Affiliate Marketing Blog - a Traffic Junction Blog

In a span of two weeks, LinkShare made two important announcements: a) the launch of LinkShare Lead Advantage, a lead generation service and b) the availability of ‘Flex Links’, Link Locator and Mobile Links.

With Lead Advantage, LinkShare wants to take advantage of the emergence of online lead generation into one of the hottest and fastest growing areas of online marketing. LinkShare had acquired lead generation firm TrafficStrategies.com just a few months ago.
According to the company press release announcing the launch of the new service:
“This new service enables our customers to develop, implement and manage their lead generation campaigns with a focus on driving results, while managing the risks and complexities across multiple online marketing channels,” said Steve Denton, LinkShare’s President. “Lead generation is one of the fastest growing segments of online marketing, but advertisers are discovering quality matters as much as volume.”

“LinkShare designed Lead Advantage to target, track and optimize leads in a way that delivers those that are most likely to convert for our customers, in whatever vertical they work in,” said Kelli Beougher, Vice President, LinkShare Lead Advantage.

The second announcement, which is more relevant to affiliates/ publishers, is an indication of LinkShare preparing for the future (some might say, it is already the present). While Link Locator 2.0 is for more advanced publishers who use web services, Flex links gives publishers the option to post a video, widget, flash or other forms of clickable objects and earn revenues on a pay-per-action basis. As more and more advertisers look at using video for their marketing, this is bound to be a useful addition to the mix. Even though use of video and the other types of “creative” / “marketing material” from advertisers may have their own issues, I believe these forms should get traction sooner rather than later.

At the same time, I am sceptical about “mobile links”, which allows advertisers to take advantage of the anticipated boom in mobile commerce. Even though it is touted as the “next disruptive force” in e-commerce, I feel that mobile commerce will probably take a bit longer to get good traction. Either way, it is commendable that LinkShare has taken steps to be prepared for that time, rather than being a ‘innovation-less’ follower– a tag the network has carried with it for some time.

Last month, the IAB UK updated its search marketing best practice charter with guidelines related to affiliate marketing. While the guidelines are mainly aimed at search engine marketing companies, the update to the charter is aimed at providing some broad guidelines to these companies to work well with their clients that may also be carrying out affiliate marketing.

One of the first guidelines is that a SEM company must disclose to a client whether they do affiliate work for any of their accounts. A fair point, considering the potential conflict of interest issues that a SEM company might have.

The other key point is related to keywords — often the most contentious issue between brands (clients) and affiliates. If a SEM agency is handling the search marketing efforts for a client, the agency has an important role to play in formulating and implementing guidelines pertaining to keyword use, brand names, messaging/ communication. Effective communication of these with the affiliates is extremely important; while enforcement of these guidelines will ultimately be the responsibility of the client, the SEM company can and must play a proactive role in helping the client with this.
As can be expected, some of these guidelines are very broadly [or loosely] defined. For example, one of them is “SEMCo will encourage / facilitate client and affiliate communication.” Words like “encourage/ facilitate” are open to all kinds of interpretation.

Of course, this is not to criticise these efforts at standardisation in an industry that is still very much evolving— as I recognize the challenges with such an endeavour and getting the different players to change to adopt a common set of rules/ accepted best-practices. I just wish that we are able to evolve the various guidelines to minimize the number of possible interpretations, which as we all know, can get used as per each company’s convenience, defeating the purpose of the whole excercise.

Recent news from the big European players in the online marketing/ affiliate marketing sector presents a very positive picture. It is the season of growth, expansion and industry events [the Affiliate Summit UK followed by the A4U Expo].

First up, TradeDoubler posted an impressive 77% increase in Q3 revenues which reached about €82m; the company’s profits also rose by 39% in the corresponding period to €18m. One of the factors responsible for the impressive growth, according to the company, is its foray into search with the acquisition of The Search Works earlier this year. The company recorded growth in all its geographic markets.

Meanwhile, buy.at has opened an office in New York as part of its plans to tap the US market. The company had already moved into the US earlier in the year, launching one program. Other recent activities at buy.at includes its acquisition of Lightstate to add lead generation to its mix; in terms of product offering buy.at also introduced its ContentEngine- a fully-customizable, contextual content engine. According to the company website,

“ContentEngine is a flexible application designed to deliver buy.at affiliates of all abilities, with tailored and relevant content to their websites. It is also fully customisable and easy to use! The application provides our affiliates with the means to boost their sales, by presenting their site visitors with the specific products and services they want to buy. ContentEngine also includes HeadlineOffers - a feature allowing merchants to nominate best selling or special purchase items to be promoted in affiliate’s content units.”

It’s always great to see and hear of positive developments and new offerings!