Apogee Represents in Three 2018 Pinnacle Awards Categories

I'm proud to announce Apogee is represented on the finalists list of the 2018 Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards. Our client of three years, Snake River Farms, is a finalist for Exceptional Merchant of the Year. Apogee is a finalist for OPM/Agency of the Year and I am a finalist for Affiliate Manager of the Year. The award ceremony takes place January 9th during Affiliate Summit West 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Exceptional Merchant of the Year

I talked with my representative at Snake River Farms and he's working on getting to Las Vegas. I told him he's got a 33% chance of winning, and in Vegas, you can't turn down those kinds of odds! Apogee started managing the program in January 2015. The program was one year old at the time and had a decent set of BBQ affiliates promoting the products. These were true influencers in the BBQ industry and they promoted the American Wagyu beef, ham, pork and especially the brisket. When you watch a BBQ competition on cable, you are most likely going to see them pull meat from the cooler with the Snake River Farms logo on it. This is the best there is and the champions know it. You'll also find Snake River Farms meat at the best restaurants in the country.

[Side note from Daniel: I just received some Snake River Farms “haute dogs“. These are the first hot dogs I've ever wanted to eat plain. Just heat 'em up and throw 'em down. They're that good. Okay, back to the story.]

The affiliate program had a modest launch on its own in 2014 but orders increased by more than 1000% in 2015. The Apogee team recruited new influencers and a small group of corporate affiliates. We protected the content affiliates through advanced attribution rules and they never saw decreases in conversion or commission. Some of the influencers we recruited and activated back in 2015 are our best affiliates right now. Orders increased by 88% from 2015 to 2016 and they are on pace to grow this year around 40%. It could be higher because December is already a record-breaking month. The program is currently ranked #142 in the ShareASale PowerRank.

Snake River Farms has some strong competition with the HP program and Jane.com. The manager for Jane.com, Maryellen Garasky, is an outstanding manager and I'm very excited for her and her team. It's an honor to have one of my programs going head to head with her program. Read my report card article from Practical Ecommerce to learn more about her strategy.

OPM/Agency of the Year and Affiliate Manager of the Year

The OPM/Agency category is a tough one. All three finalists are previous winners. Apogee won in 2014 under the former brand, Greg Hoffman Consulting. It's a tremendous honor to be nominated as a finalist once again. The Affiliate Manager of the Year is the elusive one for me. I don't want the Susan Lucci award for 19 nominations without a win, so this would be a dream come true. I'm up against two friends though, Adam Riemer and Mike Nunez. Both of them are very deserving of the title and I would be happy for either one of them.

Congratulations to the Rest of the Finalists

As for the other 2018 Pinnacle Awards, I certainly have my picks. Let's see how I do. These are based on my personal experience and opinion. Good luck to all the finalists! And thank you to everyone that nominated us in three different categories.

• Affiliate of the Year: Ziff-Davis
• Affiliate Network Employee of the Year (new category): Tiffany Tse/ShareASale (sorry Chad!)
• Tool/Service of the Year: Media Rails
• Affiliate Marketing Advocate: Pat Grady (The Legend)

If you're going to be in Las Vegas for Affiliate Summit, we still have a few meeting slots open. Give us a shout, and we hope to see you there.