Year: 2008

AOL Buys Online Affiliate Marketing Network buy.at

buyat.jpg

This just hit the wires… huge news in the affiliate marketing world and solidifies AOL’s place as an ad network to be reckoned with…

AOL buys online affiliate marketing network buy.at | Technology | Reuters: “NEW YORK (Reuters) – Time Warner Inc’s AOL said on Tuesday it has purchased online affiliate marketing network buy.at as part of a strategy to bolster its Internet advertising operations.

AOL did not disclose financial terms.

Buy.at is a network in which advertisers pay Web publishers that belong to the network only when a visitor to the site takes an action, such as making a purchase.”

It’s no secret that AOL has been re-aligning itself to take advantage of its stout advertising inventory within its own network. However, this acquisition points towards a possible route for AOL to also begin to provide advertising (most likely display given buy.at’s strengths) for 3rd party sites outside the AOL web family.

I’ve got calls in for a couple of interviews, so more soon…

(Via Reuters.)

ShowYourAdHere

I’ve been testing out ShowYourAdHere, and I have to say that I’m impressed. We’re even giving it a go with the ReveNews ad rotations.

So, if you need an easy-to-use ad serving solution that is web based, give ShowYourAdHere a shot.

Show Your Ad Here

Understanding Web Monetization is Essential to Tech Blogging

Listening to the most recent Gillmor Gang today brought about more head-scratching for me as to why or what is so hard to understand about the basic understanding of what affiliate marketing is and what affiliate marketing is not.

Don’t get me wrong. I completely understand that it will (probably) not help my bottom line or profit margin by any degree if the participants of the Gillmor Gang and the associated San Francisco Bay-centric clique understand what affiliate marketers do and that they are not SEO’ers, spammers, arbitragers, MLM’ers or general web-pollutionists.

I’m referring to Jason Calacanis doing a series of well (or ill depending on your sense of humor and sense of segue way cadence) placed ads for the Affiliate Summit during tapings of the Gillmor Gang podcast. I’ve covered the first episode of The Gang where Jason caused a few ripples by doing the Affiliate Summit ads over on ReveNews.

On this past Friday’s taping, it was TechCrunch‘s Mike Arrington who asked the now inevitable “Are they SEO’ers?” question when Jason did his now tongue-in-cheek ad followed with an odd “they must be all black-hatters.” Jason answered that affiliate marketing is a billion dollar industry that no one knows about and isn’t SEO or MLM. Good to hear that Jason has been doing his homework and I do look forward to hearing his thoughts on the industry since he is the Affiliate Summit keynote.

So, my question is whether or not I should keep feeling a sense of frustration or exasperation that such web influentials know so little about affiliate marketing or seemingly care so little to learn about affiliate marketing before slapping it with an unfair brand of spam/blackhat/arbitrage/junk.

You’d think (or at least I do) that bloggers who blog about technology and web2.0 monetization such as Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick would also investigate the business model of DoubleClick’s important Performics division. Or perhaps these bloggers would seemingly be interested as to why the Japanese mega-corp Rakutan spent hundreds of millions on Linkshare or why ValueClick and its Commission Junction property are considered next in line for a major acquisition after DoubleClick, Razorfish and Right Media (if you listen to the rumors and sites such as SeekingAlpha). In all of these examples, affiliate marketing plays a major role.

Perhaps I’m just being protective and defensive over an industry that I’ve seen dramatically mature and “grow-up” over the last few years and one in which I’m proud to be a member. Nevertheless, in order to adequately understand the web landscape and the future shape of web apps, bloggers and thinkers must take into account the various forms of monetization that exist on the web without dismissing them as black-hat. Or at least that’s my hope.

Performics Network Interface Improvements and the Usability Question

Performics has released a series of upgrades and usability improvements to its reporting platform, ConnectCommerce this week.

Primarily, the updates focused on an improved links interface, advertiser profile interface, enhanced site description for publisher profiles and more accurate accounting reports.

Here’s a screen shot of the new links interface which is a drastic improvement over the old system. Instead of having to drill down layer by layer, the newest links from the network are shown by default and results can be narrowed by a series of available parameters.

performicsinterface.gif

The advertisers tab and interface is also improved in this version and allows for better sorting based on user preferences and categories of offers:

padvinterface.gif

These categories act something like tags and allow for much more fluid and intuitive stat browsing:

performicstags.gif

As the current dust-up over affiliate network user interfaces has shown, there is a market demand for easier navigation, more options and less need to needlessly drill down for stats, banners or links that should be much easier to find.

At the end of the day, this is all about efficiency. The network that can provide the best offer and the best payout was always the winner in the past. However, that paradigm is slowly changing to include the network that has the best user experience and will continue to do so as networks assert their necessity of place in the market.

Using Disqus for Comments Here at Cost Per News

A couple of months ago, I tested out Disqus for comments. I’m re-enabling that because I have been impressed with the features and forum-esque feel (plus, you can grab an RSS of the comment thread).

We’re probably going to hook this up on ReveNews as well as soon as the WordPress transition is done (should be within the next couple of weeks before the Affiliate Summit).

Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts.

Using Disqus for Comments Here at Cost Per News

Affiliate Manager Certification Course Vid from AffiliateClassroom

The AffiliateClassroom folks have put together a professional certification course for affiliate managers and released a video to help explain the course.

They are launching the course at AffiliateClassroomLIVE on the Saturday before the Affiliate Summit (Feb 23) in Las Vegas.

I generally view this as a very positive development for the industry. We’ve needed some sort of accrediting body in affiliate marketing for a long while and as the industry continue to grow up and evolve, this need will only increase.

Accertified.com: First Industry Recognized and Endorsed Affiliate Manager Certification

Think Partnership Rebrands as “Kowabunga!”

kowabunga.jpg

The circle is complete and Think Partnership (who acquired Kowabunga!) has rebranded itself as Kowabunga!.

Hi Sam,

I have some very exciting information to share with you about our Company.

We are announcing today that Think Partnership will now be doing business as Kowabunga!.

We decided that we needed a company name that more accurately reflects our leading position in the market and conveys the energy, spirit of innovation and excitement we share as an organization. We believe that Kowabunga!, which many of our participating advertisers and affiliates will also recognize as the name of our popular CPA subsidiary, is the perfect name to express our passion and conviction for performance based marketing solutions. When we say Kowabunga!, we think performance and technology, and we mean it.

Our company’s mission is to be the world’s best performance marketing solutions provider, a goal that we believe can be achieved through our strong mix of brands and innovative products and technologies, a good example of which is our recently launched ValidClick AdExchange. I encourage you to learn more about the many ways we can work with you to meet your marketing and advertising objectives.

Sincerely,

Scott P. Mitchell
President and CEO

There’s also a new website design to go along with the rebranding.

The Seocracy.com Twitter Adder

People use Twitter in so many ways and with so many agendas that I generally try to keep my subjectivity hat on when I see people using Twitter in a way that grates on my own personal opinions (and tastes).

For me, Twitter has been a very organic community that I’ve grown and continually cultivate myself… pruning people I no longer am interested in following and adding new people who look interesting because of shared connections, interests or thoughts.

Seocracy has a tool that pretty much does the opposite of that and allows you to bulk add a couple hundred of “online marketing gurus” that originated with a post from MarketingPilgrim about “75 Internet Marketing Gurus on Twitter.”

I was on that original list and thought it was a pretty neat idea. The list has since blossomed to over 200 “gurus” and continues to expand in the comments. And the number of random “I’m following you on Twitter” from people using the Seocracy tool continue to trickle in.

Nothing wrong with a tool like this I guess… but if you’re new to Twitter, I’ll urge you to make the most out of Twitter and use it wisely (not that there is one best way… it’s all subjective, right?).

The Seocracy.com Twitter Adder

candybugs

Candybugs and cataract water –
    spilling into one small moment
    large brains and puzzles
    saturate with the distraction
of a ticking daydream vigor.

Reflectful moments of reprise
    with apes following into the gorge,
    the essential small moments
    that perform the needed function
of a holy spirit in our brain.

you gave it to me

I thought it was the moon, but
    it was a lamplight.
I thought you were behind me,
    but that was a movement.
I thought I was saved, but
    that was the radio.
I thought your voice broke, but
that time it was my spine.

I thought I knew who you were, but
    I was wrong.
I thought I dreamed about you, but
    it was a shiny serpent on a stick.
I thought I experienced the supernatural, but
    it was a massive ringing in my ears.
I thought you would say incredible, but
    you shrugged in hollow joy.

I thought you would eat the apple
    and you did –

voodoo universe

I manage time but still loose heart,
my brain vertigo hemorrhage of gravitons and gluons.

Hands whirl on a silver circle on the office wall,
timing the heart beats until Golgotha.

I smell the stench of veneer and hide in the cave of your atlantis.

Yet I cannot stop the goose skin death ticking of apollo’s paycheck.

Time itself is measured in sticky melted wax drawn on a wall with a smelly grin.

Yet, I always will wonder if your music will stop breaking tone and find the pitch to sit on my wallowed mellowed soul.

locality

                                        Locality

You puzzled me with refraction,
                (the bending of your hair in light)

    causing me to look the wrong way

for your root cause.

You spoke to me from heaven
                            (and I looked down).

You answered me in riddles and caused me to drive onto the rocks.