Our third round of Honorary Certifications is here! Watch the video!

Stu McLaren of MyIdeaGuy.com recorded this acceptance speech after learning that he had been awarded with an Honorary Affiliate Manager Certification. Watch the video!

Our CEO, Anik Singal, was interviewed on “Affiliate Thing Podcast” hosted by Shawn Collins of Affiliate Summit and Lisa Picarille of Revenue Magazine. He gives some great information about AC Certified!

Go to Shawn’s Affiliate Tip blog to check it out.

Our friend, industry expert and a featured speaker at our upcoming Affiliate Manager workshop, Amit Mehta of SuperAffiliateMindset.com mentioned our new AC Certified program in a blog post today. He said:

My good friend Anik Singal, founder of the hugely successful Affiliate Classroom and PPC Classroom, has done it yet again.

Through Affiliate Classroom, Anik is launching a program where affiliate managers can get trained and certified!

Imagine, actually having a AC Certified Affiliate Manager that actually knows what they’re talking about!

No offense to many of the brilliant affiliate managers out there, but let’s face it, there are TONS of affiliate managers who have NO idea what they’re talking about.

I’ve dealt with my share.

I think having a standard certification program for affiliate managers is a GREAT idea, and is a BIG step in moving our industry towards a new level of professionalism. Enough with the booth babes and porn hustlers! We, as a community need to clean up our act and get the respect we deserve for the larger business community.

Kudos, Anik for taking the initiative and doing this!

Anik is looking to nominate some outstanding affiliate managers for Honorary AC Affiliate Manager certifications.

So if you have an outstanding affiliate manager, please nominate them here & tell them how much you appreciate everything they do.

We were intrigued by a few of the comments that his readers left:

Tom Beaton on February 13th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Good concept, A recognised body with a certification program goes a long way towards making the industry more transparent and “proper”.

Tyler DeWitt on February 14th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Amit,

I would have to agree granted I’m not a PPC master mind like I am with organic search, but I can say this from me talking with them and etc I can tell they really don’t know there talking about or I should say there just saying what there trained to say.

What dazzles me is you would think they would be pretty good at what they do speaking they talk with affiliate marketers all day, but then again I guess the Google AdWords Reps are the same way :).

You can read the full post and more of Amit’s affiliate marketing opinions and advice at:
http://www.superaffiliatemindset.com/is-your-affiliate-manager-ac-certified/

In continuing to honor the leading minds of affiliate marketing, Affiliate Classroom would like to award honorary certifications to the following individuals…

Don’t forget to nominate those who you feel should receive this honor!

We want you to nominate someone who you feel is well-deserving of receiving an Honorary AC Certification for affiliate management.

Just take a minute or two to fill out this page: http://accertified.com/nominate/

Just a little tip - if you make a video stating your case and leave a link to the video in the comments area on the blog, we will give you and your nomination extra points! 

Nominate here: http://accertified.com/nominate/

Shawn Collins recorded an acceptance speech after receiving his Honorary Affiliate Manager Certification. Watch the video!

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Recent Honorary Certification recipient, Brock Siegel of Pepperjam, has recorded an acceptance speech. Watch the video!

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As we get ready to launch the Affiliate Manager Certification program, we recognize that in the past years that this industry has been running, there have been major thought leaders who have really helped the industry grow.

To honor those individuals who have really proven themselves to be affiliate marketing professionals - we would like to issue them honorary certifications on behalf of Affiliate Classroom and our Board of Advisors.

Please take 5 minutes to watch the video below to learn more about who gets the first few honorary certifications!

Also, stay tuned to this blog, we have BIG news coming soon regarding how YOU can get involved in the nomination process as well. Leave your comments and congratulations below!

Affiliate Classroom is proud to introduce you to our Certification Board of Advisors who have helped us craft the curriculum and the entire certification!

Lisa Riolo – Lisa is best known for her work at ValueClick’s Commission Junction where she was Senior Vice President of Business Development. She is currently a business coach and consultant, focusing on helping leaders and their organizations transform potential into profits. She regularly speaks at online marketing events, including Affiliate Summit, ad:tech, Search Engine Strategies, and DMA conferences.

Peter Figueredo – Peter is the CEO and co-founder of the successful online marketing agency, NETexponent which services a variety of brand-name clients. He has been running affiliate programs and managing profitable marketing strategies for clients since 1998. A prominent voice in the performance marketing industry, he frequently speaks at leading industry conferences including Affiliate Summit and ad:tech.

Sam Harrelson – Sam is CEO of ReveNews, a leading online publication for the performance marketing industry. He has over six years of experience in the performance marketing industry as a publisher, email marketer, website owner, director of business development, senior vice president, and advertiser. He also contributed to the performance marketing industry by writing articles for the Digital Moses Confidential and now for ReveNews.

Jeremy Palmer – Jeremy is the owner and creator of “Quit Your Day Job.” He is recognized as an affiliate marketing leader and advocate. He was recently named a top performer in the Commission Junction affiliate network and won their 2005 Horizon Award for Innovation. He is a regular speaker at industry conferences such as Affiliate Summit and Commission Junction University.

Heather Paulson – Heather is the president and founder of Paulson Management Group, Inc., a leading full service multi channel e-marketing management and internet consulting company. Her experience in online marketing dates back to 1995 and includes in-depth practice of online brand building, search engine marketing and affiliate marketing.

Brook Schaaf – Brook is CEO of Schaaf Consulting, one of the performance marketing industry’s top outsourced affiliate program management firms. He has seven years’ experience in internet marketing with a strong emphasis on affiliate marketing stemming from his past as an affiliate manager at Zappos.com, Shoes.com and Edmuds.com.

We want to take this time to really thank them for everything they did!