Today at Search Engine Strategies in chilly Chicago WebTrends, a web analytics and marketing performance management solution provider, announced its acquisition of ClickShift, who specializes in search engine optimization.
Monetary value of the deal was not disclosed.
Insiders are saying that WebTrends is planning on offering a more detailed and robust SEO engine for its clients as more advertisers continue to demand the use of search in their media buys.
1. Help bring about the CPA revolution.
2. Create a sustainable market for RSS use and integration.
Another week, another ValueClick buy. European shopping portal Shopping.net has been acquired for 13.3 million dollars by ValueClick.
The buy adds more punch to VC’s European B2C endeavors and allows the company more of a footing to compete with European competitors TradeDoubler and Zanox.
Perhaps just as interesting for ValueClick are some of the other properties Shopping.net owns and operates outside the shopping specturm (million.com, mortgages.net searchengine.net, etc).
“Shopping.net is a great fit for ValueClick Europe,” said Carl White, chief executive officer of ValueClick Europe. “This acquisition expands our online shopping destination site presence in the marketplace, and is another significant step in our European expansion. Shopping.net will complement our other businesses, including PriceRunner, Commission Junction and vcmedia.”
“Europe is an important growth area for ValueClick, and we’re excited to add Shopping.net to our European operations,” said James Zarley, chairman and chief executive officer of ValueClick. “Shopping.net gives Carl’s team greater opportunities to leverage their expertise in monetizing online traffic and expands ValueClick’s overall presence in Europe.”
As we enter 2007 will the European advertising networks begin buying up American properties (some are still at a good bargain price) to compete with ValueClick?
How does this acquisition affect ValueClick’s other B2C shopping portal, PriceRunner?
Just got through reading this piece by David Berlind at ZDnet.
Read it.
Here are my key points of disagreement…
“TinyURL is the next YouTube. In fact. It’s better. It’s a dream come true for the Madison avenue types whose Holy Grail has always been how to serve people with an advertisement at their moment of greatest need.”
No, it’s not. Seriously. Insulting users with the insinuation that they must link to something in order to show intention (and he quotes Doc Searls in this article) by disengaging attention from that intent is simply off the mark.
“I’m not sure whether Doc would agree, but TinyURL is like a stealth intention engine.”
I can’t speak for Doc, but I don’t think he would agree that TinyURL is a stealth intention engine. It’s a way to send links without taking up too much space. It’s not YouTube. It’s not an intention engine. It’s not an attention engine. Simply put, it’s a useful tool, but it’s one that is quickly becoming obselete as the intention architecture of the web as we know it continues to change.
I’ve been using TinyURL for years and I do appreciate its makers, users and features. But, let’s elevate the web culture past the need for shorter links (and linking all-together) rather than elevating a program like this to YouTube status.
Are you a CJ affiliate promoting any of these programs with Google Checkout coupons?
If you are, you may need to look closely at how Google Checkout is affecting your commissions
The following is from an email from CJ’s Ziggy Kopetti on the forum thread discussing this issue…
I recently learned that the Google Checkout process which some CJ merchants are promoting on their sites will affect affiliate commissions. Here is an explanation of how Google Checkout works and how it affects affiliates who are working with CJ merchants that offer Google Checkout.
Please note: this explanation is specific to Commission Junction merchants only.
HOW IT WORKS
Google batches all the Google Checkout orders with the CJ PID and (if appended) the SID to the merchant. The merchant then conforms the order to our batching system, and batches it in to Commission Junction. The responsibility is on the merchant to filter the data from Google, identify the traffic from the CJ affiliates and batch it in. (Note: the CJ system does not distinguish if it is a Google checkout transaction or not.)
Further, pixel tracking does not work with Google checkout and most of our CJ advertisers utilize pixel tracking.
Thus, if the merchant relies solely on pixel tracking, affiliate tracking is lost when Google checkout is used even if the customer came to the site on an affiliate link.
Consequently, only those merchants that are batch merchants with CJ are encouraging publishers to promote their Google Checkout offer…
I recommend that affiliates NOT promote the Google Checkout offers for eBags, Petco, Golfsmith, eCost or Starbucks Store because these merchants pixel track. Unless the Advertiser batches in the order with the PID and SID received from Google, the order will never reach our system and you will not be paid a commission for the order. Loyalty shoppers who make purchases on these sites after clicking through from your site but then utilize Google Checkout will not receive their incentive.
This is an important issue at the moment as some merchants are pushing affiliates to push these offers and increase traffic during the holidays. Google itself is making a major push to promote the Checkout platform with merchants and the general public for the holidays as well.
Kopetti goes on to write that:
ValueClick is in negotiations with Google at the moment deciding if they want Google to insert the CJ tracking pixel into Google checkout, or not. This will depend on the revenue impact to the publishers. Please let me know if you can quantify the impact to your program.
How will these negotiations between ValueClick and Google play out over the coming months? Will Google see the issue from the affiliate point of view and make changes? Is it already too late to find a solution for the busy and important holiday season? What does this mean for the future of Google’s inroads into CPA?
Are Linkshare or ShareASale affected as well??
[Update 12/1/6 10:25pm est: Connie Berg also blogged about this on ReveNews. Check out her insightful post as well.]
It’s going to be fun. It’s going to be different. It just might change your mind.
Want to help? Email me.
The part of my Affiliate Marketing Manifesto (see below) which has garnered the most attention is #3. Linda Buquet has started a thread on her 5StarAffiliateMarketing Forums, so you can participate in the conversation there as well…
3. Affiliate Marketing Transcends Links
Links hold affiliate marketing hostage. Just as Jeremiah wore a yoke around his neck to show the coming servitude of Israel to the Babylonians, we affiliate marketers should heed the writings on the wall pointing us towards the dangers of positing all of our hopes and futures of industry sustainability and industry credibility on the link. Clickfraud and AdSense farms are just two examples of the sinful state we will enter if we continue down the path of praising the link while ignoring the individual doing the action of clicking. Give readers, consumers and individuals the chance to elevate themselves and your program by not insulting their intelligences with links.
Just before Thanksgiving (Nov. 22… scroll down), I posed the question (and encouraged response… of which I received none!) of how and why affiliate marketing should start to move away from links. Here’s the main point of that argument…
“However, as online marketing continues to mature, we have to confront this question about the long term establishment of links as the primary tool for connecting advertiser to publisher or merchant to affiliate or network to partner because links, by their nature, do not offer enough flexibility and data gathering for developing trends (RSS, social web adoption, social networking, more intelligent web users, uses of the internet outside of World Wide Web).”
Just today I was passed this post about the death of “information architecture” (how information on the internet is spread). There are more similarities in my argument for a move away from links in our marketing programs and the idea that the way we share information in a link-based system is slowly eroding than at first seem evident…
In many ways, the success of Google’s Pagerank algorithm was the harbinger of all this. The simple idea that people’s actions model meaning better than a directory (even a flexible directory) is a critical step forward in thinking about the Web. The innovation we’re seeing with folksonomies, recommendation systems, social networking sites…all have their roots in the idea that modeling what people actually do on the Web is the best way to provide answers for them. And, perhaps more importantly, it is an admission that we simply can’t predict the future…we can’t design a perfect information architecture, and to attempt to implies that the world we’re modeling doesn’t change.
My argument for such an evolution away from links revolves around the idea that as individuals change the way they process information on the webs (web-based office programs, feed readers) and social platforms (Second Life, MySpace, Facebook, etc) affiliate marketing has to change the way it interacts with these individuals based on their attention communications and kinesics.
Rather than trying to rebrand affiliate marketing with a new name, opening up possibilities by moving away from links and towards other means of transferring data, deals and offers could position affiliate marketing as the future of the online monetization experience.
What do you think?
Shawn Collins and Revenue Magazine’s Lisa Picarille are launching a new show on BlogTalkRadio discussing affiliate marketing and host of issues. The show’s first episode is next Wednesday at noon so be sure to tune in and call in…
I have teamed up with Lisa Picarille, editor-in-chief of Revenue magazine, to create Affiliate Thing, a weekly podcast covering the state of affiliate marketing.
The 30-minute weekly program debuts on Wednesday, December 6, 2006. You can listen live at BlogTalkRadio.com every Wednesday at 12:00 p.m. EST or download the show from BlogTalkRadio.com after the fact for on-demand listening.
ReveNews’ Jim Kukral is also launching a show on BlogTalkRadio next Tuesday, so be sure to check that out as well. His show is leaning more towards the marketing B2C advice side of things, and will definitely be interesting…
Have a business? Need some marketing advice? How about some FREE marketing advice? Call in, or email and tell us about your business. We’ll brainstorm marketing ideas live on the air for you, for free
If you haven’t checked out BlogTalkRadio, make sure to spend a few minutes there. It’s an interesting platform. How will it affect WebMasterRadio? Will other industry influentials start utilizing the BlogTalkRadio platform?
Shawn Collins has just announced the Affiliate Summit Awards to be announced in Las Vegas this January. Congrats to the nominees.
What are your thoughts?
Here are the finalists for each category:
Affiliate of the Year
Anne Fognano
Michael Coley
Scott HazardAffiliate Manager of the Year
Jamie Birch
Angel Djambazov
Sam OsbornExceptional Merchant
Amazon
eBay
OnlineShoes.comAffiliate Marketing Advocate Award
Linda Buquet
Ben Edelman
Brian LittletonBest Blogger
Scott Jangro
Beth Kirsch
Jim KukralWayne Porter Affiliate Marketing Legend
Todd Crawford
Haiko de Poel, Jr.
Brian Littleton
Last week, the brilliant Hugh McLeod issued a call-for-papers for short (500 words or less) manifesto’s for anything people are passionate about.
Here’s my Affiliate Marketing Mini-Manifesto. Will it apply to you? Probably not. I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one…
1. Affiliate Marketing is Not About Money
If you are doing affiliate marketing in hopes of making large sums of money, you are not going to succeed. Marketing, in the larger scope of the term, is moving past the ill-conceived notion of short term dollar and sense metrics. CPA, CPC and CPM should not be seen as valuations of successes, but directional arrows of sustainability. In affiliate marketing, we have to move past the notion that what we’re doing involves only direct action payouts. Consider the longtail and think ahead.
2. Affiliate Marketing is Not Mainstream
Those of us involved in the affiliate marketing galaxy often wonder why we are not treated with more respect by the rest of the online marketing universe. The easy answer? We don’t belong there. Affiliate marketing, in principle, seeks to democratize and engender the monetized web by allowing producers of quality content, products community situations with the means to continue their efforts. It’s not about gaining riches, it’s about moving past the hubs and nodes of networks.
3. Affiliate Marketing Transcends Links
Links hold affiliate marketing hostage. Just as Jeremiah wore a yoke around his neck to show the coming servitude of Israel to the Babylonians, we affiliate marketers should heed the writings on the wall pointing us towards the dangers of positing all of our hopes and futures of industry sustainability and industry credibility on the link. Clickfraud and AdSense farms are just two examples of the sinful state we will enter if we continue down the path of praising the link while ignoring the individual doing the action of clicking. Give readers, consumers and individuals the chance to elevate themselves and your program by not insulting their intelligences with links.
4. Affiliate Marketing Demands Relationships
Although many will decry such a statement, affiliate marketing must, by its nature, embrace the relationship paradigm. However, this relationship situation between content publisher and individual need not be a handicap. Instead, relationships may open doors to affiliate marketing which other marketing platforms are not able to accomplish and position affiliate marketing as a viable platform of personalized performance. Scale is not everything.
5. Affiliate Marketing is the Future of Marketing
Affiliates, networks and merchants involved in affiliate marketing recognize the power of a platform which celebrates the individual and their involvement in the interaction of a person with a company or website owner providing content. Realizing the personalized conversation inherent (and essential) in affiliate marketing is not a hindrance, but a potential of fulfillment, will allow affiliate marketers to inherent their due place in the world of online marketing.
(Disclaimer: This mini-manifesto reflects my own personal viewpoints and biases and not the viewpoints and biases of the larger Cost Per News and Cost Per Network which strives for meaningful objectivity).
What do you think? Send Hugh your own mini-manifesto or send me your own Affiliate Marketing Manifesto. I’ll post it up to the sight with full credit given to you.
