Sam Harrelson

Mashups have revolutionized the social web by freeing up access to services and allowing publishers to have a stake and claim in the chain of interaction with a merchant besides just passing on eyeballs or qualified leads.  It’s inevitable that CPA affiliates begin to use mashups.  SuperAff.com has a nice post today on the subject…

The technical side to this is above my capabilities atm, but I can definitely see what an important tool this can be for Affiliate Marketers.

The Affiliate Marketing Blog

technorati tags:mashup, affiliate, marketing

Blogged with Flock

Google continues to up the ante in the publisher/advertiser relationship, and their newest project is yet another flanking move aimed at tightening the grip on the otherwise unruly online advertising market. This transcends CPC and heads straight into the backend of the CPA crowd. The only question is, will Google continue to innovate/renovate in this space or will they buy a network? Thanks to Jeff Molander for the find…

Called the Google Website Optimizer, the new hosted service is designed to let Web site operators do A/B and multivariate testing on the pages that their sponsored listings drive traffic, to see how various headlines, ad copy, product descriptions and images lead customers to convert. Google is partnering with Web analytics consultants EpikOne and Optimost for the service, which went into a public (but invitation-only) beta test on October 18.

Google Offers Free Landing-Page Help for Small Marketers

technorati tags:google, affiliates, cpc, cpa, adsense

Blogged with Flock

Gibbs brings more than seven years of online advertising experience to this role. Immediately prior to Revenue Science, Gibbs held the position of director of strategic national accounts at ValueClick Media where her responsibilities included establishing relationships with large brand and top online marketers. Previous to her position with ValueClick, she served as vice president of sales for Fastclick.com. Gibbs has also held various senior sales roles at WebSideStory, a leading web analytics company and pre-IPO ValueClick, Inc. Gibbs holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Florida State University.

Misty Gibbs Joins Revenue Science as Vice President of Sales for Behavioral Targeting Network

technorati tags:valueclick, cj, affiliates

Blogged with Flock

Every week on the Weekly Insight Podcast we seem to ask each other if ValueClick is really going to sell CJ. I’m of the constant opinion that no, they will not sell CJ (really, who would sell a two letter domain name these days??). If Google is looking to buy a CPA network they would look elsewhere for a better platform in terms of long term value besides just locked-in merchants (or a better name… maybe one that rhymes with Google?). Interesting earning notes from ValueClick, nonetheless.  The earnings call can be heard here on tomorrow (Wednesday November 1).

ValueClick Inc. reports earnings for the fiscal second quarter Wednesday after the market closes. Shares of digital marketing services company ValueClick fell with the rest of the online advertising sector in September after Yahoo Inc. said a slowdown in automotive and financial services ad spending would weigh on its third-quarter results. STOCK PERFORMANCE: Shares of ValueClick rose 20 percent during the quarter, ending September at $18.34 on the Nasdaq. In the past 52 weeks, the company’s stock has traded between $13.15 and $20.98.

Earnings Preview: ValueClick: Financial News – Yahoo! Finance

technorati tags:valueclick, google, azoogle, wallstreet, commissionjunction

Blogged with Flock

No one or their sister is talking about clickfraud. Sure, AdSense might be the most incredible ad platform ever, but at what cost? What are we in the CPA Network side of things doing to combat the eventual governmental/regulatory and public scrutiny that will inevitably be a result of a glossed-over clickfraud problem in online marketing?? Wayne Porter suggests a potential network with an eye on the prize, but are they taking the right step or are they interested in hopping on the “we have a solution for clickfraud that Google isn’t acknowledging” bandwagon without really offering any solution at all? At any rate, we should all pay attention when Porter addresses the issue of networks taking on clickfraud or spybots…

Think Partnership is going to launch ‘ValidClick Advertising Network’, a click-fraud solution, a network of 1000+ sites that boast proprietary clickfraud mechanisms, at the 10th annual ad:tech New York interactive marketing conference and expo. ad:tech New York is going to be held from November 6 to November 8 at the New York Hilton. We will see them showcase Kowabunga, Secondbite and MarketSmart (competing with Google’s grand plans?).

THK- Starts to Think, Shares no longer Sink – ReveNews – Wayne Porter: Greynets, Malware, Adware & Spyware Research- E-commerce, Online Revenue News & Opinions Since 1998

technorati tags:google, clickfraud, adsense, affiliate

Blogged with Flock

Is Rosenweig correct in his assumption that the market is changing back from a seller’s market to a buyer favored space? I don’t think we’ve hit that point in inventory just yet, but even in the CPA world, this market shift will definitely occur again. This would also supply more reason that Google and other large firms with a good deal of inventory are looking to the world of CPA in hopes of backing out into a favorable effective CPM.

According to Yahoo! COO Dan Rosensweig, a “glut” of cheap ad space was partly to blame for his company’s sagging third-quarter ad revenue, reports Adweek, by way of Yahoo News.
The increase in cheap ad space appears driven by the recent popularity of social networks like MySpace and YouTube. In September, MySpace drove more than 35.7 billion impressions according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Despite the boost in impressions, the metrics company reported that unique visitors to MySpace dropped 4 percent.

In the ad networks space, providers are reporting double-digit gains in ad inventory. According to comScore Media Metrix, ValueClick’s reach is up 11 percent in the past six months and BlueLithium’s 22 percent.

“This is going to change the market dynamics,” says Dan Rosensweig, Yahoo! Inc. COO.

iMedia Connection: A “Glut” of Cheap Ad Space?

technorati tags:yahoo, google, affiliate, adsense, advertising

Blogged with Flock

Does your program rely on search for attracting new affiliates, customers or traffic (most likely, it does)?  Then you need to be aware of “impression fraud”…

What is Impression Fraud?

Does it ever end? This has been a problem since day one with Google’s yield mechanism, but luckily, when you’re bidding on 25 million keywords like we are, I DARE anyone to try and impression fraud us! 🙂

links for 2006-10-30 » Vinny Lingham’s Blog

technorati tags:clickfraud, impression, seo, search, google

Blogged with Flock

What the writer of this piece doesn’t include is the clickfraud problem. Search spamming and gaming search results are a nuisance, but not crippling. Clickfraud money goes to some very nasty places and could bring close scrutiny that would topple the house of cards…

Many of you will agree that Google’s search result relevancy is going down the drain. All search engines are now being clogged with unbelievable amount of search engine spamming, and this trend is booming like never before. Here is why I think this is happening and how search engines such as Google can solve the problem once for all.

Jozef Jarosciak – Blog » Solution for improving Google’s search result relevancy!

I’ve heard from my sources that the Google Multimedia branch (video, music, audio) will be based in their new(er) Chicago offices. Here’s a listing from Craig’s List with some info on that…

Audio Account Coordinator, Google Audio – Chicago

This position is based in Chicago, IL.

The Audio Account Coordinator’s primary responsibility is to provide support and maintenance to Media Account Management team and assigned clients.

Google: Audio Account Coordinator, Google Audio – Chicago

Google launched Google Co-Op a short time ago, and it hasn’t taken long for some in the affiliate marketing space to create a Google powered search engine specifically tailored to the affiliate marketing world.  Specifically Affiliate Classroom has launched AFFoogle. I hope to get in touch with them sometime in the coming week to discuss numbers and what their aims are with this endeavor.  Trouble is, the affiliate marketing universe is composed of many different galaxies that are had to nail down to specific sites. The larger Google search engine does a better job of allowing interested users to find information about specific marketers, affiliates, or programs simply because Google is just so large. Limiting something as varied and wide ranging as Affiliate Marketing to a couple of hand selected sites doesn’t do the industry justice but comes across as heavy handed editor work.