November Newsletter - Get Ready for Cyber Monday December 1st!
Holiday 2008 Symposium West 2009Web SeminarLinkShare Blog
Holiday Promotions

LinkShare Publisher Newsletter Holiday Edition

Welcome to the November issue of the Publisher Newsletter. To assist you in maximizing your website's potential for Holiday 2008, we have put together this special section of LinkShare's Publisher Newsletter to highlight some important dates, suggest popular holiday advertisers, and highlight consumer and publisher promotions. We have compiled a list of LinkShare's advertisers that commission on gift cards, in addition to suggested LinkShare advertisers who offer exciting special promotions for Cyber Monday. Furthermore, don't forget to register for Symposium West 2009 and visit our newly launched blog! We are also very pleased to announce that we recently released an update to our Publisher Dashboard. If you have not been there recently, it's worth taking a look. Then sign up for one of LinkShare's Special Publisher Training courses on LinkShare Products. Topics include Easy Links, Flex Links and RSS DeelFeed WordPress Plug-In. We hope you have a successful holiday season!

Holiday 2008
Important Dates
November 28 "Black Friday" – The day after Thanksgiving was traditionally the day that retailers went from being "in the red" (in debt) to being "in the black" (making a profit). Today, Black Friday is known as the official start of the holiday shopping season.

December 1 "Cyber Monday" – The Monday after Thanksgiving is when online traffic and sales increase. Many shoppers are too busy shopping in brick and mortar stores over the Thanksgiving weekend to shop online, or they did not find what they were looking for, so they go to the web from home and work on Monday to find that perfect holiday gift. Click here to view the list of recommended advertisers for you to consider joining their programs for upcoming Cyber Monday.

December 20 "When It Absolutely, Positively, Needs to Be There" Last Ship Date – For most retailers, this is the absolute last day that they will ship an item to guarantee delivery for Christmas. Keep in mind, most retailers will charge an extra fee for the rush delivery. It is a good idea to check with your advertisers to confirm their last ship date. Most advertisers list their last ship dates on the Holiday Publisher Promotions and Holiday Consumer Promotions pages in the Publisher Help Center.

December 20-25 Target Last Minute Shoppers – Many retailers offer electronic gift cards for last minute shoppers. E-gift cards can be sent directly to the recipient via email and just in time for Christmas. The chart below shows popular last minute gifts. Click here to see the list of LinkShare advertisers that commission on gift cards.


Source: a National Retail Federation survey conducted by BIGresearch; www.nrf.com/holidays



Publisher Promotions


Make the most of this gift card trend by promoting the LinkShare advertisers that commission on gift cards purchased through publisher links.
December 26 Post-Holiday Sales – You have survived the busy holiday shopping season. Now is the time to take advantage of consumers looking to spend their holiday cash and gift cards on post-holiday sales. View the latest post-holiday promotions on the Publisher Help Center!


Source: a National Retail Federation survey conducted by BIGresearch; www.nrf.com/holidays




Update on LinkShare Symposium West 2009


This year's much anticipated LinkShare Sixth Annual Summit has a new name and grand location. This year the event has been renamed LinkShare Symposium West and will take place on January 21-22, 2009 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.

Register by December 15 and Save $100!
Symposium conference passes are available for $495 each and you'll receive $100 savings when you register by December 15th! On-site registration will be subject to a $595 fee.



Click here for complete details on what's going on at LinkShare Symposium West 2009.

Save the dates. Join the revolution this January 21-22, 2009!

Paul Cantello
Senior Manager




Special Publisher Training Web Seminars on LinkShare Products

In addition to our beginner-level live web seminars, LinkShare will also be offering more advanced classes featuring some of our latest products, including Flex Links and the RSS WordPress Plug-in. These courses will be held on Tuesday, November 11 and Tuesday, November 18, both at 11am EST. To register for this course or to see a schedule of seminars through November, please visit the LinkShare .EDU resource center here: http://www.linkshare.com/edu/publishers/publisher_training_web_seminars/

Recordings of training sessions including one on Easy Links are available on the LinkShare website.

If you have any questions regarding the Publisher Training Web seminars, please contact:

Sylvia Kim
webseminars@linkshare.com




Announcing the LinkShare Blog

We are pleased to announce that we have launched the official LinkShare Blog! Stay tuned to the blog for industry news, product announcements, system updates, research, best practices, and more from the LinkShare team.

So far we have written about our HTML Gift Card Storefronts, WordPress plug-in, Publisher Dashboard enhancements, and Symposium West 2009.

Here are a few ways you can join us:

Bookmark our blog: http://www.linkshareblog.com

Subscribe to the RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/linkshareblog/wpIT

Follow us on Twitter for short, relevant network updates and info: http://twitter.com/LinkShareBlog




Announcing Product LinkFinder

On October 23rd we introduced Product LinkFinder, a Publisher Dashboard tool that is a search engine for individual product links. Publishers can choose to search either within a single Advertiser or across all Advertisers they have a relationship with. If a Publisher chooses to search within a single Advertiser, they can also choose a specific category. Publishers will only see search results from Advertisers they have a relationship with.

Our goal with Product LinkFinder is to make it easy for Publishers to find product links, and for Advertiser to gain more product link distribution. Product LinkFinder uses your Merchandiser product file or individual product links in the search results. As we work on expanding distribution of your product links, it becomes even more critical for you to have an up-to-date product feed with clear attributes. For more information on Merchandiser data hygiene read this article.

If you don't offer Merchandiser, now is the perfect time to take a fresh look!

Ian Rosenwach, Product Manager





Vist LinkShare's Publisher Help Center for more Holiday Resources.



See our Industry Events page at linkshare.com



Partner with New Advertisers by logging into the Publisher Dashboard.

Advertisers that Commission on Gift Cards
American Express Karmaloop
AmericaRx Lane Bryant
AndraGroup (HerRoom) Lego
Bare Necessities Liz Claiborne
Beauty.com L'Occitane
Bliss Magazines.com
Casual Male XL Mountain Gear
Catherine NORDSTROM.com
Coldwater Creek OCInkjet
Dale & Thomas Omaha Steaks
Drugstore.com Overstock.com
Fashion Bug Park Seed
Gaiam, Inc. Paul Fredrick
GreatSkin Petite Sophisticate
Hickory Farms SeaBear & MadeInWashington
iTunes Sierra Trading Post
Kellyco Metal Detectors The Wine Messenger
JCrew Wayside Gardens
For more information about Advertisers who commission on gift cards click here.
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