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.
Impulse Marketing Group, associated in the industry with sub-prime credit card offers and lead generation, has been acquired by an unknown entity.
Interestingly, the deal was facilitated by AdMediaPartners who was the same investment bank that providedstrategic advice to aQuantive in its acquisition of sbi.razorfish.
Impulse has had some questionable associations in the past which has landed them in hot water as well (Google search).
Whether or not this begins 2007’s “Silly Season” of online advertising/marketing/lead generating company buyouts by larger entities revolves around the question of who the unknown entity might be.
Why can’t Affiliate Marketing become Performance Marketing or Traffic Marketing or Referral Marketing or SuperCoolLeadGeneratingMachine Marketing?
Are those in the affiliate marketing industry stuck with the name “affiliate marketing” forever?
Yes.
There’s no getting around it
Why? Because what “affiliate marketing” represents is a collection of vasts interests and parties without a spider present to keep the web together. That means that as much as we’d like to rebrand, we can’t.
Why? Because in a network structure with very few hubs and mostly nodes, entities outside of the network define the name and identity. Try as we might, we don’t have the ability to change the name of the affiliate marketing industry, but we do have the power to transform it from the inside-out.
The actors listed above made the name changes early, before they were tagged with an emotional aftertaste. You can’t think of Tom Cruise without thinking of Mission Impossible or jumping on couches. After his image troubles last year and being dropped by his studio contract, it seemed that his career might be fading and in trouble of collapsing in on its own weight. Did he rename himself again? No. Instead of rebranding himself via his name, he had a baby and married a young attractive female.
So instead of trying to rename the industry, let’s push forward and escape the 1999 paradigm that has ensnared our industry.
How do we do that??
Conversations.
Online marketing, for all of its vast niches and insider clubs, is a small community. In some way, we all know each other and we all are affected when there is either good news or bad news. We celebrate the births of babies together, we send congratulations for marriages and we mourn when there is a death in this large and extended family we’ve created.
So, this week many in the industry have been touched by the loss of Jai Rajkumar. Here is a memorial thread at WickedFire with a touching obituary by Jon…
Jai Rajkumar – Affiliate Manager and Good Friend
Over the last few weeks I’ve had more and more people ask me for five or six tips to help them get their program out of the online performance marketing doldrums.
This is especially critical advice during the Holiday Season when more consumers (not just individuals, but people actually looking to consume) are online and actively seeking out deals, offers and services.
You can let this potential traffic (and conversion) spike slip by, or go on the offensive and tweak your online marketing program. It’s really not hard… it just takes dedication and a good staff.
So here are is my 12 Step Program to create a better online marketing program or presence culled from my years of experience online as a network rep, publisher, advertiser, software marketer, CPA Network COO and SVP and email marketer…
1. Try all the services you can and crunch the numbers right away. Give MyAffiliateProgram9 a look. There’s some interesting things going on in the program that could transform how and why you use data either as an affiliate or a publisher or a network. Investigate co-registrations. Consider other types of placements you might not have yesterday.
2. Along those lines, investigate CPA Networks (but don’t replace CJ or Linkshare with them if you’re a publisher or affiliate… more on that later). Call Azoogle, Hydra, AdDrive, Rextopia, CPAEmpire, RocketProfits or FiliNet and speak to a rep who handles your side of business depending on your status as a publisher, advertiser or affiliate. These networks have people dedicated to your particular side of the business. I know… I used to be one and loved it when potential advertisers or publishers called me up.
3. Call CJ, Linkshare, Kowabunga and ShareASale and ask them what they can do for you. Talk to a human at the companies and don’t rely on word of mouth or industry reputation.
4. Blog and send trackbacks to competitors, news blogs like this and people you want to reach (many networks and publishers have their own blogs… whether business or personal). People are much more likely to read your content and take the time to hear you if you’ve taken the time to send them a trackback.
5. Read blogs. Read lots of them from all different viewpoints. Don’t know where to start? Get the Google Reader and start subscribing. Don’t have the time to find quality material? Email me and I’ll send over my OPML file, which is a file of all my subscriptions at the moment that you can upload into your reader. That has taken a lot of time/energy/love to create and maintain. You’re welcome.
6. Optimize your page for organic search engine growth. Also optimize your conversion page if you have one.
7. Interact with existing, potential and even non-potential consumers/customers/individuals. How? Blog, answer the phone, open a forum, check Google Groups for your company’s name, watch the forums of the industry/area you are serving.
8. Focus on organic growth of your program. SEO is wonderful and great, but it has a glass ceiling. Don’t blow your budget as an advertiser, network or publisher on keywords (unless you are purely a search marketer, which is short-sighted in this market). Realize the power and effective ROI that organic growth distribution can supply to your site.
9. Research potential affiliates, publishers, networks or partners that you think you could (or could not) do business with in the near future. Make a file and keep that data. It’s invaluable to you. Read that file before bed every night and allow your brain to work its wonders as you sleep. You just might stumble upon a new platform, campaign, metric, keyword, incentive or recruitment tool that could make all the difference. This has worked more than a dozen times for me, and now I have an impressive file cabinet filled with priceless data on everyone I’ve done business with and hope to work with one day. In case of a fire, I’m running for that cabinet.
10. Attend conferences. Affiliate Summit is in Vegas this January. Don’t miss it. Not interested in affiliate marketing? It doesn’t matter… this conference has outgrown its namesake and is helping to create a new brand for partner/performance/affiliate/traffic marketing.
11. If you’re a network or work with publishers and affiliates, give your account representatives a face and a name. The most successful programs in the industry have personalities that have grown out of the collective personalities of the account reps. These people are not easily replaceable. They are your generals, your eyes and your ears. Treat them like royalty because they can make or break your program depending on their enthusiasm or their apathy. If you’re a publisher or affiliate, get to know the people on the phone. Make business personal. If you think business is not personal, you’re a fool.
12. Know Thy Partners. Research, research, research. Listen to account reps, have an eye on the traffic flow and don’t allow people with less-then-ethical standards to bring your program down. In online marketing, you only get one strike and then you’re out.
Agree? Disagree? Anything you’d add? Comment!
If you’d like to see something covered or participate in the conversation here without commenting, there are two simple options.
-If you use del.icio.us, tag a page with “costpernews.”
-Or, if you use ma.gnolia.com, you can also tag a page with “costpernews.”
Most of you are already using one of these two services in your daily browsing, so if you see something interesting, don’t hesitate to tag “costpernews” and I’ll take notice.
I’ll feature the top taggers in a special article/interview/podcast/video post every week or month depending on their preference.
If you’re not following Shmuel Tennenhaus throughout the interwebs, you’re missing some interesting reads and insight. There are three seperate links in that last sentence, and as you know I am not a fan of links.
The fact that I’ve put three links into one sentence should alert you to the potency of the content that Shmuly is producing.
Hell, he’s even been credited with the destruction of a TV show.
For another example to learn from the Shmule…how should bloggers position themselves for the the longtail of coupon searchers and consumers looking for a deal? Shmuly has an answer…
You see, I just checked by blog stats for the day. And of course, it was another pitiful day of traffic. However, there was a glaring glare facing me in the face.
The blog got a bunch of traffic from people googling for a “j crew coupon code“.
Makes sense. After all, today was Cyber Monday. Many moons ago, I wrote a post titled “yahoo suggests jcrew coupon code“. As a result, if you make a search for “jcrew coupon code“, my blog is on the first page of results. (If that achievement alone does not make me sexy, I give up.)
Problem is…that specific post does not contain any coupon code. So, essentially, people are coming here for nothing; cause you and I both not, there aint nothing to read in this joint. (To defend myself just a bit; that blog post does inform people how to find current coupons…)
Follow along or get left behind in the path of content providers who are taking the road less traveled in a yellow wood and realizing that it makes all the difference. Learn from these early trailblazers and make sure that you are not being left behind in the content consolidation of Web3.0.
Grab the longtail by the horns… it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
ValueClick has launched valueclickvideo.com in preparation for their soon to launch in-stream video advertising network.
On the site is a preview of their in-stream video technology (with footage from a recent adtech nonetheless) meant to show the quality and texture of what they can deliver. Underneath the video is an option for “In-banner video” as well as “In-stream video.” The in-banner video seems to be powered or associated with Eyeblaster.
Here are the pro’s for publishers and advertisers listed on the site:
Publishers
Advertisers
How will this integrate with CJ?
What will Linkshare do?
How will this impact online and affiliate/partnership/referral marketing?
Will Google make a play with Google Video?
Shoutwire, a Digg competitor, won’t let you submit a story that includes the keyword “Digg.” A fan of the Shoutwire service sent me an email earlier tonight with the tip to try and submit the previous’ post here entitled “Pay Per Digg” to the service.
This is the result (try it for yourself if you’d like)…
Netscape, on the other hand, does not restrict the “digg” keyword…
And neither does Reddit…
Interesting move by Shoutwire, but if the site is going to play catch up to Digg and build a community of loyal users, they have to let their users be the judge of the merits of their own keywords.
I say it is interesting, because at this very moment the top three stories on Shoutwire are:
Glad to see that for Shoutwire “Digg” crosses the line but “Bullshit,” “Asshole” (particularly in reference to a figure over 2 billion people consider divine), and “Sluts” are acceptable keywords.
First there was PayPerPost. Then ReviewMe.
Just this morning Jim Kukral blogged on ReveNews about Agloco, which “pays you to surf.”
Now, we have Pay Per Digg.
Where Digg Submitters Pay for Digg Users to Promote their Stories.
And, Where Digg Users Make Easy Money.
Users are paid $0.50 for every 3 stories they digg. You can also submit a story to be amped by paying $20 plus $1 per desired digg. The value of a digg has certainly fallen off over the past year, so the market forces alone should be able to clean up this type of less-than-ethical gaming.
Considering market forces as a primary reason for this type of scheme, it is logical to see where the monetary drive to experiment with valuation platforms such as this come from. However, those same economic forces which put value on actions such as diggs also places the operator of these sites in a continual struggle to keep up with the micro-economic structures of supply and demand in a commodity style fluid market. That’s too much for most to accomplish, so I see the market driving this out of business quickly. However, the gaming of Digg will, of course, continue.
These same market forces extend to Agloco, ReviewMe, PayPerPost and the host of other new platforms allowing users to assign a certain value to actions they were already committing (surfing, blogging, clicking). In order to keep up with the market valuations of the actions needed for payout, and values of intangibles such as attention, user experience, ethics, these platforms must have a firm hold on a good deal of data. I suspect most do not and beyond the ethical implications of getting paid to post or surf or digg, the market will drive them into an escalating situation of irrelevance to the individual user.
See why we need to kill links to help affiliate marketing survive as a brand?
It’s Black Friday here in the US and countless Americans are driving from store to store looking for deals and the season’s newest gadgets and toys.
In honor of the shopping season, over the next few weeks I’m going to be pointing out a series of acquisitions made by players in our space and asking your opinion on whether these where a bargain or a dud.
Our first buy follows the theme of shopping but goes all the way back to 2004: ValueClick’s acquisition of PriceRunner. ValueClick made the purchase for $29 million during a buying spree which had included three other major buys within the previous year Search123 (May ’03); Commission Junction (Dec. ’03); Hi-Speed Media (Dec. ’03). PriceRunner, a shopping comparison provider, already had a large presence in Sweden and Germany and has since expanded into the larger European market as a whole.
Chairman and chief executive officer of ValueClick, James Zarley said about the acquisition in 2004:
“We have been looking to add comparison shopping services as part of our strategic growth plan, and in PriceRunner we have found an established partner that will help us take our first step in this rapidly-growing and profitable area of performance-based online marketing.”
In July 05, ValueClick also launched PriceRunner in the US. In October of this year, MSN announced it would use PriceRunner as the engine behind it’s European MSN Shopping service.
Did ValueClick make the right move by adding this B2C portal to its now expansive B2B offerings (CJ, FastClick, HiSpeed, Mediaplex, Search123, E-Babylon)? Has ValueClick been successful at leveraging this shopping portal in a highly competitive sector? Has PriceRunner allowed ValueClick to expand into the blooming European marketi? Is ValueClick integrating PriceRunner’s B2C consumer network with its other services such as CJ?
Great Bargain or Buyer’s Regret?
Following up on Wednesday’s post, here’s my podcast with a little more depth into my opinion of how and why we should move beyond links in affiliate marketing.
Agree? Disagree? Contribute too the conversation.
Homework is due Tuesday (see previous post)!
Are links, as we know them in online and affiliate marketing, done for?
In order to answer this question, I’ve narrowed the discussion down to three areas: Leverage, Authority and Long Term Encouragements. Certainly, there are other areas and in the editing process of this post I cut a few of these out and merged them with the three categories above.
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).
Should you ditch the entire concept of linking in order to be progressive? No.
Am I advocating the complete replacement of links with something that can accommodate for attention data? No.
However, online (especially the affiliate) marketing should realize the importance of the need to look beyond the link.
So, here’s your Holiday Homework:
Think about and respond to the notion that links are dead, especially in relevance to affiliate marketing. I’d like to prescribe the areas of Leverage, Authority and Long Term Encouragement as the fields of discussion, but if your point is valid you can certainly travel outside those lines to make your point.
Here are some connections you should consider when thinking about the issue:
-Technorati, Techmeme
-Like.com
-Monetization
-Jellyfish.com
-AdSense Gaming
-Page Rank Problems (or Alexa)
-Participation from Readers/Audience
-Types of Traffic Delivered (Sustained or “Digg Effect” waves)
-Relevancy for Consumers and Individuals
-Value of “Attention Data”
Leave your comments for quick thoughts, or you can submit a longer piece similar to last week’s homework submissions on CPA Networks and Affiliate Networks. I’ll be posting some of your results next Tuesday after the Holiday and include a link to your blog or company. You can email those in, or if you prefer you can send in a voicemail (828.338.2129) on my Skype line which I’ll publish as a part of the post. The deadline is 3pm Friday Tuesday Nov 28 (thanks, Jonathan).
I suspect most of you will initially call me an idiot (I’m close) for questioning the present and future leverage and authority of links. However, put some thought into it, be creative and think of how using other means to reach users can enhance your program/network/platform/offer.
Every day, very early in the morning, I’m going to be recording a 3-4 minute episode of Cost Per News Daily Stat Sheet in partnership with the great folks at BlogTalkRadio.
This is the first episode and very experimental, so go easy, but do let me know what you think and what recommendations you have. I’m doing this day-to-day experiment in the spirit of a Coltrane concert… it’s jazz and heavy with flaws, highlights and brief moments of inspiration.
Feel free to leave a voicemail on the number below and I’ll play it during the show.
Daily Stat Sheet Show Notes (Episode One, 22 Nov 2006)
-Thanks for listening – very beta
-Shmuly’s (General Zod) Video on Digg and Netscape
-CPA Network Transparency? More Than Meets the Eye
-Response to Shawn Collins(Affiliate Summit), Deanna Key (Rextopia) Brian Littleton (ShareASale)
-Leave a VoiceMail for Tomorrow’s Show (828.338.2129)
As I said, there will be a new episode posted every morning, so grab the feed and let me know your thoughts. Yes, I know there is a botch at the very beginning, but I wanted to preserve the live, dynamic and jazz nature of the show.
Thanks for listening!
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/feeds/costpernews
At the beginning of the month, word spread that many affiliates using their links on MySpace were being terminated from networks such as Azoogle. However, it seems that the networks haven’t reigned in all of their affiliates.
Marketing on MySpace normally uses viral means of spreading a hot topic, issue, movie, album or tech product. However, in this scenario, affiliate marketers use the ease of collecting a large number of “friends” on the MySpace platform (can be easily done with automated software) to blast out numerous bulletins a day to these “friends.”
The result is a large number of eyeballs with a decent conversion rate. In order to compensate for declining click-thru rates, these marketers simply add more and more “friends” and blast their bulletin messages to larger crowds. Its akin to the email marketing vicious cycle a few years ago before CANSPAM.
MySpace says it does not approve of such commercial actions by members:
“Non-commercial Use by Members. The MySpace Services are for the personal use of Members only and may not be used in connection with any commercial endeavors except those that are specifically endorsed or approved by MySpace.com. Illegal and/or unauthorized use of the MySpace Services, including collecting usernames and/or email addresses of Members by electronic or other means for the purpose of sending unsolicited email or unauthorized framing of or linking to the MySpace Website is prohibited. Commercial advertisements, affiliate links, and other forms of solicitation may be removed from Member profiles without notice and may result in termination of Membership privileges. Appropriate legal action will be taken for any illegal or unauthorized use of the MySpace Services.”
This morning, someone alerted me to the blog DropShipArea.com and this post outlining a case study on MySpace marketing with an Azoogle iPod offer. The author of the post says he hopes to get a steady stream of traffic coming to his sites through MySpace, which is not inherently against the MySpace rules in the letter of the law.
The case study he outlines, however, does break some rules, and networks such as Azoogle must be careful about the actions of their affiliates in a post-acquisition MySpace platform which NewsCorp is continually seeking to monetize and clean up.
This is from the case study quoted on the site:
“First, I selected an appropriate offer from Azoogle.
Name: Superb Rewards – Free IPOD Nano (Brand New!)
Payout: $1.40
Why did I choose this offer?
– Pays for just the E-Mail; a simple action that can be completed by 99% of people.
– Decent Payment ($1.40); One of the higher paying iPod offers so I thought it was a good choice.
– Good Reward (iPod Nano); iPods are all the craze lately, some may say it is saturated but a lot of people still don’t have, and want an iPod.
– Appeals to my demographic; It’s usually the younger people wanting iPods, so 18-25 is usually a good range.I have a MySpace account with 5400 friends (as of now) and I posted a simple bulletin with the following fields:
Subject: WOW!!! THIS IS SO EASY!!!
Body: Anyone with a MySpace account can get a FREE iPod just by entering your email address into this form!!!” CLICK HERE!!!
The results of his endeavor?
“Nothing too spectacular. I got about 10 people clicking on my Link and half of them completed the offer, so I didn’t make too much.
Why? Probably because I’ve used this account for advertising in the past and people have become wary to avoid my bulletins. I did convert at 50% though, so that’s very good – I just needed more clicks.”
And then he goes on to describe how he ramped up the clicks and concludes that MySpace marketing is now a matter of scale. That’s dangerous for any network allowing this to continue due to MySpace’s state rules.
I can’t imagine this is the type of promotion advertisers within CPA Networks such as Azoogle are hoping to be a part of, even if it is an email only iPod offer. There is still liability to be had, and NewsCorp does have the resources to follow the money trail.
Online marketing continues to grow in scale, reach and shape. And now it is blooming in the international market as well.
Advertising.com announced today that they have formed a partnership with Mitsui & Co., Ltd. to create a new joint venture to serve the Japanese online advertising market under the name “Advertising.com Japan”.
Japan is the second largest online advertising market ($3.4 billion) and expected to grow rapidly over the coming five years to $4.9 billion by 2009, according to 2006 data from Mizuho Corporation Bank Research.
Advertising.com is an AOL property, so this partnership can be seen as AOL’s attempt to gain traction in a US/Japan cross market strategy already pioneered by Rakuten in it’s acquisition of Linkshare.
Might we see more moves like this in the coming months between European powerhouse affiliate networks (TradeDoubler, Zanox) and US networks (CJ, Performics)? What about China?