Archives for July 2007

I learned about a promotion from Advertising.com during the Affiliate Meet Market in Miami last week. Missy Barnstein, from the Advertising.com Affiliate Product Solutions team, told me about their 10 Million Free Impression sweepstakes.

According to Missy, the 10 million impressions are quality impressions that will run across the entire Advertising.com network. Affiliates do not have to join their network for a chance to win – it’s just a matter of filling out a lead form.

They’re doing good things over there, and I don’t say that just because they have some Maryland Terps on staff (my alma mater).

While they are a large operation (subsidiary of AOL), they have really focused on dedicated resources for their affiliate program and cultivating a relationship oriented environment that affiliates generally experience with smaller companies.

As far as the tracking and reporting, they’ve got their own platform and they’re paying out millions of dollars each month (net 15 days).

Check them out if for no other reason than to get a chance on those 10 million impressions.

More details at http://www.advertising.com/affiliatesweeps/.

ValueClick has announced that they have agreed to acquire super affiliate, MeziMedia, Inc., a leading operator of U.S. comparison shopping websites.

MeziMedia ranked fourth in the June 2007 comScore Retail Comparison Shopping category with approximately 10.5 million U.S. unique visitors through its Smarter.com comparison shopping and CouponMountain.com online coupon websites.

“MeziMedia is consistent with our acquisition philosophy and gives ValueClick comparison shopping scale in the U.S., greater search marketing expertise and a presence in China, all three of which are key growth initiatives for the Company,” said Tom Vadnais, chief executive officer of ValueClick. “This is an exciting acquisition and we look forward to welcoming the MeziMedia team to the ValueClick family.”

“We are proud of our significant accomplishments in comparison shopping, SEO and SEM and believe that the time is right to join forces with ValueClick, one of the largest and most diversified online marketing services companies,” said Talmadge Neill and Harry Tsao, co-founders of MeziMedia. “We are confident that MeziMedia and ValueClick will enjoy important benefits from this transaction and generate meaningful synergies across the combined businesses.”

ValueClick anticipates the acquisition will close in August 2007, at which time they will acquire MeziMedia for approximately $100 million in cash, plus an earn out.

The total transaction will range between $100 million and $352 million, depending on whether performance thresholds are met.

There has been a bit of controversy over the hiring of “booth babes” to staff exhibit hall booths at online marketing conferences, so I thought it would be interesting to conduct a survey about it.

Brad Waller wrote about the topic on ReveNews earlier this week, and his perspective on it…

“There have already been enough debates on the idea of sex and marketing and the idea of booth babes to attract traffic to your trade show booth. Affiliate Summit has had it’s share, but I’d only accuse one exhibitor of using this tactic. I understand the idea and reasons, and I’m no prude. I enjoy the female form, but I also think that this can go wrong – really wrong.”

Some folks have suggested that we should enforce a dress code at Affiliate Summit, but that’s veering too much into a “Nanny state” for my taste.

Personally, I think this approach can be a bit counter-productive. There are the people who are repelled by a booth that has models staffing it, but that’s not my beef.

I generally don’t bother with any booth that appears to be staffed solely by temps. If I want to learn more about the company, I am going to want to ask questions. Not just pick up a flier.

But that’s just me. What do you think?

Please take the two question, anonymous survey and I will share the results.

Commission Junction has announced a restructuring of their executive-level responsibilities by region (East & West) for both their advertiser and publisher development teams.

Dave Osman has assumed the position of Vice President, Client Development – West, and he will be responsible for the advertiser and publisher development teams and their clients located west of the Mississippi River.

Kerri Pollard is now Vice President, Client Development – East and she will be handling advertiser and publisher development teams and their clients located east of the Mississippi River.

“This organizational change enables us to provide an even greater level of personal involvement by our most senior leaders and their teams in all levels of our advertisers’ and publishers’ businesses,” said Tom Vadnais, chief executive officer of ValueClick, Inc. and general manager of Commission Junction and Mediaplex.

“We continue to hear from advertisers and publishers that our strategy and service is what sets Commission Junction apart from the competition, and this re-alignment lets even more advertisers and publishers benefit from our capabilities.”

Congrats to Dave and Kerri.

Affiliate Summit 2007 East is now one for the history books. It’s been an educational and exhausting marathon of affiliate marketing that began for me on Thursday, July 5 when I arrived to prepare for the conference.

The final day of Affiliate Summit began with a keynote chat moderated by Emcee Lisa Riolo with Rob Kniaz, Product Manager at Google and Mark Papia, VP of Performance Marketing at FOX Interactive Media. The wide ranging discussion answered lots of questions affiliate marketers had about Google and MySpace.

The keynote was followed by a new session, Elevator Networking, where attendees of Affiliate Summit had a chance to ask questions and have a think tank of people work out an answer for you.

There were a number of tables set up and headed by a moderator with a background in a given topic. The people at the table were given the opportunity to give an elevator speech about their company (maximum 30 seconds) and then ask a question about a problem they had.

This was followed by the moderator and others at the table trying to solve their problem.

Based on the feedback received via paper forms ad text messages, the session was a big success.

The afternoon on the final day of Affiliate Summit featured a number of educational sessions, and culminated with the “Lessons Learned” class, where a succession of affiliate marketing thought leaders and visionaries shared their topline tips from the conference.

Each speaker took the stage for a minute or two and provided attendees with some useful and innovative take aways to wrap up the conference.

This was the biggest affiliate marketing conference on the East Coast to date with approximately 1,850 registered attendees.

I always have this same feeling on the last evening of the Affiliate Summit events – a mixture of exuberance and optimism from the things I’ve learned, combined with the realization that the whole thing has come to an end this time around.

Affiliate marketing is about relationships, that’s no secret, and it’s vividly exhibited every time the community gets together to share, learn, smile and move forward.

So long to all the old and new friends. It’s time to apply this great stuff that’s spinning around my head from the past bunch of days.

Affiliate Summit Day Two is in the books, and what a long day it was. Big crowds, sessions, events, networking, etc. – my head is still spinning.

The day kicked off with the keynote from Ze Frank and he had the crowd going crazy with the laughs with his observations on Web 2.0 and the general direction of Internet business.

Affiliate Summit sessions covered the gamut from the state of UK affiliate marketing to viral marketing to SEO site critiques.

The day also features the introduction of a new session, “Come Talk to Me,” where affiliate marketers were able to step up and say what sort of business they were trying to do and meet appropriate partners, as well as a live domain auction from Moniker.

Afterwards, the crowd headed to Mansion for an eclectic party from Webmaster Radio, COPEAC, and others.

OK, I have to get up in a few hours for the final day, so this is it. Good night, Gracie.