Archives for March 2006

buy.at, the UK’s largest privately owned affiliate marketing network has secured its future growth following a £7.3 million investment from Cazenove Private Equity (CPE). The company will be chaired by Bruce McLaren who led Advertising.com as International CEO to a successful sale to AOL Time Warner.

In 2002, Perfiliate Technologies Limited launched the buy.at affiliate network. Over the last three years the network has rapidly expanded to provide affiliate marketing solutions for many of the leading names in the UK including AA, BT, John Lewis, Lloyds TSB, M&S, T-Mobile, Sky and many more.

The £7.3 million investment from CPE will ensure that buy.at will continue to be the fastest growing UK affiliate network, with a leading reputation in the sector. Steve Brown, Chief Executive of buy.at said:

“The investment from CPE is a huge milestone for the buy.at network, allowing us to maintain strong growth and gain an ever increasing foothold in the market place. The investment permits us to improve our focus to ensure that we continue to deliver according to our clients’ expectations – offering exceptional delivery coupled with cutting edge technology.

“To further differentiate the buy.at network from our competitors, we will continue to concentrate on enhancing our service, innovation and providing an industry leading affiliate solution”.

CPE specialises in investing in the brightest prospects in the UK and European technology, media and telecoms sectors. Companies backed by CPE, such as buy.at, operate in proven or high-growth markets and will be driven by exceptional management teams, with the vision and ambition to dominate their chosen sectors.

Nic Brisbourne, Investment Executive at CPE said of the recent investment: “buy.at is the best performing UK company in what is undoubtedly a very hot market. We are excited to be shareholders and look forward to working with them through the next phase of growth and international expansion.”

Joining as non-executive Chairman, Bruce McLaren will be a vital asset to the company, providing strategic guidance and a provision of knowledge to assist driving buy.at to its greatest growth potential. Commenting on his new role with buy.at Bruce said “this company has sensational technology that is the best in its class and a great management team. It’s ready to move up to the next plateau and become a major European player in the near term.”

For further information on the buy.at affiliate marketing network visit www.buy.at or call Chris Tradgett, New Client Manager at buy.at on 0191 241 6500 or email: chris.tradgett@perfiliate.com.

-End-

For further media information, please contact Anna Barry or Laura Przybek at Perfiliate Technologies Limited on 0191 241 6500, or anna.barry@perfiliate.com or laura.przybek@perfiliate.com

Photo Caption: Joining forces to drive further growth for buy.at – (Left to right) Nic Brisborne, Investment Executive at CPE, Steve Brown, Chief Executive at buy.at and Bruce McLaren, non-executive Chairman of buy.at

There is much ballyhoo about the occasional affiliate who violates the pay per click edicts in affiliate agreements. But there also merchants that have a devil may care attitude when it comes to rules and regulations.

One prime example is Citrix GoToMyPC on Commission Junction. I was looking through their linking options yesterday, and I came across Link ID 10360563 / Competitive Keywords for All Audiences.

I reread the name a couple of times, as I couldn’t imagine they were encouraging their affiliates to bid on their competitor’s names.

Then I read the description of the link… “This keyword link is including competitive keywords such as pcanywhere, timbuktu and logmein.”

Are they serious? They are telling their affiliates to bid on their competitor’s brand names? Yes, I’m afraid they are doing just that.

Among their recommended keywords: pcanywhere, pc anywhere, timbuktu, timbukto pro, and logmein.

Aside from the lapse in ethics when it comes to encouraging this sort of behavior in affiliates, it’s also a violation of the Google AdWords Editorial Guidelines.

As stated in the Google AdWords Editorial Guidelines:

Underlying all the Editorial Guidelines are two simple principles that have worked for thousands of advertisers already in the program:

• Clearly and accurately describe your site.
• Emphasize the unique benefits of your product or service.

Unless the Citrix GoToMyPC affiliates are running sites that compare GoToMyPC to the competing products, it looks to me that bidding on those competitor’s names for the purpose of driving traffic to GoToMyPC. This is expressly forbidden by Google.

The Google AdWords Editorial Guidelines also state, “Your keywords and ad text must be relevant to your site, products, or services.”

I searched on Google for pcanywhere and, sure enough, a couple of the GoToMyPC affiliates were adhering to the suggested strategy: bidding on pcanywhere and funneling the traffic to GoToMyPC (see image to the right).

I’m sure GoToMyPC isn’t the only merchant engaging in such bottom feeder marketing – they are just the one I happened upon.

Wondering aloud…will CJ clamp down on this activity? How about Google – it’s a violation of their rules after all. If nothing else, I’d imagine Symantec isn’t too happy about this misuse of the pcAnywhere™ brand name.

Affiliate marketing is a risky scheme, and anybody that uses it to advertise their company is reckless and ill informed. Right? No, not right.

But you’d be inclined to believe just that if you took seriously the frequent hatchet jobs on affiliate marketing by folks with a vested interest in CPM and search.

Peter Figueredo wrote an entertaining piece on ReveNews recently,” EXTRA EXTRA: Online Ad Displayed Next To Inappropriate Content – BUT ITS AN AD BUY – NOT AN AFFILIATE.”

In the post, Peter points out a story about brands being represented in an embarrassing spot. “This article describes Apple and AT&T ads appearing on an upskirt website through an ad network buy.”

This is news, because the “watchdogs”, who are so quick to condemn affiliate marketing at every turn, never mention the considerably frequent times this sort of thing happens elsewhere.

I see it all the time – contextual ads from search engines and banner ads from networks paying on CPM that are placed on sites that are inappropriate at best.

This whole situation reminds me of the book, Bias, by Bernard Goldberg – a treatise that documented the lack of objectivity in the “mainstream” media. Thanks Peter!

There is a troublesome story that hasn’t been getting enough attention lately, and it could negatively impact the pocketbooks of all affiliate marketers.

In late February, ICANN’s (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) Board of Directors met and approved a pending deal with VeriSign for the .COM registry.

The registry is different from a registrar, in that they maintain the Internet routing systems, domain availability lookups and basic records.

The registry sells domain names to the registrars (i.e. 1&1, Go Daddy and Moniker) at a fixed rate, currently $6 per name, and then the registrar chooses to either discount the cost to lure customers or mark it up.

Anyhow, back to how this could impact you. The agreement enables VeriSign to increase prices by 7% annually in four of the next six years.

But it’s not a done deal just yet. It still must be approved by the Department of Commerce. That’s where you come in. Bob Parsons, Chairman and Founder of Go Daddy, has provided a suggested form letter at http://www.bobparsons.com/ICANNletsusdown.html to contact your Congressional Representatives and/or Senators.

Take action today.