Affiliate Summit East 2010 Silver Pass WINNER!

Posted on Jun 14, 2010 in Affiliate Marketing, Contests | 2 comments

About a month ago, I launched one of my best contests ever here, the chance to win a Silver Pass for Affiliate Summit East 2010.  ASE10 will be taking place in New York City at the New York Hilton.  I’ll be speaking on a panel called Podcasting 101 with Daniel M. Clark, Joe Magennis, & Lisa Picarille moderating.  I wanted people to think outside the box & get creative with their reasons why they wanted to go to the conference.  I read all the comments & put aside any personal relationships and went solely on the most creative comment, as I said I would!

And the winner is…

Daniel Chmielewski!

Daniel will be receiving a Silver Pass for Affiliate Summit East 2010 in New York City!  Dan, you know you’re pretty much required to fill a seat in our session on Sunday at noon, right? 🙂  Ladies & gentlemen, enjoy Daniel’s winning comment:

Hi Trish!

We haven’t met yet but obviously the contest was made for me. It all began when I was born.. the doctors said I came out with a map of the internet clenched between my tiny hands. Then growing up I was raised in the wild by computers and modems… every once in a while I’d catch a lead gen and rest satiated — those were good nights. When I was a teenager I was attacked by a group of rabid ringtones and barely made it out alive… I still get chills every time an SMS goes off in the distance. After my teen years I was called away to war in the 9-5 trenches where I’ve been counting the days until the time that I may return home… and you see, ASE is my ticket out of here, my one true chance at freedom — to live the life I was born to lead!

… Well that’s how I see it anyway

Thanks Daniel for thinking creatively – check your email for more details on how to register for Affiliate Summit & redeem your prize!

Runner Up

I also said I’d be giving a copy of Internet Marketing From the Real Experts to the second best entry.  The runner-up is Latease Rikard!  Look out for an email so I can get your address to send you the book.  Here’s her winning entry:

Hey Trisha…I want to go to Affiliate Summit 2010 because I will get to meet you. Now I can find out that you are not just some internet entity that I’ve been communicating with over the past couple of years. It will be like bringing my internet friend to life, and we will have control over it!

Congratulations to all the winners & stay tuned for more news about Affiliate Summit 2010 & another contest I’m working on ;).

Affiliate Marketing Fanatics 23: Ad Servers 101

Posted on May 31, 2010 in Affiliate Marketing, Affiliate Marketing Fanatics |

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Affiliate Marketing Fanatics – A couple of hyper-caffeinated affiliate marketers (Mike Buechele) and (Trisha Lyn Fawver) talk about all things Affiliate Marketing. From blogging to branding, social media to search, video and more!

We answer our first question submitted, which asks us what the deal with ad servers are and how can an affiliate use them.  Mike is the expert here, so he does the majority of the talking in explaining the glory of ad servers. In in this episode we discuss:

• Max Banner Ads
• OpenX
• Helios IQ
• DoubleClick by Google
• Zedo

Want to catch up with us & ask questions for the next show? Find us on Twitter: @MikeBuechele & @TrishaLyn. You can also ask Trisha questions through FormSpring.me. Or leave us a comment!

Affiliate Marketing Fanatics 22: Affiliate Summit Revolutions

Posted on May 24, 2010 in Affiliate Marketing, Affiliate Marketing Fanatics |

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Affiliate Marketing Fanatics – A couple of hyper-caffeinated affiliate marketers (Mike Buechele) and (Trisha Lyn Fawver) talk about all things Affiliate Marketing. From blogging to branding, social media to search, video and more!

It’s been awhile, but we’re back! We have some questions to answer, but we’ll get to that next week. In the meantime, we talk about the new voting process for Affiliate Summit panels, the apparent controversy, and a little bit of discussion about transportation. In in this episode we discuss:

• New session selection methods for Affiliate Summit East 2010.
• The apparent controversy about the new voting component of session selection.
• How we determined which panels we voted for.
• Trisha’s panel, Podcasting 101, being accepted & officially on the ASE10 Agenda.
  • Other panelists will be Daniel M. Clark of Geek Dads Weekly and Joe Magennis, also of GDW and Baseballisms.com
• Comparing taking the subway from the airport to the hotel vs. taking a cab.  And then a brief comparison of the NY Subway System and Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART).
• Mike’s venture into Burgers with Bloggers with the likes of Stephanie Lichtenstein, Mike Wayne, Mike Pomposello, Ian Fernando, and Udi Schlessinger.

Want to catch up with us & ask questions for the next show? Find us on Twitter: @MikeBuechele & @TrishaLyn. You can also ask Trisha questions through FormSpring.me.  Or leave us a comment!

Fighting the Advertising Tax in Sacramento

Posted on May 17, 2010 in Affiliate Marketing, Rambles | 1 comment

I wish I could tell you that we had an incredibly productive day in Sacramento, educating numerous state senators personally about affiliate marketing.  They all understood what we do and they all agree that adding language to tax bills that make affiliate partners consistute nexus for out-of-state merchants is not going to make the state any money and is a bad idea.

I wish I could tell you that.

Instead, I report back after going to Sacramento last Wednesday, May 12th, with some less-than-uplifting realities about our state government here in California.  Late last week, the Performance Marketing Association learned that there was a meeting on the 13th in CA senate subcommittee 5 to discuss adding affiliate nexus language to one of their pending budget bills.  It’s not yet back, officially, in the form of a bill in the CA senate or assembly, but just knowing that they’re discussing it is enough for us to try to go educate some lawmakers on what affiliate marketing is, why affiliates shouldn’t create tax nexus for merchants, and why the state won’t actually make the $1.7 million they think they will.

I was asked to join Lisa Picarille and up we went to the capitol, no appointments made due to the last-minute nature of the trip, with high hopes of talking to the three state senators sitting on the subcommittee and laying some education on them.  We knew that other affiliates and fighters in this advertising tax battle had previously met with Senator Denise Moreno Ducheny, the chair of the subcommittee and the state Budget and Finance committee, and had not had good luck in getting through to her, so we targeted her office first.  She was booked solid in meetings, but we were given a time to check back to see if one of her staff members had a small window of time to talk.

So we went on to the office of Senator Robert Dutton, who we’d heard was on our side.  We spoke with a nice staffer in his office who was very well versed on the affiliate nexus issue and assured us that Sen. Dutton opposed the language and that most the Republicans were probably on our side as well.  It was very nice to meet with someone who actually knew what we were talking about and understood the issue.  In the two previous times I’ve gone to Sacramento, we had uphill battles trying to explain affiliate marketing to blank-faced staffers, so his knowledge about the issue definitely allowed us to cut right to the chase.  He suggested some other people we talk to, some influential to the budget committee and subcommittee, and some already on our side that might be able to help in other ways.

Lisa and I then set out for Senator Alex Padilla’s office as it wasn’t yet time to check back in to see if Sen. Ducheny’s staff could talk to us.  We were unable to speak to the people Sen. Dutton’s office had recommended, but we spoke to the legislative director who was very interested in learning more and very interactive.  He asked us a lot of questions to better understand the issue, and was very interested in the information about Rhode Island not realizing the projected revenue from their version of the advertising tax and their consideration of repeal.  Rhode Island actually has a bill in play now, H 7071, set to repeal the “Amazon Tax” but it looks to be stalled and waiting for a proper hearing.  So as not to lose time, we quickly had the information emailed to him as we went about to other offices.

That’s kind of where the magic ended.  I have to say, I was feeling okay at that point that people were hearing us out.  I didn’t feel that any overly appreciated us being there as private citizens just wanting to spread some education and counter some mis-information being spread by the opposition, but they seemed willing to listen and comprehend.  We went to the budget committee office, and they weren’t that helpful.  The person we were looking for wasn’t there, and the people who were there told us we were pretty much crazy to attempt to see anyone without an appointment at this time of year.  What happened to PUBLIC SERVANTS making themselves available to the PUBLIC, hmm?  This served as a harsh reality (to me anyway) that our system is generally broken. We took a break, and after refreshing ourselves with some lunch, we headed back to Sen. Ducheny’s office to check in.

We arrived earlier than the time we were asked to come back, but since we had no one else to see it was worth a shot.  We were ushered into the office of a staffer who was, unarguably, the worst attitude and most combative of all the people we talked to that day.  She made me very glad I do not live in Sen. Ducheny’s district (40th District).  The staffer kept attacking affiliates for working with out-of-state retailers in the first place.  I tried to explain to her that, California being just one of 50 states, the “Buy Californian” attitude wasn’t a viable business option, but I got the distinct impression that she didn’t care.  She checked her cell phone multiple times while Lisa and I were trying to pleasantly and professional counter her unprofessional combative questions, which is just plain rude no matter what the situation is.  She kept asking us what we proposed the state do instead to fix the budget.  I wanted to tell her that it’s THEIR job to figure that out, not ours, but instead Lisa suggested some alternatives and tried to focus on the argument that the retailers will just drop CA affiliates, and the state won’t make this money they think they’re going to make.

That being our last meeting of the day, it did leave a bad taste in my mouth about Sacramento and state politics and government in general.  I hope I can be of service throughout this fight until we’ve successfully killed the advertising tax, in all forms, here in California.  Until then… anyone have a million bucks we can hire a full time lobbyist with? 🙂

Sessions I Want to See at Affiliate Summit East 2010

Posted on May 7, 2010 in Affiliate Marketing, Conferences & Networking |

Have you ever looked at the schedule for a conference and wondered, “How did these sessions get picked?”  I know I have.  The conference I go to the most, Affiliate Summit, has always had a closed-door process for putting together their agenda from their speaker proposals.  Yesterday I told you about how Affiliate Summit has opened up voting for the panels that will be on the agenda for Affiliate Summit East 2010, and implored you to vote for the Podcasting 101 panel I hope to sit on.  Today, I’m going to share the love and tell you about the other panels I voted for and hope to see on the agenda.

Any long-term readers of my blog know that one of my favorite things to do is to attend conferences, take copious amounts of notes, and share them here with you.  I learn a lot in these sessions, and feel it’s practically my responsibility to pass on that learning to everyone else.  Granted, it’s not the same as attending the sessions at the conferences yourself, but it’s close.  I vote for 15 panels out of 117 up for voting on the Affiliate Summit Slinkset site.

Bear with me, with 15 panels to explain my vote for, this is going to be a long post.  Here’s the ones I voted for, and why.

• Beyond Business Cards: Move beyond passing out stacks of business cards and adding legions of Twitter followers to promote your business.  11 steps to forging relationships to yield results beyond leads and self-promotions.  Speakers: Jen Goode, Au-Co Mai, Lisa Picarille, Lisa Riolo, & Karen Garcia.  Why This Got My Vote: There are a lot of people in the industry that will tell you that the core of affiliate marketing is building relationships, and I agree.  Not enough people will give you advice or actionable items on how to build these all-important relationships though.  I know almost all the speakers on the panel, and they’re fantastic at networking and building lasting relationships, so I have no doubt that their 11 actions are going to be dynamite.
• Bloggers Successfully Connecting with Audiences and Advertisers: Advice and tips for bloggers to increase their success in connect with audiences and at the same time making them more appealing to advertisers and increase revenue.  Speakers: Murray Newlands, Kristopher B. Jones, Drew Bennett, Tim Jones, & Eric Schechter.  Why This Got My Vote: Honestly, this is more a chance for vindication.  At the last summit, these same speakers appeared on the Monetizing Blogs for Affiliate Marketing and SEO panel (sub John Carcutt for Eric) and I was let down by the ho-hum content.  It took them 30 minutes to even mention the word “monetize”, and it seemed less focused on monetizing and SEO and more focused on general “how to start blogging.  I know that the panelists, being bloggers themselves, were all very interested in getting feedback, so I’m really hoping that they take the feedback from the last time and refocus and deliver a really kick-ass panel this time around.
• Trademark Bidding in Affiliate Marketing: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of trademark bidding in affiliate marketing. An in-depth look at the impact trademark bidding has on all players in the affiliate space.  Speakers: Paul Schroader, Justin Bowen, Chuck Hamrick, John W. Dozier, & David Naffziger.  Why This Got My Vote: This is a seriously confusing area in the PPC arena, and any light that can be shed on it is always good for affiliates.  As well, David has a great product with Brand Verity to help, and a lot of insight to be shared.  Not the sexiest topic, but an important one.
• Connecting Your Community: Online/Off Social Good: There are opportunities for affiliates and advertisers to support great causes, both online and off to foster a larger online community. This panel will look at examples in social media that helped.  Speakers: Dina Riccobono, Sloane Barrent, & Bruce Wang.  Why This Got My Vote: So much emphasis in affiliate marketing is about ME, and how can I make a fortune, but people should remember that there’s a world out there that can also benefit from your support.  I’m interested in people learning more from Dina and the panel on how they can successfully integrate their work and marketing efforts into also benefiting great causes and making the world a better place.
• Affiliate Program Case Studies: Strategies and Practices: Discussion of what it takes for a retailer to get their affiliate channel to the next level. Merchant case studies reveal and illustrate strategies and practices that attract and keep affiliates.  Speakers: Melanie Seery, Madeleine McGregor, Adam Riemer, & Kimberly Salvino.  Why This Got My Vote: Case studies are always great, because they show real results.  It’s more than just hypothetical tactics, it’s proof positive.  All of the speakers are very knowledgeable and represent various angles of a merchant program that really works, from the network, affiliate, and affiliate managers.
• Creating a Stronger, Balanced Affiliate-Merchant Agreement: Can we have a stronger, fairer Affiliate-Merchant Terms of Service agreement to better protect affiliates and merchants? Discussion of the current inadequacies and challenges in creating a better TOS.  Speakers: Melanie Seery, Brian Littleon, Adam Riemer, & Kimberly Salvino.  Why This Got My Vote: Well, honestly it almost didn’t.  This panel has the same panelists as the last one I voted for, except for the substitution of Brian for Madeline.  Affiliate Summit has a policy of not allowing people to speak on more than one panel, so theoretically once the advisory board makes the final agenda, one of these panels won’t be on it.   But, this is just as valuable as the case studies panel.  Many merchants don’t have a good TOS, so any help they can get is helpful!
• Search Marketing Campaign Review: Attendees will apply to have their site and campaigns reviewed before the conference. Our panel of experts, one each in SEO, Link Building, PPC, Social, and Affiliate will choose 4-5 companies.  Speakers: Kate Morris, Joanna Lord, Scott Polk, Kristy Bolsinger, Jane Copeland, Carolyn Shelby.  Why This Got My Vote: I’m a big fan of interactive panels, and real-life examples.  This panel will allow for real-time, off the cuff analysis and can be incredibly helpful to everyone in attendance.  My first affiliate summit, I attended a site review similar to this kind of clinic-approach panel and volunteered up the site of the company I worked for at the time.  It was an eye opener!  In the interest of full disclosure, I briefly worked with Kate Morris during our time at New Edge Media, and I know Kate to be really good at explaining how things can be changed for the better in a constructive way, which is what people need for public critiques!
• Seven Deadly Sins of Affiliate Marketing 2010: A fast paced multi-media presentation on affiliate danger zones focusing on the latest FTC enforcement priorities and initiatives and plaintiffs’ targets infused with useful tips and humor.  Speaker: Bennet Kelley.  Why This Got My Vote: With a title like that, how could you NOT vote for it!  Actually, I’ve seen Bennet speak before and he’s incredibly knowledgeable and makes sometimes boring topics like law, enforcement, and the FTC actually interesting and relevant.  I feel very strongly that it’s in every affiliate’s best interest to know what their limitations are legally with their marketing efforts, so this is important.
• Innovate!  New Exciting Applications of Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate marketing is increasingly used in new web start-ups, services and applications. Discover the most exciting new ideas that are helping to grow and highlight affiliate marketing industry.  Speaker: Joe Stepniewski.  Why This Got My Vote: Affiliates are some of the most creative and innovative marketers out there, online or off.  I love to hear what crazy things affiliates are coming up with and what tools and tricks are out there.  Working for a vendor of an affiliate tool myself now, I’m excited to see what kind of innovation is out there that might compliment the For Me To Coupon service.
• Feed Powered Affiliate Marketing: A review of how product feeds are playing an ever-increasing role in online marketing and how they can be successfully deployed in affiliate marketing. Using real case studies and examples.  Speakers: Lee Brignell-Cash & Robert Durkin.  Why This Got My Vote: Again, considering I work with data feeds every day now, I’m interested in the creative things affiliates are doing with various types of data feeds.  A lot of affiliates are concerned with how to best optimize their time and marketing efforts, yet not enough use data feeds to help automate their sites.  Hopefully more sessions like this can bring data feeds to more affiliates.
• The New Frontier for Infomercials: Affiliate Marketing!: Marketers behind the Snuggie know the power of TV to drive online sales. They have big budgets and are more focused than ever on driving online sales. Discover more about this giant opportunity.  Speakers: Rebecca Madigan, Peter Bordes, & Ron C. Pruett, Jr.  Why This Got My Vote: I admit it, I have a fascination with informercials and TV pitchmen.  So I’m fascinated to see how they’re going to tie this in with affiliate marketing.  I’m a bit surprised that someone from Impact Radius isn’t involved in this, given their big focus on integrating traditional media with affiliate offers, but my intrigue has been piqued nonetheless!
• Successful Multiple Network Strategies for Merchants: The arguments for and against launching performance marketing programs in multiple networks–and how to make the strategy you do select successful.  Speakers: Lisa Riolo & Durk Price.  Why This Got My Vote: I’ve yet to see a merchant that really leverages multiple networks right.  Most seem to just throw their program up onto as many networks as possible with no real strategy at all, so I’m exited to see what tips can be shared for these merchants to really leverage multiple networks instead of just casting their nets as wide as possible.
• Demystifying Online Attribution: Real answers on how to track a customer’s searches through all phases of the buying cycle, how to measure cross channel assists, and how to avoid the dangers of only last click attribution.  Speakers: Don Batsford & Jonathan Treiber.  Why This Got My Vote: A lot of affiliates (and even some merchants) know the basics of cookies and how affiliate links are tracked, but when you start talking to them about click attribution, how to separate affiliate traffic from PPC traffic from organic traffic, eyes start to glaze over.  Hopefully this session, aimed mostly at merchants/advertisers, will help new affiliate merchants understand how to better differentiate their traffic sources and become more aware of how tracking really works.
• Conquering The Mega Niches for Mega Profits: Very few affiliate marketers dare to enter the most competitive and profitable niches. They follow the general advice of focusing on the small opportunities.  Speaker: Hamlet Batista.  Why This Got My Vote: It’s always encouraging for a super affiliate to come to the conference and share some of their secret sauce with smaller affiliates hoping to really crack some opportunities.  I’ve met Hamlet and I know he’s been incredibly successful in large niches (hello Viagra!), and he’s a good speaker as well – just the right mix of informative and motivational for those smaller affiliates looking for hope!
• Are You Kidding Me?  Merchant Mistakes: Going over common Merchant Mistakes and why they are bad. Limiting to 100 Affiliates, Not participating in forums, Being on AutoApprove, etc.  Speaker: Adam Riemer.  Why This Got My Vote: I love Adam on a personal level – he’s a riot to chat with and is super passionate about the industry to boot.  So this session promises to at least be entertaining.  As well, as a self-taught (former) affiliate manager, I’m always interested to hear other affiliate managers’ opinions on the dos & don’ts of managing merchant programs.  Unfortunately, as Adam is listed as a panelist on two other potential panels, as I mentioned before he can only speak on one, so I’m torn as to which I’d rather see him on!

I heartily encourage you to click on the links and vote for these sessions as well.  Just click the blue arrow to the left of the session titles to vote.  You will have to register for an account, but it’s a great opportunity to get the most out of your money when attending Affiliate Summit.  If you haven’t already done so, register for Affiliate Summit today.  I will have a pass to give away at the end of this month so stay tuned for contest details!

Performance Marketing Leadership Summit

Posted on May 7, 2010 in Affiliate Marketing, Conferences & Networking | 1 comment

On April 19th, the day before ad:tech SF 2010, OfferVault presented their Performance Marketing Leadership Summit, a half-day event featuring discussions on compliance, fraud, and transparency. This was one in a series of events presented by OfferVault focusing on improving the performance marketing industry. Big thanks to Jim Lilig and the folks at OfferValut for putting this event on for free, allowing anyone interested in joining the discussion to attend.  This event was also co-sponsored by AffCon, OfferMobi, and DirectTrack.

I headed over to the city to go, and I’m glad I did. The afternoon was divided between two singular speakers and two panel discussions, end capped by lunch to start, drinks to end, and a break in the middle. Here are some highlights of information I took from the day’s thought leaders:

E.J Hilbert
President of Online Intelligence, Epic Advertising

• Compliance is a dirty word, some people think it always equals loss.  Truth is, there is no true definition.
• Compliant traffic is actually a 15% increase in profit in the long run.
• Margins decrease initially because of the bad traffic.
• Whether or not we see what we do as spam, the rest of the world does – it’s due to a lack of understanding.
• Remember, to the general public, we’re guilty by association.
• Compliance seems to be a catch-all, referring to legal, network, advertiser, corporate, affiliates, etc.  Perhaps it should just be legal and corporate and we can call everything else fraud.
• More traffic = more money.
• The most profitable cybercrime is spam.
• We can’t because they don’t – there’s not enough enforcement in the industry.  We need to crack down.
• Many top media outlets are developing their own advertising platforms they can trust instead of utilizing the existing platforms we use.
• Partner with the advertisers, that’s where the money is, not with super affiliate A or B.
• There are 4 ways to deal with fraud: accept it, insure against it, mitigate against it, not accept it at all.  We should not accept it at all.
• Top advertisers are the ones calling the shots, because they have the money.
• Watchdog groups are paying attention.  If we don’t do something soon, others will.  We don’t want that.
• Online advertising is mainstream.
• Sometimes the way we have to go isn’t the popular way, but it’s the right way.

Panel 1: What We Need To Do to Combat Fraud
Jason Spievak (RingRevenue), Brandon McDonald (Product2Web), Chris Graham (Atrinsic), Tom Cohn (Venable), & Carrie Birkner (Lashback)

• How often does a company do something when one of these outside agencies tells them about a problem?  Fairly often, actually.  They gets lots of flack from publishers if they don’t take action.
• A lot of the responsibility in combating fraud comes from the technologies, the networks.
• Many networks and managers are now taking the stance that if an affiliate isn’t going to be forthright about their methods, they’re out.
• In the industry, we don’t trust each other.
• Product2Web stops fraud at the cart level.  Networks should force their advertisers to utilize this kind of tool.
• Longevity planning should be the new term for compliance.
• Most affiliates live in this world of cloak & dagger, so where’s the incentive to be transparent?  They incentive should be in taking the high road.
• Part of a network or merchants positioning & branding should be that they watch things & enforce their guidelines.
• Affiliates are black hat or gray hat because it works.  They’re looking at the short term money makers, not long term business planning.

Peter Borders
Founder & CEO, MediaTrust

• We have the chance to seize a tremendous long-term opportunity.
• Affiliate marketing harnesses the best of the best, and we continue to harness new channels.
• Direct response television (infomercial) industry is trying to get into affiliate marketing.
• Evolution from Mass Media to Me Media.  The consumer used to be at the bottom of the funnel, and now they’re at the top.
• Consumer is king, and we need to empower them.  The market should be driven by quality and lifetime value.
• Right now there is little innovation, minimal brand presence, and an “all for me, more for me” mentality.  We need to evolve.
• What do we need to do?  Share information and data, innovate, move up-market, and collaborate.
• We have to think holistically for the sake of the industry.
• We should help each other to set standards.
• We have to be an industry of problem solvers.
• If the whole industry goes up-market, we ALL win.
• It’s time to build collaboration and trust, and support agents of change.

Panel 2: The Road to Tier 1 Advertisers
Rebecca Madigan (Performance Marketing Association), Todd Crawford (Impact Radius), Theresa Farmer (UnsubCentral), Peter Klein (MediaWhiz), & Liz Wasserman (Mate 1)

• Big advertising agencies still don’t understand affiliate marketing.
• What do we need to do for tier 1?  Educate – be transparent.
• Big brands, this should be sales.  Agencies can’t guarantee the spend of budget in terms of performance marketing.
• It’s a much longer sales cycle with large agencies.
• People want stability and consistency, which is tricky with performance marketing.
• Is it possible, technologically’?  There’s efficiencies when you automate that always allow you to make more money.
• Big brands don’t understand that with “performance” you’re getting branding for free.
• Brand reputation is a concern for big brands, so performance seems scary.  But it goes both ways, you can also build a brand using performance marketing like Mate 1 did.
• We need to do a better job explaining the metrics to agencies.  They need to understand that there’s two types of advertising – performance and branding.  And often there is some overlap.
• There’s a kind of lethal nihilism.  Outside impressions of the industry is that we’re “a little shady & quasi criminal” and people don’t want to get involved (great quote by Liz there!)
• This gets perpetuated by smaller, CPA type folks that are looking for short term gains and give the rest of us a bad rap.
• Self-regulating isn’t going to work because there’s always a few folks willing to break the rules for a quick buck.
• Advertisers worry about negative brand impact and are worried about consumer respect.
• We don’t bring the consumer into the equation enough.
• Merchants need to focus on moving up-stream.
• It should be a goal to really be able to understand the lifetime value of a customer.