Marketing

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.
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Vote for the Podcasting 101 Panel for Affiliate Summit East 2010

Posted on May 5, 2010 in Affiliate Marketing, Conferences & Networking |

Affiliate Summit is making a lot of changes to this years’ eastern version of the conference.  In addition to changing the Mentor Program to the Newcomer Program and offering an Affiliate Scholarship Program, they are now allowing the public to vote for Affiliate Summit East 2010 Sessions.  In the past, panel selection has been a closed process, with the members of the Affiliate Summit Advisory Board discussing and voting on which panels they want to see on the agenda.  For this year’s Eastern show, they have decided to open up the process to help narrow down the choices before the advisory board makes their ultimate decisions.  Anyone who registers with Slinkset will have the chance to vote for as many of the panels as they want by clicking on the arrow to the left of the panel descriptions.  Voting is open until May 14, 2010.

There are a lot of great potential panels, and later this week I’ll tell you all about which ones I voted for and why.  In the meantime, you have the opportunity to vote for the panel I hope to be a part of, Podcasting 101!  There have been live podcast related panels in the past, however they seem to have been less structured and more about current events than the business of affiliate podcasting.  We want to give attendees a chance to get a really basic primer on starting a podcast.

What’s Podcasting 101 Going to Cover?

Podcasting 101 will be a panel for beginners talking about how to begin a podcast and monetize.  In this era of self-publishing, anyone – including you – can produce a podcast (and make money doing it!) Come learn the basics of producing, monetizing, hosting and promoting your very own podcast.  It’s much easier and cheaper than some people think, so we’re going to go over the various tools available for recording, mixing, and promoting a podcast.  We’ll also touch on some of the more basic ways to monetize the podcast beyond text affiliate links in your show notes.

Who’s On The Panel?

Should we be selected, the panel will consist of myself, Daniel M. Clark and Tricia Meyer.  Daniel is a co-host for the Geek Dads Weekly podcast, a podcast for parents raising kids in a digital age, along side Joe Magennis and Drew Bennett.  Daniel will be able to talk about the production aspects of a podcast using a Mac, as well as monetizing the podcast.  Tricia is the owner of MeyerTech, which runs the popular rewards site Sunshine Rewards.  Along with Cindy Ballard and Angie Meeks, Tricia co-hosts the She Shops Around podcast, featuring seasonal merchants in the affiliate space.  In case you’ve already forgotten (for shame!) I co-host Affiliate Marketing Fanatics with Mike Buechele.  All of these podcasts, and more, are available at GeekCast.fm.

Sound Like a Winner?

Does this sound like a session you’d want to go to?  Great!  If so, please take a moment to register and vote for the Podcasting 101 panel!  Remember that Affiliate Summit East 2010 is taking place August 15 – 17, 2010 in New York City at the New York Hilton.  The early bird registration has already passed, but you still have time to register before they sell out!

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Affiliate Marketing Fanatics 21: The Reboot Show

Posted on May 3, 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.  We’ve been plotting ways to reboot our podcast to make it bigger, better, and even more fanatical than before.  While we’re still hammering out some concrete ideas (a little help from you, our listeners, might be nice!) we’ve decided to answer some questions.  This week, you’re getting a luxurious 39 minutes of free consulting as we discuss the difference between the various blogging platforms. In in this episode we discuss:

Want to catch up with us & ask questions for the next show? Find us on Twitter: @MikeBuechele & @TrishaLyn. Or leave us a comment!

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Advertiser-Sponsored Online Game Tournaments on PCHGames.com

Posted on Apr 19, 2010 in Conferences & Networking, Contests, Marketing |

While this is nothing new (ad-sponsored games), this tournament is an exciting twist on the old idea.

Publishers Clearing House (PCH) today announced at Ad-Tech San Francisco the introduction of advertiser-sponsored tournaments for free online games on PCHGames.com. Sponsorship exposes a brand to more than eight million targeted loyal PCH site visitors and drives an estimated 200,000 potential customers per tournament to an advertiser’s Web site. Tournament games include Mahjongg and Solitaire, which are two of the most popular games online and on PCHGames.com. In February 2010 PCHGames.com had 16 million game plays, 1.6 million unique visitors, 5 million visits and 28.8 million page views. Tournaments are developed in conjunction with casual game developer Arkadium.

The next tournament, Mom-Jongg, a Mother’s Day inspired version of the popular Mah-Jongg classic tile game, is taking place on April 28th and includes cash prizes of $1,000, $500 and $250. In addition, the top 25 scorers will earn 1,000 tokens, which can be used to win prizes including Amazon and Walmart gift cards or entries into PCH sweepstakes.

“PCHGames.com site visitors are highly motivated and engaged, especially when they have a chance to win cash just for logging on and playing their favorite games,” said Josh Glantz, vice president and general manager of PCH Online. “During the last tournament there were more than 540,000 games played in 24 hours. As the popularity of these tournaments increases the number of free online game plays continues to rise and ultimately makes this a very successful program for sponsoring advertisers.”

The advertiser-sponsored tournaments present a number of opportunities for brand messages and offers to be communicated throughout PCH’s stable portfolio of online properties, as well as through the company’s opt-in database of email subscribers. In addition to the customized tournament landing page sponsors also receive takeover ads, featured placement on the homepage of PCHGames.com, banner ads throughout the network, pre-roll and post-roll ads before the game begins and when it ends, custom tournament and partner emails and much more.

“Our online game tournaments provide a great way for advertisers to reach a targeted audience with multiple touch points at a time when they are engaged and hoping to win big,” said Michael Zane, director of online marketing at Publishers Clearing House. “Our team at PCHGames.com works closely with participating advertisers to obtain artwork and messaging, and then manages the tournament in its entirety. It’s a simple process that results in an entertaining and rewarding experience for those who play, as well as a great marketing success story for participating brands.”

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One OPM Firm to Rule Them All

Posted on Apr 6, 2010 in Affiliate Marketing |

Okay, that’s not entirely accurate.  But it’s close.  Today, Schaaf Consulting announced their acquisition today of PartnerCentric, perhaps the first OPM firm launched in 2004.  This merger will bring some of the top affiliate programs in the industry under the management of one roof.  The press release is pretty cut and dry, but I have to give them a lot of credit for having fun with it and including this quote from Schaaf Co. client Moosejaw’s Kate Runyon:

“I have been working with Schaaf Consulting since 2007, and I haven’t been this impressed since my best friend’s boyfriend tried to kiss me at prom,” said Kate Runyon, Internet Marketing Coordinator at Moosejaw. “Maybe that didn’t come out right but you probably get it.”

Awesome.

Does this signal a new dawn in the affiliate industry of Super OPM firms akin to the mega marketing firms running traditional marketing?  Perhaps, and it’s definitely an intriguing concept.  Our industry is definitely big enough for this kind of expansion, but with the 21st century flexibility that affiliate marketing is known for.  This is definitely a bonus for affiliates, giving them less people to have to contact when they need assistance.

The new company will be known as Schaaf-PartnerCentric and will be lead by Brook Schaaf.  PartnerCentric president Linda Woods will stay on as a strategic adviser.  Let me congratulate Brook & Forrest Schaaf on this venture and wish them the best of luck.  Don’t worry fellas, For Me To Coupon is in good hands with me on board 🙂

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Affiliate Marketing Fanatics 20: Fly, Fat A**, Fly (But not on Southwest)

Posted on Feb 17, 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’re a little late this week but got going relatively quick.  We chat a bit about social media and taxes in this episode, and have a good time doing it.  I think we were keeping Mike warm with our banter!  The episode comes in at a chunky, too-fat-to-fly 32:30. In in this episode we discuss:

  • Google Buzz is a Buzz Kill
  • Audience Conference 2010 is now open for registration.  This year’s theme is Comedy.
  • Kevin Smith’s Social Media battle with Southwest Airlines
  • Follow hashtag #noadtax on Twitter for updates on the fights against the advertising tax in multiple states
  • More information on the tax issues going on in various states can be found at:
  • EDIT: The Sacramento and San Diego trips we talk about were canceled late tonight.  The CA bill will be heard in the morning and we may make a trip on Monday for the house hearing.  Stay tuned!

Want to catch up with us & ask questions for the next show?  Find us on Twitter: @MikeBuechele & @TrishaLyn.  Or leave us a comment!

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