Posts Tagged "Branding"

ASE09 Session: Keeping Your Affiliate Program Clean

Posted on Aug 24, 2009 in Affiliate Marketing, Conferences & Networking, Guest Posts, Marketing | 1 comment

Guest Post by Dominic Fawver.

Session Description: Learn advanced approaches to running a clean affiliate program. A review of the systems, processes, tools and techniques used by leading affiliate programs to keep their programs clean. The panel consisted of:

This session contained a lot of useful information targeted mostly to companies with an affiliate program and also outsource program managers.  Some of the information was useful for affiliates, especially the need for a good relationship between affiliates and affiliate managers.  The session consisted of short presentations by David Naffziger and by Graham MacRobie and then the floor was opened up for questions.

The presentations gave a brief overview of some of the common forms of abuse affiliate programs need to avoid.  These include PPC violations, Cookie Stuffing, Legitimate link replacement, transaction lead fraud, and Brand Squatting.  Some of the ways given to combat abuse were to know how your partners work – know how traffic is normally sent, who else they work with, is their plan consistent with their performance, and is their traffic pattern different from the normal.  Examples of various software was give, a couple from Brand Verity and also free alternatives.

The question and answer portion gave several very good tips.  One of the first was that no program should auto-approve, that affiliates each be inspected to make sure that they are who they say they are.  Another was to go over the terms and conditions listed for the program at least once a year;  it is better to have over strict rules and regs. that are lightly enforced rather than not enough.  This will help in the long run because if abuse is found it can then be removed.  Less than desirable affiliates are likely to group in the smaller networks as they are less likely to be discovered.  More abuse is likely in a new affiliate program.  Having the highest payout can make you a target on account of greed.   Many of these comments can be used both by affiliate managers and also act as warnings to affiliates as to the relationship they should have with their manager.

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ASE09 Meet Market Observations

Posted on Aug 21, 2009 in Affiliate Marketing, Conferences & Networking, Guest Posts, Marketing |

Guest Post by Dominic Fawver.

During Affiliate Summit I visited both the Meet Market and the exposition hall to see the booths.  I was impressed at how good some of the booths and tables were, and also at how bad some were.  If I could recognize they were bad as a first time attendee, they must have stood out to veterans.  Here are some general comments based upon my experiences.

  • Have a banner behind the table, giving your name and hopefully an idea of what you are (network, merchant, etc.)
  • Have a give away: this is something that will make people remember you later.  It is even better if it ties in with your company name, slogan, or something of that nature.  It never hurts to be unique.
  • Have people at the booth (I would have assumed that was obvious).
  • Be friendly (again, obvious).
  • Don’t have several people working the crowd and handing out stuff (I got asked if I wanted Perfect English at least 10 times) and no one at the table.
  • If you have a giveaway or are doing a contest make sure to enter people that come up in it.  If there is a scanner make sure that all of the people working the booth know how to use it.
  • Make sure that you are not crowding into the booth next to you.
  • If your giveaway is beer make sure there is plenty of room for people (very good attention getter in my opinion, but a zoo if not handled right).

I would have thought most of these would be completely obvious, but I saw multiple examples of each.  Companies are paying for these tables, so the focus should be optimizing the experience to bring in business, not turn it away.  I was really impressed with adCanadian and how every little detail of their table tied into company branding – their banner, the sticker, the giveaway, their jersey – and they were really nice guys to boot (eh!).  They created a positive, lasting impression, which is what you should be doing when representing the company at any conference or industry event.  Keep these tips in mind when planning your own Meet Market table or booth for future conferences!

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Affiliate Classroom Rebrands to Lurn, Inc.

Posted on Mar 9, 2009 in Affiliate Marketing, Marketing | 6 comments

Is it too soon to say “Rebranding Fail”?

I just got the news that Affiliate Classroom, Inc is re-branding themselves to Lurn, Inc. I must admit that my first impression of the new name is not a positive one.  I immediately wanted to ask – what was wrong with Affiliate Classroom?  Didn’t it say everything it needed to say?  The press release they sent along with the announcement email answered that question:

“We originally set out to provide training and best practices for affiliates. The name Affiliate Classroom made perfect sense,” said founder and CEO Anik Singal. “But in late 2008 as our executive team developed our strategic vision for the next two years, we felt limited by the name. What we’re able to offer now is beyond simple how-to information for affiliates. Changing our name is strategically liberating.”

Lurn, Inc.Okay, I can understand that.  When your name is very specific and your goals expand to something greater, a new name is in order.  So I can support them in the decision to re-brand to a new name that’s more all-encompassing to what they want to achieve.  But Lurn?  I’m not sure I can be on board with the new name; for some reason it reminds me of names like Knol and Cuil and other recent social media-crazed names that seem to be trying harder to be “cool” or “cutting edge” than functional and appropriate.  Which made me sad to read further down in the press release to this:

Singal added, “We’ve been getting a lot of compliments on the new name. We think that it highlights our fun personality, while staying true to our vision of empowering our students to reach their goals through technology and education.”

Maybe I’m being overly critical about the name.  Afterall, that’s just my two cents.  I do have to hand it to Anik & his team that they’re awesome people who are doing a good thing for the industry so I really do wish them the best of luck with the rebranding effort.  For their sake I also hope more people like the new name more than I do 😛

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Affsum West 09 Keynote Gary Vaynerchuk

Posted on Jan 22, 2009 in Affiliate Marketing, Conferences & Networking, Marketing |

Gary VaynerchukThis was a great keynote, given by Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibraryTV.  He killed it in terms of getting the crowd riled up and rearing to go for the rest of the show.  He also did something I haven’t seen from other keynote speakers – he actually opened it up for questions. Gary has a very real, conversational style of speaking, which I appreciate.  He curses, and beware I have republished some things verbatim so there’s some choice words below.

The show organizers did something else cool and different – they streamed the keynote speech live on Ustream.

Bullet Point Review!

  • More emphasis is needed on community.
  • Content is king, but marketing is the queen and she runs the house.
  • Be authentic – he never does double takes or edits out stray bits for WLTV.
  • 45-60 minutes spent on content, the rest is on monetization.
  • If you’re not doing vanity searches for your name or your brand, you’re a monumental clown.
  • Too many people preach to this crowd.
  • We’ve been aiming to hit singles but we all have the talent to hit home runs.
  • Sink your teeth into your passion.
  • Why can’t we be artists AND entrepreneurs?
  • If you want to make money, then you should.  Don’t feel bad for it.
  • If you have cockroaches in the back of your pizza place, clean that shit up!  (i.e. anything you do that’s wrong or shady WILL come out).
  • People don’t want to see ROI numbers.
  • People are not creating multiple channels and should.
  • Create more angles and more opportunity to make money.
  • ROI will be much more important with the economic situation we’re in.
  • Social Media is bullshit – it’s just the extension of business.
  • Watch a 13 year old interact – they’re not going to be reading the newspapers or watching the nightly news.
  • Details are what really build business.
  • When you build brand equity, you’re always able to make money.
  • If you think Twitter is your main play for the rest of your life, you’re an asshole.
  • When you care, you win.
  • We all now go direct to consumer.
  • Twitter is word of mouth on steroids.
  • If you leave here with nothing else, ask yourself this: Where the hell am I going?  What do I want to do?

Points brought up during the Q&A

  • How do you build multiple brands?  There are no tactics, just be who you are.
  • How do you cross pollinate across different brands and networks?  It’s like fishing in other ponds.  Your message carries.  When you step outside this space, you sound like fucking yoda!  Focus your message across multiple channels.
  • How has PleaseDressMe.com not fizzled?  They said from the beginning that the goal was affiliate marketing to make money.  People took them more seriously.  They created the hype to leverage the hype.

All in all, a good way to start the conference!  Getting people riled up at 9:45am on a Monday morning isn’t an easy task!

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To Continue This Blog Or Not?

Posted on Jun 13, 2008 in Career, Writing | 7 comments

I’m considering whether or not I want to continue with this blog. I’m not sure that many people really read it consistently, and I’m beginning to doubt if there’s room in this space for another marketing blog from someone who didn’t even go to school for marketing. Is my perspective that unique? Not sure… so, I’m at a precipice I guess.

2008 Visitors

The blog isn’t even a year old yet, but I find myself questioning whether or not the blog is adding any value to the space or am I yet another jackass sharing their opinion with people who didn’t ask for it? According to Google Analytics, which longtime readers will see that I couldn’t even keep THAT working, I get about 61 visitors per day. 10,072 since January 1. But how accurate is this since my reporting has had fails a couple times? And does this even matter?

Unless I receive a boom of entries for the contest by Sunday, the contest has been a complete failure with not one single entry as of this moment. I thought the prizes were pretty sweet… hell I’d love to win them myself. What did I do wrong? Not put WIN A VADO! in the title? Rely too heavily on promoting it through Twitter?

Of course, this first year is a total learning curve. Find what works, what doesn’t. I can’t expect to just jump in and be the bomb. Am I being too rash? Not patient enough?crossroads

Confusing whether I’m representing my employer or myself is also weighing heavy. Am I forsaking my employer by endorsing my personal brand within my web presence?

These things weigh heavily on my mind as more and more work seems to pile on me – both at my place of employment and at home. Sure it’s building my “personal brand”, and I’ve gotten some cool opportunities from it like co-hosting the Affiliate Thing podcast and an upcoming opportunity that I’m not quite ready to announce yet, but…is it ultimately worth it?

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FeedBurner FAIL

Posted on Apr 13, 2008 in Rambles |

Something wonky happened a few days ago and I didn’t notice… sorry feed readers!

Here’s the posts you may have missed…

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