A simple form (I Like!), easy to understand and quick to fill out), pretty standard terms and conditions. I received the obligatory “we received your application” email which I think is a required step for all online forms of any significance.

Acceptance

I received a followup phone call on Tuesday at about 2p. The affiliate rep was friendly and asked enough questions to learn about my websites and to ensure that I was not some scammer. I can’t recall her name (a fault of mine), but she was pleasant and seemed pretty knowledgeable. She activated my account and then proceeded to update me on MarketLeverage (bonuses, referals, offers, etc) when I told her that I had done a bit of research before signing up.

The Service

While they have some nice exclusives, the offers they provide are not incredibly different from other affiliate networks and the payouts are similar, some higher — some lower. I’ve come to expect this from all affiliate networks, as they all seem to be fishing in the same streams to try and find the next hot offer. One can only expect this. So why pick any affiliate network over another? Service, reliability, comfort level, and the extras are what does it for me.

Their extras…

• Bonuses paid out for good performance. Amex cash rewatds based on the level of commissions generated. We’re not talking about for the super affiliates, but good affiliates to. I mean, with a $1000 monthly commission you can start earning an Amex cash reward. $1000 per month may seem like a lot, but if you really put your effort in to it I think you can blow past $1000 per month.
• They have a nice referal program. Lifetime 5% of your refered publisher commissions. Most networks (ad or affiliate) cap off at a year or less.
• Fedexed checks. While this is not of great importance to me, I see where lots of affiliates are pretty psyched about this extra.

Final Thoughts

It is going to take me a few days to really slide MarketLeverage offers in to my rotation as I like to make sure that I get the right offers on the right pages. I plan on doing a follow up post once I’ve sent them some traffic, seen some conversions, and received a check.