Always leading by example, the good folks at Affiliate Summit have set up a great challenge to donate to charity leading up to Affiliate Summit East 2010 in New York this summer. They’ve set up a challenge page on Nike’s website and have pledged to donate $1 per mile up to $5,000) to the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade.  So far, LKFan is in the lead with nearly 120 miles!

Now, if you’ve ever met me, you can tell in 2 seconds that I’m not a runner.  I’d pass out half a block from my house if I attempted to run.  However, I do enjoy walking around with my camera in hand to take pictures, and honestly, I need more motivation to get out there into the world and walk more for my health.

Here’s the rub.  For reasons beyond logical understanding, the Nike+ sensor required for this challenge is only compatible with the iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPod Nano – none of which I have.  I have the iPod Classic and for some odd reason, they don’t make a sensor that’s compatible.  Nike does, however, make a SportBand, which would work for me.  However, priced at $60 it’s a bit outside my budget for this time of year.

This is your opportunity to sponsor me in this challenge!  So, for the low price of buying the SportBand for me, you will get:

• My commitment to walk at least 30 miles between now and August.
• If you send me a 2xl shirt with your logo, I will wear it in high traffic areas where I walk.
• Many appreciative mentions of your name, company, brand, etc. both here on my blog, on Twitter, and on my podcast, Affiliate Marketing Fanatics on GeekCast.fm.
• The heart warming knowledge that you’re helping me help Affiliate Summit donate to a wonderful cause, furthering advancements in Breast Cancer research.

So, interested?  Want something more out of this deal?  I’m willing to negotiate!  Comment if you’re interested, or shoot me an email. 

Let’s Just Do It!

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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
  • SModcast – Listen to 107: Go F— Yourself, Southwest Airlines and 106: Thinicism
  • YouTube Videos of Kevin’s Final Words
  • Southwest Airline’s Blog: Not So Silent Bob and My Conversation with Kevin Smith
• 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:
  • Performance Marketing Association: California Affiliates – It’s Time To Get Involved
  • PMA: Vermont Affiliates – Your Urgent Help is Needed
  • PMA: You Can Help Fight the Advertising Tax
  • Affiliate Advocacy: Tension Mounts in Maryland
  • AA: Illinois Internet Sales Tax Bill Surfaces
  • AA: Virginia Gains Momentum and Double Threat
  • Stephanie Lichtenstein’s blog: Top Ten Things On My Mind This Month
• 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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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!

In this all-too-RARE episode, we reunite and make lots of fun of ourselves for being inconsistent in our scheduling and shows.  We discuss some things that are kind of old and some things that are brand-spanking new.  It happens.  Incidentally, I realize I said the name Richard Attenborough when we were joking around and I was trying to reference those classic nature shows from our childhood with the stoic British actor describing gazelles running across the Serengeti.  Not sure what the actor’s name actually was, but I know now that it wasn’t Sir Attenborough.  Oh well, despite that, episode 19 comes in at a cheetah like speed of 39 minutes.

Also, I just fixed the audio problem where it cut off about 33 minutes in.  Sorry, should be all good now!  In this episode we discuss:

• My new gig with For Me To Coupon.
• The Advertising Tax hits Colorado.  Read more about it here:
  • Fox 31 KDVR News: Online sales tax bill moves through House
  • Examiner.com: Are state representatives going to put work-at-home moms out of business overnight? (by Jen Goode!)
  • Performance Marketing Association: Colorado House Passes Bill that Threatens to Devastate Affiliates (by Lisa Picarille!)
• The launch of Impact Radius – more of an exchange than a network.
  • My Interview with Lisa Riolo of Impact Radius
• Seesmic Look.  Seriously, what is this?  We decided – it’s a search tool!
• 1938 Media starts 1938 Business & teams up with some heavy hitters to produce this year’s Audience Conference.
  • Loren Feldman and Affiliate Summit Team Up
• Shout outs went to the losers of the Affiliate of the Year Pinnacle Award, Kim Rowley and Eric Nagel!

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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A new kind of affiliate network was launched just a couple weeks ago – Impact Radius.  They boast themselves as the first multi-channel performance marketing platform.  Impact Radius links performance advertising to TV, radio, print and online distribution channels—delivering to advertisers and media partners opportunities for growth and profit. I’m happy to present you with an interview with one of the founders, Lisa Riolo.

What is the Twitter (~140 Character) Definition of Impact Radius?
Well, I’m going to cheat a little and send back-to-back tweets from @impactradius

• We’re the first multi-channel performance advertising platform. Emphasis on multi-channel.
• We feature an open directory for discovering partners, electronic insertion orders, comprehensive tracking, reporting and payout processing.

Are all the founders of Impact Radius from your days at Commission Junction?
Yes, we all met there in the early days. We’ve all worked for other companies or pursued other ventures in-between then and now.

Those other experiences apart provided tremendous value because it gave us all expanded perspectives. It’s like when everyone in a band goes off and does solo projects and experiments with new rhythms and different instruments. Later, the band reunites with transformed creativity and a familiar, but fresh sound.

How do you feel this will impact the industry in the short term?  Long term?
We see the convergence of traditional and online media as a huge opportunity. Almost immediately, new partnerships that bridge traditional channels to online and vice-versa started forming. Relationships like these, before Impact Radius, were challenging. This makes us a catalyst for growth for the industry as a whole.

Do you foresee any hurdles since the nomenclature of performance marketing terms usually mean different things in different aspects of marketing?
One of the greatest opportunities about building this business was the chance to start with a completely clean slate. We re-visited everything about performance advertising. We asked questions like: What is fundamental to the relationships and what could benefit from a new approach? What business processes are counter to the way people actually work together? And even—is this the best descriptor to use?

So, yes, with respect to nomenclature, we have introduced changes that should minimize confusion and help bridge the differences in a way that creates opportunity. Let me give you an example: We don’t call “affiliates” Affiliates. We don’t call “affiliates” Publishers either. We say: Media Partners—which works for Internet marketers, broadcast TV networks, print publications etc.

Who do you feel this is a sure sell to? (i.e. Who are your primary demographic?)
The performance advertising industry, meaning the advertisers, the media partners, the agencies and services, and even the networks.

I know that answer sounds like we’re flying in the face of conventional wisdom—trying to do ‘everything’ for ‘everybody.’ We’re not, though, doing everything for everybody. We are a technology platform designed specifically for performance advertising. But we’re not also an agency and also a broker and also direct response product owners. We designed Impact Radius to serve the needs of many business models, including the one’s I just listed, as they manage their performance advertising efforts.

How does this integrate with the existing affiliate technologies out there?
Technology companies and solution providers alike can promote their services in our directory and interface with our technology platform through Web Services.

What are the questions you get asked the most about Impact Radius from affiliates?  From merchants?  From agencies?
How do I sign-up? Seriously.

There really isn’t a strong argument against doing some level of business with us. Even if it’s just to manage a few relationships on the platform or promote your services in the directory…

How about questions from the networks?
The initial response is congratulatory and supportive. Then comes the question: Should I consider you a competitor?

Our answer is: Not necessarily. Aspects of our functionality may overlap—but aspects may also be complementary. For example, a CPA network could promote their offers in our directory and use platform features like the electronic insertion orders or payout systems to efficiently manage certain relationships. Or, an affiliate network could refer one of their customers to Impact Radius to start managing their “offline” advertising on a performance basis.

The idea is to fuel performance advertising growth exponentially.

Lisa Riolo is an active, dedicated member of the performance advertising community and remains committed to its further growth and achievement. Prior to co-founding Impact Radius, Lisa consulted with high-growth businesses to develop online marketing programs and scale operations. Lisa’s previous experience includes serving as senior vice president of business development at Commission Junction, where she played an instrumental role in growing company revenue, and managerial roles at Peet’s Coffee & Tea and Bank of America.

Lisa holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Claremont McKenna College.

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I’m excited to say that an article I wrote is included in the book Internet Marketing From The Real Experts, edited by Shawn Collins & Missy Ward.  This is the first book to be published under the Velocity NYC Press imprint by Morgan James Publishing.  The official author is “The Gang of 88″ as the book is a compilation of articles written for and printed in FeedFront Magazine.  The book was given out to attendees of Affiliate Summit West 2010 and boasts 3 minute lessons on affiliate marketing, email marketing, search engine optimization, social media, and much more!

My article on Affiliate Manager Communication Strategies appears on page 15.  Unfortunately since I wrote that article towards the beginning of FeedFront’s publication, it says I’m the marketing manager for PsPrint.com, which if you follow my blog you know that’s not true anymore.  Oh well!  I’m excited to be part of the gang of 88, and look forward to reading the entire book (well, the articles I haven’t already read in FeedFront).

From the back of the book:

What do Jay Berkowitz, Chris Brogan, Brian Clark, Jim Kukral, Ted Murphy, Jeremy Schoemaker, and Mari Smith have in comment?  They all walk the walk when it comes to their Internet marketing expertise.  And they also have joined dozens of innovators and thought shapers to share their ideas, advice, and insight.

Internet Marketing from the Real Experts is a collection of affiliate, email,  blogging, podcasting, video, search engine, and social network rock stars that break down the how and why of Internet marketing in a clear, easy to understand way.

Their voices, their ideas, their action items, and their lessons learned from mistakes – all for you to grow your business the day you start reading Internet Marketing from the Real Experts.

I know that all those flattering words are really meant for the caliber of people listed on the back cover, but I’m honored to be among them in print!  Better yet – all proceeds are going to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.  Maybe now I will write that book I’ve been thinking of!

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Session Description: Get off your butt and get to work. Motivational tips, tricks & strategies that can put you on the path to online success. The featured speaker was:

• Jim Kukral, President, JimKukral.com

This was a great session, a real kick in the pants to get off your ass and finish those projects you’ve put on hold.  I picked up a lot of great tips to put into action here on my site, and I think you will too.  Jim is a master motivator, without the cheese (for the most part).

Bullet Point Review!

• Doers get what they want…everyone else gets what they get.
• Be remarkable.
• Have a signature product.
• Are you a loser or a failure?
  • The failures are the ones that are successful.  Because they keep trying.
  • Learn your lessons the hard way.
• Fail hard, fail fast, and try something new.
• Negativity kills.  Remove negativity across the board.
• Everything we do online falls under two categories: solve problems or be entertained.
  • If you can combine both of those things, you can find a faster path to success.
  • It’s about having your pain taken away – find ways to take pain away from people.
• Easy always wins – solving problems is how you make money.
  • Think like Google – simple.
  • Simple, problem solving, customer oriented.
• Branding is the thick, sticky goo that a company puts on your hand – if it’s good, you’ll lick it off.  If it’s bad, you’ll go wash it off.
• You don’t sell what you think you sell.
  • e.g. Nike doesn’t sell apparel & sports equipment.  They contract spokespeople like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods because they sell winning.
• What is it your customers REALLY need from you?
  • Lead with what you sell.
  • If you can lead with “We save you time” or “money”, great.
• Universal Internet truths
  • No one reads anymore, they scan.
    • Average attention span online is 2.7 seconds (about as long as it takes to read a tweet).
    • Resource: DontMakeMeThink.com
    • Figure out why people come to your site and get rid of the other junk.
  • No more interruptions!
    • Short attention spans.
    • There’s a million competitors out there.
    • There’s got to be a way for you to stand out and be more noticed.
      • Go back to problem solving and understanding your customers.
    • You know you need to do these things, you just need a reminder to apply it.  Go out and make it happen.
    • Where do you want to be in a year from now?  6 months from now?
  • People want bargains
    • It doesn’t matter what you sell, people will buy more often if you give them a deal, OR the perception that they’re getting a deal.
    • The truth about humans is that they want to feel like they’re getting one over on you.
    • Always have some kind of discount and put it in their face.
  • Take a chance and get creative
    • What ideas have you had that you let slip away?
    • You never know what will happen, so try it.

Most of the Q&A was just follow up on some of the examples and resources Jim talked about.  I really feel energized with this site to take it to another level. Here’s the presentation:

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Entreproducer: The Affiliate Marketer as Media Mogul

Thin affiliate sites are disappearing from search engines, while social media is powered by content sharing, not sales pitches. It’s time to start thinking like a new media producer first and foremost, with affiliate relationships as just one form of monetization. The keynote was given by:

• Brian Clark, Co-Founder, DIY Themes

Brian notes that this was his first keynote, so good job on one under the belt!  It focused on creativity, which I really did connect with.  Unfortunately it did get kind of dry in the middle and I admit, I lost focus on taking notes.  But he ended on a memorable note using some music clips to illustrate some points.

Bullet Point Review!

• Focus on branded websites – better for link backs.  If you can get a keyword in, great, but that shouldn’t be the focus.
• Positioning – What’s unique about you?  How do you stand out in a competitive landscape?
• Design – Great usability of the content (presentation).
• Contact & Community – you want people to raise their hands and pay attention to you over time.
• It’s easier to make money if you’re using content to attract an audience and sell something related.
• From a mindset standpoint, realize you’re in the media business.
• Branded content started with soap operas, kinda.
• There’s nothing more powerful than being an authority figure yourself.
• Branding is really everything – it’s the story you’re trying to tell the world.
• They hear what they want and hopefully it’s what you want them to hear.
• It’s not about traffic, and it’s not just about audience, it’s about creating fans.
• You don’t have to be a rock star to the whole world, just to a group of fans.
• Your brand is a story.  If someone is saying something bad about you then it’s still branding.
• If the only thing people are saying about you is bad, at least you have feedback telling you want you are doing wrong.
• Most people that study creativity find that these people have lower associative boundaries.
• We’re socialized to put things in boxes and categories.
• Fail fast – keep trying and you’ll get a lot better at it.

Brian summarized with some clips from a group called Girl Talk that makes unlikely musical mash ups. I highly recommend going in search of this group, who has two albums out if I remember correctly.

Here’s the video provided by Affiliate Summit:

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Tuesday January 19th

The final day of Affiliate Summit started bright and early with the Pinnacle Awards scheduled before the last day’s keynote by Brian Clark.  This was a change for the conference agenda, which usually puts the Pinnacle Awards in the afternoon after other sessions.  I like the change because it gets the awards out of the way, and didn’t interfere with any other sessions or independent parties planned in the evening.  I seem to remember last year that some of the award winners had to jet quickly after the awards to get to a charity poker tournament, among other places.

The winners have been blogged all over, but here’s a quick recap just in case this is the only blog you read (unlikely): Affiliate of the Year – Nicholas Koscianski.  Affiliate Manager of the Year – Matt McWilliams.  Exceptional Merchant – eBay Partner Network.  Affiliate Marketing Advocate – Angel Djambazov.  Best Bloggger – Jeremy Schoemaker.  Affiliate Marketing Legend – Scott Jangro.

Next up was Brian Clark’s keynote.  He admitted at the beginning that it was his first keynote, so I guess he did pretty well all things considered.  Of course, I have a whole post devoted to the keynote that I’ll go into later.

Once again, I intended to go into more sessions on Tuesday, but got sidetracked with all the networking possibilities.  As well, I was given a demo of a new affiliate network of sorts, Impact Radius.  It gives merchants and affiliates a way to also reach out and work with more traditional media partners.  I had an opportunity to interview one of the founders, Lisa Riolo, about the launch of the new network, which will also be another blog post coming up soon.

I made it a point to get to Jim Kukral’s session How To Get Motivated For Success!, which I’ll of course be posting a recap for.  It was a great kick in the pants to get going with projects that have been stalled for awhile.  I know Eric Nagel wrote an entire post about Jim’s kick in the ass.

While in Jim’s session, I heard via Twitter that Daniel M. Clark of Geek Dads Weekly was invited to speak on the GeekCast.fm Live panel.  I was bummed since I wanted to participate with that panel/group like I did at Affiliate Summit East 2009, but happy for Daniel.  I went into the session for a moment, but left in favor of running back up to my room for a few things.  As I understand, the session was some industry talk followed up with a lot of “how to podcast” type questions, so it looks like I personally didn’t miss much information that I didn’t already know.

The evening ended with a fail on the part of the Rio.  A BlogUp mixer was planned at the VooDoo Lounge, which was official and everything, not just 100 people crashing the lounge for a mixer.  Unfortunately, it was raining and since the lounge has an indoor and an outdoor area, the lounge ended up double booked with another much larger group of people.  So we tried cramming into the bar at the steakhouse for awhile, overwhelming the poor bartender on duty.  Finally, the Rio moved the charade down to the iBar and served complimentary champagne as a mea culpa.

I stayed for awhile, the  it was on to another Las Vegas tradition – the buffet!  A large group of us went to the Carnival World Buffet at the Rio, one of my favorite buffets ever.  Then again, I haven’t been to many.  It was good times and good food with good people – one of my favorite activities!  After dinner, I went and hung out with Heather Smith & Julie Vazquez, who were still at the iBar.  Had a very pleasant last night of Affiliate Summit West 2010!

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Session Description: This session un-muddies the murky waters of the FTC’s ever-changing focus, the proliferation of IP-related lawsuits, and the legal ambiguity regarding many forms of Internet-based marketing. The panel consisted of:

• Bennet Kelley, Founder, Internet Law Center
• Pete Wellborn, Managing Member, Wellborn, Wallace, & Woodard, LLC

I did like this session more than the FTC related session I attended at the last affiliate summit.  It was put together with the affiliate industry really in mind, though it captured my interest for being not entirely affiliate related.

Bullet Point Review!

• Truth, proof, & fairness – everything we talk about today can be summed up with this.
• Misleading – common violations, disclaimers, & disclosures, demonstrations, refund policies, ads directed at children, environmental claims.
• Unfair ads – causes or is likely to cause injury that is:
  • substantial AND
  • not outweighed by other benefits AND
  • not reasonably avoidable
• Who is liable?
  • Seller (manufacturer or provider)
  • Ad Agencies
  • Site Designers
  • Affiliates
  • Individuals (personally involved)
    • “Negligence Standard” – knew or should have known that the ad included false or deceptive claims.
    • Exert as much control over people as you possibly can because you don’t want to find yourself peripherally liable.
• Other FTC Enforced Laws
  • Franchise & Business Opp Rule
  • MLM Pyramid Scheme Rules Laws
  • Truth in Lending Act
  • Fair Credit Billing Act
  • Fair Credit Reporting Act
  • Equal Credit
  • 900 #s
• Rules of Thumb
  • Truth
  • Consumer point-of-view
  • Proof
  • Careful: disclaimers/disclosures – rules have dramatically changed.
  • Careful: endorsement claims
• Testimonials & Endorsements
  • Celebrities
    • 1st – Accurate
    • 2nd – With Permission (”right of publicity”)
  • General Considerations
    • Honest opinion/belief of endorser
    • Same claim-standard as seller
    • Endorsers must continue in belief
    • Statements must be presented in context
  • Consumer Endorsements
    • You cannot get away with “results not typical” anymore.
    • Claims must be representative
    • Claims must be substantial
    • or Claims can be disclaimed (MAYBE)
    • Same claim-standard as seller
    • “Actual Consumer” must be just that
  • Expert Endorsements
    • Must be true
    • Must be a real expert in the correct field
  • Organization Endorsements
    • True collective judgment opinion
    • Must be true “expert” opinion
  • Material Connections
    • This is where the FTC is trying to go after the “mommy blogger” crowd
    • Connection between endorser and seller that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement must be fully disclosed (very gray area in terms of HOW)
    • Rule often applies where endorser is not celebrity or well-known expert
    • “Connection” may be money or publicity
      • Applies to blogs & flogs (fake blogs)
      • Walmarting Across America was a fake blog made by Walmart to generate publicity.
      • Absolutely forbidden by the rules of the FTC
      • They don’t want to have a chilling effect on guerilla or creative marketing campaigns, but at some point it has to be disclosed that it’s marketing or advertising.
• “Free” Stuff
  • “Free” means free
  • “Regular price” means same price, on the same quality, quantity, and service level at which the seller has sold the product in that geographic market or trade area for a reasonable substantial period of time
  • Ad must be clean

Points brought up during the Q&A

• In the context of an agency, how can you transfer liability of claims to the client?
  • Have a bullet proof contract
  • Make sure your agreement has a provision that you’ll periodically monitor any celebrity or expert endorsements to ensure accuracy

They read through the presentation rather fast so my notes are probably incomplete.  Luckily, the presentation was made available!  I had to leave during the Q&A portion to get back to the booth, so I probably missed some good stuff caught on video, so I’ll add that here in the next few weeks.  Here’s the presentation:

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Session Description: Product datafeeds are among the most powerful tools available to affiliate marketers. We’ll discuss the current state of datafeeds and industry progress, best practices, and moving toward standards. The panel consisted of:

• Scott Jangro, President, Mech Media Inc. (Moderator)
• Larry Adams, Product Manager, Google
• Shergul Arshad, VP Business & Corporate Development, StyleFeeder, Inc.
• Brian Smith, CEO & Founder, SingleFeed

The panel was really well organized.  Scott asked questions and then each panelist answered.  I did my best to note the questions Scott asked and who each answer came from.

Bullet Point Review!

• Have you seen innovation in datafeeds?
  • Larry: Haven’t seen a lot of innovation on the advertiser side, but have seen innovation from publishers.  Deriving interesting information from feeds to actually provide some value.  Taking this huge library & simplifying it.  GAN is trying to figure out how to make the data more accessible & easier to consume.  Easier for the publisher to get what they want out of it.  The networks’ role is to be a facilitator.  They push advertisers to get highest quality data and make sure as many publishers who want the data can access it.
  • Shergul: 30% of the datafeeds they work with are truly excellent, 40% just acceptable, and the rest they have to mess with.  30% aren’t in the right format, and not just smaller programs but some are from big retailers.  They’re on a campaign to try to help improve this and they reach out to the merchants.  Sometimes merchants need to be shown what they’re missing by not providing accurate data.  It’s easier for people to take advantage of open source tools to innovate so more people want to access datafeeds to automate sites.  It’s hard to envision a one-size-fits-all datafeed.
  • Brian: Not much has changed, but in the last 18 months datafeeds have become more complex.  More attributes are being asked for from the merchants.  That’s a good, positive sign.  It does kind of screw things up for merchants trying to format new feeds in different formats.  Merchants are starting to recognize datafeeds are great, and they’re looking for the next great channel.  NOw they’re being forced to deal with datafeeds.
• There’s been more development of product APIs instead of downloading text files.  Is API going to take over datafeeds?
  • Shergul: API are more accessible when you’re pulling in fewer feeds.  Using thousands of datafeeds just isn’t scalable.  There’s a place for coexisting, but in general for speed and size constraints, they can’t shift towards APIs.
  • Brian: Some publishers don’t know how to use APIs, so it’s going to take awhile for publishers to move over there and mostly they’ll coexist for awhile.
  • Larry: The nice thing about an API is the data is fresher.  GAN integrated with Google Base because they have a nice API.  Working to provide more keyword targeted ads.
  • Scott: Data has never been more accessibly and most networks now offer free access.
• If someone is just starting out, how should they start?
  • Larry: Start small.  Deal with usefullness before scale.  Find out who has the best feeds and start easy.  Figure out how you’re going to use them & then you can figure out ways to imprve the bad data or ignore it until the advertiser provices high quality fdata.  Literally tens of millions of products are available to you.  You don’t need every single product on your site to have a good user experience.  There’s a fine line between copying and searching for inspiration.  Don’t do what your competitors are doing – but shop there and find what you like and dislike in the shoes of a consumer and improve upon that.
  • Shergul: It depends on what your site does.  It’s manageable to access the “right” 20 datafeeds to be comprehensive in your vertical.  Too man products can get too big and too overwhelming too quickly.
  • Brian: Go after high quality.  You might as well start with APIs and they have a wealth of information you can access.  Make some calls & learn more about them.  Start from there.  Look at the big guys pushing great data – Amazon, eBay, Shopping.com.
• What are the major hurdles in getting “good datafeeds” to a higher number?
  • Larry: That’s more of a merchant problem than a network issue.
  • Brian: The networks need to sell datafeeds better.  Case studies will work.
• Is there hope for standardization?  Can we?  What does it really mean?
  • Larry: The first thing that comes to mind is categories.  Building a common taxonomy that works for millions of products and thousands of merchants.

Points brought up during the Q&A

• Shergul: Positive examples of great datafeeds and data quality: Nordstrom, Shoe Buy, Target, CSN Stores.
• Larry: It can seem like a daunting task to improve a feed, but start small with one category to see if there’s a payoff on the work you’ve put in.  Then you can more easily convince your boss it’s worth the time.
• If you have duplicate products, would you suggest changing the descriptions to avoid dupe content?
  • Use your own analytics to pick the best product and dump the other one; there are enough products that you don’t need to worry about using both.

I hope I got comprehensive notes.  I was trying my best to pay very close attention, but I have to admit that I got lost in some parts.  By nature, it’s a dry subject, and though the presenters were doing their best to keep it lively, that early of a time slot might have not been the best. Here’s the presentation:

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