Revver Finally Acquired
Looks like video platform Revver has finally be acquired after months of shopping around for a buyer…
Google Testing Video Ads on SERPS
The New York Times is reporting that Google has started testing video ads within search result pages. The ads will be displayed only after a user clicks a small “plus sign” to expand a player which shows the commerical or movie trailer.
Invalid Clicks: Whose Traffic Is It Anyway?
Adam Viener has an interesting post about CJ’s passing of expired links on to the merchant with no compensation for the affiliate, which differs from their previous practice of routing to a non-active page.
Adam raises the point that it would be nice to have a voice in this as it is “our traffic” that is being passed to the merchant through the network…
Wiseaff: Invalid Clicks – Affiliate Networks Can Do Better!: “In the past CJ used to link those bad links to a ‘No longer active page’, but appears to now pass the old expired link and traffic on to the merchant without compensation. I am not so sure how I fell about that personally. It makes it harder for me to identify bad links when I click on them, but can understand it’s a better user experience.
Honestly, I think that if they are not going to pay us for the traffic, than it should be up to the affiliate how this invalid traffic is passed, it might be nice to actually let us define a url where the traffic goes so we can track it and monetize it, after all it’s OUR TRAFFIC, not theirs.
I agree with Adam off the top of my head, but I think there are other implications for calling traffic “ours” in affiliate marketing… there’s some sort of proportional ratio behind traffic in my opinion. How much of a potential customer’s decision to follow an affiliate link comes from an affiliate’s site and how much comes from the merchant’s creative?
Nice piece, Adam. More of my thoughts soon…
Wearable Video
I’ve seen some pretty strange ideas for catching eyeballs over the years (RIP Mr. PopUp… we hardly knew ye), but I’m not even sure how to classify this:
Nokia’s New Mobile Ad Network Points Towards the Future
Nokia is rolling out a mobile ad network according to CenterNetworks:
Nokia Launches Mobile Ad Network | CenterNetworks: “Nokia (NOK) is announcing the launch of a mobile ad network this morning at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Named the ‘Nokia Media Network’, Nokia notes, ‘The biggest brands in the world trust us with their mobile advertising because they know the Nokia Media Network enables them to reach the largest, highest quality audience on mobile and provides the best ROI.'”
The key difference between Nokia’s potential for success and the existing mobile ad networks is the reach that Nokia has on the hardware side of the mobile phone universe.
With Google revealing its Android platform at this week’s Mobile World Conference in Spain (and it looks spiffy… can’t wait to try out an Android mobile with all of my Google cloud data) and the increasing numbers of people (primarily young people) doing things other than just talking and texting on their mobile phones using increasingly sophisticated phones like the iPhone, a well leveraged mobile ad network could payoff.
The first company to grab a leading market share will help pave the way for this avenue of monetization and be a force to reckon with as more and more of “the web” goes mobile.
A few years from now, we might look back on this launch as a very big deal.
Now, when are the affiliate networks going to start encouraging mobile ads? 🙂
AOL Buys Online Affiliate Marketing Network buy.at
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.)
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.
The advertisers tab and interface is also improved in this version and allows for better sorting based on user preferences and categories of offers:
These categories act something like tags and allow for much more fluid and intuitive stat browsing:
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.
Think Partnership Rebrands as “Kowabunga!”
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.
GeekCast Episode 3: Racing Stripes
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (53.8MB) | Embed
https://samharrelson.com/thinking Apple Podcasts | RSS | More
Shawn Collins, Jim Kukral and Sam Harrelson expound on web celebs, affiliate network interfaces, iJustine and Jim's GuyLights (about an hour)
Show Notes
– TechCrunch Presidential Endorsements: TechCrunch
– Spammer Sam: CostPerNews
– ShowYourAdHere.com: 45n5
– Shawn in Middle of CJ/Pepperjam Spat: Pepperjam Blog
– Super Affiliates For Sale: Affiliate Summit Blog
– Zac Johnson Doing it Right: Zac Johnson’s Blog
– Jim is a Twitter Hater: Jim Kukral’s Blog
– Affiliate Summit Exhibitors Are Missing Out (By Not Doing Video)
CPA to Eventually Beat Out CPC?
Forget the age old CPA networks vs affiliate networks argument.
What about CPA vs CPC? That argument stirs up fun fighting words.
Aaron Goldman has an interesting piece on SearchInsider about this issue and the potential for macroeconomic trends to have a very real impact on the search and direct response industries:
Will CPA Get its Day?
There are a couple macro trends that lead me to believe a move to CPA might be in the cards. The first is consolidation in the space. For the first time, each of the Big 3 owns reputable ad serving technology. Not only does this provide access to conversion activity, but it delivers more reliable data that marketers will accept for billing purposes. The second is a movement toward transparency that’s pervading all facets of the marketing landscape. The inherent conflicts within GoogleClick, MicQuantive, and YahRightMedia demand a level of transparency heretofore unseen in the search space. There is simply no more transparent pricing model than CPA.
My take is that it is clear that marketers across the board have yet to realize the impact that CPA can have on the overall market economy given the reliance of more and more web2.0, mobile, video or social platforms on response instead of click or impression.
Clearly, there’s a need for improved and evolved metrics in online marketing. I think CPA could be hinting at the possible future of all online advertising and marketing.
Thoughts?