Session Description: Presenting actionable items for 7 main topics, including social media, negotiating, points of sale opportunities, content that pulls, partnerships, prioritization, and the expense of inefficiency. The panel consisted of:

• Lisa Riolo, Consultant, LisaRiolo.com (Twitter @lisariolo) (Moderator)
• Jason Oates, VP Media Services, Datran Media
• Durk Price, President, eAccountable OPM LLC
• Chuck Hamrick, Affiliate Manager, AffiliateCrew.com

This session was a perfect mix of business 101 and affiliate marketing.  I think a lot of affiliates get into this thinking they’re going to get rich quick and don’t really consider that they’re really creating a business.  So this little business intro and how it applies to performance marketing was a nice session.

Bullet Point Review!

• Top line thinkers focus on revenue, whereas bottom line thinkers focus on profit.
• You might think you can, but you can’t do it all.  Learn to delegate.
• Develop tools and methodologies to do more with less.
• Think long term and potentially sacrifice short term gains.
• You should be spending less than 50% of your time putting out fires.
• Prioritization
  • 1st Priority -> High growth & unknown costs
  • 2nd Priority -> Highly profitable growth
  • 3rd Priority -> Profitable with limited growth
  • 4th Priority -> Undetermined growth and costs
• Coupons are one of the best performing verticals.
• Affiliate marketing is not a brand meter.
• 6-12 month curve; don’t expect overnight results or a 90 day ROI.
• Everything is negotiable; evaluate other programs.
  • It doesn’t hurt to ask but remember it’s a business relationship.
  • Make sure to negotiate with 2-3 partners at once – and that they know you’re exploring other options.
• Be data driven and use data to your advantage.
• Find someone that’s going to vouch for the vendor you’re negotiating with and ask for referrals.
• Be more available and transparent.
• Three uses of email
  • Acquisition
  • Retention
  • Monetization
• Many people using feedback loops and opening dialog in order to improve.
• Find ESP that will work on a performance basis – they will help you weed out non-responders.
• Synchronize your email expertise.
• Use employees in the smartest way possible for maximum operational efficiency.
• You need metrics before you negotiate either internally or externally.
• Points of Sale
  • Up-selling
  • Add-on Products and Services
  • Continuity Programs
  • 2nd Sale and Renewals
• Providing valuable, free content is a good way to capture emails to market to.
• To decrease unsubscribers, offer other subscriber options with different frequencies or options.
• Positions 3-5 on the SERPs are the secret sauce of SEO.
• Calling a customer to confirm a sale will encourage return business.
• Know key metrics – average order value, conversion rates, lifetime order value (that one is tricky).
• You can’t just be an OPM, you have to be a consultant.
• Doing more targeting is effective.
• A monthly affiliate newsletter isn’t that effective.
• Just keep the parasites out.

Overall I got a lot out of this, and I hope others did too.  I wished the panelists had had a bit more fun with the topic to liven things up, but I understand there’s only so much you can spice up such a dry topic. Here’s the presentation, though this is clearly an older version since Karen White didn’t end up making it and Durk & Chuck stepped in:

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