Date: Monday, January 12th, 2009.  Session 5d, 2:00pm.
Session Description: How are videos being used by affiliates and merchants?  A detailed look into how and where they are performing best with suggested hints and tips to drive better click through and conversions. The panel consisted of:

• Marty M. Fahncke, President, FawnKey & Associates (Moderator)
• Michael Jenkins, CEO/Founder, MarketLeverage
• Melissa Salas, Director of Marketing, Buy.com
• Jonathan Stefansky, EVP Sales and Marketing, Qoof

This wasn’t the panel I had planned on going to, but I’m glad I went and checked it out.  There was some interesting factoids dropped and I enjoyed the Twitter going in the background with the anonymous admirer of Melissa asking if she was in the videos.

Bullet Point Review!

• There’s tremendous potential.
• Consider your site when trying to figure out what will work.
• Besides person to person, video is the second highest sales driver.
• ML looked at 2008 as the year of infrastructure.
• Big marketers have taken note of online video.
• In 2007, 59% of internet users watched video online.  In 2008 that skyrocketed to 77%.
• With banner blindness there’s a need for a new type of creative.
• Banners are the lowest performing; video overcomes even the success of text links.
• Give the affiliate a better way to convert.
• Low cost for affiliates – no streaming costs, no hosting costs, widgets are interactive.
• Attention spans are around 3 minutes.
• Content must be engaging and capture the user within 15 seconds.
• Networks and merchants wouldn’t invest in video if it didn’t work.
• Affiliates are very eager to receive the best content for the least work.
• People who are in video now are in it for it’s potential, not the actual of today.
• 77 million unique visitors on YouTube (my notes might be wrong on that, and I didn’t write down if that was per day or per month, but I think it was per day.)
• MLTV raises brand awareness, bloggers talk about it.
• Companies are very sensitive to UCG (User Generated Content).
• DO: think about the shelf life of a video.  Videos about how to do something instead of a hot trend or product will be relevant longer.
• DON’T: set your videos to auto play with sound.  It’s incredibly intrusive, especially if someone’s at work, which is where most people view videos due to faster broadband connections.
• DON’T: go over 3 minutes.
• DO: grab attention within the first 15 seconds.

Points brought up during the Q&A

• Where are things with .tv domains?  They’re increasing in popularity, but they still don’t get near the traffic a .com domain does.
• How do you track this?  Qoof embeds links with the AID and PID for tracking.  Others use view time, page views, how long people stay on the page, etc. to track success.

Once again, Michael Buechele of 11|15 Media blogged about this session for the official Affiliate Summit Blog.  Check out his recap for anything I may have missed while tweeting : Affiliate Summit West 2009 Session Recap – Affiliate Videos: Where Do They Work Best?

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Web 2.0:

• Also referred to as the Semantic Web.  In this iteration, sites, links, media and databases are “smarter” and able to automatically convey more meaning than those of today.

Okay while I’m not going to argue with Alexandra’s definition here, I will say that it’s different from the explanation I’ve always been given about what “web 2.0″ is.  It’s my understanding that web 2.0 is all about social interaction and user generated content.  Sites like YouTube and Yelp are great examples of content-rich sites that are reliant entirely on the users who submit that content.

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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine

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It’s an old story.  A new business opens and it’s all the rage.  You see an ad for the business and something catches your eye.  You’re interested in trying the business, but first – what if the ad’s lying?  You want to talk to someone who’s used them before… somehow who can tell you an honest, unbiased opinion of the service you’re about to shell out your hard earned money for.

Welcome to the 21st Century.  Welcome to Yelp.

Yelp has become the digital water cooler review – a place for the average joe to get on their soapbox and tell the city what they thought of a business.  The site is entirely user generated content in a true Web 2.0 style.  The reviews for the most part are honest and really helpful.  Like all UGC sites, Yelp has cultivated a community of regular reviewers who live to try new places and review them for the troops on Yelp.  Based mainly in California, Yelp has extended to hundreds of cities across the country, and you can add reviews for any business anywhere.  Not listed already?  Any user can add a new listing for a business or service and review it first.

Yelp also has the right idea in terms of the businesses being reviewed – a business can claim their profile to ensure the details (hours, location, etc) are correct, but that’s about all they can do with a free account.  Businesses can send a few messages to reviewers, but they’re strictly prohibited from arguing negative reviews or trying to pay for or otherwise influence good reviews.

Businesses can pay for more privileges, but are still not allowed to strong arm or influence reviews.  A few of the paid benefits include choosing the order in which reviews are displayed to put the best reviews forward and having an ad show on the pages of similar businesses suggesting your business as an alternative.  I’ve found in looking into this that the sales staff at Yelp are all very friendly and accommodating in giving you the traffic data for your business’ review page so you can judge just how much this sponsorship is worth.

I’ve had great success trying restaurants and other services based on the reviews from Yelp.  And it’s a great tool to get off your chest what pissed you off about that hotel you stayed in or that nail salon you went to – and let others know what to expect from these places.

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