Putting The Market Back Into Internet Marketing By Virginia
Or, does the dog eat the dog food?
Last Monday, my husband asked me if I was really marketing on the internet. I replied that internet marketing was what I have been doing for over 5 years now, in case he hadn't noticed! But he asked again, are you really marketing on the internet or just internet marketing?
I gave a withering please explain what on earth are you getting at look!
Well, he asked me if I was marketing internet schemes or using the internet for marketing real usable product to end consumers (including their pets).
This was like peeling onions! What was he getting at? What he was getting me to realise is whether all my effort over the past 5 years was really geared to recruiting others to recruit others to recruit others with the end-user product (e.g., the dog food or health juice) being secondary to any money incentives.
Then I realised what he was getting at. He was right of course - until recently, when I came across affiliate marketing for information products. Even here, his gentle needling was relevant
Performance Marketing Alliance (PMA) Q&A at Affiliate Summit East 2008 I walked out the Performance Marketing Alliance (PMA) Q&A session at Affiliate Summit East 2008 in Boston, MA just a few hours ago, full of frustration and a bit of anger. I had to calm myself down first before I started writing this post. The subject is important and emotional for most of us, but emotions will not solve our problems and only make it harder to come to agreements and finding solutions that benefit every single one of us.
PMA and the New York State Law Issue
I realized that
<div class='nifad'><a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=301348593"><img src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=301348593" border="0"/></a></div> Affiliate Marketing: The Shirt Off My Back Here I am at the end of day two of AffiliateSummit East 2008, back in Boston after quite a number of years and the keynote is not even for another eight hours. Yes, the show really does start two days before the keynote kicks off. Actually, it might be three days. I arrived early Saturday morning and I missed a few unofficial gatherings on Friday. Note to self: arrive in Vegas extra early for ASW ‘09.
I can’t really talk about the show because it has not really started. To
<div class='nifad'><a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=301178573"><img src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=301178573" border="0"/></a></div> Affiliate Marketing Survey Completed We are pleased to announce that our Affiliate Survey effort was a huge success. NETexponent created and distributed a 23-question survey designed to collect information about affiliate?s wants, needs, and experiences in the affiliate marketing space. We received over 500 responses from a diverse mix of affiliates across different affiliate networks such as CJ, Performics, LinkShare, ShareASale, and others. The questions these affiliates answered are listed below. Special thanks to all of t
<div class='nifad'><a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=300967062"><img src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=300967062" border="0"/></a></div> Lack of Innovation and the Rejection of the unwanted Child called Affiliate Marketing Jeff Molander wrote a post for the new blog of the Advaliant affiliate network that is pure dynamite.
I agree with Jeff on many points, including the lack of innovation in the industry during the past five years. Why was there not much innovation you might ask yourself? In my opinion networks and also many advertisers did shift their focus and priority towards affiliate publishers who are not traditional affiliates in the first place. Those publishers use the affiliate or CPA tracking platform
<div class='nifad'><a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=300639559"><img src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=300639559" border="0"/></a></div> New York Affiliates Provide Guidance on Compliance with Amazon Tax Sometimes it takes a small dedicated group to successfully take the initiative when large corporations have failed to do so. The Affiliates of New York are proof of what small groups can accomplish. In the face of what has come to be known as the Amazon Tax, a rather short sighted law instituted by New York state, and the combined lack of guidance from many of the networks and merchants in the industry, this group has put together an excellent set of recommendations.
These recommendations provi
<div class='nifad'><a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=300535834"><img src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=300535834" border="0"/></a></div> Top 5 Must See Sessions at Affiliate Summit Affiliate Summit East is only a week away and the conference has grown quite a bit. Before you get lost in the conference chaos and inevitable Boston pub crawls, I thought I should give my top five picks for sessions you can?t afford to miss:
1) NY Tax Laws ? Issues and Solutions
The so called Amazon Tax has set the industry abuzz since it ambushed everyone in May. Since then several legal challenges have been launched against the law with Amazon itself weighing in. On a mor
<div class='nifad'><a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=299631914"><img src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=299631914" border="0"/></a></div> CJ proposes $1 Million settlement over Malware Class Action. The class action filed against ValueClick subsidiaries CJ.com and BeFree has taken a new turn with ValueClick proposing a $1,000,000 settlement fund to be distributed to members of the class action suit.
The lawsuit was originally filed against CJ after the legal team for the class action determined that CJ allowed software publishers to highjack commissions due to other publishers using methods including downloadable toolbars, purchase helpers and other hidden software.
Terms of the settlemen
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as most information products which, when applied, just do not work (e.g., some dog food, though well packaged and marketed to humans, is just plain ignored by the dog because it smells and tastes bad - to the dog.)
Well, after much searching, downloading, reading, cursing and discarding I have found a real information product that does work extremely well when applied. This product was developed by Nathan Stark, who has earned the right because he has adapted for the internet the same proven offline marketing disciplines that ensured his success in marketing, wait for it ... pots and pans ... prior to his internet ventures - which are now extraordinarily successful.
When I downloaded his ebook I was pleasantly surprised, then tremendously excited, because the content did what its sales page said it would do - plus more! This is because it provides a clear path for anyone to follow to generate short-term cash without a website or product and then, building on this, how to generate long term residual cash and which can fund experts to set up your site for you - if you want to go that far.
It's brutally honest and warns you that you have to work your heart out, at least in the initial stages, to set it up to generate cash in the short-term. What I particularly liked here is that with the specific, clear directions my workload will be results, not task, driven. Worrying about downlines, keeping them enthused, getting them to conference calls and phoning them will be no more. The only website I will want to look up from now on will be my account in Clickbank telling me commissions earned - and to see this growing exponentially. No doubt you would like to be in this picture too.
So if you wake up in a cold sweat wondering if you are really in the internet recruitment business rather than the internet marketing business, ask yourself these questions - will the end consumer compensate me happily with a well-earned commission? Can I get a never-ending supply, and an increasing supply, of such people? Or am I sweating on my downlines keeping their monthly subscriptions up to date and not slink off into the night and kill off my income?
Food for thought, eh, Rex? Woof!
Here are some articles to start
with..
Google Ads Do Not 'Pop Up' Those who know me all to well are aware of my irritating resistance to the word "pop up" in connection with Google AdWords ads.That was one of my many suggested corrections to a recent story on Google ads over at The Register, for example.My take is that slipping the term "pop up" in journalistic pieces about Google (as in, "and for only a dollar or so, Mr. Neufeldt's ad would pop up on Google when searchers typed the words 'truck tires'...") is part of an ongoing, insidious campaign by sellers
<div class='nifad'><a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=300956033"><img src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=300956033" border="0"/></a></div>YouTube Copyright "Fair Deal" Methodology Stale news, but interesting:Jeremy Toeman received a notice from UMG regarding his posting of a video on YouTube that included copyrighted content (U2's Beautiful Day) in the background. The offer from the copyright owner, facilitated through YouTube, basically said, go ahead and leave the video up if you wish, but we'll be showing advertising on it.To some this might sound heavy-handed; to others, a nice compromise. I tend to think the latter. As Toeman writes, "I'm basically being encouraged b
<div class='nifad'><a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=300956032"><img src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=300956032" border="0"/></a></div>"Drat!" Say Big Online Media Players as Popular Opinion Mandates Run-of-Network Sameness... Yahoo, under pressure from Congress, Google, consumers, and their own shadow, decides to allow consumers to opt out of targeted advertising across the portal.Meanwhile the session titles for the next ad:tech conference are already being rewritten:"Opt-Out Means Yes: Depending on What They Meant By 'Opt,' 'Out,' and 'Hyphen'"Spyware Isn't So Bad... Depending on What You Mean by 'Spy,' 'Ware,' and 'Bad'364 Ways to Stick Ads in ContentEtc.
<div class='nifad'><a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=300836332"><img src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=300836332" border="0"/></a></div>Revenge of the Straw Man Argument: Jarvis Unhinged Jeff Jarvis, apparently writing a book called What Would Google Do?, must have Michel Foucault spinning delightedly in his grave, as he has just discovered post-modernity! Jarvis asserts that "the Internet" is what "... opens up creativity past one-size-fits-all mass measurements and priestly definitions."I understand that as a journalism professor whose job apparently hinges on the lucrative current trade in old-media-bashing, Jarvis sort of has to say this stuff. "Curmudgeons" don't get invite
<div class='nifad'><a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=300836331"><img src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=300836331" border="0"/></a></div>Google Street View: showing us what we may or may not want to see I?m typing this post from my basement. Yep, I?m holed up here with bottles of water, canned tuna and powdered milk ? everything I?ll need to survive the Apocalypse. I can only assume Judgment Day is upon us, given the new low human contact recently hit when Google employee Michael Weiss-Malik proposed to his girlfriend using Google Street View. We?re all probably familiar with Google?s kitschy new gadget now ? you know, the one that essentially combines Google Maps wit
<div class='nifad'><a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=300307737"><img src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=300307737" border="0"/></a></div>Example SearchMonkey Deployment So basically, what SearchMonkey does is allow publishers to push their customized content look and feel right into the Yahoo Search results. Well, not push, actually, but make available, based on open formats. So for users who opt into the widget for any given company's rich content, if the listing for that content comes up in search results, custom look-and-feel info included. So if it's a Yelp review, you get a bit of the Yelp "richness, look, and feel" right on Yahoo.When I search for "g h jo
<div class='nifad'><a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=299322737"><img src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?x=f12728ffbc9f44cc94f52c398cf8cd7a&u=299322737" border="0"/></a></div>Linkworthy: Yahoo and Searchmonkey Progress Linkworthy for a Friday:Yahoo is now automatically enabling formatted Yelp, LinkedIn, and Yahoo Local results via its SearchMonkey rich data / open formats platform. I'm a big fan of SearchMonkey and happy to see Yahoo forging ahead with it. P.S. Yahoo should acquire Yelp and LinkedIn.This dude is dumping Outlook for web-based email. Welcome to the club, finally! It's interesting to note from his article that major web host Dreamhost encourages all of its customers to stop using their email serv
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Why CSS is good for Google All, 23rd April 2004, Nigel Peck. An overview of why using Cascading Style Sheets will help with your Search Engine Rankings.Random Content Rotation Intermediate, 8th December 2003, Nigel Peck. A method of displaying random content on a Web page using CSS, that is both Search Engine friendly and accessible.
