issue 12 | fall 2012 | revenue.mthink.com the cmo … · the cmo guide to performance marketing •...

ISSUE 12 | FALL 2012 | REVENUE.MTHINK.COM

THE CMO GUIDE TO PERFORMANCE MARKETING

• Choosing Your Network Partner

• CPA Marketing 101

• Affi liateBenchmarks Research

• Protecting Trade Secrets

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BB2 The Authoritative Guide to Ad Networks and Exchanges

PUBLISHER & EDITORChris Trayhorn

VICE-PRESIDENT, SALESTobias Siegel

ADVERTISING/SALES DIRECTORKelly Lemos

DIRECTOR OF ONLINESheila Fox

PRODUCTION DESIGNRick Greer

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Lee Aho, Tom Dietzel, Peter Figuerdo, Peter Klein, Richard Newman, Russell

Peachman, Ryan Schulke, Moran Treiser

Revenue Performance is published by mThink55 New Montgomery, Suite 617

San Francisco, CA 94105

mThink: Intelligent Performance Marketing

CHAIRMAN AND CEOChris Trayhorn

VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETINGYvonne Schellerup

DIRECTOR, WEB DEVELOPMENTRon Snow

DEDICATED TO SUCCESSFUL PERFORMANCE ADVERTISING

While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the content of this publication, the publisher will accept no responsibility for any errors or omissions, or for any loss or damage, consequential or otherwise, suffered as a result of any material published here. The information published in Revenue Performance is not intended as a substitute for legal, account-ing, tax or other professional advice. The publisher assumes no responsibility for statements made by advertisers in business competition. All editorial submissions, whether solicited or unsolicited, become the property of mThink. Statements and opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of Revenue Performance, mThink, its affi liates, advertisers or any other agent. The name “Revenue Performance” and the phrase “Super-Affi liate Insights” are the intellectual property of mThink. The entire content of this publication is protected by copyright; full details are available through the publisher. All rights reserved. These trademarks or copyright materials may not be used in any media for any purpose without the express written consent of mThink.

© 2012 mThink ISSN: 1549-7615 Cover Image: © DvmsImages | Dreamstime.com

Disclaimer: Revenue Performance and revenue.mThink.com include editorial and/or advertising that refers to affi liate programs that often include many different websites. Occasionally those programs may include websites offering education in casino or card games. In such cases no promotion or endorsement of those sites should be inferred or implied – our editorial coverage and/or advertising relates only to the affi liate program itself. Revenue Performance magazine and revenue.mThink.com do not accept advertising that promotes online gambling.

Advertiser Index:

eHealthInsurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .BB22

Fluent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BB21

FriendFinder Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OBC

Future Ads. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .BB6

iBallers.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BB13

MonetizeIt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BB15

Neverblue/GlobalWide Media . . . . . . . . . . . . .BB9

Optimus Performance Marketing . . . . . . . . .BB23

Rakuten LinkShare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BB19

RevenueStreet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IBC

Search Engine Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BB12

T3leads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IFC

Performance Marketing Is The Future Of Advertising

Over the last two or three months I must have been asked 50 times to name my fa-vorite networks. I nearly always demur but I do see that with the plethora of networks around these days, it is incredibly hard for newcomers to the industry to know where to start.

At Revenue Performance we are all about growing the industry so, in the interests of helping new brand managers and agencies to dip their toes in the performance market-ing waters, what follows is a quick’n’dirty guide.

Disclaimer: this is not a new BLUE BOOK ranking! The 2013 update to that research-based assessment comes in January. This is an opinion-based and idiosyncratic list, and I’m sure I’ve left several good networks off the list:

If you’re a retail or merchant CMO or brand manager thinking about Cost-Per-Sale (CPS) campaigns then defi nitely talk to:

• LinkShare

• Commission Junction

• ShareASale

• PepperJam

Maybe also talk to:

• LinkConnector

• Affi liateWindow

If you are a digital download/software/SaaS services publisher then there are two or three to think about:

• oneNetworkDirect - the big beast.

• RevenueWire - smaller, but well worth a chat.

• Avangate - the up-and-comer.

Then there’s CPA. There are so many Cost-Per-Action networks that it is hard to boil them down to just a few, but let’s give it a shot. Here’s my personal top 10, based only upon my own opinion:

• MediaWhiz/MonetizeIt - strong on agency services. Worth talking to fi rst if you’re just curious about performance marketing.

• Clickbooth/Integraclick

• Peerfl y

• Adknowledge

• CPAWay

• W4

• Max Bounty

• RevenueStreet

• Neverblue

• Fluent

• Intela

There are many more but these represent a good cross-section of the industry without including some of the more, let’s say, aggressive networks.

Letter From The Editor

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ContentsThe CMO’s Guide To Affiliate Marketing ...........4Peter Klein, MediaWhiz

Performance Marketing Industry Insights ..........7Peter Figuerdo, NetX

Why You Should Embrace, Not Fear, Performance Marketing ......................................... 8Lee Aho, Clickbooth

Avangate Affiliate Network, Europe’s Biggest Software Network Comes To America 10Revenue Performance Staff

Retail Publisher Strategy .......................................14Russell Peachman, Rakuten LinkShare

Q&A With LinkConnector On Event And Cookie Attribution .........................................16Revenue Performance Staff

The Benefits of Going Performance ..................18Ryan Schulke, Fluent

Can a New Tracking Platform Change the Industry? ..................................................................20Tom Dietzel, CPAWay and Incentivize

5 Performance Marketing Tips For Brand Managers ..................................................... 22Moran Treiser, MediaShakers

Essentials For Protecting Your Trade Secrets...........................................................24Richard Newman, Hinch Newman LLP

The bottom line for CMOs and brand managers is that perfor-mance marketing is not only here to stay, but it will eventually come to dominate the marketing mix. Several trends are all taking us in the same direction:

• media that are currently brand-oriented and hard to measure are moving online. TV and radio will slowly become part of the performance marketing traffic pool.

• big data means that marketers will know more about everyone, customers or not, and targeting will become ever more accurate and relevant.

• mobile will bring online billions of new customers worldwide.

• and in turn mobile will facilitate the ability to market to every-one, any time.

• the trend in ad pricing is already towards the conversion point as advertisers gain more insight into their customers. Simple CPM is migrating to targeted CPM is migrating to RTB CPM is migrating to CPL is migrating to...

What all that means is that eventually there will be near-total transparency into which factors affect conversion, and at that point why wouldn’t advertisers simply reduce their risk to zero and only pay for the final sale?

Performance marketing is the future.

Chris TrayhornFounder & Publisher

Special BLUE BOOK Guide For Performance AdvertisersThis edition of Revenue Performance takes a different format than usual. It’s the first part of an ongoing effort by us to change the conversation about perfor-mance marketing.

It’s time to stop talking about the nega-tives. There’s no lengthy discussion of fraud and very little mention of proxy accounts. The risks of affiliate marketing are well-known, no greater than those in other marketing channels, and perfectly manageable.

So we are going to talk more about the positives. The ROI, the scalability and the speed to market, as well as all the other benefits that accrue from performance marketing when it is done right.

Peter Klein from MediaWhiz brings a guide to performance marketing for CMOs. Richard Newman discusses the protection of trademarks. Lee Aho from Clickbooth has a simple plan for suc-cess. Tom Dietzel of CPAWay has a new network platform and a lot of ideas about how the industry will develop. And more.

Lots of ideas, positivity and inspiration,Enjoy.

Chris TrayhornFounder & Publisher

BOOK

BLUEBLUE RIBBON AWARDS

2013

BOOK

BLUETOP 20 RANKING

2013

The Online Advertising BLUE BOOK

The CMO Guide to Affiliate MarketingBy Peter Klein, MediaWhiz

Having built and run multiple performance marketing divi-sions over the past decade, I’ve learned that the best thing I can do for the industry is bring more advertising budget into our space. I’ve partnered extensively with Revenue Performance magazine over the last three years, and we are collaborating again to offer this guide for CMOs to help educate them on best practices for engaging affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is the smartest online advertising invest-ment CMOs can make. How can I make this statement with such bravado? Let’s start with why brands need affiliate marketing.

1. Twenty-one billion reasons — Performance marketing drove $21 billion in online advertising revenues in 2011, according to the IAB. This isn’t a niche segment of the online marketing industry. Affiliate marketing is a mature and profitable industry in and of itself and one that CMOs should invest in as part of their integrated marketing campaigns.

2. Small investment leads to big results — It takes a very low investment to test into various media channels, at a rec-ommended spend of $10,000 per three media channels.

3. Multiple channel reach — Affiliate marketing includes all types of online marketing, so marketers can easily launch their test campaign(s) in up to three different channels, such as email, search and social media.

4. Speed to market — Once an affiliate marketing campaign launches it often takes as little as one to two days to fulfill the budget and measure results. This is unparalleled in any other marketing vehicle.

5. Measurable results — Brands pay their affiliate network only when an action occurs, be it a sale or a lead. Plus, they receive critical analytics from user activity across their website. There are no other channels in marketing that have such an ROI focus, making affiliate marketing easy to evaluate.

There are several more reasons to engage in affiliate market-ing, but CMOs need to start with a basic understanding of what to look for and how to manage their affiliate marketing efforts before engaging an affiliate network.

Here is a five-step process CMOs should follow when launch-ing their affiliate marketing program.

Step 1: Define the Goal: Sale or Lead GenerationIt is critical to define exactly what the brand is looking to do

with its online marketing campaign. There are two types of af-filiate networks — one that focuses on e-commerce or Cost-Per-Sale (CPS), and the other on Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA), which

is also known as Cost-Per-Lead (CPL).

Incidentally, the 2012 mThink Blue Book does a nice job of breaking these two groups out and ranking them based on a va-riety of factors.

Part of the significant value of affiliate marketing is the abil-ity to track payments performed through the network, as tech-nology and finance functions are done for the advertisers.

CPS networks, like Rakuten LinkShare and Commission Junc-tion, typically charge advertisers a set-up fee for their cam-paigns, take a percentage of the revenue from every sale and pay affiliates a small percentage of the sale as well. These net-works are best suited for advertisers looking to sell products via website owners who are seeking to monetize their page-one- or page-two-ranked sites on the organic search side.

CPA networks, like Neverblue and MediaWhiz/MonetizeIt, are focused on generating leads at a fixed price for advertisers, which can be further monetized. The benefit of these networks is the lack of set-up fees, creative services are often provided and expertise is offered by the network in multiple media chan-nels, from email, organic and paid search, social media, co-reg (arrangements between companies to collect user informa-tion), mobile and more.

Step 2: Choose the NetworkOnce a marketer has decided on the goals for his online mar-

keting program, it is time to find the right partner. It is impera-tive that marketers select only one affiliate network partner to start, since launching a new program can be potentially danger-ous from a quality and control standpoint. An affiliate network isn’t a stock portfolio where marketers need to diversify all of their assets. It is more like a mutual fund with a portfolio of marketers from different disciplines and expertise that can help propel a brand’s marketing efforts.

Above all, marketers should perform extensive due diligence before engaging an affiliate network. Investigate the network’s tenure, reputation, financials, staffing and references. Then look at industry resources, such as the mThink Blue Book and the Performance Marketing Association, to evaluate a net-work’s credibility and reputation. Compare and contrast affili-ate networks’ relative media channel and vertical expertise, as well as professional services offered, including technology, cli-ent services and creative.


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Step 3: Media PlanningNow that the affi liate network partner

has been secured, it is important to sign a Mutual Non-Disclosure Agreement and Master Services Agreement.

Then have a kick-off meeting to share KPIs and downstream metrics. Lay out all critical needs, including the allowable CPA or CPS, demographics, geo footprint/store locations, call-center hours, budgets, legal requirements, etc. The affi liate net-work should lay out a media plan for the brand and be equally transparent in terms of where that money is being spent, from media channel to samples and/or placements by the affi liate.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle to overcome when working with an affi liate network will be the “Cost Per” language. Affi liate networks operate on CPS or CPA, even a CPC (cost per click) or CPM (cost per thousand clicks), whereas the agency world is typically a “time and materials” or “cost-plus” model. This doesn’t always translate well for affi liate market-ing, and it is recommended that brands start by paying on the ac-tion.

Once test results have come in from the fi rst allocated budget, brands should stick with the model or migrate to one of the standard agency models. In my estima-tion, it is much easier to pay on a CPA or CPS since a marketer knows every lead or sale being generated. This ensures a brand does not get stuck with a higher bill than anticipated as can happen when a contrac-tor works on a “cost-plus” or “time and ma-terials” contract.

Step 4: Compliance and Monitoring

For newcomers to the space, compliance is something unique to the performance marketing industry — and it requires brands’ strict attention. When a company partners with an affi liate network, it is dealing with many different affi liates, in-cluding other affi liate networks, which cre-ates a more shallow level of transparency.

Unlike brands that live and die by a PMS color or a logo located 0.375 of an inch from the left border on a letterhead, affi li-ates often like to design their own market-

ing materials for the media channel they work in, as they know what works best to break through the clutter.

CMOs working with an affi liate network need to ensure their brand guidelines are thoroughly adhered to by the affi liate and be aware of various industry regula-tions that impact how affi liates operate. For example, email has CAN-SPAM laws regarding unsubscribes. Numerous states have nexus laws that govern the collec-tion of taxes from purchases made online.

The FTC has privacy laws and marketing guidelines for various verticals, such as neutraceuticals and education. Google has policies around paid and organic search content. Facebook is strict about target-ing in brands’ wall posts and other ad copy. The list goes on and on.

These regulations and industry guide-lines get layered on with the fact that, like in any industry, there are rogue affi li-ate networks that don’t follow any of the guidelines, which can seriously jeopardize a brand’s reputation and customer affi nity. The good news is that there are lead moni-toring companies, such as CPA Detective, Scrubkit and The Search Monitor, that can determine where a click was initiated. Lead validation programs, from eBureau, Lead-ID and Targus help ensure strict adherence to lead quality for brands’ call centers and other lead-gen efforts.

Affi liate networks should help brands utilize or obtain proper tools for making sure their campaign is being conducted ac-curately and legally. The real-life parallel is that even a home with an ADT anti-theft sign in the front yard can get robbed, but it is far less likely to occur. It’s this same pro-

active measure that CMOs need to take to prevent undesired activity from their affi li-ate network.

Step 5: OptimizationThe fi nal step in performance market-

ing is optimization. Every affi liate sending a brand leads will be tracked on a unique SubID. Some affi liates perform better than others, and, therefore, CMOs should pay careful attention that the overall returns on marketing spend and volume goals are achieved properly by balancing the two.

The fi rst optimization priority is on the affi liate network to get more volume from the best per-forming affi liates, as identifi ed by the brand, and decrease volume from (or stop) the underperform-ing ones.

The second optimization prior-ity is correct pricing. The adver-tiser should create payout tiers for the affi liate network. Affi liate marketing breaks the one-size-fi ts all model of traditional and other online marketing so brands pay more for good traffi c to their websites, mobile pages or other digital assets and less for bad

traffi c. The full blend should help market-ers achieve their volume and quality goals.

This all may seem like a daunting task for a CMO, but following these steps will help brands launch successful affi liate marketing programs.

More advertising dollars pour into the performance marketing space every day, and it is a powerful channel that cannot be ignored. Traditional offl ine media will al-ways have place in brands’ integrated mar-keting mix. But when it comes to measur-able and scalable results, CMOs would be hard pressed to fi nd a channel that delivers better ROI than performance marketing.

About Peter Klein

Peter Klein is senior vice presi-dent of media services at Medi-aWhiz, a full-service integrated digital media agency. MediaWhiz is part of the Hyper Marketing Inc. network.

Brands pay their affi liate network

only when an action occurs, be it

a sale or a lead. Plus, they receive

critical analytics from user activ-

ity across their website. There are

no other channels in marketing

that have such an ROI focus.

revenue.mThink.com

Industry Research

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Performance Marketing Industry Insights2012 Affi liateBenchmarks Research StudyBy Peter Figueredo, NetX

The Affi liateBenchmarks global research study collect-ed data from over 9,500 affi liate marketing professionals including both publishers and advertisers. In this custom analysis, Peter Figueredo looks at some of the more sur-prising results from this important industry initiative.

How do advertisers really feel about their affi liate programs?

The response to this question varies by the size of the advertiser. In general, the larger the advertiser, the more pleased they are with their affi liate programs. Overall, well over half of advertisers feel their expectations have been met, but up to 40% of smaller companies (below $10 million total company revenues) are disappointed.

Key Takeaway: In general affi liate programs tend to meet expectations but for larger companies they often even exceed expectations. Small to midsize advertisers should look to their larger brethren for examples of how to manage expectations related to affi liate programs.

Does the affi liate network make a difference?This is a key question for many advertisers in the industry.

According to our data the answer is a strong affi rmative. 51% of affi liate publishers say that the network used infl uences their decision whether to work with an advertiser or not. Only 18% say it doesn’t matter at all. not matter. This question correlates strongly with other data relating to trust, service, and reliabil-ity in the open ended responses.

Key Takeaway: The affi liate network an advertiser uses may make or break their program. Affi liates want to work with net-works they trust, who offer them great service, and provide reli-able tracking.

Which affi liate networks are preferred?Building on the question above, we see that the importance

of good service and trust gives the larger networks an impor-tant advantage. Affi liate publishers prefer working with CJ, Clickbank, Google Affi liate Network, LinkShare, and ShareASa-le as the top 5 answers. On the advertiser side many advertis-ers also mentioned Pepperjam as well as the ones mentioned above. The highest revenue advertisers ($1billion or more in to-tal company revenue) mostly work with Commission Junction and LinkShare.

Key Takeaway: Advertisers looking to work with the biggest pool of affi liates should be working with the top networks. Affi li-ates looking for the biggest advertisers should defi nitely be work-ing with CJ, LinkShare, Google, Pepperjam, and ShareASale.

Figure 1

How many advertisers should affi liates promote on their website?

The largest group of affi liates (38%) promote fi ve or fewer advertisers (see Fig. 1). However, there is a clear correlation between higher earning affi liates and the increasing number of advertisers that they promote. High earners promote more programs than their lower earning counterparts.

Key Takeaway: Affi liates looking to earn more money should diversify their portfolio of advertisers and potentially target a wider base of customers.

Why Affi liateBenchmarks ExistsNetX (www.NetX.com) has been conducting the Affi liate-

Benchmarks (www.Affi liateBenchmarks.com) research study for fi ve years. We do this for both selfi sh and unselfi sh reasons. We love having access to the best affi liate marketing research when building strategies for our clients (selfi sh). But also, we want to advance the performance marketing industry by pro-viding insights that drive results and help online marketers to better understand the value of affi liate programs (unselfi sh).

Contact Affi [email protected] for more informa-tion.

About Peter Figuerdo

Peter Figueredo began his career as a research analyst at Nielsen Media Research before moving to interactive ad agency pioneer i-traffi c. In 2001 he co-founded NetX, a full service intelligent performance marketing agency in NYC.


Cost-Per-Action (CPA) is a results-based form of adver-tising in which you only pay for conversions. Since it is performance-based, CPA advertising enables you to ef-fectively measure results and maximize ROI while being able to reach a larger, more targeted audience than print or TV provides.

There have been some negatives attached to CPA in the past, but nowadays these are all manageable. As an advertiser, the biggest concerns often relate to fraudu-lent traffic or poor lead quality, and these in turn are as-sociated with badly developed strategies for effectively monetizing leads and sometimes a general mistrust of CPA networks. Recognizing, addressing and educating stakeholders about how these kinds of concerns can be managed opens the door to performance marketing, and the positive, scaleable ROI benefits that it brings.

The following list of steps provide a road map for testing, op-timizing, and scaling your initial CPA campaigns.

Step 1 - Do Your Homework

Your CPA quest begins with a clearly stated campaign objective. Are you looking for leads or sales? What type of consumer are you targeting? What is your initial bud-get? What is your competition doing in the CPA space? Understanding your goals and identifying your limiting factors will establish the basis for delivering consumer value and effectively monetizing your campaign. This information should be shared with your network so that they too clearly understand your goals and objectives.

Step 2 - Align With A Proven Network

Evaluate networks based on their track-record and choose a trusted, established network. Your network partner should take a proactive stance when it comes to screening publishers. This helps uphold the integrity and

quality of traffic being delivered to your offer. Ask ques-tions. Find out how a network’s publisher approval pro-cess works, understand the ratio of accepted publishers, be certain they have proven fraud prevention techniques in place (and ask what they are), and be sure they main-tain an industry-leading compliance department. Top-level compliance teams evaluate campaigns daily, run random and full audits of accounts and traffic, and pro-actively help uphold your brand image. If you are not working with an exclusive, well-respected network, you are not only risking your campaign, but also your brand.

Step 3 - Set Realistic Expectations Of VolumeFrequently, first-time CPA Advertisers underestimate

the amount of traffic that can be generated in the CPA space. Communicate clearly with your network to fore-cast volume estimations so you can determine your man-ageable spending levels. You also need to ensure a num-ber of campaign variables are in place in order to scale your campaign strategically and maintain sustainabil-ity. Variables including merchant processing capabilities, customer service seats, inventory, and fulfillment are just a few of the limiting factors to be considered when deter-mining your acceptable level of scale.

Step 4 - Enter The Market As Competitively As Possible

You’ll need to identify a “payout” or the amount you are willing to pay for each action generated. Rather than paying for wasted impressions, CPA allows you to guar-antee ROI on your spend by paying for results. As you increase your budget and ability to handle volume, you increase the likelihood of attracting top tier affiliates who deliver the highest quality and lead volume. Expe-rienced CPA advertisers recognize the benefits from of-fering their highest competitive payout. The adage, “you

Why You Should Embrace, Not Fear, Performance MarketingBy Lee Aho, Clickbooth


All too often CMOs and brand managers are slow to adopt performance-based marketing approaches. This has the effect of placing them at a real disadvantage in today’s marketplace, running the risk that a competitor will out-distance them by simply adopting performance marketing more quickly.

get what you pay for” translates into the CPA world. In an effort to receive traffi c from the world’s leading affi liates, it’s imperative advertisers remain payout-competitive.

Step 5 - Create A Landing Page That Converts

Create a compelling landing page tailored to your core customer. You have only 10 seconds to turn interest into a conversion. In those 10 short seconds, you must capture a potential customer’s attention, provide direction to your call to action, and deliver enough value to ensure they complete your desired action. Your landing page is your consumer’s di-rect contact point and the best representation of your brand.

Step 6 - Optimize, Optimize, Optimize

Now that you’ve completed the perfect landing page, be prepared to optimize and update it frequently. Consistently track results from your campaign. For example, analysis of consumer drop-off rates through your sales funnel is a key metric in determining page performance. Page analytics pro-vide essential insight for long-term conversion improvement and increased consumer ROI. In addition to page optimiza-tions, you’ll also want on-going optimizations of publisher traffi c on a granular level. Increased transparency with your network partner will not only allow you to optimize publisher performance, but further optimize on a source level too.

Step 7 - Realize Your Network Advertising Consultant Is Your Biggest Resource

Having chosen an established and reputable network, you can trust that you are working with an experienced adver-tising consultant who maintains your best interests in mind. Open communication and two-way transparency are vital to the success of your campaign. Moreover, your advertising consultant will act as your referral for 3rd party companies for lead validation, landing pages, etc., setting you up for maxi-mum returns.

If you are not currently capitalizing on CPA advertising, you are missing out on one of the highest quality, fastest growing, and most measurable models to increase your sales, online presence, and market share. While new advertiser concerns are valid, the best networks’ experience, service, and perfor-mance will provide the greatest opportunity for maximum return and minimum risk. Conducting your homework, en-suring that you choose to partner with leading networks, and following the above steps will position you to exceed your goals and achieve maximum performance based ROI.

About Lee Aho

Lee Aho graduated from Michigan State with a BA in Mar-keting. Originally hired at Clickbooth as an Advertising Con-sultant, Lee was quickly promoted Senior Advertising Con-sultant, and most recently to Vice President of Advertising. He excels in planning, evaluating, managing, and optimizing online campaigns.

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Promoted Network Review


Avangate Affi liate NetworkEurope’s Biggest Software Affiliate Network Comes To America

Software is an ideal product for affi liate marketing. The fact that there is zero marginal cost for each additional unit sold means that there is a lot of margin remaining from which com-missions can be paid. It is no surprise then that software sales is a one of the best-performing verticals in affi liate marketing right now. It offers publishers the benefi ts of high commission rates, instant customer gratifi cation and a potential audience that includes pretty much every person using a computer to go online. If someone is visiting your website, you can sell them software.

Avangate is the leading affi liate network dedicated to soft-ware and SaaS products in Europe. They are growing fast and have already achieved signifi cant scale with over 1,500 mer-chants advertising more than 22,000 products. Any affi liate seeking to promote software products on a pay-per-sale model is going to fi nd plenty of options. With 33,000 affi liates world-wide, it is clear that they are no longer just a niche network.

Figure 1. The Avangate affiliate interface is clean and uncluttered while offering access to a wide variety of marketing tools and reports.

Avangate is a network that ranked well in our 2012 BLUE BOOK survey and so deserves a closer look. Judging by what we have seen this year and the early survey results for 2013, that position seems likely to improve. We will see for sure when the new BLUE BOOK rankings are released in January, but in the meantime we thought it was time to take a look at one of the hottest, up-and-coming networks around.

Avangate’s North American HQ is in Redwood Shores, CA, with a European HQ in the Netherlands, and global offi ces in EMEA, CIS and China. They were founded in 2006, after their now-Chairman, Radu Georgescu sold RAV Antivirus to Micro-soft.This technology later became the basis for the current Win-dows Defender security package. So Avangate has a pedigree in creating secure platforms based on advanced technologies and experience in global distribution - a good foundation for an online sales tracking platform.

The big picture for Avangate, and the reason why they should catch the attention of many affi liates in the US and worldwide, is that they are positioning themselves to go head to head with established networks such as Digital River’s oneNetwork-Direct. As a key challenger, they are well-fi nanced and are on an aggressive affi liate recruitment drive. Plus, they offer a very fl exible platform with one-to-one support capabilities.Avangate has set itself up to be competitive in just about every


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Avangate Affi liate NetworkEurope’s Biggest Software Affiliate Network Comes To America

Sign up for the Avangate Affi liate Network! www.avangate.com/affi liates

area you can think of. Commission rates range from 5% all the way up to 85%, and average over 30% across all products. Payment can be made bi-weekly via wire transfer, check, PayPal and prepaid Mastercard.

Similarly when it comes to helping affi liates to sell products and optimize, Avangate has stepped up to the mark. Deep-linking, regular discounts and special offers, and shopping carts than can be customized for a white label appearance (see Fig. 2) are all part of the offering for publishers.

The interface is a joy to use (see Fig. 1), with clearly labeled tabs making it simple to navigate; fast, comprehensive reporting; and easy access to marketing tools and affi liate support. At the same time, the platform provides for the tracking of a wide variety of conversion data. Avangate prides themselves on losing fewer af-fi liate commissions due to “missed” conversions than almost any other network. This is important in a world in which networks too often use the excuse of faulty tracking to cover up for scrubbing and shaving of affi liate conversions.

Avangate has taken a long look at the best digital download per-formance marketing networks and have created a tracking plat-form to match, and in some ways, outperform them. They have also signed a broad range of merchants and products, with a com-mission structure designed to incentivize. With a good presence in the US already, Avangate is now becoming more aggressive here when it comes to new offers and affi liates.

In Europe Avangate has already built a great reputation among their own affi liates who, in the comments that we see in the BLUE BOOK survey, confi rm that service levels are high and the tracking is accurate. What more could an affi liate want?If you are a publisher that doesn’t yet promote software, you should ask yourself why not? Your website visitors already trust you - if anyone should be selling them software, it is you. Avangate makes it easy to get started with a broad range of products and marketing tools.

On the other hand, if you are a publisher or affi liate that already promotes software sales or SaaS subscriptions then you really should be working with Avangate right now. If you aren’t, then you should give them a try.

To get started, please visit: www.avangate.com.

Figure 2.



Avangate is an advanced eCommerce provider that enables soft-ware and Software-as-a-Service companies to sell their products via any channel and any model with a view to optimizing both online and offl ine revenue. More than 2,500 software & SaaS companies are now using Avangate to handle their online sales and distribution channels.Specifi cally designed for the software vertical, Avangate’s scalable SkyCommerce™ solution (see Fig. 1) includes a full-featured secure eCommerce platform, a partner order and revenue management sys-tem as well as a worldwide affi liate network.

The fully integrated & secure eCommerce module delivers rich, self-service tools and expert eCommerce services to actively design the selling experience: you can easily customize, localize and op-timize your go-to-market strategies, and gain insight via real-time customer reports. The Sky Channel Manager module is a reseller channel solution that manages partner orders, software license in-ventory, price lists, revenue fl ows and pretty much everything else a VAR manager might need.

Finally, the Sky Affi liate Network gives access to Avangate’s international network of software af-fi liates with a custom-built, reliable tracking platform and excellent, real-time reporting. The network has proven to be very popu-lar with some of the best-known software publishers around, including Kasper-sky, Terapeak, Bitdefender and IObit. Affi liates seem to like the network too, with over 33,000 active publishers from all over the world at this time.

The merchant interface itself is excellent. It offers easy access to reporting, marketing tools and support, and Avangate is known to provide good API support and customization when needed.

For CMOs and brand managers trying to decide between potential partners, Avangate offers a suite of marketing solutions that allows campaigns to be implemented and scaled quickly.

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Fig.

1Fi

g. 2

The Avangate Advertiser Solution At A Glance

BB13

CASE STUDY

IObitHighlights:

• 10% of total sales via affi liate channel

• 25% growth in affi liate driven volumes

• 45% growth in active affi liates within 6 months

SituationIObit is a provider of system utilities and secu-rity software with an existing customer base of millions of active users worldwide. IObit was seeking to increase sales and simplify their eCommerce processes.

SolutionIObit has been working with Avangate since 2008, using the SkyCommerce Suite of integrat-ed solutions to sell their software seamlessly on a global scale. IObit uses Avangate’s eCommerce platform and the Sky Affi liate Network, as well as tapping in to Avangate’s expert digital com-merce and marketing services.

Results10% of IObit’s total worldwide software sales now come via affi liates, with steady growth in affi liate driven volumes. Affi liate volume growth now outstrips the growth in direct eCommerce sales making the affi liate channel of increasing importance in the overall marketing mix.

The Avangate Advertiser Solution At A GlanceThey pride themselves on the quality of their service, the accuracy of their tracking and of their real-time reporting.

For software and SaaS publishers seeking a full-service per-formance marketing platform, Avangate offers everything one could need. Performance marketing has never been easier.


Retail Publisher StrategyMaking The Leap to CPA & Lead-Genby Russell Peachman, Rakuten LinkShare

Yet with demand growing among advertisers for new custom-ers, and more US states looking at taxing affi liate sales, now is the time for publishers to take a closer look at whether their online properties and audiences can also drive customer acqui-sition campaigns.

Successfully moving to CPA and lead-gen should involve a sensible review of how one promotes offers. Bear in mind that for an advertiser, there is a big difference between cost-per-sale and cost-per-customer acquisition/cost per lead. After all, leads aren’t guaranteed to convert into paying customers.

What that means is that a typical banner ad creative, for ex-ample, which may work fi ne for a retailer on a deal site, works much less well for customer acquisition because it is insuffi -ciently targeted. When an advertiser is paying simply for a form to be fi lled in, lack of targeting brings a degree of advertiser risk because the leads aren’t of high quality.

Loyalty and incentive sites can also be risky because the po-tential customer may be motivated by the incentive rather than the actual offer itself, which again results in poor quality. And when the campaign starts to scale up and a few bad leads turn into a lot of bad leads, the advertiser can lose a lot of money very quickly and can understandably become hesitant to con-tinue with the publisher.

However, with the right approach, retail-focused publishers can still become valued partners for lead-seeking advertisers, making signifi cant money in the process. Advertisers for lead generation are acutely aware that many retail publishers have a valuable asset – high-traffi c web sites with customers ready to buy.

So how can publishers translate that asset into quality leads? Here are three actions publishers can take today to successfully branch out and expand their offerings.

Target your marketing through more in-depth messaging

Go beyond banners and add a special section on your site outside of the regular shopping mall. While your regular audi-ence may be looking for particular product deals, don’t neglect impulse shoppers who may be in the market for a new auto in-surance policy, for example, or a home improvement contractor. You may need to make sure they’re serious, so consider creating a vertical-focused landing page to both pull in these impulse

shoppers and attract new customers through organic search that are specifi cally looking for this service.

Pre-qualify customersAdd a short form that asks a couple of questions to con-

fi rm interest before sending the lead to the advertiser or presenting an offer. This simple action can help weed out the more casual shoppers, and it will build trust with the ad-vertiser by increasing the quality of the traffi c you are send-ing. If you’re considering this, know that some networks allow publishers to host an advertiser’s entire lead form. Also, many advertisers and networks can help play a role in the pre-qualifi cation process by running leads through veri-fi cation systems, fi ltering out those that don’t meet their cri-teria, or, as with pay-per-call offers, they might employ Inter-active Voice Response (IVR) -- more commonly known as the service that allows you to “Press one if you’re interested in …”While this fi ltering process may reduce lead volume, it miti-gates the advertiser’s risk while still keeping their alignment with publishers in place.

Nix the incentiveMany incentive sites hold back points or cash when it comes

to service offers, yet they are still able to drive good volume. This is because these sites already have a high-quality audi-ence interested in buying, regardless of the attached incentive. Most lead-buying service advertisers aren’t interested in leads generated by incentive (except, perhaps at very low CPAs). So, if that’s your model, see how it works when you turn it off for these offers. For many advertisers, it’s the only way they’ll want to be promoted.

Working with customer acquisition offers may require some tweaking of your current marketing methods. However, for publishers with a popular site that attracts high-quality custom-ers, the investment is well worth it.

About Russell Peachman

Russell Peachman is vice president of lead generation at Rakuten LinkShare. He is responsible for product development, corporate partnerships, sales, market-ing, services, and strategy for the company’s customer acquisition advertising network.


Many publishers promoting retail advertisers on a cost-per-sale basis are hesitant to move to the “other side” and promote customer acquisition or lead generation offers. Perhaps they don’t think it fi ts their model or their type of customer.

Revenue Performance: Ernie, it is well known that there are pros and cons as-sociated with the different kinds of Event Attribution, especially in the dif-ferences between fi rst-click and last-click attribution. What are the main is-sues that merchants need to be thinking about in this area?

Ernie St. Gelais: Savvy affi liate mar-keting merchants or advertisers should focus on how fraud factors into their at-tribution strategy, how different types of affi liates may prefer alternative ap-proaches, and then examine whether there are other customizable solutions that may be a better fi t. It is important to understand the sales process and the business issues that may be affected. At LinkConnector we have been dealing with this topic on behalf of merchants and affi liates since 2004. We use cook-ie stacking where we are able to track multiple cookies for each transaction and our advanced technology gives us a huge amount of data to analyze and use to aid in the merchant’s attribution deci-sion process.

RP: Attribution is a big topic in the in-dustry right now. What are the different kinds of Event Attribution that LinkCon-nector offers?

ESG: Our technology is very advanced so we have the fl ex-ibility to do almost anything imaginable when it comes to at-

tribution. Primarily we offer last-click (LIFO, see fi g. 1) and fi rst-click (FIFO, see fi g. 2) as Event Attribution options for our merchants. However as sales funnels have become more complex with potentially many different affi li-ates infl uencing the fi nal transaction, we have developed the ability to cus-tomize the attribution method when it makes good business sense for the merchant and their affi liates.

RP: How does LinkConnector help merchants decide which kind of Event Attribution is appropriate?

ESG: It begins with education and understanding the needs of each par-ticular merchant. Every one is differ-ent and one size does not fi t all. We take the time to advise merchants in our network on the advantages and disadvantages of each available attri-bution option and how it would work with their business model. Once the decision is made, LinkConnector’s tracking can be easily adapted to ad-just to the needs of each individual merchant.

RP: Let’s talk about the education process. What are the main factors that affect which Event Attribution

model a merchant should choose?

ESG: Affi liate type can be a major factor. One method of attribution can favor certain affi liate types over others (e.g.,

How does a merchant decide to apportion the credit for a sale? Should the commis-sion be paid to the last affi liate who touched the customer, or to the fi rst affi liate who initiated the sales process? Or a mixture of the two? What if there are several affi liates involved?

Allocating the credit for a transaction is known as Event Attribution (also some-times called sales attribution), and it is a core concept in affi liate marketing. All too often though it is misunderstood by both merchants and publishers. To understand the benefi ts and pitfalls of the different approaches, we sat down with Ernie St. Gelais of LinkConnector to get the inside story.

Q&Awith LinkConnector on Event and Cookie Attribution


FIFO tends to favor comparison shop-ping and content sites while LIFO tends to favor coupon sites). Fraud is another signifi cant factor. While LIFO tends to be an industry favorite, notably among coupon and loyalty affi liates, one of the downsides of LIFO is it tends to be more vulnerable to fraud. So, depending on the merchant’s event type (e.g., sale, lead, etc.), and how vulnerable their business model naturally is to fraud, a merchant may give fraud consider-ations more weight in their attribution decision. Matching the affi liate mar-keting channel with the attribution of other online marketing efforts is also an important consideration for some mer-chants.

LinkConnector strives to empower our merchants and affi liates with unique and varied options in their affi liate mar-keting programs. We believe that with more options come more effective so-lutions. This is where we have parted company with much of our competition, most of whom only have the ability to do one attribution-type network-wide. We use stacked cookies, which allows us to take into account all the affi liates that infl uenced a user leading to the fi -nal event call.

RP: What areas do you believe need a greater level of fl ex-ibility than just last-click or fi rst-click?

ESG: Well, let’s talk about Shared Attribution (see fi g. 3). In many transactions or events, it is clear that more than one affi l-iate infl uenced the fi nal sale or lead. It naturally depends on the particular business model and the types of affi liates involved, but for some merchants it is important to be able to recognize the efforts of all the associated affi liates.

To meet this need, LinkConnector has developed function-ality that allows shared crediting with multiple affi liates for a single event. If a merchant feels that several affi liates were potentially part of the credited event, we want to have the fl ex-ibility to empower that merchant to reward all affi liate partners involved in a transaction. This is important because the nature of some affi liate promotion lends itself more to a FIFO model while a LIFO model may reward other types of affi liate promo-tion. Shared attribution can reward all affi liates involved in the promotion of a product or service that ended in a successful event.

RP: Why is so much fl exibility needed?

ESG: We feel that a merchant needs to have this fl exibility (Event and Shared Attribution) to maximize the effectiveness of their campaigns and to achieve their budget and revenue targets. By giving merchants the tools they need to be suc-cessful—after fi rst counseling them on the implications of their

decisions—we believe that more mer-chants will succeed and expand their affi liate marketing efforts. As a result, more merchants will be able to create higher-paying campaigns for more af-fi liates. Flexibility, and the ability to reward every affi liate that infl uences an event, is a win-win for affi liates as well as merchants.

RP: Are there other attribution mod-els that you make available to your mer-chants?

ESG: Last In, First In (LIFI, see fi g. 4) is something LinkConnector has pio-neered as a possible third Event Attri-bution alternative to offer merchants, which encapsulates the best of both current common Event Attribution methods. With LIFI, the fi rst eligible cookie within some merchant defi ned period of time (e.g., the last hour be-fore the event) gets the credit, other-wise LIFO applies.

RP: How often does a merchant have to make a decision of which affi li-ate to credit with an Event Attribution?

ESG: The attribution d ecision (Event Attribution or Shared Attribution) comes into play about 15% of the time on average for any particular event (when more than one affi liate is eli-

gible for crediting).

We’d like to thank LinkConnector and Ernie St. Gelais for the insights. Attribution is only going to become more important in the future as social recommendation, location-aware media and other non-traditional infl uencers gain traction. Successful merchants will need to be able to reward every affi liate in the infl uence chain and sales funnel, or those affi liates will simply choose to promote someone else’s product.

For more information, or just to talk to an expert on Event Attribution, we are happy to recommend contacting Ernie St. Gelais at LinkConnector.

Contact information for Ernie St. Gelais:

[email protected], x7103

LinkConnector6501 Weston Parkway, Cary, NC 27513

BB17

Dynamic Profi ling


The Benefi ts Of Going Performance:Big brands and direct marketers alike can recognize greater ROI through dynamic profi ling.By Ryan Schulke, Fluent

One of the most common demands from brand managers and CMOs is the ability to access good quality traffi c at scale. The problem is that all too often, it is hard to differentiate good traf-fi c from bad because not enough is known about the potential customer. If more information was available, particularly more relevant information, then advertising could be intelligently tar-geted with a resulting increase in conversions. Dynamic profi l-ing is the solution.

What is dynamic profi ling? In this context it means identifying various consumer segments within an existing customer base and creating specialized customer relationship management (CRM) tactics for each segment. There’s a lot of fl exibility in terms of how much or how little personaliza-tion is involved and so the extent to which a particular advertiser may implement profi ling tactics is completely within their own control.

To take an example, Advertiser X as a grocery brand may be in-terested in increasing awareness through social media. One ap-proach would be to engage as advocates for the brand custom-ers that have lots of Facebook “friends” or Twitter “followers”. Once they’ve identifi ed this group, the advertiser can fi nd ways to provide them with free samples, coupons or branded mer-chandise in hopes that these consumers will amplify the brand’s message online.

In another example, Advertiser Y as a provider of fi nancial ser-vices may be seeking to identify new customers for its two most profi table service categories, life and auto insurance. Through research the advertiser might learn that individuals who are at least part-time employed, and receive direct deposits, and have a household income of over $75,000, are more than four times more likely to become long-term clients. With this insight, the company may then choose to revise its outbound call center processes to allocate these high value leads to more experi-enced agents in order to increase sales potential.

The question then becomes, how can advertisers go one step further and gain more insight and data points on existing cus-tomers or newly generated leads? At my own network we have found that it can be as simple as just asking for more information at the right time and place in the customers online experience.

In an ongoing effort to better understand the needs of con-sumers visiting the sites that we service (in addition to our own portals), we have profi led over half a million Americans on a wide range of cultural, lifestyle and economic topics. This initia-tive has generated over 6.5 million qualifi ed responses through our survey module. As a result, we are hugely better equipped to market to these visitors because of the extra insight we have gained into their situation, wants and needs. Furthermore, once the consumer has expressed an interest in one of our advertiser programs, we are able to pass that data along to the advertiser

so they may market to these con-sumers more effectively.

Market intelligence gather-ing via consumer surveys is not a new idea, but what is new and exciting is what we can do with current technology. Static sur-veys, landing pages, email mes-saging or call center scripting, to name a few examples, are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Through very basic pro-gramming, brands and market-ers can generate more relevant profi les on consumers through conditional questioning. While these dynamic features do bring a little more complexity to mar-keting programs, it is very man-

ageable with the right tools and the added value makes it well worthwhile.

Businesses have long recognized the value to be gained from high volumes of traffi c across digital media. By collaborating with their marketing partners more strategically, brands are now able to also increase revenue by segmenting that traffi c ef-fi ciently, allowing them to then focus only on consumers that fall within a tighter effective demographic. Through dynamic profi ling, they are able to engage the right audience with the right message at the right time, thus rendering their programs more profi table and adding value to the bottom line.

About Ryan Schulke

Ryan Schulke is the co-founder and CEO of Fluent, Inc., one of the world’s fastest growing performance marketing companies.

“Through dynamic profi ling

advertisers are able to engage

the right audience with the right

message at the right time, thus

rendering their programs more

profi table and adding value to

the bottom line.”

Dynamic Profi ling

www.linkshare.com/symposium

RAKUTEN LINKSHARESYMPOSIUMSAN FRANCISCO2013JANUARY 31, 2013INTERCONTINENTAL HOTEL

www.linkshare.com/symposium

REGISTERTODAY!

Tracking Performance


Can A New Tracking Platform Change The Industry?

Tom Dietzel’s CPAWay and Incentivize networks have made a lot of friends in the industry over the last couple of years. Now he is preparing the launch of a new performance marketing tracking platform. We caught up with Tom to fi nd out his views on where tracking platforms and the industry go from here.

Revenue Performance: You have had a lot of success with CPAWay and Incentivize. What’s the secret behind the success?

Tom Dietzel: It is as simple as being very focused on technol-ogy which then allows us provide quality. We have many inter-nal automated processes that police our traffi c. It means we can focus on our core business model which is providing advertisers with ROI.

RP: You’re developing a new tracking platform. What’s wrong with the existing ones?

TD: Most of them are clunky or focus only on one business model. The affi liate space is very diverse so platforms need to not only focus on tracking, but also provide total reliability and system availability, and integrated, effective fraud prevention. Most important, there needs to be a high quality of service so we will provide 24/7 phone, email and live chat support.

RP: Talk to me more about fraud prevention because it is always a big concern for potential advertisers. What’s the best way to tackle it?

TD: Two things. You need fi rst to take a proactive approach rather than just being reactive. Second, you need to have anti-fraud integrated into the entire process and platform. If you are proactive you can typically prevent an issue before it occurs. Many merchants are at risk of losing their payment processors due to fraud, but if you take a proactive approach chargebacks can be reduced almost to 0%. As an example of what I mean, I believe our platform is the only one that blocks against many virtual IP services that allow fraudsters to use bot nets to fake residential IP addresses.

Our platform is also unique in that we have developed a fully integrated fraud prevention and affi liate-watch system. Our system is based around tracking, but at the same time every click, sale and lead is scored, with no 3rd-party solution re-quired. This alone will save the merchants and network owners using the platform thousands of dollars per month.

RP: From the side of affi liates and publishers, how can tracking accuracy be improved so that affi liates see fewer lost commissions?

TD: With increasing privacy concerns resulting in cookie-less browser environments, cookieless tracking technology is a must. We encourage all our advertisers and merchants to use it wherever possible. Cookieless tracking is sometimes referred to as server-to-server tracking which involves a simple hand-shake between the tracking platform’s server and the merchant’s web

server. It allows 100% tracking accuracy, and I’d suggest affi li-ates should seek out networks that use it.

RP: What’s your view on scrubbing and shaving by networks? Affi liates quite naturally hate it, yet many networks see scrubbing and shaving as essential management tools?

TD: I think scrubbing and shaving are generally bad for the industry. My networks take a “no-scrub” approach. We feel it would basically be “stealing” from our publishers if we did it. There has to be some scrubbing for fraud, but other than that I don’t see a good reason to scrub legitimate leads nor to shave/throttle traffi c.

To emphasize that position, the new tracking platform we have developed does not even provide the functionality to shave/scrub/throttle leads or traffi c, whereas there are several tracking platforms currently used that allow networks and mer-chants to scrub valid legitimate leads in real time by manipulat-ing pixel fi res. In my view, a better way for networks to achieve their campaign benchmarks is to be transparent and to reduce rates instead of shaving a percentage of the leads. When pub-lishers ask us to match rates with networks that we know shave leads, we take an active stance to educate them about what is really going on.

RP: If you could change something about the performance mar-keting industry, what would it be?

TD: It would be educating outsiders about the benefi ts of performance marketing, rather than just talking about the prob-lems. For all the articles and talk about fraud and other issues, the fact is that all the problems and risks are manageable, just like they are in any other type of marketing. So long as you have the right tools in place and use them properly, performance marketing can work wonders. Over time, I think the conversa-tion will change in a more positive direction because the cheats and fraudsters will be driven out of the industry by the rapid improvements in fraud-prevention technology.

About Tom Dietzel

Thomas Dietzel is a serial entrepreneur with a strong focus on emerging technology. He has founded several success performance marketing businesses, developing proprietary technology for each.

Find out more about our suite of digital marketing solutions at www.fluentco.com

Fluent is a digital performance marketing company bridging the gap between advertisers and publishers to provide integrated solutions for online customer acquisition and monetization. Our proprietary web and mobile ad-serving technology helps advertisers better engage, qualify and communicate with their target audience. We promote interaction between brands and consumers with the end goal of providing tangible results through a pay-for-performance model.

Aff luent


Performance marketing is not a mystery. It’s simply the cul-mination of decades of brand advertising experience. For the last century and more, the advertising industry has accepted the “fact” that 50% of advertising is wasted, but with the de-velopment of modern performance marketing methodologies, it’s not a fact any longer. Performance marketing can deliver ROI on every penny of budget spent, providing that the right marketing strategy and goals are identifi ed and then effectively implemented. Here are some of the core concepts upon which focus should be maintained throughout the process:

1. Defi ne your goals. Be as specifi c as possible when it comes to understanding on what you will judge your cam-paign’s success. Many companies spend huge amounts just to be seen on a big website, or on a killer app, even if it doesn’t result in any identifi able return. If your goal is only awareness, that’s great, but if not then defi ne the main KPI (key performance indicator), then defi ne secondary KPIs, and only then start planning your media spread strategy and the partners with whom you will work.

2. Look for Added Value. It is not unusual for brand manag-ers to need assistance in implementing marketing strate-gy, and this can be obtained from digital agencies, affi liate programs, ad networks, big publishing houses and others. The most important thing to look for when choosing such a partner is the added value you’ll receive. Today’s digital advertising world is so saturated with many companies using the same technology, same methodologies & same know how. It’s very diffi cult to differentiate between one partner to the other. Take the time to understand the of-ferings of each partner and choose the one that gives you something that the rest don’t.

3. Test everything. From testing different products and of-ferings, to different types of creative materials, the name of the game is testing. There are so many variables that may affect one’s marketing efforts and all should be con-sidered. Multiple offerings and products, different types of creative banners and landing pages, and even different media sources and platforms can all be optimized. Testing is a key element in performance marketing and should be done constantly.

4. Have patience. After defi ning your goals and prepar-ing all the different elements to test including several marketing partners and technologies, be ready for the most diffi cult stage of all – waiting for results. There is no magic. No one can have a stress free process where everything works perfectly from day one. When starting your campaign, make sure to allow for a testing budget and timeline that gives you the opportunity to fi ne tune

your different products, creative materials and advertis-ing partners to show performance & stability.

5. Analyze everything. After the testing period you have defi ned and according to your already defi ned goals and KPI’s, make sure you analyze everything. A large part of digital advertising success lies within statistical data, raw numbers, and the conclusions extracted from them. Only by defi ning goals and analyzing the results of your testing will you know what works best for your specifi c brand.

Today’s digital world allows brand managers huge fl exibility in terms of implementing marketing strategies. They can access every media source, work with every creative designer, and test as many elements as they like. The whole point is fi nding the combination that is right for each particular brand.

Today’s marketing is performance marketing. It’s just a mat-ter of doing it right.

About Moran Treiser

Moran Treiser is sales director for MediaShakers and has over seven years of wide-ranging digital marketing ex-perience. MediaShakers is an international results-based digital network, providing display advertising solutions for online, mobile & video.

5 Performance Marketing Tips For Brand ManagersBy Moran Treiser, MediaShakers


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Program ManagementMaximize the returns from your Affiliate Program with Optimus Performance Marketing, one of the world’s leading outsourced program management agencies. Optimus Performance Marketing are ideally placed to manage international affiliate programmes, working with global clients in the USA, UK and EU marketplaces. With over 7 years of award winning operation and more than 70 client programs currently being managed, Optimus Performance Marketing should be on your shortlist when choosing your program management solution. For a no obligation program review please call the number below or e-mail me at [email protected]

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www.optimus-pm.comCALL +1 (877) 267-8894

Maximizing Results Through Expert

Program ManagementMaximize the returns from your Affiliate Program with Optimus Performance Marketing, one of the world’s leading outsourced program management agencies. Optimus Performance Marketing are ideally placed to manage international affiliate programmes, working with global clients in the USA, UK and EU marketplaces. With over 7 years of award winning operation and more than 70 client programs currently being managed, Optimus Performance Marketing should be on your shortlist when choosing your program management solution. For a no obligation program review please call the number below or e-mail me at [email protected]

Find out more about our program management solutions Mark Russell - CEO


Protecting trade secrets in order to retain their value is only possible once a business understands the types of assets that deserve protection under trade secret law. While business own-ers are typically aware that a secret process constitutes a trade secret, often overlooked are sales plans, business policies and customer lists.

That said, although a wide array of business information warrants protection under trade secret law, not all confi den-tial information rises to the level of a trade secret. Thus, it is important to distinguish between confi dential information and trade secret information. In fact, certain jurisdictions will not permit a plaintiff to sue for the misappropriation of confi dential information unless the confi dential information also qualifi es as a trade secret.

To be protectable, a trade secret must, in fact, be secret. However, the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (“USTA”) does not require a plaintiff to maintain absolute secrecy of confi dential information. Rather, the UTSA requires that the information not be readily ascertainable to those who stand to benefi t eco-nomically by possessing it. Thus, a business must take active mea-sures to protect trade secrets from loss through the develop-ment of programs that imple-ment strictly enforced internal security policies, th e system-atic use of non-disclosure & non-competition agreements and th e implementation of physical pro-tection processes.

Internal security policies must actually be enforced. Failure to do so, or to selectively enforce, runs the risk of not satisfying the secrecy element of a trade secret. Some examples of internal security measures that can be implemented to protect trade secrets include segregating trade secret information from non-trade secret information, labeling documents as “Confi dential,” implementing employee manuals that emphasize the importance of maintaining trade secret protection and conducting entrance and exit personnel interviews that emphasize the proprietary nature of the trade secret information.

It is critical to fully understand the practical consequences of misappropriation of trade secret information and to prevent it from happening at the beginning of a business relationship. All employees, contractors and other parties that may potentially

have access to trade secret information should be required to execute non-disclosure agreements prior to gaining access to confi dential information.

Non-competition agreements are often based upon prevent-ing a departing employee from utilizing trade secret informa-tion to compete against a former employer. Although the ju-dicial system has long disfavored non-competition agreements due to the fact that they possess the potential to preclude an individual from earning a living, they should also be considered an essential part of trade secret protection planning.

A legally enforceable non-compete must go no further than to protect legitimate business interests and be reasonable in-sofar as time, scope and geography. A non-compete that limits competition forever is unenf orceable. Su ch agreements should also be backed-up by adequate consideration

Last ly, physical protections can serve to bolster limitations upon access to business secrets. Not only will this send a strong message to employees and third parties, it will provide real physical barriers that limit access to information. Physical measures can include, for example, password protected com-puter systems.

No precise equation exists for the perfect combination of protection measures. However, by limiting access to proprietary information to only those with a need to know and consu lting with an experience attorney to design and implement a deliberately customized protection plan, a business will fi nd itself in the

best position possible to assert protection over information it considers to be a valuable trade secret.

Info rmation conveyed in this article is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute, nor should it be relied upon as legal advice. No person should act or rely on any information in this article without seeking the advice of an attorney.

About Richard Newman

Richard Newman is an Internet Law Attorney at Hinch Newman LLP specializing in marketing and advertising law, regulatory compliance and defense, employment law, intellectual property law, complex commercial liti-gation and new media-related legal matters.

Essentials For Protecting Your Trade Secretsby Richard Newman, Hinch Newman LLP

“A business must take active

measures to protect trade

secrets from loss through

the development of pro-

grams that implement strict-

ly enforced internal security

policies.”


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