IAB Revising Interactive Ad Units
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) today announced that it has held its first meeting of the Re-Imagining Interactive Advertising Task Force, comprised of top online publishers, media agencies and, for the first time, creative officers from the nation’s leading advertising agencies. Their purpose is to examine the current standards and update them, taking into consideration the evolution of online advertising.
“We believe we can make interactive advertising far more hospitable to the craft and practice of persuasion by putting creativity front and center in the development of advertising standards,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB. “By bringing creative agency leaders into the discussion of the standards, we highlight our industry-wide mission to showcase brands and engaging consumers in meaningful ways.”
The IAB first established a set of standards for interactive advertising in 2002. These standards have become the golden rule in online advertising, be it traditional CPM or affiliate advertising. The board includes players from heavy hitters like Cars.com, Disney Interactive Media Group, Google, Platform-A, Microsoft Advertising, Yahoo, and Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
Also coming out of the IAB today is their Impression Exchange Solution. This document sheds light on impression data and makes it easy to convert to a single standard that all publishers will recognize.
The document identifies the key functional requirements necessary for the automated exchange of impression data between publishers and third-party ad servers, which will allow publishers and agencies to detect and address discrepancies in near real-time.
Their goal is to minimize discrepancies in online data. Good luck to the IAB!
Breathe Easier, California Affiliates!
I had the pleasure and pain of driving up to Sacramento yesterday to sit in on the hearing for AB 178, which I’ve talked about before putting California affiliates in jeopardy. Lisa Picarille and I hopped into my car and made the drive up, and about 10 minutes away from our destination, we get the news that the hearing had been postponed. The bill has been changed to a two year bill. What does this mean, exactly?
Believe it or not, I couldn’t find a sufficient actual definition for what a two year bill is online, so I can only pass on what I was told in basic layman’s terms, which may be better anyway. Basically what this means is that the hearing has been postponed until January, when it will be up again to be heard in hearings. We were told by several seasoned lobbyists that if it’s not heard in January, this bill in this current incarnation will be dead. However, the issue won’t necessarily go away. We will need to keep an eye out for other bills to make sure language isn’t shoehorned into other bills that could affect affiliate livelihood and tax nexus, and we also have to pay attention in June when budgeting starts to make sure no strange budget items that could affect nexus show up.
This is a small victory and California affiliates can certainly breath easier for awhile, but it’s not over yet. We’ve won the battle but the war rages on. Of course, there’s a lot of blog coverage on the happenings of yesterday, so check out their points of view as well:
- Mr. Lewis Goes to Sacramento – David Lewis
- Calif. AB 178 on Hold for Now – Lisa Picarille
- California Hearing Postponed – that’s a good thing! – Rebecca Madigan
- No Hearing for California AB 178 – Shawn Collins
- Commission Junction’s Internet Retail Tax News
How I Got a New Job in Less Than a Week
- Get laid off from your current employer.
- Email everyone you know within your industry. Let them know that you’re on the market and ask that if they see any opportunities, to pass them along.
- Don’t wait for answers; reach out to everyone and look at other jobs in the meantime.
- Don’t change your routine too much to stay upbeat.
- One of those connections pays off in the form of a new job.
- Start new job.
So, yeah. I make it sound easy. To be honest, it kind of was. So, this serves as a semi-official announcement via my blog here that I’m now an Affiliate Manager for Paulson Management Group, one of the most recognized and respectable outsourced program management firms in the Affiliate Marketing industry. I’m excited to join Heather Paulson and the team and keep on truckin’ doing what I do best!
I’m also going to step up onto a soap box for a moment and remind everyone how important it is to network within your industry! If I hadn’t made a fairly decent name for myself within the affiliate world, I’d probably still be waiting for a call back from some entry level marketing job here in the Bay Area. It helps to introduce yourself to people. Don’t forget that at the next industry event you attend; it doesn’t matter what your industry is, it’s important to network. Okay, end soap box.
Read MoreGoing to ad:tech San Francisco?
I am! This will be my first ad:tech and I’m excited! I’ve got all my sessions picked out on the schedule and logged into trusty TripIt. Want to know where I’ll be? Check it out here. I plan on working the expo hall and sessions to the best of my advantage to pick up some helpful tools and meet some helpful people! Unfortunately I’m still without a permanent position, though I’ve had some promising conversations with a few people. Is it too much to hope that I’ll have a permanent job by then? It’s just a week away… so scoop me up while you can!
Some of the sessions I’m planning on attending look like great opportunities to learn more about spaces that I’m not too familiar with, Danny Sullivan’s SMX @ ad:tech sessions teaching the basics of search marketing. I’m still green on the intricacies of search marketing, although I know the basic concept. I need to get in there and dive into the deep end of the pool to really get a better grasp. Hopefully after this session I’ll feel a bit more comfortable to dive in and do some experimentation myself. There’s also one session sponsored by Media Trust on performance marketing, and a lot of the other session descriptions sound like they’ll be touching on various aspects of performance based marketing. So I can’t wait!
Speaking of conferences, I do have more notes to share with you from the Web 2.0 Expo, I’ve just been a tad slow to get them all banged out. Look for that coming up soon!
Read MoreAffiliate Marketing Fanatics 5: Staring Down the Governator
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Affiliate Marketing Fanatics – A Publisher (Mike Buechele) and an Affiliate Manager (Trisha Lyn Fawver) talk about all things Affiliate Marketing. From blogging to branding, social media to search, video and more!
We are a touch late with delivering last week’s show to you. I was out of my office away lobbying against California AB 178 on Tuesday and then at Web 2.0 Expo the rest of the week, so Mike and I took today to catch up on a few things. We start all business and devolve into my rant on the etiquette of booth staff at trade shows. So be sure to heed my words and stop, collaborate, and listen!
A few things we mention this week:
- My second job as a California lobbyist against AB 178
- Affiliate Voice: The Voice of the Affiliate Industry launched this week. Their president is Melanie Seery of NYAffiliateVoice.com
- Twitter dropped their auto-follow service, so we took a look at 3rd party apps like Tweet Later.
- Mike explored Max Banner Ads as an adserver for his blogs.
- A brief recap of the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco and the tools I found potentially useful: StartForce, Safari Books Online, and GooseGrade
- Another tech blog by our pals Sam Harrelson and Scott Jangro called Cloud39.com
- Shout outs: Stephanie Lichtenstein’s awesome work on the #advertisingtax organization and Facebook group, and Daniel M. Clark’s great help via Twitter.
This episode comes in at a mouth watering 52 minutes.
Read MoreAmazon Puts the Kybosh on PPC
All Amazon Associates in North American programs today received an email in which Amazon has notified us of program changes. As of May 1, Amazon will no longer allow associates to drive traffic via pay-per-click ad campaigns.
As of May 1, 2009, Associates will not be paid referral fees for paid search traffic. Also, in connection with this change, as of May 1, 2009, Amazon will no longer make data feeds available to Associates for the purpose of sending users to the Amazon websites in the US or Canada via paid search.
This change applies only to the Associates programs in North America. If you are conducting paid search activities in connection with one of Amazon’s Associates Programs outside of the US and Canada, please refer to the applicable country’s Associates Program Operating Agreement for relevant terms and conditions.
Many programs know that PPC is essential for some affiliates, so it’s interesting that Amazon would chose to alienate these affiliates from their program. I wonder if this is related in any way to the #advertisingtax California AB 178 that we’re working on killing. Only time (or an Amazon insider) will tell!
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