Why I’m Bullish on AOL

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On last Friday’s “Paying for Performance” podcast, Jeff Molander remarked that I’m rather bullish on AOL’s position in the online advertising market. I think with new president Lynda Clarizio in place, my optimism about them be proven true…

AOL Highlights Platform-A Integration Focus With Unified Search Marketing Services | paidContent.org: “AOL announced that Platform-A has combined contextual ad targeter Quigo’s FeedPoint search marketing tool with Advertising.com’s OutSearch data analysis product.

Secondly, the combination of the OutSearch’s “bid management solutions” for buying keywords and FeedPoint’s analytic tools, also highlights another recent area AOL hopes to be more active in: ecommerce. In February, AOL acquired UK-based affiliate marketing network Buy.at, which was intended to round out Platform-A’s ad network offerings with online sales and performance-based marketing solutions.

AOL has a tremendous amount of potential due to its reach into the global performance and display ad business, which is where Google is lacking (hence the DoubleClick acquisition). Add to that the existing long-term relationships that AOL has with global brands with deep pockets looking for more responsive and performance-based advertising, and AOL’s future looks bright.

It’s been interesting to watch the evolution of AOL from darling in the 90’s to pariah in the early ’00’s into global advertising powerhouse in the late ’00’s into the ’10’s. Keep your eye on AOL and its subsidiaries.

Performics Employ Submit Resumes?

Is this potentially true for Performics as well?

Google Makes DoubleClick Employees Apply To Keep Their Jobs – Silicon Alley Insider: “Last week, Google CEO Eric Schmidt warned DoubleClickers that Google still hadn’t decided how many (and which) of them to fire. Now, Google has reportedly ordered DoubleClickers to submit their resumes to a committee so Google can determine if they’re actually Google material.”

I hope not… lots of good folks over at Perfomics so hopefully there will be no blood-letting. There’s still speculation that Performics will get spun off since Google doesn’t want to double dip in the SEO space, but I don’t see that happening.

Azoogle’s Pitch

Azoogle’s Don Mathis gives their elevator pitch at AlwaysOn…

Azoogle | AlwaysOn: “AzoogleAds, founded in 2000, is an end-to-end online marketing solutions provider for advertisers, publishers and online affiliates. Initially a pioneer in performance-based marketing, AzoogleAds generates the highest volumes of quality traffic through its affiliate network, its proprietary search technologies and optimization, and its in-house CPM/CPA/CPC Media Buying.”

Head over there to watch the short video. Interesting to hear Azoogle’s take on performance advertising and how they see it as the future of all online advertising, especially CPA.

eBay Leaves Commission Junction, Starting eBay Partner Network

ebay.pngThis morning, eBay is announcing that they are moving their affiliate program in house to the eBay Partner Network effective April 1, 2008 (no fool’s day joke). eBay is also bringing Half.com over to the new network. Affiliates and publishers need to have links changed over by May 1, 2008.

Of course, this means that eBay is leaving Commission Junction as its affiliate network platform. This is a blow against CJ in terms of a solid long lasting program with significant revenues and strong brand name in a month where CJ is already wrapped up in a PR food fight with Pepperjam Network.

With over 60,000 affiliates here in the United States and 100,000 affiliates worldwide, eBay is a significant powerhouse in the affiliate marketing world. So why the move?

I spoke to the Senior Manager of the eBay affiliate program, Will Martin-Gill, and he emphasized that the move had nothing to do with a dissatisfaction with CJ or ValueClick.

Instead, Martin-Gill said it was time to bring the affiliate program in-house the same way eBay brought their search services in-houe a couple of yeas ago. Martin-Gill told me eBay is also looking to build in more flexibility and innovation into their program to reach and sustain the more diverse crowd of affiliates and publishers on the web today and to have a direct relationship with those affiliates (key point, I believe). In short, eBay wants more control over data and wants to be able to coordinate across marketing channels.

Martin-Gill said the international factor was also a major reason for the move away from CJ to in-house managing of the affiliate program. eBay is looking to turn its program into a global platform where publishers and affiliates can sign up to all the various country-specific programs at once through the same interface.

Shopping API’s and eventually RSS will be implemented into the program as well as in-depth reporting.

I also spoke with ValueClick VP John Ardis and CJ’s Dave Osmond on Friday about eBay’s departure. They emphasized the mutual good will on both sides and said the move was not a surprise, but something that CJ had been working with eBay on for the last couple of years realizing the needs that eBay had for their affiliate program.

Ardis also pointed out that eBay is not severing all ties with ValueClick or Commission Junction since VC’s Mediaplex tracking solution is being used for the eBay Publisher Network and Tradera AB, ProStores, Reseller Marketplace, Media Marketplace, eBay Stores and StubHub will continue to be on the CJ platform.

This is certainly a major development and could signal a sea change for the place of the networks in the affiliate marketing world. We’ll have to see how affiliates and merchants respond to the news.

I Can’t Wait for Flickr Video

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The long standing rumors that Flickr would open a video channel for users to share their uploaded video content similar to their wonderful photo sharing service looks like it will finally be validated according to TechCrunch.

So the question becomes… why? With YouTube, Viddler, Blip.tv, Revver (?), Vimeo, Metacafe, etc why would Flickr want to get into such a crowded space.

Matthew Ingram raises similar questions:

One question on Flickr Video: Why? – – mathewingram.com/work: “So Mike Arrington says in a post over at TechCrunch that Flickr is going to be adding video soon — really. This rumour has been around for awhile, as Mike himself acknowledges, and in fact Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield has been talking about adding video for at least a year. One obvious question is why it has taken so long (likely answer: Yahoo red tape), but a related question is: Why bother?”

Here’s my take: I can’t wait for video on Flickr. The community of friends and colleagues that I’ve created around my photos there is a very valuable and high quality one with which would love to share video.

nelson.jpgI can’t say the same for any other video uploading platform, especially YouTube. Have you ever posted a video on YouTube and taken the time to read the comments that follow? In other words, the “community” on YouTube is terrible and reminds me of a middle school lunch room full of Nelsons.

So, just for my own selfish sharing reasons, I am excited about Flickr Video.

Affiliate Panel at Web2.0 Expo

I’ll be speaking on a panel at the upcoming Web2.0 Expo in San Francisco. Lisa Picarille (Revenue Magazine), Stephanie Agresta (Affiliate Karma), Marc Levin (formerly of Yahoo) and Cam Blazer of DoubleClick Performics and I will be discussing responsible affiliate marketing strategies in a web2.0 world…

The Changing Landscape of Affiliate Marketing: Bloggers, Social Media and Online Merchants : Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco 2008 — Co-produced by CMP Technology & O’Reilly Conferences, 04/22/2008 – 04/25/2008, San Francisco, CA: “Affiliate marketing is a proven way to monetize online content, and emerging publishers know it’s important to maximize relationships with merchants. Merchants also derive value from the growth of the blogosphere and social media. Experts in affiliate marketing (representing the publisher, merchant and affiliate network perspectives) will explore how these new publishing paradigms use existing affiliate models, and further enhance strategies for monetization of blog and social media content.”

Should be a blast and will be the first time I’ll have spoken at Web2.0 Expo. Let me know if you’ll be there.

BTW, where is everyone staying? I need to “get a room.”

Free Full Pass to Affiliate Summit East

The Affiliate Summit team is having a mini-contest for a free pass to the Affiliate Summit East event coming up in Boston on Aug 10-12 just announced on Twitter…

Twitter / Affiliate Summit: Share an idea for Affiliate…: “Share an idea for Affiliate Summit by midnight tonight – if we use it, you get a free full pass for Boston http://tinyurl.com/3698wl”

If you do affiliate marketing on any level, this is a must-attend event. So, hop on this if you’re looking for a way to score a full pass.

Marketing to Millennials with Molander and the Gang

I did the Jeff Molander “Paying for Performance” podcast yesterday since the subject was on marketing to millennials (that age group born between 1980 and 1995). I was born in ’78 and share many characteristics of this much-stereotyped group, so I thought it might be fun to discuss.

Paying For Performance: “So who are these people and is what we hear in the media really true? To what degree and to what degree is this being over-sensationalized? What ARE the expectations of the people entering our workforce and are they out of line with those who are in need of hiring them?”

Here’s the mp3 for download, or you can head over to the site to listen to the stream.