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by Shawn Collins

It was predicted in the industry papers that 1999 would be the Year of the Affiliate. After years of experimenting with banner ads and buttons, marketers finally realized that the banner and button concept was costly and ineffective. In contrast, affiliate programs provide companies with a low-cost sales force that produces a reliable revenue stream.

Companies such as Carprices.com, Amazon.com, and the One & Only Network have made a big splash in the affiliate marketing arena with their shared revenue programs. But apparently revenue isn't the only thing that matters. As the saying goes, content is king. And free content affiliate programs are quickly emerging as the hot segment in affiliate marketing.

There are various models for the free content sites. Some affiliates, such as CitiQuest.com, generate their revenue by integrating advertising into the content. BigMailBox.com, a web-based e-mail service where you can offer e-mail accounts with your domain, provides their service for free, plus a portion of their banner ad rotation is allocated to the affiliate.

"We operate on an advertising revenue model," stated Rob Walther of BigMailBox.com. "There is a 468x60 rotating banner on the users' mail interface. The ad rotates each time a new page is downloaded. We allow our affiliate to control 20% of the rotation. BigMailBox.com earns its revenue by controlling the remaining 80% of the rotation (booking ads to major, mainstream net sponsors on a CPM basis)."

SuperCalendar utilizes banner revenue to offer a calendar to "non-techie users who have to manage lots of events," according to Jeff Schwartz of SuperCalendar. In addition to receiving a co-branded calendar, Webmasters also have the opportunity to generate revenue when their users sign up for SuperCalendar.

Another popular model is utilized by iSyndicate where they offer free content as a lure to their sites, where they attempt to sell an upgraded version of the service. Message Master combines the two concepts of ad banners and upgrades. "We charge no fee for our basic service, which is supported by advertising revenue. We do have a premium service that we do charge for where the user has control of all advertising on the site," said Ted Trentler from Message Master.

Manna, the Daily Scripture Break, offers free uplifting messages from the Bible that are updated daily. This service was started by Tim Stevens of Right Angle wwWeb Designs as a personal application at first.

According to Tim, "The reason this program is free is because of the unique reason it was launched to begin with...I needed an incentive to remember to spend a bit of time in the Bible every day and this seemed like an excellent way to do that."

Various media outlets cater to marketers with their free content programs. Your Radio Mall provides a MLM and Home Business Radio Show, as well as Entertainment Radio. The Advanced Marketing Techniques E-Zine is a free publication that provides lots of helpful information in the areas of marketing, promotion and business on the Internet.

While some free content affiliate programs focus on a certain niche audience, there are many that appeal to a wide demographic. Cyber Greetings, an online greeting card and gift shop, allows associates to link to their site and offer more than 400 online greeting cards. Webmasters can offer a personalized, practical e-mail service to users by joining the LifeMinders program.

The LifeMinders program enables website visitors to sign up to receive timely, relevant tips and reminders each week about home and garden, family, auto, entertainment, personal finance, personal events, health and pets.

Some free content sites use their product as a method to generate leads. Venture Direct Worldwide, a full service direct marketing firm, generates leads and creates brand awareness for advertisers through their network of free offer sites known as the Free Forum Network, according to Debra Silverman of Venture Direct Worldwide.

DirectLeads delivers leads to major clients like CoolSavings, MyPoints, ValuPage, eTour, FamilyPoint, CatalogLink, TurboTax, Quicken, and many more. "Affiliates make about 75% of the total lead amount," said Jason Wolfe of DirectLeads.

According to Scott Averbach of Bach Systems, Inc., "All our offerings are on a lead basis, thus they are free. We provide leads to companies wishing to advertise via direct marketing methods. They basically play the numbers game, they give something away so many times and eventually they reach a potential customer that buys something."

When the industry papers anointed 1999 as the Year of the Affiliate, they were surely referring to the revenue-based affiliate programs. But the first half of 1999 saw an abundance of launches for free content sites, and the second half of 1999 is starting to shape up as the Year of the Free Content Affiliate.