MThink’s Blue Book Top 20

Affiliate marketing fraud, or at the very least the perception of it, remains an industry-wide blight. Regardless of federal regulations and threats of increased government oversight, affiliates, advertisers and publishers continue to do themselves more harm than good playing a constant game of one-upmanship. Whether it’s buying bad conversions, deceptive ads and links or charging for clicks that haven’t been used, affiliate marketers must cease and desist with these irresponsible practices.

The temptation of affiliates to adopt new traffic sources without considering the effect they will have on advertiser conversions is an example of individual greed undermining industry growth. But affiliates are not solely at fault. Advertising and publishing networks have their own bottom lines to meet. As profits and conversions rise, networks tend to concern themselves less with the long-term health and tricky legalities of affiliate marketing. But this needs to change.

Affiliates, advertisers and publishers need to resist the temptation of the quick money fix. Business owners rely on sound publishers just as publishers rely on legitimate network offers. Advertisers, publishers and business owners must view themselves as being part of a trilogy responsible for driving results and continuously improving profitability and the industry as a whole.

Though affiliate marketing fraud is a problem, all is not lost. The release of the Blue Book’s Top 20 performance marketing networks proves that following the rules can maximize profits. Still, these performance marketers must apply the best practices they used in achieving their top 20 rankings to put an end to the misleading affiliate offers currently polluting the online space. Affiliate abusers have been one step ahead of the game for far too long. As skilled marketers, this is one game of one-upmanship we need to win.

Email and Engagement: The “E’s” Driving Economic Recovery

As we tip toe toward economic recovery, marketers would be wise to remember the role email marketing played in making the recession a wee bit more tolerable. It was one of the few strategies that effectively drove profitable results both globally and domestically. The news that the recession is over is certainly welcome but simply announcing that its end is here doesn’t guarantee that consumers will get the memo.  After all, it’s true what they say about assuming. Taking a passive approach will fail to engage potential customers.

Email marketers must engage and involve consumers by giving them more control of information by emphasizing social networks, Email Preference Centers, (EPCs) and the overall value of sharing data. Sharing is caring. Continuous improvement means continuous metrics advancement. Marketers need to strengthen email marketing usability and functionality across channels. While digital and traditional markets haven’t always been simpatico with regard to email marketing, leveraging e-commerce along with in-store promotional strategies can enhance email marketing capabilities. Ultimately, the better your email marketing methodologies, the more advanced your data acquisition and lead generation systems will become.

Can Startups De-FaceBook?

Some call themselves social operating sites or people platforms. Others stick to the widely accepted social media and/or social networking nomenclature. You say tomato, Steve Jobs says apple. Regardless of classification, newbies to social like Pip.io, Diaspora and OneSocialWeb are pitching their sites as untainted alternatives to Mark Zuckerberg’s privacy invading juggernaut, FaceBook. The ire over FaceBook’s controversial Open Graph application and its “Like” tool has spawned QuitFaceBookDay.com, a campaign calling for users to cancel their accounts on May 31st. Be that as it may, if people are so up in arms over FaceBook, why are these new sites struggling to get off the ground? Why have only 13,000 of FaceBook’s 400 million members vowed to sever ties with the social network?

I think the inconvenient truth of the matter is that for all their complaining, users are experiencing a crisis of conscience and a struggle for identity. FaceBook initially marketed itself as a place for friends. Those friends created the rules of the game. Users started marketing themselves, their interests, their industries, their affiliations. It should not be called invasion of privacy if you’re doing the striptease. And stripteases get noticed.

Companies, large and small, caught on to the power of social networking and influencing in marketing their products and services. The place for friends changed into the home for honchos. FaceBook traditionalists, if they could really be called such, may hate the thought of sharing face time with big business but that’s the price of innovation.

I’m sure many FaceBook users are tempted to test the social waters, whether or not they completely opt to jump from Zuckerberg’s ship. But the reality is FaceBook successfully separated itself from the pack by continuously improving its model, not settling on one formula or aspect of social networking to survive. For social newbies to truly compete with FaceBook, they would be wise to forego an independent strategy. They should outsource digital performance marketing expertise to draw from what Zuckerberg has mastered and invest in innovation, improved analytics and optimization to drive results far greater than 13,000.

Will Click-Through Rates Get Caught In the Web App? Does It Matter?

Native apps still hold many advantages over emerging web apps. Depending on publisher size and industry, native apps provide better bang for the click with greater monetization and value among smaller and pay-per-download providers. But according to findings in a new Global Intelligence Alliance (GIA) whitepaper, it’s only a matter of time before the native app gives way to the webbie.

The paper theorizes that web apps will become a superior publishing platform able to increase and improve developer attention. User tracking and engagement are its strengths. By 2013, web app functionality will rival that of native apps on multiple channels. GIA believes that its tracking and engagement advantages along with its versatile functionality will decrease the native apps mind-share by 1/5th, down to 24%. Large publishers are big fans of the web app. Web apps fit in nicely with their business philosophy – distribution and development cost control.

If the web app has an Achilles heel, it’s the click-through rate. By and large, native apps generate better CTRs. But in lieu of cross-channel attribution and the multi-channel effectiveness of the web app, does the native apps click-through advantage really matter? And when you throw the cost, speed and simplicity of the web app into the mix, those smaller and pay-per-download providers may get caught up in the web app sooner than expected.

Privacy’s Impact on Display

Online advertising has taken a direct hit to the solar plexus with the current privacy debate sweeping digital marketing. Facebook is the obvious place to lay blame but the reasoning behind the decline in online behavioral advertising goes beyond whether or not you “Like” Mark Zuckerberg. The Ponemon Institute, a privacy research group, finds that marketers are 75% less likely to track a web user’s browsing habits for campaign targeting. Privacy and transparency have display advertisers running scared. This trend needs to change. It’s time to get proactive.
It’s not good enough to wish the privacy hysteria away. While it’s true that mass panics tend to quell over time, especially those involving Facebook, a passive approach shouldn’t be the first option. It’s like waiting for the three run homer in baseball. Sometimes you get one but it still means you had to get a few runners on base to make things happen. How should display advertisers go about their rally?
Don’t shy away from transparency, embrace it. Mapping out precise, explicit data detailing buyer intent ensures accuracy and establishes client trust. And though privacy advocates will continue making waves, technologically advanced user-metrics designed to target the right audience will alleviate any fears the general public may have. After all, they will be shown ads that interest them, which should ease the notion of privacy invasion.
The onus is on display advertisers to make clients and consumers understand the benefits of online behavioral tracking. There’s revenue to be made and customers to generate.

Accentuate the Positive – Combating Shared Negative Brand Experiences with ORM

Social media users get a kick out of feeling important and influential without the risk of face to face confrontation. The relative anonymity of the web makes it a breeding ground for complaining consumers, especially in the realm of social media.  Negative comments about a particular brand or product can be severely detrimental to a company’s short-term and long-term growth and profitability. This seems like a common sense deduction but a recent Opinion Research study suggests that companies have missed that memo.

According to the survey, 20% of those polled have used social media to speak negatively about a brand. Shockingly, 64% of companies do not have a social media policy or structure in place to combat such negative reporting. And in keeping with the non-confrontational benefits of spewing negativity online, 18% of those surveyed admitted to using an alias in social media circles exclusively. These findings scream out for Online Reputation Management.

The numbers don’t lie, which should make it easier for digital marketers to explain the advantages of instituting an ORM platform into a client’s business model. It’s all about accentuating the positive – controlling the branding message, generating buzz around a product or service, monitoring user postings and improving visibility and enhancing their page one search engine position. By employing this level of due diligence, existing and potential clients will experience the short-term and long-term growth and profitability currently eluding them. But it is up to those in the digital marketing industry to get this positive message out.

The MediaWhiz Manager Spotlight

Director of Business Development for Monetizeit Adam Trentacoste is the first team member profiled in The Manager Spotlight

Recently promoted to Director of Business Development for Monetizeit, Adam Trentacoste wasn’t familiar with affiliate marketing and knew little about online advertising when he started working with MediaWhiz in 2007. His rapid climb up the ladder is indicative of his core business values - ‘hard work, dedication and trust’. In keeping with his business philosophy, Adam believes MediaWhiz’s knowledge of email and list management, data acquisition, search and display set us apart in building ‘that ever important trust factor with your clients’. Adam explains, ‘We are not just an affiliate network’ adding that MediaWhiz is able to ‘…leverage our expertise in all channels of online performance marketing’. Adam sees a ‘bright future for affiliate marketing’ citing traditional and online advertisers shifting budgets toward online performance as well as government regulations undercutting dishonest affiliate and online marketing practices as keys to his belief. Adam hopes this bright future will translate to the continuous improvement of the MediaWhiz softball team and drive positive results for MediaWhiz during an upcoming “Thursty Thursday” performance marketing agency beer pong tournament.