If you’re wondering why I’m so quiet all of a sudden, other than the fact that I had to fly from Vegas to London, only to fly back to Washington D.C., where I am right now - it’s that my Powerbook’s internal power adaptor is faulty. This was probably the biggest reported issue with the Powerbook generation, but thankfully, it has been repaired with a new adaptor port in the Macbook generation.
My powerbook is literally dead, and all the information on it is safe, however, my blog notes are there - so I’ll try to give a roundup of Affiliate Summit Day 2 when I’m able to access those notes later this week!
To all those of you who made it to Affiliate Summit - hope you had a great show, and it was fun shooting the breeze with all of you!
See you at the next one!
Presented by Director of Corporate Strategy – Oversee.net – Jay Weintraub
Lead Generation Basics
Clicks -> Landing Page -> Decision Engine -> Lead Transmission (Sale to Buyer) -> Follow Up.
Benefits of Lead Generation
Shared Risk
• Data itself has no value
• Advertisers paying on potential value
End User Value
• Something you could use
• Does not rely on breakage
Just the beginning
• Already multi-billion dollar market
• Nothing buy upside
This is a very interesting, but graphical presentation. Will try to get copy of presentation from Jay later and post a link in the comments section.
Advances in Lead Generation
Marketplaces
Outsourced Sales Force
Variable CPL’s (potentially disruptive force)
Optimization
Multivariate Testing – More than Landing Pages
Applying ad network rigor to ad display
“Cross Media” – Search Traffic to use to banner traffic
Challenges in Lead Generation
Increased competition among lead generators
Going “wide & deep” – do not assume that success in one vertical will assure success in any vertical.
Key Takeaways
Quality – Buyers get it; leads for leads sake do not help their business
Sustainability – Being caught by surprise
Value – Consumer & Buyer
Future Thoughts
Large Opportunity as companies move toward lifetime value, e.g. more advanced remarketing and bundling.
Continued vertical segmentation
New verticals forming
Summary
Quality – the only metric that matters
Market today has changed dramatically from that in years past
Still money to be made, but ever declining low hanging fruit
Efficiency and improving on the process is king
Looking back 3 years ago, Affiliate Summit started out as a small group of affiliates and merchants interested in growing the industry. At the time there was a small annual conference of around 200 people who went on a boat from NY to Halifax, Canada. It was quite a funny story actually – Jonathan Miller (ForgeBusiness), Eric Edelstein (incuBeta Co-Founder) & myself were 3 South Africans who went to New York on the expectations that our US Visa’s & South African passports would allow us to get into Canada (a commonwealth country), little did we know that the law had changed since 9/11.
We were stranded in New York and were not allowed onto the cruise ship by Carnival Cruises, but that didn’t stop us! At about 6am in the middle of early spring, we headed down to the Canadian embassy and managed to get a 1 day Visa, headed over to JFK, boarded a flight to Halifax, spent the night at the Prince Georgian hotel (one of the best nights rest I ever had!). We also had dinner at the Press Gang Club (a great restaurant)! To cut a long story short – we boarded the boat back to New York at Halifax the next morning, and managed to enjoy half an Affiliate Summit.
This year, I’m pleasantly surprised to hear that there are over 2000 attendees – that’s 1000% growth in 3 years! Well done to Shawn Collins & Missy Ward for running a fantastic that without a doubt fuels the growth in Affiliate Marketing globally.
The show starts with a funny opening from MC Lisa Riolo (formerly VP of Commission Junction). Michael Sanchez, CEO of ClubMom (and CafeMom), takes the floor for the Keynote Address.
Michael kicks off with some personal anecdotes about his pay for performance experiences with his kids – very funny.
Potential Role of Affiliate Marketing in the Larger Marketing Landscape
What Web 2.0 Means to Marketers
Consumer is completely in control
Consumers want to create and interact with their media
If you don’t have a great product – GO HOME
Be absolutely crystal clear about your metrics
Do less, go fast, try stuff – repeat based on the numbers and what your customer tells you.
Make sure the cost of learning and changing is low.
Marketing 101 – Obviously but so Important
Develop a great product that is an absolute wow for an identifiable segment of customers
Establish positioning, brand, segmentation, and value proposition.
Reach the RIGHT PERSON at the RIGHT TIME with the RIGHT MESSAGE.
Classic Marketing Funnel:
Awareness -> Consideration -> Qualified Lead -> Transaction -> User Loyalty
SEM Analysis:
Strengths
Marketers can often reach the RIGHT PERSON at the RIGHT TIME – only paying when a consumer click
Marketers can calculate ROI and manage & adjust budget process in real time
Massive scale
Weaknesses
Marketers learn very little about most of the people clicking the ads (1% conversion means that 99% got away).
(He is going to fast for me to capture all this!!).
Affiliate Marketing Analysis
Strengths
Pay for Performance is the Holy Grail of Marketing
Marketers only pay when they receive a desired outcome
Weaknesses
Too often affiliates and marketers are not aligned on true metrics
Too often affiliates are not driving quality traffic – wrong incentives
ClubMom Grocery/Retail Loyalty Program
ClubMom delivered 10%+ sales lift and hundreds of millions of dollars in incremental sales – for than 5 years. Retailers still did not like paying on all sales, despite huge, measurable ROI.
This talk reminds me a lot of the work we have published around Performance Marketing Profit Share.
CafeMom.com Current Analysis
CafeMom is a social netowork for moms to connect with friends – old and new, express themselves, and have fun.
New Member are averaging 100-200 pageviews / member (except one channel) – results in $25-$50 revenue per member per month.
Ideas and Recommendations – E-Commerce Marketers
Pay Per Sale
Align with sites that have loyal and engaged user bases
Find as many strong content / social networking / niche affiliates as possible
Pay for True Performance
Consider programs that involve affiliates post Sale
Pay Per Lead
(He is moving way to fast for me to catch up, because he is running out of time).
In short, all he is advocating is that we align merchant & affiliate interests better – interesting talk overall.
$1m Challenge – Mother’s Day Challenge
He wants to pay an affiliate or consortium of affiliates $1m by Mother’s Day – if they can deliver true performance.
He is looking for several affiliate partners to work with ClubMom on a 2-3 week test basis. I’m sure there will be details on his site.
Conclusion:
Affiliate Marketing has breakthrough potential.
Think big and long-term
Maintain quality across the board
True Performance is the key
Test out a big program with CafeMom
Vinny Lingham is an International Award winning Entrepreneur & Search Engine Marketer. He is currently CEO of Synthasite, a Web 2.0 Startup.
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