What is the one thing that all affiliates hate universally.. the one thing that that causes enormous gripe, spite and venom? Without any doubt, it’s got to be parasitewares.

If you don’t know what a parasiteware is, let me explain. Parasite is an adware that overwrites affiliate-tracking links.

This behavior is viewed as parasitic because such softwares divert affiliate commissions and credits the affiliate’s income to another party. These cookie-stuffing scumbags are not just stealing from affiliates but from merchants as well.

To really understand the impact of adware on your web site and revenues, read this article by Kellie Stevens and this one by Ben Edelman.

So what is MontRED’s stance on parasites? We do not allow any affiliates that use such disgusting adwares, spywares, and parasite systems of any kind.

No pop-ups, pop-unders, browser helpers, browser plug-ins, or toolbars. Our Terms of Service covers this topic at length. MontRED is proud to be a white hat merchant.

Mother’s Day is fast approaching (May 14) and it is the second-largest spending holiday of the year.

Ask mom what she would like to be gifted on this Mother’s Day and I bet that fine jewelry will be at the top of the list. Specifically, earrings are at the top of moms’ wish list followed closely by gemstone rings, pendants and bracelets.

So what do all these mean to the affiliates? It means.. BIG increase in sales and BIG increase in commission. This is the right time to increase your efforts.

And to help you in your efforts, we’ve uploaded some pretty awesome Mother’s Day creatives in all different sizes.

To help with the conversions, we’ve created a special Mother’s Day landing page as well.

So go ahead and grab the Mother’s Day creatives from our affiliate control panel. And btw.. there are more creatives coming soon.

Your suggestions as well as special requests are most welcome.

MontRED takes pride in creating innovative tools for affiliates. One such interesting tool is the RSS feed for coupons. The best part is that it comes pre-coded with the affiliate-id and coupon-code.

Our coupon datafeed uses RSS version 1.0. Here is what it looks like:

As you can see above, the affiliate code (affid=999) and the coupon code (cc= GNEF3712) are included in the URL.

Here is the link to our coupon feed: http://www.montred.com/affiliates/tools/feeds/rss.php?affid=999. In this link, you simply have to replace ‘999’ with your affiliate-id.

So what’s the big deal about this feed? First, with this RSS feed, you get the up-to-date coupon info. No stale info, no expired coupons.

Second, compared to a small number of merchants/networks who provide RSS coupon feeds, MontRED’s RSS feed is pre-coded with the tracking-id (your affiliate-id).

Check out how MyDataFeedScripts made a smart use of our coupon feed. They built a customizable Coupon Ticker that pulls our RSS datafeed and displays MontRED coupons in a slideshow form. See the live tickers here, here, and here.

So go ahead and add this link to your favorite RSS reader (MyYahoo, GoogleReader, firefox etc). But don’t forget to replace ‘999′ in the link with your own affiliate-id.

Welcome to MontRED Affiliate Blog. My name is Nishith Shah and I’m the Affiliate Manager at MontRED. MontRED is an online retailer of fine jewelry.

MontRED launched its Affiliate Program in the first week of February 2006. Since then it has generated strong sales through its affiliates and has created quite a positive buzz in the community.

Let me start off this blog with a little note on the joys of being an Affiliate Manager.

Well, an affiliate program is only as good as its affiliates. In that respect, MontRED is lucky to have started on a right foot with wonderful affiliates from all over the world.

A good number of our affiliates are from the US and Canada. We’ve got affiliates from UK, India, Ireland, Brazil, Pakistan, Norway and Slovakia as well. And our latest affiliate comes from Italy.

Isn’t it remarkable how this fast-paced and ever-evolving industry is truly international? It is fun interacting with these highly creative and interesting people from different cultures. One thing is common amongst all of them: they all love to work in their pajamas.

With this note, I welcome you all to our blog.