Affsum Session: Performance Marketing Association Q&A
Well, I think many people attending this session were expecting the topic to be heated, but l’m not sure they were expecting some of the venom that seemed to be in the room. Speaking for myself, I certainly didn’t. Originally there was only supposed to be one panelist fielding questions, but since 4 out of 5 working group leaders were in attendance, they were also recruited to speak. So ultimately the panel consisted of:
- Rebecca Madigan, Performance Marketing Association
- Sam Harrelson, Publisher, Cost Per News
- Brook Schaaf, Schaaf Consulting
- Brad Waller, VP Business Development, AdJungle.com
- Peter Bordes, CEO, MediaTrust
Guns were slinging! Unfortunately there’s not many bullet points to be had, but here you go.
Bullet Point Review!
- PMA is in germination phase – not a real entity yet.
- Why start now?
- Misinformation & lack of representation.
- Legislation.
- Lack of transparency.
- Maturity of industry.
- Formation process still underway.
- Interviewed over 60 industry leaders, Formation Advisory Board voted in by 100 peers.
- Working groups of 45 volunteers.
- Working groups make recommendations on formation.
- FAB 11 ratifies formation proposals (click here to see members).
- The working group committees are Scope/Objectives (headed by Sam Harrelson), Governance (Brook Schaaf), Fundraising (Peter Bordes), Membership (Durk Price), and Operations (Brad Waller).
Points (or other observations in this case) brought up during the Q&A
- Right off the bat the questions were hostile. There’s animosity about the PMA using the NY Tax situation as a launching point for formation despite the fact that they can’t do anything to help.
- Essentially there’s nothing the PMA can do since they’re NOT a fully formed organization, no matter how much they want to help.
- Rebecca acted as moderator and moved the conversation on after almost 20 minutes of hostile banter.
- The PMA blog as been quiet because the people in working groups have had their heads down working on things without much to report at this point.
- The term “Performance” has been used over “affiliate” because it is more inclusive of the larger base of members within the industry. Inclusive of a lot more relationships than just the affiliate – merchant relation.
- The PMA has a very similar model as a chamber of commerce but the scope is still being set up. They are looking at the chamber model in forming things. Mostly they want to improve visibility & credibility.
- Rebecca was questioned as to why she didn’t attend the meetings in Albany that the NY affiliates had since she’s actually the only paid member. It was decided that there was no reason because it would have been redundant and she can’t represent an organization that isn’t formed and doesn’t officially exist.
- They were asked why they divorced themselves from ABestWeb after the controversy, to which they responded that they didn’t divorce from it BUT once a particular few threads got ugly and became increasingly unprofessional they just stopped participating in those threads.
- There’s no conspiracy regarding Rebecca’s involvement – Anik Singal of Affiliate Classroom generously donated her salary for a year and she’s just being paid to “corral cats” and help form the organization. Her comment was that if she weren’t paid for this she’d have bailed long ago based on the assumptions about her involvement and what she’s had to deal with.
- An affiliate asked how they can be assured that the PMA won’t be overtaken by large company sponsorhips and forget the little affiliate? The affiliate industry is it’s own little ecosystem and the heart of it is the average affiliate. They’ve been very hypersensitive to the issue to ensure that affiliates are included.
It seems that there’s lots of confusion about the organization – or lack thereof – and hopefully the Q&A has taken things in the right direction. Perhaps Q&A wasn’t the right moniker. Maybe Suggestion Session or Feedback Forum might have worked better. It was disappointing to see one of the most vocal critics of the PMA – ABestWeb founder Haiko de Poel Jr – leave the session half way through in apparently disgust. I hope that future discussions going forward will be a bit more productive than the session in Boston.
Read MoreDays 2 and 3 of Affiliate Summit East 2008
Well, while I’d intended to recap each day… that didn’t exactly happen as you can tell. I do intend to post the notes I took from the sessions and the impressions to help everyone learn the great stuff I learned. Some of the more hot button sessions can’t be covered in mere bullet points, so it will take me a day or so longer to get my thoughts together for those.
I covered Saturday & Sunday (mostly… the ShareASale party was nice although I didn’t stay long), so let’s jump right into Monday & Tuesday, the busiest days of the conference.
Day 2 – Divide & Conquer
- In many ways this is the day that the summit starts. In the past the breakout sessions have only been on Monday & Tuesday, however this year they were extended to Sunday. Regardless, the keynote was given on Monday by Newark, NJ Mayor Cory Booker. If you didn’t want to jump up ready to go, you didn’t listen to what Mayor Booker had to say. It was a great speech, and I already posted my thoughts about it.
- The blogger’s lounge helped save my sanity. It was nice to be able to go in there in the 30 minute breaks between sessions & chat with people and do a little bit of work. Had the wifi worked out better for me (not sure if it was my ancient laptop or the actual connection that was the issue) I would have been able to get more posts up during the actual conference. I hope to have a better laptop by the next show I go to so I can just live blog it!
- Of the 3 sessions I attended, the best was Content That Kills. It was informative, had great tips and information, and there were good questions asked by the audience. I may be biased being a writer by heart, but it was good stuff.
- The other sessions I attended that day were the Performance Marketing Alliance Q&A, which turned more into a witch hunt filled with personal issues unfortunately, and How is Social Media Changing Affiliate Marketing, which apparently it isn’t because that question was never really answered. More on those in their own posts.
- The Great Affiliate Road Rally was a slaughterhouse win! With just three cars in it this time, the first place car took off like a shot and left the others in their dust! Congrats to them & to the others? Well remember the entry fee went to charity & you won’t feel so bad 🙂
- Monday night I had dinner with a lovely group of new friends & colleagues and then headed over to the LinkShare event at Tia’s. The event was a whole new group of people to talk to and had a great time talking some shop and reminiscing over Police Academy flicks with Wil Reynolds & Jim Kukral.
- Oh no, that wasn’t the end! After that we headed back to the hotel where we shut down the bar there and moved across the street to a small bar by the water & had a great time chatting with people and generally schmoozing before rolling into bed.
Day 3 – Epic Games
- It was a matter of sleep vs. sessions I wasn’t overly excited about attending, so I missed the Ask the Experts table discussions & The Future of Affiliate Marketing to sleep in & get refreshed for the Copywriting Clinic, which I very much wanted to attend. I hear I didn’t miss much.
- Speaking of the Copywriting Clinic, Lisa Riolo did an excellent job moderating and the panelists were excellent. I took 3 full pages of notes on this session, so you’re in for a huge post later on!
- The Ethical Issues in Affiliate Marketing session turned into the biggest fail session of the conference for me. The moderator Haiko de Poel Jr was doing a pretty bad job… usually when you’re the moderator of a panel of “experts” your job is to pass questions to the best suited panel member, not challenge the question back to the audience member who asked it. I have much more to say, so I’ll save it for later.
- The un-keynote was very relaxed and I actually got up & talked…which was big for me knowing that it was being video taped! I just hope when I look back at it that I don’t look like a fool lol.
- Luckily I was able to attend the Red Sox vs. Rangers game at Fenway with some fellow baseball loving conference attendees. Being a moderate baseball fan I was really thrilled to be there & the game was crazy! The Red Sox almost blew a 10-0 lead in the 1st but came back in the last inning to tie it up and then ultimately overtake the Rangers with an epic score of 17-19 Red Sox. We only spent a few innings in the stands before the rain started, but I got some great pictures and we continued watching the game from inside near the concessions so it wasn’t a waste.
- More bar shenanigans, then some piano playing until late kept me up long enough to decide not to go to bed before my early flight out of town. Overall what a great end to a great conference.
Final Thought – Springer Style
Overall I had the best time at this conference – not just because it was fun and I met a lot of terrific people who I’ve had the chance to get to know online and now have had the opportunity to meet in person – but because I just learned so much that I “get it” now. I remember back in February going to the Affiliate Summit West and having a conversation with my husband that I was actually starting to understand more and more about the industry and that I really felt like this was an industry I could get excited about.
And I have… and this reinforced so much for me how much I really like this industry! I’m back to the “real world” here and ready to conquer it!
Read MoreOnline Marketing Glossary: Data Feed
Data Feed:
- A text file that contains the information needed to generate a website. It is provided either directly to the affiliate or indirectly through a network. The affiliate then converts the data feed into a database, which is then used to populate webpages full of products.
There are a lot of questions in the affiliate world surrounding data feeds. What content is required? How should they be formatted? I know that one of the hopes of the budding Performance Marketing Association is to set some industry standards on this rogue content generation tool.
Unfortunately for me, data feeds are something that I’ve yet to master. It’s one of those things I keep meaning to research and learn how to generate and use, but haven’t yet had the time. If you want to learn more about the PMA’s efforts, they’re hosting a Q&A on Monday at Affiliate Summit East in the Harbor View Ballroom from 1:30 pm to 2:30 pm.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Cribbed Content for July 4th
Happy Independence Day! You should be out enjoying a parade, a nice BBQ, or some spectacular fireworks! I’ll forgive you if you’ve chosen to give my innocent blog a quick view amidst all the celebration though ;).
- A few months ago, Google officially acquired DoubleClick Performics, an affiliate network. This week they’ve rebranded as Google Affiliate Network. Shawn Collins wrote up his perspective on this – definitely seems to be a step in the right direction for the reputation of affiliate marketing.
- Last week I mentioned an irresponsible attack on the PMA by Shoemoney. Swift to clear up any confusion, the team posted What Exactly Is Affiliate Classroom’s Role in the PMA?
That’s it! Go forth and have fun this 4th!
Read MoreCribbed Content for June 27th
Surprisingly enough, this week is flying by for me. It seems like a slow summer week, but at the same time I’ve been awfully busy with some new projects at work and some thoughts circling in my head about a new website I may tackle soon. The idea is all there, but I have to flesh it out and, really, decide if I have time to do it! Here are your links for this week – the word around the campfire in online business.
- Once again, the affiliate marketing industry attacked as douchebags. And by people who call themselves professionals, no less. Shawn Collins did all the lashing out necessary in his blog Consultants Can Fix Affiliate Marketing.
- Congratulations to Lisa Picarille & Revenue Magazine for winning the Performance Marketing’s Most Vocal Advocate Golden Link award at this week’s Linkshare Symposium. It was worth is for her to be able to say “Sorry, Jangro”. If you don’t get the reference, go to www.SorryJangro.com
- Just yesterday on the heels of Google partnering with Yahoo and more talk of a potential Microsoft bid on the company, Yahoo officially announced their reorganization plans. In laymens terms, they’re taking some time to get their shit together 🙂
- More confusion is being perpetrated about the PMA by Shoemoney. Try doing some research next time before declaring something is a scam with shady intentions. Affiliate Classroom is NOT running it, they’re just providing a website and vehicle for it. Other companies are providing resources as well.
June BAAMC Meeting
After running to the bank to take out money for bridge toll, heading west towards the big scary city, and rifling through my car & wallet for change for the meter while praying that the meter maids were taking a day off, I finally made it into the June Bay Area Affiliate Managers Coalition meeting, this time hosted graciously by Real Networks. As an aside, I like their building… older, brick, kinda funky and unique but still professional.
Last time I did a video because it was my first venture over there and I had a lot to say. I was happy to receive some kudos on it from BAAMC organizer Michael Brucker. We had some special guests at this meeting… Lisa Picarille from Revenue Magazine came over and Brook Schaaf from Schaaf Consulting flew up from LA just for this. Aren’t we special? 🙂
I was going to write a good long post about it, but it seems Lisa in her diligence as a journalist has beat me to it! So here’s her take at RevenueToday.com. She mentions a few other special guests that attended the meeting, but I didn’t see them (and yes… I’d recognize them!) so maybe they were on the phone listening in… I did arrive a touch late.
So, some notes not mentioned from my take. It was nice to finally meet Lisa in person, especially after subbing for her that once on Affiliate Thing. Very gracious…although I have to tell you, it’s totally surreal sitting in a room looking at a person speak that you listen to every week without an image in your head. Strange lol. She was surprised that I’d had time to come to the meeting given how busy I usually am, which prompted me to mentally review how busy I must sound on Twitter and this here blog without actually intending it!
Also said hi to Karen Garcia of GTO Management who came to the meeting directly from SFO – what a trooper! And had a nice conversation with a fellow affiliate manager who’s used PsPrint a lot in his former life of being an event promoter and loves us! Always great to hear!
Brook talked about the up-and-coming Performance Marketing Association (PMA), which got a lot of people in the room revved up. We also talked at length about the NY affiliate tax and how we wish the networks would get more involved. What’s definitely clear is that there’s a lot of confusion on how we’re effected as managers and the programs we represent. A vague law will only vaguely be enforced, NY!
Incidentally as a side note, the PMA launched their blog this week and today Rebecca Madigan posted their plan of attack.
We also talked a bit about some miscellaneous things like video widgets and the like. Since most of us in the room have our programs through Commission Junction, we collectively wish they’d buck up on offering some more interesting and innovative creative options, like widgets. One opinion was that video is pretty good for buzz, but general consumers never think to click on the video so it doesn’t convert as a sales tool. I think the jury is still out on video as a traceable seller like a banner ad.
That’s the meat & potatoes of it, really. Our next meeting should be sometime in August. And I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that I managed to escape parking-ticket free!
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