Preview: Carsten Cumbrowski's Blog and News
Carsten Cumbrowski's Blog and NewsCarsten Cumbrowski is an Internet Marketer and was born and raised in Germany. He is living since May 2000 in Fresno, California and is doing Internet Marketing, specifically Affiliate Marketing since the beginning of 2001. He knows the business from theUpdated: 2009-12-02T08:00:00+00:00
Links for 2009-12-01 [del.icio.us] 2009-12-02T00:00:00-08:00
SEO Concerns and Product Update Issues with Affiliate Product Data FeedsReveNews » Carsten Cumbrowski 2009-03-18T01:21:59Z A visitor of my site who read some of my product data feed resources contacted me with an interesting question about how to deal with availability and SEO issues when you are utilizing merchant product feeds. If I build a website with an affiliate data feed of an example: 10,000 different digital camera products. How would anyone but myself know that these products are available on my website? My idea is a simple PHP script site with a CSV data feed file dynamically loaded. Because there won’t be any static pages built, how will the search engines see them? If your pages URLs change all the time (as in appear and disappear = 404 error), you will have a hard time to get pages indexed by search engines. In order to be able to generate the same page for the same product over and over again is it necessary to have an unique product identifier, which could be the merchant SKU or in the case of digital cameras the UPC or EAN (I would use the EAN if you have that). You don’t have to delete pages if a product is out of stock. You could (and probably should) keep the page and indicate that it is out of stock. You have one problem though. You need to know when a product is out of inventory and discontinued (= it will never come with new inventory in a future data feed file). There are three 1/2 options, which all involve the merchant (more or less) Option 1) The merchant provides ALL products in the feed that he is selling, even the out of inventory one, but indicates the inventory level in a column of the data feed (absolute number or just an indicator e.g. available/out of stock or out-of-stock/back-order/low/available etc. Option 2) The merchant has a product status that indicate which item is an active SKU that will be replenished or if it is a “discontinued” item. A column for product status would do the trick, like “A” for active and “D” for discontinued. If a SKU that was in status “D” is not included in the next feed, then you have to delete it, but you keep all products that are in status “A” and just show “out of stock” for them and wait for a future feed with new inventory again. Option 3) and 1/2 If you don’t get any of the above, you can’t automate the update properly and should keep the product in the DB until you remove it manually. You either have to check yourself, ask the merchant or the merchant comes and asks for the removal (if he complains, explain to him what the problem is and what he can do about it). In the case of cameras does it probably make sense to check once or twice a year if old models are still manufactured or not. Call it inventory cleaning day or spring cleaning/preparing for the holidays. Dynamic Scripts and Search Engines Now some general notes about the use of Product Data Feeds to generate content pages in an automated fashion. I did a lot with data feeds in the past and know that they can be a pain-in-the-neck sometimes. While the technology behind it isn’t rocket science, did affiliate networks and merchant manage to screw up pretty much everything there is in the process, leaving it up to the affiliate to deal with those problems. You can’t assume anything and should always expect the worse. It does not only sound like a lot of work, it actually is. I don’t want to discourage you, but I want to make sure that your expectations and goals are realistic and that you are ready and willing to spend the time and energy necessary to reach them. I spent a lot of time to collect and write up resources and information to make it easier for other affiliates to deal with the subject. I also talked to several of the networks about the issues. Most listen, but only few are actually doing something about it. Data Feed Resources / Suggested Reading I suggest checking out the entry page on my site that is dedicated to affiliate data feeds. My posts in this forum thread talk about the requirements and skills needed that are necessary to deal with data feeds from a technical point of view. It also mentions alternatives to the use of ra[...]
eComXpo 2009 – The Virtual Tradeshow for Internet Marketers – Now OpenReveNews » Carsten Cumbrowski 2009-01-28T21:12:37Z Currently going on at eComXpo.com is the latest installment of the eComXpo virtual tradeshow for internet marketers, which happens entirely online in the realms of cyberspace. No travelling required, no hotel room to book… none of those hassles. Today is the first day of the show and it will be continued tomorrow. Admission for attendees is absolutely free for all of the 8,000+ expected attendees. The virtual trade show has all the elements of a real-life event, except for the meeting people face to face, the parties and the hangovers the next day . Exhibitors have virtual booth, you have a virtual bag to collect contact information and virtual schwag. You can chat with people at the booths, not just with the folks who run it, but also with the folks who visit it… you can even chat with anybody who runs around on the exhibit hall floors or any of the lounges. Like a regular trade show, eComXpo has educational sessions, with the difference, that attending them at this virtual conference is free, no “FULL PASS” to access them is required. Just go to eComXpo.com and register and off you go. If you missed any of the educational sessions already, no worries, because all of the presentations and panel discussions will become available on the eComXpo web site after the show is over. You have to have an account though, which is another good reason to check it out. The session recordings will be available for 90 days, before they will be taken down. eComXpo is a good training exercise, if you never attended a conference before. Let me quote a post of my own that I wrote in October 2006 for ReveNews.com. The eComXpo has a lot of advantages to attract affiliates of all levels: The free admission makes it possible for any affiliate to attend regardless of available budget, newbie and super affiliate. There is no need to travel to get to the show, you just go to your computer and you are there. You can attend as long as you want, 5 minutes or 5 hours or every hour for 15 minutes. It’s up to you or the time available, especially for affiliates that still have a day job. Affiliates that can afford to spend the time and money for the trade show pass, flight, hotel, taxi etc. (which is not cheap) have a hard time to believe and see for themselves that the investment is worth it. eComXpo is a good introduction of those Affiliates to the principle of those tradeshows and the opportunities that can come from it. Entirely virtual Tradeshows like eComXpo will never replace the real live human contact of tradeshows in the real world, not to mention the socializing and networking opportunities at the parties that are organized by show organizer itself and various sponsors. I used to be one of those affiliates and eComXpo (among other things) made me attend real-life conferences afterwords. I will be one of the presenters at the event, among many other known figures in this industry. My session will be at the end of Day 1, Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at 8:20 pm EST. It is a ca. 50 minutes long presentation titled “What Makes a Good Datafeed? Tips for Merchants” and as the title already says… it’s about product data feeds. My presentation slides are already available at my Slideshare.net net account. In order to hear what I have to say to those slides, you have to come to my session on Wednesday when every attendee will get the information that my slides are up on Slideshare.net. So if you are reading this before the coming Wednesday, you have already the advantage that you can check out the presentation before everybody else. If you are a Merchant or Network and interested in the subject of affiliate data feeds, make sure that you also check out my data feed related resources at my website at Cumbrowski.com/datafeeds and my data feeds primer article at Cumbrowski.com/datafeeds101. Cheers and see you soon in Cyberspace! Carsten Cumbrowski Internet Marketer and Blogger http://www.cumbrowski.com/ Related Posts:Affiliates, Tradeshows and GossipAre Virtual Conferences Eff[...]
Affiliate Summit West 2009 Recap and the Issues Ahead for the Year 2009 and BeyondReveNews » Carsten Cumbrowski 2009-01-18T02:37:45Z Affiliate Summit West 2009 in Las Vegas came to an end this Tuesday. I am always fascinated by the fact that I get something out of it, which I had no idea about when I entered the airplane in Fresno last weekend to go to the conference. Sure, I always like to get back in touch personally with the friends and business partners who I more often than I’d like to, neglected during the past months. A large part of the year 2008 was again sucked away by some invisible force, which cannot be explained with any know law of physics. I just had the feeling that the year was by no means anything as close to 365 days in length. 120 days is probably much closer to the “felt” length of the previous year. No computer will change this feeling of mine. I know it were 365 days, but try to get this message to my intuition and my guts. Getting Efficiency Back into Performance Marketing I stumbled across an interesting article by Jeff Molander, CEO of Molander and Associates, which was published in May 2008 at the UK marketing research company blog by eConsultancy (like a Brit version of MarketingSherpa / MarketingExperiments). I didn’t see this one when it was published it last year. As I mentioned already, it was written in May 2008. Now it’s January 2009. I suggest that you are going to read Jeff’s article, it is most certainly worth your time. Where are we today? Did things change? … I don’t think that they did very much… a little bit, true, I have to be fair with that one. The holistic approach should be taken beyond affiliate marketing and applied to all marketing activities that can be tracked somehow, online and offline (pay-per-call is getting more and more mature these days) eBay Seems to be Leading the Pack once more I attended this Tuesday at the summit a session by Steve Hartmann and William Martin-Gill from the auction giant eBay.com. The affiliate manager(s) from eBay were giving a presentation that I found pretty interesting. I did not follow the eBay program during the last year very much, I have to admit to my discredit, so what they were talking about was all news to me. eBay does pay affiliates based on the value and quality of the business that they refer. This is not in beta, they doing this across the board today already. This shift that eBay underwent after they moved their program away from Commission Junction and brought the whole program in-house was also causing a shift within their programs list of top 100 affiliate partners (they said that, not me). They were basically able to clean up the house. Sure, they lost some publishers over this, but why bother, those publishers were the ones that only sent low quality traffic along their way. The publishers who send great traffic on the other hand, saw their commission double and quadruple instead. Affiliate Marketing Worldwide Affiliate Marketing in Europe being behind the U.S.? Look again! I also touch-based with some European affiliate networks and German OPMs, specifically with Deputy Managing Director Torben Heimann from TradeDoubler Germany (which does not have a presence in the United States … YET), Markus Kellermann Head of Affiliate Marketing and some of his colleagues from eXplido Web Marketing. They actually implemented already tracking technology that is capable to provide analytics and commission structures attached to that data, which goes beyond the mere “last click” and “banner impression” of how U.S. Networks track stuff since the day when Amazon.com launched their partner program soon to be 15 years ago. They basically do some crude multiple-touch-point tracking of clicks and content views (e.g. video watches). Nothing as sophisticated as some of the top web analytics solution providers is capable of, but hey, it’s going into the right direction. Nothing new from our old, big and fat networks here in the States. It seems that they try to ignore the changes around them for the greater part, hoping that things will be as good (for them) a[...]
Affiliate Marketing Census Report 2009 – Your Help is Needed!ReveNews » Carsten Cumbrowski 2009-01-10T20:00:38Z Okay, here is a quick one with a long quote of Jessica Luthi from AffiliateProgramAdvice.com before I am heading off for Las Vegas to Affiliate Summit 2009 West. The quote summarizes everything pretty nicely. I could not have it said better myself. I filled out the survey a couple minutes ago and suggest that other affiliate marketers will do the same. Shawn Collin’s AffStat reports provide interesting insights into the affiliate marketing space from an advertiser’s perspective. Peter Figueredo from NETexponent released last November their first AffiliateBenchmark research report, which already provided some interesting insights into the affiliate marketing space. I was yelling two years ago in January 2007 “Where is the Affiliate Benchmark Guide 2006“. Now I am hoping to get what I was asking for back then. The survey only takes a few minutes and you will get a free copy of the results, two more reasons why you should do it. AffiliateProgramAdvice.com and E-Consultancy.com both companies are independent and impartial and trusted. Last year e-consultancy.com (largest independent UK Data Research company) and in association with AffiliateProgramadvice.com made UK Affiliate Marketing History by producing the first ever UK Affiliate Census which can be downloaded here http://econsultancy.com/reports/uk-affiliate-census-report . The UK Census came about due to the lack of transparency for Advertiser and Affiliate Networks in terms of who are “affiliates” Very little is known about the very people who contribute billions to our online economy. Affiliates/publishers also have little or no information about each other in terms of what is the average revenue an affiliate makes, what do affiliates see as a threat to the industry, what is the best method of promoting a merchant/Advertiser, how many networks does an affiliate belong to?. This year it’s now time to turn our attention to the USA too. This census will be a first for the USA so a bit of USA Affiliate Marketing history is in the making, all too exciting and for the UK we already have historical data so we can now plot changes/trends. We intend to do a US an UK comparison too, is the US any different to the UK? Does the UK do it better? (cheeky grin) We believe this Affiliate Census will be the biggest piece of research in understanding “who are the affiliates and what do they do and how do they do it”? But… we can’t do this without the entire industry getting behind this and pushing this out so here is what we need for you to do. For Affiliates The survey is for affiliates and takes less then ten minutes to complete by way of thanks to all those who complete the survey, we will send you the results, there is an option at the end for you to add your email address for when the report is published, this is optional. Please be aware this survey is 100% confidential, we do not ask for any personal information and the questions are fairly generic, by all means walk through it first. We have a US survey (aimed at US Affiliates) can be seen here http://bit.ly/VG5N We have a UK survey (aimed at UK affiliates) can be seen here http://bit.ly/pNPQ So if you are a US affiliate please follow the US link and if you are a UK affiliate please follow the UK link. For affiliates who are neither UK or US, you can still participate, example if I live in Germany but promote UK Advertisers, you would follow the UK survey link. Cut off is 27th January 2009 Thank you so much in advance and if I could be a little pushy, when you have completed the survey, pass this on to anyone you think would be interested. You rock! For Agencies Please grab any information from the above and just email anyone you think would be interested in this as you will want to see the published results too. For Affiliate Networks You know you want to see the published results and if you email your entire network of affiliates by way of thanks, drop me your logo Jessica at affiliateprogramadv[...]
Affiliate Data Feed Delivery via HTTPReveNews » Carsten Cumbrowski 2009-01-05T08:01:54Z I was updating and expanding my affiliate product data feeds and APIs resources at Cumbrowski.com, in particular the resources to the product feeds and store builder feature provided by the PepperJam affiliate network, which was launched about one year ago. I liked what I saw overall, although some items were, in my opinion a great idea, but then implemented half way only, probably without intending it. Free? Hurray! Product data are available to any affiliate without any cost directly via the PepperJam Network web interface. There is also a coupon feed available, in delimited format and RSS format (using some custom tags outside the RSS definition). They also have a tool called “store builder” (product show-case creator), which is similar to the tools available through third party tools providers like PopShops.com, GoldenCan.com, DataFeedFile.com or FeedShare.com. Data Delivery via HTTP Providing the feeds directly via HTTP, accessible via any web browser is a smart, efficient and cost effective solution. There is no need to charge any fee for setup or maintenance, because there is really nothing to setup. Via a, what you could call, “special page” are the product data rendered into the web browser in simple delimited text format, without HTML tags or anything like that. This is close to the format how the networks developer gets the same information out of their product catalog database, without the need for the developer to write a fancy, functional and error free user interface to browse the products. The product information can be pulled and rendered into the browser in real-time. Large Feeds Since no FTP account needs to be created and no static product feed files created to be picked up by the affiliate via FTP client software, a whole new set of options become available and possible. No disk space is wasted on files that are not being picked up and no server CPU is spending a single cycle of processing power on it, until the affiliate publisher actually requests it. True, there are some challenges, if you use HTTP as delivery method, if the amount of product s requested and downloaded is very large. However, 99% of all merchant product feeds do not fall into this category and even the merchants who have such large feeds (e.g. Buy.com, Overstock.com or Walmart.com) learned that it makes sense to break up their huge 1 million+ products big data feeds into smaller chunks, because it is never an easy undertaking to process over 1 million product records all at once, regardless if you download them via FTP or not. Since HTTP requests can be handled and processed in real-time, the option to provide filters to reduce the amount of data returned, is now suddenly also (or should be) of the interest of the network. It used to be an interest of the affiliates only (for the most part). I remember the time when I downloaded gigabytes of junk data every day, because there was only the choice between “everything” and “nothing”. Well, nothing was really an option, so you had to deal with all the overhead that you did not need. Imagine the Possibilities The real-time factor does allow the setup of virtually an unlimited number of filters. It is sad that affiliate networks who utilize HTTP for product data delivery are not making much use of this. A filter by product category, advertiser and keyword should only be the very least at the beginning. When I was an affiliate manager in 2003 for a retailer who had the affiliate program with Commission Junction, the first thing I did was the creation of an affiliate intranet where publishers could create an account and pull product information and more. The intranet was initially created to solve the issues of not having contact information of any publisher (a CJ “feature”) , avoiding the $750 setup fee for the product catalog at CJ itself and the up to $250 setup fee for each publisher in our program that did not qualify for the fr[...]
LinkShare’s Contextual Targeted Merchandiser Web Services API – Easy LinksReveNews » Carsten Cumbrowski 2008-12-06T12:53:18Z Ian Rosenwach, product manager at LinkShare, announced here at ReveNews.com in October this year the launch of the new LinkShare web service called “LinkShare Targeted Merchandiser API” and the feature by LinkShare that is based on that new web service called “Easy Links”. This is only an addition to a set of different web services that are available to LinkShare publishers. The web service was silently launched months earlier already and this post was originally written, but not published in June, a few days before the soft launch of the service. I provided feedback back in June. I updated and expanded this post to incorporate changes and additions to the new features since I originally wrote it some five months ago. This API is LinkShare’s first step into the realm of contextual advertising. The web service returns 1-X products of a LinkShare Advertiser, based on the content of a web page that was either specified in the API call or the referring page /URL (default), if no link was provided. This is not a full blown contextual advertising service like Google AdSense, Yahoo Publisher Network, Amazon Omakase Links or eBay AdContext. LinkShare does not render any ads for you. You or somebody else (hint) needs to do this for you. Maybe LinkShare will offer something like this in the future, but nothing is planned to my knowledge. The implementation guide lines for this API for developers can be found here. A Look under the Hood Let’s take a look under the hood. I had already a bunch of questions after looking over the beta of their Implementation Guidelines. LinkShare did not get back to me yet regarding all the questions and comments that I had, so I decided to repeat them here in my post. Using the vast number of products that are already available to LinkShare via their Merchandiser Service (Affiliate Product Data Feeds) is a good thing to do and something that I have been talking about with people for a long time already. Making access to the product information as easy as possible for non-technical folks should be high on the priority list of advertisers. Existing and potentially new affiliates often like to promote a particular product they like and recommend. Being able to pull a product ad with affiliate link to get a commission for referrals is not as easy as adding an iLike widget on your Facebook or MySpace profile. It should be, but we are still a far cry away from this. Access to the new API is cumbersome and not helping a lot with the mentioned goal to make it very easy to use. Advertisers decide for themselves if they want to make their products available through the API or not. The advertiser must be using the LinkShare Merchandiser Service already though. Merchandiser enabled advertisers are not automatically enabled for Easy Links. You can find a list of Easy Links supporting merchants at the LinkShare Help Center here. The affiliate itself also has to be enabled for the API and as far as I understand does this also require to be already enabled for the Merchandiser Service. The Merchandiser is not free to get access to for many affiliates. You either have to pay a setup fee or must be a good performing affiliate within the LinkShare network for several months already. But even if the Advertiser has the API enabled and uses the Merchandiser and you are an affiliate of that merchant and have Merchandiser enabled for your account, does not give you automatically access to the API. The merchant has to manually approve every affiliate first. I don’t know if advertisers can enable automatic approval or not, at least for affiliates who were already approved to receive the advertisers product data feed via FTP. Once you are approved for the API itself and for the access to the advertiser’s products via the API, you can start making API calls and use the new web services feature. Unfortunately, it is necessary to specify with the API[...]
Affiliate Marketing is NOT …ReveNews » Carsten Cumbrowski 2008-12-06T09:41:34Z I am not participating in discussions like this one at ABestWeb.com, even if I am contacted directly with the request to comment. The debate whether or not publisher A is legitimate or not, if his business model is based on incentivized traffic, is irrelevant in my opinion. If the publisher uses desktop software or browser plug-ins does also not matter to me, regardless if that publisher honors the “affsrc=1” URL parameter or not. Technical Fit <> Business Fit I stated repeatedly in comments and blog posts of mine that I do not consider publishers who are using any type of incentive to drive business to an advertiser to be an affiliate. This includes coupon sites. Those publishers are using the affiliate tracking technology for their purposes, because the existing technology does everything they need to run their business. That the technology works does not mean that the business model fits too. The Purpose of your Affiliate Program It is not what advertisers are being sold about affiliate marketing and what it can do for them. Most advertisers launch their affiliate program with goals in mind like customer acquisition, pre-sale and moving potential customers a step forward in the buying process, extension of reach and branding. Incentivized traffic on the other hand fits more the purpose of customer retention and increase of customer loyalty overall. This is a perfectly valid and good purpose, but it is not what advertisers have in mind when it comes to the marketing channel “affiliate marketing”. This difference in types of traffic and referred business is often ignored or not understood. Advertisers allow incentive publishers and coupon sites into their program and eventually find out that a lot of their existing traffic is diverted as a result of it. Then they talk about how affiliate marketing does not work and that it cannibalizes their other marketing efforts and eventually shut the whole program down, because it “failed” to deliver what was promised. Like Membership Rewards Programs The incentive traffic has to be viewed like a membership rewards program that many retailers already have in place. That traffic would be an extension of this type of promotional vehicle. As the in-house membership program is tracked and measured independently from the affiliate program, so should the incentivized traffic. Affiliates are being paid commission on top of any rewards of any membership system that the retailers might have in place. The cost of an in-house membership and rewards program does usually have its own budget and its effectiveness is reviewed independently and not as part of the affiliate program, search marketing campaigns and display advertising activities. Maybe email marketing is included sometimes, especially if special mailers are sent to existing customers promoting the membership program. Suggestions Incentive publishers, like cash back shopping portals such as eBates.com and FatWallet.com, charity sites like and uPromise.comSchoolPop.com, as well as coupon sites should be tracked and reviewed outside of the regular affiliate program. The same platform might be used, but it must be ensured that tracking of those traffic sources does not interfere with the tracking of the core affiliate program. Conclusion The effectiveness of those methods have to be reviewed independently and decisions about whether to continue a partnership with a publisher or not also needs to be done separately. You cannot do that if you are using one tracking system for both of them. You are also not tracking your PPC or Email marketing campaigns via affiliate tracking links for the same reasons, right? Not separating the two channels blurs the numbers and makes it impossible to gauge the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of each of them, resulting in decisions that are made based on wrong assumptions and misinterpretation of e[...]
The Value of Branding During Times of RecessionReveNews » Carsten Cumbrowski 2008-11-19T03:07:38Z The value of brands diminishes during times of recession. People tend to be more focused and interested in value, properties, features and benefits of a product, meaning that buying decisions are more driven by logic than impulse or feeling. Branding in B-to-C means often to spend money on feel-good images and aspirations, rather than on highlighting actual benefits and useful properties of a product at least since the 1920s when Edward Bernays invented Public Relations. This type of “branding” is usually not done in the B-to-B segment, because feel-good images tend not to solve actual business problems and fulfill business needs. Customer service, sales support, technical support, supply chain compliance, distribution are the things that are focused on, the things that B-to-B customers actually care about. Nothing of that is called branding, but the matter of fact is that it is. If people say about your company that it has great technical support instead of they made good experiences with your tech support when they had issue X, then it is branding. Your name is associated with a good property that is important to your customers. This increases the likelihood to finalize a deal. If an important aspect for a B-to-B transaction is not brought up by a potential customer, it is a good sign that your brand or reputation answered this question for the customer already. As a consumer brand can suffer because of association with something bad, a business brand can suffer as badly or worse, if it loses the association with a good characteristic or gets associated with a bad one.That’s why should it be also important to a B-to-B Brand to protect itself. If you have a brand in the business sector and consumer sector as well, damage to the brand in one of the sectors can damage your brand in the other sector as well. Here is a good example: I hate to drag out my own issues out to this blog, but sometimes your own negative experiences are better examples than something that was made up. Real life issues also tend to be more accessible and easier to relate to by readers than anything that is pure hypothetical, which looms somewhat cloudy in the back of your head as a possibility in an “If then” scenario and therefore hard to get a grip on. It also feels somewhat alien and mysterious. Often is there no practical advice to extract from it, because it is hard to give advice on something that you have never done or experienced yourself. Okay, here is the example that is based on my own experiences: Gateway Computers is a consumer brand and used to be a business brand as well. They sold computers to individuals and corporations until 2007 when they sold off their business segment to a company called MPC Corp (which I had never heard of before). I bought in 2006 a tablet PC from the Gateway business unit via their web site Gateway.com. With that computer I purchased a 4 year warranty, which included second business day on-site support, parts and labor cost covered. I just got a case now, which was the reason for me to get the expensive warranty in the first place. I bought the computer and warranty directly from the brand and manufacturer Gateway, because I felt sure that I will be covered in the case that I need it. I was obviously mistaken. On the Gateway.com website is a news article published about the sale of their business unit to MPC and a FAQ for Gateway clients about what that means for them. There it states: “Q) What can I as a Gateway pro customer expect of MPC? A) It was important to Gateway that we find a good home for our valued professional customers. Like Gateway, MPC takes pride in a history of excellence, as it has routinely won industry awards and accolades for the quality of its products and services. The collaboration between Gateway and MPC over the first year will further assure that the[...]
Links for 2008-10-29 [del.icio.us] 2008-10-30T00:00:00-07:00
Business to Business Marketing and Lead GenerationReveNews » Carsten Cumbrowski 2008-10-24T06:12:03Z This post is a book review of MarketingSherpa’s “B-to-B Lead Generation Handbook” 2008-2009 Edition. Introduction and Disclaimer I have been thinking about writing this post for some time now. It happens rarely that I feel the urge to pitch a product and push people to buy it where I am absolutely convinced that they will be glad that they did and don’t care about getting an incentive or commission for doing it. But there is the risk that people who read it at a site like ReveNews.com would claim that I only wrote it to push a product for my own benefits; a dilemma that is tough to solve and the reason why I was holding back for so long. I have now decided to ignore the risk and pitch the product anyway. I will also disclose in more detail my involvement with the creator of the product and leave it up to the reader to decide, if my recommendation is genuine or just a cheap self promotional pitch for my own benefits. The MarketingSherpa B-to-B Lead Generation Handbook 2008-09 The guide arrived in a big and heavy box and I thought what on earth this could be. It was the draft version of the MarketingSherpa B-to-B Lead Generation Handbook 2008-09 then still called the B-to-B Marketing Handbook 2008-09. The handbook is over 500 pages thick and the biggest book that I have ever seen released by the Sherpa to this day. Most of their other guides, benchmarks or handbooks are 200-300 pages and dwarfed by this one. The book is packed through the roof with data charts, eye-tracking heat-maps, written and visual real world example creative’s, statistics, tips, general how-to’s and best practices. It has basically everything that you need to do be a more successful marketer who promotes business to business products and services. This is not an exaggeration by any means. If you are an Affiliate Manager responsible for recruiting affiliates or a network that needs to recruit advertisers and performing affiliates alike, then B2B marketing is what you already do or should do, if you haven’t done so before. It is a Manual and not just a Handbook The word “Handbook” in the title of this book can be taken literally, although “Manual” would have been a bit more accurate. This is what this book should be in your marketing department. It should be the manual for newly hired staff to learn the do’s and don’ts and the how-to and the reference to look up information to specific subject for the experienced marketers and veterans. It’s a fountain of information, tips and tricks and stats for B2B marketers, covering every possible aspect, beyond just online. One of the other great parts of the book are the practical tips to get Marketing and Sales work in conjunction with each other, which is in reality hard to do at best. Often are marketing and sales not aligned very well and see each other as a necessary evil that only tries to take away time to do your work properly. It also provides a dictionary to make sure that marketers and sales guys speak the same language when it counts to avoid misunderstandings. Free Glimpse at the Book Listing the 14 pages long Table of Contents would be a bit too much, but it does give you a better understanding about what subjects the book covers. The full Table of Contents is included in the free PDF download of the 22 pages Executive Summary . That is nice and very helpful. The remaining pages include examples and highlights of the book. This will allow you to have a glimpse at the content and its quality for yourself to make up your own mind, if this book is something for you or not. The free excerpt can be downloaded here . Cost-Benefit Consideration The handbook is not cheap and probably not affordable for small affiliate programs or B2B marketing departments that are management part time only. If you have one or [...]
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When you should Drop an AdvertiserReveNews » Carsten Cumbrowski 2008-10-06T06:56:03Z The discussion at Brad Waller’s post “Reason #4837 Why This Industry Needs an Association” from Friday about the Hydra Network/Vista Print incident and publication of the incident at MediaPost.com sparked two separate discussions that were not exactly related to the subject of the post. I want to talk about one of them and maybe about the second one in a separate video post. Jonathan (Trust) suggested pulling the Hydra Network ads on ReveNews.com, although Hydra Network responded and indicated that they don’t want to pull their advertisements, even though the post about them was not exactly talking in their favor. Angel Djambazov pointed out the “separation between editorial and advertising” and cited the “Editors Code of Preferred Editorial Practices” (PDF version) by the American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE) stating: “… Let the advertiser know that negative content will be written about them and allow them the opportunity to remove their ad.” and “This allows editorial and advertising elements to be balanced while eliminating reactionary mob mentality.” Kelly Stevens also pointed out that “it’s an ad not an endorsement. As marketers, we all should recognize that.” and that “normal economic principles need to dictate. …… business decision of bringing targeted advertisers to the readers.” If “… there is no response to the ad. It becomes an unproductive campaign for them. …… Advertisers who fit with the demographics of the ReveNews.com viewership have successful campaigns.” She also said that in case of her own website, AffiliateFairPlay.com, companies approached her to advertise on it, who she exposed as being unethical and that those advertisers obviously didn’t do their homework well and checked in more detail, what Kelly’s website is all about. She rejected such advertisers because “it would undermine what my business is. So that trumps the ethics considerations.” I agree completely with Kelly and Angel. I spend some time thinking about this dilemma myself. Since I consider the advertisement on my own site Cumbrowski.com editorial content, except for the ads where I do not have editorial control over, such as Google AdSense, I call them Sponsorship instead of Advertisement and associate my name/brand with the advertisers brand (and vice versa). I made this clear in the editorial note on my website, which can be accessed from virtually any page on my site. But this is because the site uses my name, which is my brand. Cumbrowski.com is not business publication with a brand name that is not associated with a person and a publication that tries to be fair and balanced overall, even if the individual bloggers express their own personal views. For this reason ReveNews.com tries to get as much different types of bloggers as possible, to be able to represent the different views and opinions of people in the affiliate marketing industry. ReveNews.com did the right thing in case of Hydra Network and provided the ability for Hydra Network to make an official statement, provide comments and/or publishes a separate post, even with comments off, if insisted, which wasn’t the case with Hydra Network, but in another case that involved a post of mine here at ReveNews.com. I think that a publication like ReveNews.com should separate advertisement on its website from the editorial content and should put a border between them, that advertisement will not influence content and vice versa, because it would take away the means for an advertiser to respond to the allegations and do damage control, send a message that changes were made, if the allegations were just, clarify facts, fight misconceptions or correct false information that were st[...]
Affiliate Summit East 2008 Videos and moreReveNews » Carsten Cumbrowski 2008-10-01T19:59:00Z I wrote a post after Affiliate Summit West 2008 with information and links to the numerous educational session videos, audio and slides for the past affiliate summit. The videos for Affiliate Summit East 2008 in Boston are out, so I thought that an update from my part is kind of required hehe. Affiliate Summit East 2008 August 10-12, 2008 at the Boston Seaport Hotel in Boston - Agenda All slideshows, including the ones from previous events can be watched online here at SlideShare.net. Access to all videos (free, only sign-up for Affiliate Summit Newsletter is required to receive the user name and password for access to the videos). Keynote speaker was Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, New Jersey - video - audio - transcript Sunday: Affiliate Marketing Basics for Merchants Sunday: Leveraging Social Media Sunday: NY Tax Laws - Issues and Solutions - video Sunday: Which PPC Engines Work And How? Sunday: Monetize your Site with Amazon Associates - video Sunday: ShareASale Network Education Clinic - video Sunday: PepperJam NETWORK Education Clinic - video Session 1a: The State of Ad Networks Session 1b: Content That Kills Session 1c: My 5 Favorite SEO Strategies Exposed Session 2a: Anatomy of a Great Affiliate Program Session 2b: Compliance. Its More Than a Buzz Word Session 2c: Performance Marketing Alliance Q&A Session 3a: Landing Page Testing to Attract Super Affiliates Session 3b: How is Social Media Changing Affiliate Marketing Session 3c: Legal 2.0: Hot Topics in Affiliate Marketing Session 4a: PPC Search: Disclosure vs. Free-for-All Session 4b: PPC Super Affiliate Strategies You MUST Know Session 4c: The Ten Hottest Strategies for Internet Marketing Session 5a: The Future of Performance Marketing Session 5b: Web 2.0 for Affiliates Session 5c: Lessons Learned in Using Video for Affiliates Session 6a: Lead Generation for EMarketers Session 6b: International Options for US Affiliates Session 6c: Copywriting Clinic Session 7a: Data Feed Problems and Missing Information Session 7b: Ethical Issues in Affiliate Marketing Bonus Round Tables at Affiliate Summit East 2008 Samples - 35 min video Recap and Photos from Affiliate Summit Boston Affiliate Summit West 2009 Date: January 11-13, 2009 at the Rio All-Suites Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada Gary Vaynerchuk from WineLibrary.tv will be the keynote speaker for Affiliate Summit 2009 West. Details and Registration. Teresa Caldwell volunteered again to do the Mentor Program at Affiliate Summit West 2009. I did participate in the program for the previous Affiliate Summit as a mentor and will offer my help for the next summit as well. The mentor program for Affiliate Summit 2008 East in Boston also triggered a blog post of mine with tips for first-time conference attendees. Additional Affiliate Summit Content and Resources Additional video content from and about Affiliate Summit via the Affiliate Video channel provided by Magnify.net (alternative URL). Pictures from all past events via Flickr account AffSum YouTube Channel AffiliateSummit Twitter account AffiliateSummit Affiliate Summit Blog Facebook Group ABestWeb Forum Social Network via Ning.com Squidoo Page Audio Coverage by WebMasterRadio.fm First Timers G uide to Affiliate Summit Affiliate Bootcamp DVD, same content as the AffiliateManager.net videos And last but not least a post of mine that I wrote at Affiliate Summit West in February that discusses the question that I hear from people who think about attending a conference, but never did, all the time: “What is the Value of Attending Real Life Conferences?“. I hope that my rather long post will clarify that a bit and will con[...]
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