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Lately I’ve had a flourish of emails asking how companies or networks get their offers, CPA networks, affiliate sites, publisher sites or affiliate programs featured on Cost Per News.

It’s easy.

If you have a program, offer or network that you’d like to see covered here (or if you have a tip on one that should be covered here), simply send me an email:

sam@costpernews.com

I’ll take a look at whatever you send over and feature the stuff I think is interesting or noteworthy for the CPN readers.

The number of tips I get on a given day has grown tremendously over the last few months, but I promise to look over your program, offer or network if you send it in.

Valleywag is reporting that video advertising network Eyeblaster has failed to find a suitor.

Eyeblaster, an online ad company which hoped to trump the sales of Pointroll and Klipmart, is off the market after failing to attract a buyer.

Competitors Pointroll and Klipmart have already found buyers (Pointroll sold to Gannett for $100 million and DoubleClick snapped up Klipmart for around $50 million).

Video advertising is the talk of the town in Silicon Valley and Madison Ave.  So why couldn’t Eyeblaster find a buyer?

Will 2007 bring one of Jeff Molander’s 12 Christmas Wishes of a Video CPA Network?

One of the steepest uphill challenges for any new CPA network or merchant looking to establish a certain volume of quality traffic is locating affiliates and publishers.
Finding the right affiliates and publishers early in the process can give the program the right foundation for future growth and become a win-win scenario for both the program and the affiliate as the program grows.

Even for existing networks or merchant programs, finding and keeping quality affiliates can be a challenge.  We’ve seen incentive programs such as cash or prize rewards, along with wine and dining at industry conferences for the top affiliates.

However, recently I’ve helped a few merchant programs locate affiliates using web2.0 platforms including MyBlogLog, MySpace and blogs.  While I initially questioned the type of quality that can be found in such places, the merchants are more than pleased with the new finds, and the affiliates are of high quality in terms of traffic and production.

If you don’t have a recognizable name, brand or affiliate manager in the industry, how hard is it to locate quality affiliates and publishers?

What’s the best way to keep them engaged in your program when you find them?

Will web2.0 platforms begin to help networks and merchants discover new affiliates or publishers?

[NOTE:  Today is a traveling day for me, so there will be light posting.] 

Snap.com is used on blogs such as TechCrunch and ReveNews among a host of others. The search/preview service has even garnered lush praise from the influentials…

“SPA is an efficiency tool – it saves time for the reader, and that’s a good thing for the publisher. I like it so much I put it on TechCrunch”
— Michael Arrington, Editor, TechCrunch.com

Snap.com adds previews of sites linked to from a specific blog or site. I’ve even begun to see affiliates and publishers making use of Snap.com on their affiliate marketing sites.

I’ve resisted using Snap.com here because I’m not sure that the trade off of an inserted bubble over the content is worth it, and I’m not sure if the user actually gains that much from “previewing the site.” Of course, I’m no fan of links either, so I see this as perpetuating the problem rather than relying on users to have their own experience searching for content in a meta-data type of fashion.

Are blog readers, or perhaps consumers using affiliate sites with the Snap.com code inserted, appreciative of the service? Does it provide a useful tool or is this another intelli-text?

It’s a slow holiday so I’ll throw out a few echo chamber questions that we can think about in terms of how we interact with each other online in the business sense.

First let’s think about the all important instant messaging/VOIP/communications clients out there…

Do you and the majority of your contacts prefer Skype, AIM, Yahoo Chat, MSN Chat, Jabber or another platform for instant communication and VOIP? Have services such as GAIM or Meebo solved any headaches for you?

[Side note: Starting today (Jan 1), I’ll no longer be available on Skype. You can reach me through Ekiga instead. And I’ll be slowly phasing out my AIM and Y! accounts (sbharrelson22) in favor of my Jabber account (samharrelson).]

Paperghost has posted up an interesting video on the workings of a spambot…

http://www.vitalsecurity.org/2007/01/ever-wondered-how-spambot-works.html

To quote Han Solo:  “And I thought they smelled bad…on…the outside!”

Online marketers beware!  Learn how the scum side of the internet works because education is the best prevention.

Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth chats about Microsoft, marketing and open software…

Q: What about growth in adoption rates, any kind of numbers that you can give me?

A:We know now that there are probably at least 8 million [Ubuntu] users….

and later…

On the other hand, what they do want to do is they want customers to feel slightly nervous of Linux. I think Microsoft is certainly sort of becoming a smarter operator into how they interact with Linux and with free software. They spent a lot of time saying it doesn’t exist, it is a toy, it is a cancer, and it is dangerous, and calling it anti-capitalist, and now they seem to be engaging in a much more realistic competitive pragmatic fashion to that problem.

Read this and then read this…

Don’t think Ubuntu (or any Linux distribution) has anything to do with online marketing in general? Wrong. Think of Firefox. The browser was just the beginning of the sea change.

Today is the last day of 2006 and tonight at midnight we’ll pass that spot in space and time in our planet’s revolution around the nearest star which people and places around the earth following the Gregorian Calendar mark as the beginning of a new year.

The calendar that we use to mark this new year is relatively new, dating back just about 450 years and based on the Roman calendar which is about 2200 years old. There are still older calendars, such as the many calendars of ancient Mesopotamia (the Assyrian calendar being my favorite) which are based on lunar cycles. There are numerous other calendars in use by many people on earth today, and this particular coordinate doesn’t mark the beginning of a new year on those.

What most of these calendars share in common is their emphasis on cycles and the implications of a once-dominant agrarian mode of life. We sowed, we reaped, we stored and we celebrated.

This cycle of the year carries over into our own online marketing existence. In most instances, we don’t have to wait an entire season to reap what we’ve sown in our own program’s ad buys, media spends or affiliate programs. In some cases, the ROS (Return on Sow… I just coined that!) happens within hours or days or in the course of a few weeks. Rarely do we have to wait months for the germination or even ripening of the fruits of our work in online marketing.

Back in October of 2004, Steve Rubel wrote the following during the launch of Firefox’s important and monumental ad in the NY Times…

Open source marketing is the future. Need proof? Study how the Mozilla Foundation is building momentum behind Firefox.

Mozilla today launched a community effort to secure enough funds to take out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times. The full-page ad will include the names of everyone who supports the campaign along with a message about the benefits/features of the awesome Firefox browser. An individual contribution of $30 will get your name included in the ad ($10 student rate). eWeek has more details.

However, that is not always the case, especially when we consider the seed-to-maturity time that some ideas need for their development and harvest. In some cases, thoughts, ideas or insights that we plant in fertile soil can take years before they are ready to reap.

Perhaps this is the case with the ideas of Cluetrain or even open source marketing. The idea has caught on, web2.0 has given the incentive and platforms such as widgets are allowing for the expression of open source marketing from marketers with Madison Ave budgets to affiliate marketers and merchants working with a small and limited budget.

These are exciting times in the history of messages, conversations, communication, media and marketing.

We may be passing the same point in space and time that we’ve passed over and over for the last four billion years, but something revolutionary is happening in our short lived and young species…

We are combining new technologies, new educational models, new sociological models, new psychological insights and a deeper understanding of how we communicate with each other (verbally, graphically or silently) as animals… and turning that mash into something different.

I don’t know what that “different” thing is yet, but it has something to do with open source marketing, technologies, lifestyles and experiences.

My favorite example? Beer (yes, I am brewing some… I’ll send samples on request… Cost Per Beer?). Ponder the history.

Here’s an interesting “8 Part List” from collaborativemarketing.com to ponder as we come closer to that point in our planet’s revolution around the nearest star…

These strategies are as sophisticated as the new markets themselves but a few principles are emerging.

1. BACK TO THE SOURCE Consumers are no longer happy to sit back and be fed a brand and its values. They want to interact with the ‘brand source’ in the same way that Linux programmers want to get their hands on the programming source code. That means giving consumers access to the brand and inviting them to co-create on branded projects. Open Source marketeers understand this and make it easy for customers to get involved with a brand and affect its direction, maybe even its values.

2. SPOT BRAND FANS The new breed recognise there is no point in ‘demanding back the source material’ because it is well and truly out there — in the public domain. And it’s not coming back. In fact, they look to put the brand source materials in the hands of the consumers, especially brand fans like George Masters. Then they sit back and watch the fireworks as communities create and innovate in ways that enlarge and enrich the community.

3. BE A BRAND HOST They know that that brand guardians are no longer relevant to the marketplace and that brand hosts are more in tune with the times. Today’s consumer wants to interact with big, exciting, sexy brands, but on their own terms. Brands can host the party and try and make it attractive to consumers but they must realise that the new consumer has a full diary and plenty of suitors. marketplaceWelcome_1 and that brand hosts are more in tune with the times.

4. ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME? The voice of the mass markets was a LOUD and BOOMING monologue. Which didn’t leave a lot of time to listen to anyone. Open Source communities are all about conversation and dialogue. Open Source Marketing means listening really closely to the rumours and whispers that bring the new marketplace alive.

5. GET REAL (LIKE SCOBLE) Authenticity is one of the most valuable currencies in the transparent marketplace. So human, friendly voices (like Robert Scoble) are particularly effective. Corporate speak and PR flack is just ignored. And it’s no good just pretending. YOU WILL GET RUMBLED. This can be a difficult leap of faith for companies who have been used their brands like shields, to keep the world at bay.

6. YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE CLEVERER THAN YOU Open Source marketeers understand that their customers are clever, cleverer than themselves and their agencies. So they try and tap into this intelligence to help grow their brands. By the way, this includes the obssessive customers who make a racket about every last product detail or development and constantly get in touch with leftfield ideas. They are probably the most valuable.

7. LET GO Open source marketeers understand, most importantly, that people are now in control of the brands that for so long have been wrapped up and locked in corporate safes. Brands are no longer proprietary and companies need to adapt to that reality. There’s no point in calling in the lawyers to try and change things back. The world has moved on.

8. OPEN MINDS Open Source marketeers also know this new environment is not as dangerous as it sounds. They know the greatest barriers are the mental ones built up during the reign of mass marketing and TV.

By setting some rough parameters and then challenging consumers to get involved, or co-create, they are already seeing some fantastic results.

Here’s to a happy revolution!

Here’s the last part of our series (unless you’d like a particular service/platform covered)… how are merchants/marketers/affiliates using or not using Wikipedia?

Wikipedia has received tremendous press and is appearing at the top of organic search engine results on every platform for most topics.

Aside from the “Affiliate Marketing” entry, I’ve not been able to find much use, or attempted use, of Wikipedia by affiliate marketers. The affiliate networks do have entries, but they are rather short. ShareASale has no entry yet, and I’ve not been able to find any CPA network entry, either.

One exception is Jeff Molander’s The Partner Maker’s entry.

So, is there a place for affiliate marketing to make use of Wikipedia as other flavors of online marketing have done? For example, see the web2.0 chat client Meebo entry and compare it to the rather paltry CJ entry. There is a vast difference in the intended audience.

Is there a way to tastefully and ethically use Wikipedia to promote an affiliate program? With the exception of FatWallet’s entry, no program has attempted to take on this challenge.

There’s not even an entry on ABestWeb, which is thought of as the most relationship based community in affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is said to be based on the leveraging of relationships. What does it say about the relationships and communities we’ve created when even the most recognizable brand in the industry has such a skinny entry on the world’s repository of knowledge?

Since this is the last of our web2.0/affiliate marketing campaigns, I thought I’d include a link to this informative post from Dion Hinchcliffe.

Everyone’s blogging.

But, how are merchants and affiliates utilizing RSS to improve their programs?

Is RSS a viable channel of commerce communication or just Web2.0 hype?