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CPA Offer Teacher

ADTECH New York has come and gone, and what did we learn this year? Same thing we learned every year: that there are more and more companies entering the space and thus there is more and more need for tools to help weed out the junk. Despite the huge influx of companies in the space, there is a huge growth in new offers in the market plus a continued interest in some oldies.

Peerfly has suddenly become the king of Netflix in the last several months, and is the main source for this still very popular offer. While it’s very hard to get approved to run Netflix, Peerfly founder and CEO Chad French tells me that there is always room for premium networks. Just in case you can’t be approved by Peerfly, there is always the Dandingo offer version of this, just a little bit cheaper.

For the UK space, there are some great Netflix competitors, including ILoveFilm.  Always beautiful Samantha Brachat, the head of the Neverblue mega network tells me that this is becoming one of their most popular offers. There is even a Danish version of the offer! If you happen to have Aussie visitors, Azoogle… sorry, Epic Direct has the BigPond offer which distributes all the great American movies dubbed with really sexy Australian accents.

With the closing of SwipeAuctions, there is a huge need for other affiliate offers in the space. BidCactus is running strong on Ad Angler and PointClickTrack at the same prices. Another company that I hear converts really well is BidSauce which can be found at a really good price at ProfitKingsMedia or Affillion. All of these convert, and the penny auction space is still growing and huge, despite some issues with scammers out there promoting some really bad offers in the space. Stick with the good companies and you’ll be ok.

The dating scene is getting bigger and still more profitable. The reason behind this is simple: more and more people are getting on the internet and because of that they have less time to actually date. Similarly, the stigma regarding online dating has changed so it’s no longer considered weird to have an online dating account.  Large dating sites like Match.com still dominate the space but there is a fast growing niche dating industry that can be quite profitable.

Yes, Granny is on the internet looking to get lucky at Senior People Meeting from Qwik Media. Similarly, if you like a little cushion, there is a wide variety of BBW dating services (that means Big Beautiful Women, for those who aren’t aficionados of the more rotund gals) including BBW Personals. If you looking to mix and match, SinglesNet also offers a really good BBW landing page, says Ryan Eagle of EWA.

If you looking for the long sale but to make a lot of money, there are the high cost of sale dating sites out there like Ashley Madison. Specifically for guys looking for the lonely stay at home mom or the really stressed secretary, Ashley Madison is a great offer offer at Neverblue or TractatusMedia. YeahCPA has an exclusive free trial version of this offer that seems interesting also. Of course, if you prefer out of the Country gals, there is always AnastasiaDate.com. Yes, the Russian gals are gorgeous but you’ll probably need the Babylon translation tool to have any idea what she is saying. If you are promoting that, why not also promote the STD Express tool, for all the at-home STD testing you could need. Just incase something does show up and you need to get rid of it, there is Wartrol, the at home genital wart removal tool. Seriously, they are real offers and they match perfectly.

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iContact Vs. AWeber

I have been asked over and over again by those in the industry for almost a decade what the best email & newsletter programs are. I have used a few since 2000, but since 2005, I have been exclusively with iContact. Originally this was because for quite a while they provided the service for free for my publication ADOTAS.com, but currently stay and pay for the service. That being said, I have looked on occasion to move to AWeber, because it is highly recommended by many in the performance marketing industry.  I thought it might be time to take a real look at the features, pricing and functions of these two companies. Read my indepth analysis!

In comparing the two companies, it is important to look at what they traditionally have marketed themselves as.  iContact has marketed itself as a brand-centric company where brands and major websites can send out newsletter to their followers. On the other hand, AWeberhas become the favorite amongst “marketers” specifically because of its auto-responder function, which many marketers believe to be top notch. In truth, iContact does have a large amount of brand companies that use its services and about 8 times as many customers as AWeber. However, that doesn’t mean its better.

PRICING:
Aweber is $19 a month for up to 500 subscribers and $29 a month for a more realistic size of 501-2,500 subscribers.
iContact is  $14.00 a month for up to $500 subscribers, but has a cheaper $9.95 plan of $9.95 a month. Up to 2,500 subscribers is identical pricing of $29 a amonth.
The pricing for all their programs actually stays somewhat the same, plus or minus 5% between the two up to the highest levels.

CUSTOMER SERVICE
As mentioned, I have used iContact for years, but have had accounts with both companies. iContact customer service is seriously the best in the industry – from the sales team to the technical support team, they are great at what they do. One thing that I personally find important is that with all the projects that I have, I sometimes need a little “guidance” about things that are out of the box. iContact has always answered my questions on the phone and email. On the other hand, to be perfectly honest, aWeber tends to use canned, copy and paste response or send you to a webpage to “learn” the information. Even trying to get a PR and Marketing Contact over there as close to impossible, and in some cases their customer service person stopped responding to my requests for feature information. When I asked to speak to their PR & Marketing person about pricing discounts and importing, I got a form letter.

DELIVERABILITY
This is a very, very hard metric to talk about because there are no “proven” results out there. AWeber has a very strict double-optin system that they require all customers to use, and prevent almost anyone from importing emails from other lists, so that their system can “Stay clean.” However, with the huge amount of “get rich quick” and “MLM” offers that go through AWeber, there seems to be some issues. The built in Junk Mail Filter on Outlook, despite AWeber having SPAM Assassin integrated, seems to like catching AWeber emails more than iContact. iContact has a very similar system installed, but is not as easy to use. However, they review most emails themselves to “help”, just incase there is something they believe is spammy or will get you blocked, an added service I am not sure is in any other email service provider.

iContact is monitored by Pivotal Veracity which gives it a 99% deliverability rate, plus iContact has significant relations with the ISPs and knows exactly what is going on with any possible spammy emails. AWeber claims to have deliverability about the same, but at the same time, no third party verification nor do they have the same relationships from what I have been told with the ISPs because of the perception that they are used by many marketers. Still when I asked around, a lot of my friends said they had little issues with deliverabiltiy from AWeber.

FEATURES
When it comes to features, both of the companies are very similar. Both of them have a great deal of newsletter templates, great signup forms, unlimited email lists, open and click tracking, WYSIWYG editors and a great contact management system. That being said, there iContact’s tracking system is superior as it allows you to really “dig” into who is clicking on the newsletters and what they are specifically clicking on, plus examine it against other newsletters they have clicked on.  On top of that, iContact allows you to host images on its server, which for some people might be a must.  Additionally, iContact has a built in survey system, but aWeber recommends using Google Docs or SurveyMonkey for surveys.

Yet, AWeber has a built in optimization and tracking system, which allows you to track who is buying products from your newsletter. This is something that is essential for marketers, and I’m sincerely amazed that iContact has not added this into their system. I’m sincerely amazed that they haven’t since this is a blaring difference between the two that seems to be easily fixed.

On top of that, I’ll be honest – the add-ons and packages that have been built in the performance marketing industry for aWeber are significant. There are numerous great WordPress ad-ons that are attached mainly to aWeber and more than one affiliate expert has built specific  programs that work with aWeber. Still, aWeber does NOT have a developer API while iContact has a whole developer portal that should allow anyone to build those features and add-ons easily.  Some of the “outside” products that people have made for aWeber are actually built into iContact already, such as viral tell-a-friend and forwarding mechanisms.

CONCLUSION
Honestly, despite me promoting both the products, I know that the readers want me to look at one product and recommend it. Both products are on the top of their game. iContact has built a stellar reputation and has some serious clients behind it. AWeber has the hearts of the marketing community and has been able to grow significantly because of the (paid) promotions by several marketing experts.  I would easily come out with a very clear recommendation for iContact, except for the lack of a built in commerce optimization.  For many affiliates, this could be essential in knowing what list creations are doing the best and resulting in sales and purchases.

 

Something really bugs me about AWeber. One of the reasons is their requirement for all new subscribers to re-opt in their lists if they come from another provider.  This really bugs me because many, many stores and merchants have lists they have built from customers who have bought products and asking them to decrease their list by as much as 90% is ridiculous.  If you do import all your subscribers and they don’t confirm the first time, you can’t ever contact them again. Seriously guys?

The good news is that you can try both of them for close to free. Icontact has a free trial, and AWeber has a $1.00 trial. Note that, not unlike that subscription to MilfHunter, if you do not cancel AWeber they will charge your card (and in my case, even with the cancelation, they charged it, but eventually refunded the charge.).

Sign up for iContact for free

Sign up for AWeber for $1 for first month

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Are Affiliates in Danger Legally from Affiliate Networks?

Affiliates need to pay attention; your affiliate network’s actions could get you in some serious trouble. If you think that as an affiliate you can just put any advertisement up, regardless of what it’s advertising, regardless of the claims, you are seriously wrong.  Affiliate Networks already have a history of throwing their affiliates under the bus when it comes to lawsuits and blaming “rogue affiliates.” If you are making money from affiliate marketing, you need to examine whether your network is going to cause you financial harm or send you to jail.

I have written about this before: the legal standard is generally that publications are not liable for the bad behavior of their advertisers. The courts have been pretty clear about this and have ruled time and time again that the very act of publishing an advertisement does not make the publisher, for example a newspaper or website, a partner in the advertisements. The only service that the publisher is providing is the actual “space” for the advertisement to be shown.

However, for a publisher to assert this independence, the publisher must be completely separate from the advertiser regarding the claims and content of the advertising.  The publisher must be only selling “space” for the advertiser, not involved with any other decisions whatsoever. Bennet G. Kelley of the Internet Law Center explained to in a brief conversation about this topic, once a publisher gets more involved “there is a potential for greater liability. The greater role one takes the greater risk they take.”

In here comes the problem for many affiliates: since they are not supplying just space but work as “partners” with the affiliate networks and the advertiser, they could be held liable for the content of those advertisements. Depending on their involvement with the advertiser, this means that there is a very real possibility that if the advertiser and the network were named in a civil or criminal action, the affiliate could also be part of that action.

“It is the difference between being passive,” says Kelley “and being an active participant in the process. Once you get involved in the decision making of what the advertisement says you open yourself up to liability.”

If you are an affiliate, you need to examine the affiliate networks that you work with. If you have been concerned in the past with who pays, you need to look at the partnership you are creating. In  our industry there has been a lot of talk about compliance from the network side, networks examining their affiliates. However, as an industry, we need to make sure we are protecting our affiliates from “rogue networks.”

Here are some questions that you need to ask of the networks you work with, plus do your own research.

1)  Has the affiliate network ever been the subject of a government action? This is a sure way to know if the company has some issues legally. While government action doesn’t mean the company is necessarily a bad player, affiliates need to examine why the actions took place. If they are multiple allegations over time from different entities, be very wary of the company. What is going on inside that company that makes them the target over and over again?

2)  Have they been the subject of lawsuits alleging deceptive or other illegal practices?
Lawsuits against affiliate networks aren’t that common actually. Only a few affiliate networks in the last ten years have been involved with civil actions alleging illegal or deceptive practices, so if you are working with one of those companies you need to wonder what they are doing wrong. These actions usually are against companies that like to play on “both sides of the line” meaning that they want to push the boundries, depending on good attorneys to protect them. If you are named in their lawsuit along side of them, are they going to defend you, pay for your attorney? Most likley they will hang you out to dry.

3)  Is the owner a convicted felon or served time in jail for anything over parking tickets?
Examine the person behind the company, is this someone you’d let your kids (if you are that old, or have any) hang out with? If they are sleeze bags that you’d be scared to let in your neighborhood during Halloween, that’s probably a good sign. Yes, this industry has several convicted felons owning affiliate networks and worse, registered sex offenders. You need toe examine a person’s ethics in regards to other people. Do you want to really trust some guy who was caught robbing old ladies of their social security money with your business?

Whatever you decide, realize that your decisions of what affiliate network you work with could affect you in the future. If that affiliate networks gets in trouble, don’t be surprised, especially if run by a scumbag, that you will find yourself also in trouble.

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Marketing War: Affiliate World vs. Brand World, who will win? Affiliate Summit Co-Founder Missy Ward Knows!

If you’ve never heard of Missy Ward, then join the club. Most people in agencies have never heard of her, despite her being one of the most influential people in the world in one of the fastest growing segments of interactive advertising: Affiliate Marketing.  She’s also the owner of Affiliate Summit, which has become the largest conference in the world for affiliate marketing and is the must-attend place for anyone in the industry to go. It’s grown so large, so fast that one major player in the told me that probably within a year or two it would overtake ADTECH as the largest conference in the industry–  a claim which is hard to believe until you see the list of exhibitors which include everyone from EBAY to AMAZON, companies that don’t exhibit at ADTECH.

Yet, as mentioned, most of the interactive advertising industry hasn’t heard of Missy. They better shape up and start paying attention however to what she is saying. For some reason the interactive advertising industry has grown into two huge parts:  the brand world and the Affiliate Marketing world. While many people call the Affiliate Marketing world the Direct Response world, the industry itself thinks of itself more and more as “Affiliate” or “Performance” marketing. These two worlds exist side by side, but for some reason there are very few people who cross the line and work in both – or very few that admit it. While more and more agencies are adopting CPA and performance marketing models, and hiring employees from companies like COPEAC, Azoogle and Commission junction, they are trying to keep this push somewhat secret.

However if you look at the attendance at Affiliate Summit, you’d never guess the two worlds are at odds. Over 30% of the attendeeship is from agencies, including the major agencies that only push the brand play. They aren’t willing to admit it, but they are to some degree desperate to understand this part of the industry, which often seems like a weird mix of word of mouth marketing , search and display.  One agency head told me that it was not that they didn’t understand affiliate marketing, but that they didn’t know how to make it fit with their existing clients – which didn’t seem quite right. Amazon.com, one of the leading web properties in the world was one of the earlier adopters of Affiliate marketing, and still to this day has an active, vibrant affiliate marketing program that produces the majority of their new advertising traffic.  If you sign up to any major affiliate marketing company, you will see a list of major brand companies including Dell and Microsoft.

I sincerely believe that brands actually do want to learn about affiliate marketing, that they are interested in having a conversation, but there are agencies out there that are scared of doing anything that changes their current dynamic. They’ve argued so long that brand marketing is only about eyeballs, that they can’t see that the two worlds don’t actually clash – that there are programs that can pay on a performance but also drive eyeballs and reach the audiences they want. Then again, just ten years ago there were brick-and-mortar ad houses that were arguing that interactive advertising would never provide the brand opportunities that television had, and that television networks would always dominate the advertising space.

Affiliate marketers, as a group are innovators. They are often seen by the brand media as no more than “get rich quick” people, despite long term, successful businesses.  Yes, there are those segments in the affiliate marketing industry, just like the industry at a whole that is composed of adware scammers, get-rich DVD pushers, and the same – but even in this segment there are those who are engaged in innovative processes to gain attention to their clients. It’s too easy to group everyone together and ignore the real processes that occur in the affiliate marketing world, which includes the real ability of affiliate marketers to connect to consumers – to get them to listen and pay attention.

Another common excuse I hear is that brands are scared because they are worried about protecting their brand. This might have been an excuse during the start of the affiliate marketing world, but so much technology and fraud measures have been created in the last few years that any worry of rogue affiliates is less possible than ever. Affiliate companies live off of production and the reputable ones have compliance and monitoring teams working full time to discover even the slightest deviation from the norm in reporting. In fact, I would argue that the technology developed to detect fraud in the affiliate marketing industry far outweighs what most display ad networks and agencies have, and many display networks need to learn about policing from the affiliate industry.  Having been involved in both discovering and helping prosecute impression fraudsters, I can tell you that the affiliate marketing industry examines their relationships considerably more than any display network I’ve ever seen.

Agencies need to take a better look at the Missy and listen to what she is talking about.  I promise if they don’t they will slowly find more and more of their clients leaving and going to those companies that actually know who she is.

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Nick Foley and his Crew works the Revenue Street

I wanted to get the skinny on the industry from Nick Foley this week, partially because I’ve known him for a while, but also that despite being around for over a decade, his company isn’t always listed on the top  lists of networks. Well, this year that changed with the readers of Performance Marketing Naming him as one of the top 20 performance marketing networks in the world. It’s obvious that he’s quickly making a name for himself, and TheRevenueStreet is a network to examine as a possible major player in the industry.

How did you personally get into Affiliate & Performance based Marketing?
I started TheMediaCrew in 1999 and RevenueStreet in 2004.  I got involved with performance based marketing or affiliate marketing because I noticed the CPC/CPM model slowly changes towards the CPA/CPL model.  We wanted to be able to capitalize on this change hence; RevenueStreet.com was born.

What makes Revenue Street Unique and interesting?
Well, we have great offers but so do a lot of networks.  My true answer is our Experience, People & Technology.   I have been in the industry since 1999 and in my opinion we have the best team of industry professionals a company could put together.   We maintain a relatively small and tight ship which allows us to respond quickly to changes in our industry and the needs of our advertisers and affiliates.  In addition, we have always leveraged our experience and built our own software platforms, and most recently implemented  EFFECTUS (effectus-software.com).  This is our proprietary performance based marketing tracking software which was in development for close to two years.  It’s now powers RevenueStreet.com and we have started to license it.

What does Revenue Street look for in its affiliates?
We typically look for 4 key ingredients:  Experience, Integrity, Communication, and Results.  We take an in depth look into the affiliates industry experience and the individuals drive to succeed.  Next we lay out our expectations for the affiliate and discuss openly and honestly the process the affiliate plans on using to generate traffic.  Then we encourage a solid line of communication and transparency.  We want to help our affiliates earn as much money as possible so having a solid line of communication with our AM’s is the key to achieving this.  Finally, we want to understand the results they are expecting and come up with a game plan to achieve those results.

What is your perception of all the get rich blogs? Does this hurt or help the industry?
As with many of the “get rich schemes” this just inundates our industry with inexperienced people thinking affiliate marketing is a quick easy home based business.  I believe this mainly spawns fraud and a bad image for our industry.  This is becomes a burden when larger branded advertiser look to affiliate marketing as part of their marketing plans.

What changes have you seen in the industry since 2001, and what changes do you wish you’d see?
I have seen CPM rates going from $150 CPM down to $10 CPM.  I also was involved with the transition from CPM/CPC models moving to CPA/CPL models.  I would like to see a reduction in fraudulent activity.  As I previously stated, big name advertisers and fortune 500 companies need to be able to trust our industry to provide true performance based results without all of the hassle of fraud.  I understand this is a part of business, but also believe it can be controlled and reduced.

What is the most common fraud you’ve found in the industry, and what steps does RS take to combat that?
A majority of our campaigns are lead based and we see a lot of form filling.  One of the steps we take is to maximize the quality of the lead on the landing page.  For example, we implemented a simple not interested button on one of our landing pages which reduced non-interested leads.  In addition, we don’t allow any host & post, all traffic is driven directly to the advertisers landing page which we have seen to reduce fraudulent traffic.  Our platform, EFFECTUS has fraud features which alert us of fishy lead generation and sales.

If you could have any wish, what tool would you like seen made for affiliates?
Sometimes, I can’t understand the way some businesses in our industry operate and stay in business.  If I had a wish, I would probably wish for a way for affiliates to x-ray a company and really see how a company or network operates its business and takes care of its people.

What ideally would you like to teach brands about affiliate marketing?
Affiliate Marketing (aka Performance Marketing) is TRULY a win/win situation for a company and it’s marketer.  The main thing is to educate brands about the legitimate and illegitimate practices in our industry.  If we can create an open line of communication and transparency with big brands, they will ultimately join in the reduction of fraud and the growth of the industry

Whose is the sexiest girl in our industry?
My wife .. 🙂  (another wimp, what da hell?)

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CEOs of Ads4Dough, MediaTrust, COPEAC & RevenueStreet take on SPAM, Gurus and Teenage Affiliates

When I look around the affiliate industry, all I see if one fluff interview after another from the Gurus of the industry. Frankly, I am sure how many interviews I can read that start with “CEO of this company is amazing, innovative and he has a great hairdo to boot.” So, I decided to try something new – which was ask some honest questions  of four different CEOs  of affiliate networks and see what they’d answer independently. What came out was a very interesting comparison between four different companies. I’ll let you do the analysis.

Q:  If you could develop a new technology to the industry to give to affiliates what would it be?

Mike Krongel, COPEC: I hope we developed technology that will benefit affiliates with our recent system launch, we have many enhancements planned that we hope will provide real value to pubs

Nick Foley, Revenue Street: Desktop & mobile apps so affiliates could easily monitor & check daily statistics and revenue.  This would save time for affiliates.  They could load the desktop app and run it all day on their computer and see what offers they are running, what revenue they have earned and what eCPM’s they are getting.  The same holds true for the mobile application.  Affiliates need to stay up to date on all campaigns they are running because if a campaign is not producing for them they need to shut it down.

Jason Akatiff, Ads4Dough: I think anyone that answers this would be crazy 🙂 As someone would just steal their idea and do it. Unless they were lazy of course.

Peter Bordes, MediaTrust: Conversion analytics allowing real-time intelligence and efficiency to manage/trade across media channels. to much media buying is done manually and there is a tremendous amount of data that can be used to become a highly effective trader of media. Think about being to trade from the Bloomberg terminal of affiliate marketing that allows you to trade cpm, cpc’s like they are currencies and connecting the “impression to performance” (btw this is under construction at MediaTrust for 2011) our industry is very parallel to Wall Street in that is all about liquidity and trading it.yet we have sub par trading tools…

Q:  Do you allow affiliates to mask their links (hide them so you can’t see source?) What is the reasoning behind your answer?

Mike Krongel, COPEAC: We discourage pubs from masking their links as it reduces our ability to go to bat for the publisher if there are issues with their traffic. This practice is why some big advertisers are hesitant to work in the space, as they feel if you need to hide something then you’re not really on the up and up

Jason Akatiff, Ads4Dough: Sure. We’ve had numerous advertisers steal campaigns from affiliates reversing out what they were doing based on refers. As an affiliate your only asset is your campaign information. The more you can protect this data the better. Sometimes you have to share it but just be very careful who you share it with and definitely don’t let everyone in the food chain see your data.

Nick Foley, Revenuestreet: Our software EFFECTUS has a referring URL feature.  This feature allows us to trace the URL to its orgin so we can see exactrly what is going on with traffic.  It’s not 100% fool-proof but it does work the majority of the time.  Transparency is a big deal in our industry.  Anytime an affiliate masks URLs and will not allow you to see what is what then red flags fly all over the place.

Peter Bordes, MediaTrust: We do not encourage this practice and push for more transparency which creates more trust for brands to come into our space. “if you are being real you have nothing to hide” and this creates great trust between networks, affiliates, advertisers and consumer. We have to become a transparency & quality driven industry. No more smoking mirrors or short cuts!

Q: Email Marketing aka SPAM is still huge in the industry, what changes do you see to be made? Will it ever go away, or do you feel it’s a necessary evil?

Mike Krongel, COPEAC: I don’t think you’ll ever get rid of spam because it works well for so many people, I do think that spam is a lot less than what it was in the past

Nick Foley, RevenueStreet: I come from email marketing.  It’s how I got my start so I’m a fan.  In 1998 SPAM was not SPAM it was a way to make great money.  Now the ethical way to make money is to email properly.  Email marketing is one of the fastest way to produce traffic but knowing how to email is an art form.  It’s not just loading a list, creative and hitting send.  Ethical opt-in email marketing has taken a form.  It’s must be done correctly for it to profitable.  The Can-SPAM Act has helped and companies like LashBack and UnSubCentral.   They keep email marketing ethics in line.  So in my opinion email marketing is a necessarytraffic vehicle and will will be for years.

Jason Akatiff, Ads4Dough: I don’t think it’s evil first off. As with the drug problem if users stopped buying the the whole drug trade would crumble. Email is much the same way, as long as people want mortgages, acai or their santa letters email will continue. Nothing can stop it or make it go away.
There will always be a way around any filter. It’s gotten a lot more compliant and reputation based. Not so much spray and pray anymore so I see it moving in the right direction.

Peter Bordes, MediaTrust: It is not a necessary evil. Spam is a disease and indicative of people who are interested in a quick buck and not building real businesses. This game continues to happen and appears to be diminishing as the cat and mouse cycles shorten thru industry regulation and less tolerance. It should not be tolerated and should be ousted because it hurts everyone else who is working hard to build real long term value and enterprise ROI.

Q: What do you think the FTC is going to go after next in performance based marketing?

Mike Krongel, COPEAC: I don’t think its any one thing that they will go after next, but I am very concerned over the issues congress is raising with behavioral advertising and what effect it’ll have on the performance marketing space

Peter Bordes, MediaTrust: I hope not and NO.  Inb my opinion the only issue with PBM is the fraud.  It’s on the affiliates who produce the fraud.  The FTC should target those fraudulent affiliates, not the industry.

Jason Akitaiff, Ads4Dough: Whatever is doing the most volume with the most complaints as always.
So in this case I’d guess Penny Auctions.

Peter Bordes, MediaTrust: I don’t think there’s any particular one yet. They have to much to deal with now regarding fraud, privacy and have not finished in the areas they are currently attacking. i think they will start taking a more proactive role in setting guidelines and regulation frameworks. Right now they are playing catch-up on the super highway of digital grey they have left open for far too long. What’s taken the FTC so long to regulate? DRTV and others are!

Q:  What is your opinion of the current GURU and get-rich trend of performance based marketing?

Mike Krongel, Copeac: even guru’s need to earn a living, I do think that newbies getting in to the space need to realize that these guru’s mainly make their money by selling newbs on how they made money online or supposedly made money online

Nick Foley, RevenueStreet: As with many of the “get rich schemes” this just inundates our industry with inexperienced people thinking affiliate marketing is a quick easy home based business. I believe this mainly spawns fraud and a bad image for our industry.  This is becomes a burden when larger branded advertiser look to affiliate marketing as part of their marketing plans.

Jason Akatiff, Ads4Dough: I actually got into this business buying a business opportunity. So as far as the trend I think it’s always been there. The guru is just a different angle for selling them that seems to work well. The whole guru angle is building a following, much like Robert Allen did with offline media back in the day. If you follow you believe. It’s all just marketing love it or hate it.

Peter Bordes, MediaTrust: Just another bubble being created that is only going to cause more issues with the credibility of affiliate marketing. Same as what happened in biz opp. I get 10 tweets a day from the latest new self anointed marketing expert. There is to much noise and bs in this respect which ultimately equals negative backlash.

Q: How do we rectify the growing opinion that the industry is just full of 18 year old kids?

Mike Krongel, COPEAC: The industry was a bunch of 18 year olds, 10 years ago, now they are 28 :). Also bill gates, steve jobs, etc were all 18 at some point as were most of the people reading this. Age shouldn’t deter people actions should

Nick Foley, RevenueStreet: Ten years ago it was, now they are in thier late 20’s and early 30’s.  The industry is evolving and getting older or shall I say wiser.  As we grow as professionals so will our industry.  Unfortunately, we will always have those people who are reckless and create a bad light for our industry.   But as long as we continue to education people in our industry and keep them informed on best practices.  I feel our industry will continue to grow year after year.

Jason Akatiff, Ads4Dough: Honestly it is a lot of young kids that make the echo system go. They read a business opportunity, blog or whatever and want to get involved. That’s what makes our business amazing. Some 16 year old kid in a Brazilian village can become the highest paid person in his whole village ( a real affiliate of ours ). It’s that which make our business great and drives a lot of the sales. It’s up to the industry leaders to illustrate to the rest of the world that there are checks and balances in place to suit more of the ‘branded” world. Think of the CPM world for example they have 1000’s of publishers in a CPM network that could be 18 year old kids or 90 year old men. Most people that look at the industry deal with an account rep at Aol, Yahoo or some other media network. They’re not dealing with publishers directly, I think the same thing needs to happen here if we’re to make a consolidated view.

Peter Bordes, MediaTrust: We need to act like a unified industry and create a centralized voice and organization that focuses on building our industry and its reputation. Every major marketing segment has one. We have the PMA and absolutely need to all get involved. Affiliate networks, affiliate marketers, affiliate publishers, merchants, advertisers and service providers.  We cannot continue as a fragments and black boxed marketing channel. We will not realize our fullest potential and it’s time to grow up. I feel like most people fight the PMA because they don’t want to grow up. I do!

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COPEAC’s Daddy Gets a Make-Over

If you are like me, and been around the block a few times and beat up by at least a dozen affiliates in the industry, you know the name COPEAC and Intermark Media. Today, Intermark Media announced that they were going to change their name to IMM Interactive after 11 years of being Intermark Media. This follows several major branding changes of other major players including Azoogle to Epic Direct, CPAEmpire to Affiliatedotcom, IncentaClick to CX Digital and Neverblue to the Canadian BlueManGroup. I believe this to be part of a rapidly changing industry, where companies like Intermark are going to continue growing substantially, leaving those who don’t know how to make these changes in the dust.

While Intermark Media has been around for over a decade, they were never considered to be the largest of players.  We all knew of the guys over and made fun of their Long Island accents, but that was about it. Then something happened in the last few years and suddenly they are on the Inc 500 list   of the top growing players in the industry. While people used to think of ClickBooth, Azoogle and Hydra as the big daddies of the industry, now IMMi’s affiliate network COPEAC is listed in the same breath. Something happened that allowed this company to make huge strides in the last few years and grow substantially. What exactly is that difference?

At the head of the company is Mike Krongel, the founder of the company. Him and his wife Danielle are what make that difference – it’s their drive, their dedication, the culture that makes IMMi. While many affiliate networks kept on doing the same old thing, not changing their model of focusing on spam, working with the same partners, Mike was out there pounding the virtual payment, making contacts and doing business with everyone. He became involved with the community, joined affiliate organizations, got his name out there and let everyone know that while he wasn’t the biggest dog in the house right then, he was going to do everything he could to take over that title.

On top of that, he was extremely active in the message boards. While I don’t recommend everyone going on boards like WickedFire – and note that many of the members currently hate this publication, he is an active member of WickedFire and several other affiliate communities. He interacted with them when it was necessary and learned from the marketers what was upcoming, who he should be doing business with, what products he should be promoting.  He ignored the pleading of some of the “major networks” (who are no longer on the inc 500 after losing money in 2009) that it wasn’t the way to do business and found his own way of doing things.

If there is anything to be learned from Mike Krongel it is to keep on trying until you hit what works.  While tons of companies in the industry have come and gone, been “one-hit” wonders, IMMi has been there for over a decade, working in this industry, being an intimate part of what makes this industry interesting.

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Myspace to Layout 50% of WorkForce

The News Corp owned Myspace social networking website could soon lay off as many as half of their employees, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Monday.

WSJ reporters Jessica E. Vascellaro and Russell Adams, citing sources familiar with the matter, say that the California-based website could be cutting between one-third and one-half of their 1,100 employees in what they refer to as a “dramatic downsizing of its business.” The cuts could even come before the end of the month, according to their sources.

“The restructuring is the latest step in Myspace’s intensifying turnaround effort,” Adams and Vascellaro said in their report. “The social network reduced its staff by nearly 30% last summer, laying-off hundreds of employees. But the cuts weren’t sufficient to contain costs, a person familiar with the matter said, who added the new cuts would be across the board.”

“Another person familiar with the matter said that, depending on the results of the restructuring, News Corp. may look for buyers for Myspace but there are no current talks over a sale,” the WSJ reporters added.

Myspace was acquired by News Corp, the parent company of Fox Television, for $580 million in 2005. Since then, they have been unable to keep up with social networking competitors, including the uber-popular Facebook.

In November of last year, Vascellaro and Adams say that Facebook attracted more than 150 million unique visitors in the US alone. Myspace’s traffic was slightly over one-third of that, and marked a 15% decrease from a year ago while Facebook enjoyed a 50% increase over that same time period.

According to Jemima Kiss of the Guardian, News Corp COO Chase Carey “signaled the beginning of the end for MySpace during an earnings call in October when he said the site’s losses were ‘not acceptable or sustainable’ … He also told the Reuters Global Media Summit in November: ‘There are opportunities here to do 20 things, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to do any of the 20. If there’s something there that makes sense you ought to think about it.'”

Brought to you by Redorbit.com. Find Technology News at RedOrbit.

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Ideas to Improve 7Search Campaigns

From the 7Search Team

In the fast paced world of Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, second tier ad networks are often treated with an almost “Rodney Dangerfield” level of respect (“I tell ya when I was a kid, all I knew was rejection. My yo-yo, it never came back!”). It’s not uncommon to hear complaints ranging from “Too much traffic, not enough conversions” to “There’s not enough traffic for my niche”, and everything in between.

Many first time customers choose to treat their 7search campaigns with a “hands off” approach. It is not uncommon for even experienced marketers to overlook the potential value that dedicated optimization can present for these campaigns, rationalizing that the time invested is not worth the outcome. With an average of more than 3 billion monthly search requests in 2010 , perhaps it is time to take another look at the 7search network.

Here are some tips provided by the Support Team over at 7search.com to help optimize poorly performing offers.

Tip #1 – Review your ad copy regularly

A poorly written ad can destroy a PPC campaign. PPC advertising is a constantly evolving animal, and your client’s ad copy should present an enticing “call to action” to surfers. The ad should tell a potential visitor what makes your client different from the competition, and should definitely feature any special offers (“X”% off, Free Shipping, etc.).

If you are stuck on how to best word an advertisement, review some of your competition for ideas. Most importantly, ask yourself 2 things. First, “Would this offer draw me in?” and second, does this offer deliver on its promises?” Remember, you have very little time to capture a surfer. If your client’s ad offers a 20% discount or free shipping then this should clearly visible on the landing page. This continuity goes a long way towards establishing credibility with the surfer and encourages a potential conversion.

It’s also absolutely necessary to double check your landing page to ensure that the links are live, as well as to confirm that the geo-targeting settings are accurate. There is no use in paying for clicks from countries which you cannot do business.

Tip #2 – Use Negative keywords

Negative keywords are a great way to streamline the traffic an offer receives by ensuring it does not appear on undesirable SERPs. Do not add long tail negative keyword phrases as our system will not effectively block them. Our system supports the single negative keyword model, although you can add some two word phrases (like WalMart) as well.

The best strategy to determine what negative keywords to use is to evaluate the actual searched phrases. This data is readily available in the Campaign and Daily/Weekly/Monthly reports and will give you the most targeted negative keyword possibilities.

You may also choose to use the negative keyword tool found at http://www.wordstream.com/negative-keywords/ although this may be less effective as it does not take into account the real traffic you have already received.

Tip #3 – Try not to bid on too many general search terms

For poor performing offers you should consider minimizing the use of very general keywords. If you feel that you absolutely must use general keywords, consider setting all single keywords to an exact traffic match setting to test their effectiveness and limit irrelevant traffic.

Keyword phrases containing 2-3 words should then be tested at phrase match. You may also choose set a unique bid for each traffic match setting, with the broad bid featuring a significantly lower bid than the other types.

If your clients are utilizing long tail keyword phrases with 4+ words then a broad match setting should be fine. These terms tend to receive less traffic and bidding exact could negatively impact your clients’ exposure. Also consider utilizing the keyword generating tools mentioned previously to identify new phrases to test.

Tip #4 – Consider testing your offers at different positions in the search results page

While we would ideally prefer our customers to bid the Smart Bid amount to receive top exposure, it is possible for them to bid to appear lower in the SERPs for high volume verticals and still receive significant traffic and conversion. Please keep in mind that occupying lower position is a viable proposal to test our traffic.

Tip #5 – Have Traffic Quality (TQ) reviewed the traffic you’ve received

If you have tried all of the suggestions above it might be time to request a traffic quality review. These reviews can be time consuming and should always be submitted via support case (link found on dashboard). Please allow up 24- 72 hours for a response.

If do have access to server logs or other data that may be useful, please attach it to the support ticket. This data is invaluable to our team when optimizing your traffic.

We also strongly recommend that you install our conversion tracking pixel on your pages, if possible. In addition to counting conversions, the data compiled using this code helps our traffic quality team when a review is requested in determining which sources to block.

Click here for 7Search Deposit Match!

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Have we confused Affiliate Marketing with Get Rich Scams?

Regardless of what you personally think of all the guys who are trying to sell their newest program about how to make money on the internet, there is something to be said for those people who believe that it has nothing to do with affiliate marketing. Yes, some of their blogs are extremely popular, but then against so is Scientology and I wouldn’t recommend anyone join that unless they want to be scanned and probed anally by aliens. And honestly, I think many of the make money guys might do the same thing to you if it made them money. Come on guys, Affiliate and Performance marketing has nothing to do with “get rich” schemes.

I’ve probably with that statement pissed off 10 of the most popular bloggers on the internet. Yeah, some of them probably have something to do with affiliate marketing, but most of them are just trying to get as many people to sign up to their newsletter so they can promote their or some other guys DVD that claims that for $5,000 you can buy all the secrets to Affiliate Marketing. While more than a few of them have made money in the industry, most of them are just guys who made a few thousand dollars here and there and figure that they could make more money convincing idiots that they learned the secret to affiliate marketing and how to make money.

As a friend of mine Jon (the owner of wickedfire, and hopeful DWTS contestant) pointed out to me, most of these guys are just selling DVDs that teach basic thing that you can find on the internet. Honestly, I give them credit in being able to market these products, but I’m curious how ethical it is to charge someone $5k to teach them how to login to Google and add keywords. Many of the people who read these blogs are honestly desperate to learn about interactive marketing, and will believe anyone who tells them that a DVD will teach them the secret. Selling them this crap is really preying on them, especially in this economy.

There are some people who are real superstars in our industry and really know how to make money in the industry. These guys aren’t selling DVDs on how they made money, because they are often too busy to make money. I’ve personally made millions in this industry, owned a major display network, ran one of the largest affiliate networks in the world – because I’ve been doing it for ever. Frankly, I don’t have time right now to create a program and sell people my “secrets.” I’m too busy trying to figure out the next secret for myself.

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Chad French is Peerfly

As part of my mission to educate affiliates and the industry, I’m hoping to introduce other companies in the industry that are keeping it clean. By keeping it clean, I don’t mean wiping down your seat after watching porn in your private office. I mean trying to play by the rules and make a difference in the industry. I have taken an interest in the company Peerfly and Chad French, mainly because I’m digging the guy’s hairstyle and goatee.

That being said, here’s my brief but interesting interview.

How did you personally get into Affiliate Marketing?
I’ve been in different aspects of affiliate marketing since 1999 but I didn’t really start making good money in performance marketing until 2007 while I was in the incentive space. I started building PeerFly in the fall of 2008 and the rest is history.

What makes Peerfly unique and interesting?
a) We don’t have a huge overhead so our profit margins are extremely small which creates the largest payouts.
b) Our platform is unmatched and we’re always adding new features. Publishers can even request specific CUSTOM features for their account. We have API feeds for everything (offers, stats, earnings).
c) We have a lifetime 5% publisher referral program. We’ve had it since day one and will continue to encourage our publishers to refer others. In 2009 we paid out nearly $100k in referral earnings.
d) We’ll do just about anything to get your business including taking a negative margin to beat payouts on another network, giving monthly rewards, or helping you setup your campaign on the weekend at 3am.

What does Peerfly look for in its affiliates?
Nothing really in particular but we will deny publishers who don’t meet certain standards. We accept new affiliates to this industry but they need to at least know what affiliate marketing is and have some sort of goals in place.

What is the most common fraud you’ve found in the industry, and what steps does Peerfly take to combat that?
We’ve successfully stomped out most of the common fraud that may infiltrate other networks by utilizing several elements of technology and screening measures. However, fraud can still sneak in and cause problems. Sometimes just one bogus publisher can ruin our relationship with a client so we have become extra strict when it comes to compliance. Our biggest method for catching fraudulent signups is ID uploads. We have become pretty familiar with most state IDs/Passports in the US/Canada (and other countries) and can spot a fake quickly. We also have an internal scoring system that gives a publisher a score based on over 20 different cross reference checks with known publishers/known fraudulent IPs. In addition to that, we have a full time compliance team who watches incoming traffic like a hawk.

If you could have any wish, what tool would you like seen made for affiliates?
We’ve got a lot of tools already integrated into our platform and we have lots of ideas that we will slowly be adding over the next several months. The great thing about having a custom platform and a full time developer is that anything our affiliates wish to have, we can create for them. Some of the things we’re working on right now would be an instant search for our offer inventory and more controls and transparency for our clients (which can mean even better service for our publishers).

What ideally would you like to teach brands about affiliate marketing?
Before we really attempt to attract the big brands I’d rather us work out our kinks as an industry and grow into something more reputable. We need to be backed by an association who can weed out the scammy networks and also fight for us in Washington. Until that happens, brands are going to continue pouring their advertising dollars into more conventional methods. However – when we get to that point – I predict there will be a huge boom in our industry to the likes we’ve never seen. How are the big brands going to turn down the opportunity to extend their sales force by tens of thousands and only pay for results? I think this practice speaks for itself and is unlike anything else out there in terms of getting results and seeing the best ROI.

Who is the sexiest affiliate manager that you’ve met?
My wife! (although she is technically in accounting)

Peerfly can be found here.

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Getting the Most out of Offervault

For a long time I’ve used OfferVault. For the last year or so, while running Affiliate.com, I used it to check on competitors offers, to check and see if any of them were offering higher prices or worse, offering our offers without permission to the general public. Before then, even running a major comscore advertising network, OfferVault was (and is) the “go to” place for me to check on CPA deals that our $150M display network should run. I think that a lot of people aren’t getting the best out of OfferVault and I hope with my regular articles, I can show you where to focus, what offers are really hot and how to monetize them.

This week, I just want to talk a bit about some of the top offers being listed on offervault, and where to go from there. If you have suggestions on topics in the future, I am always reachable at pace@pacelattin.com and would love to get some ideas what you’d like to learn about, what you think is important.

It’s Halloween time, and if you didn’t know this, over half of the nation still hasn’t gotten its elves, witches or Snooki costumes. If the idea of dressing up as a retard from Jersey Shore interests you, the place to buy this is at BuyCostumes. Since they are so popular one of the top searches this month is BuyCostumes and that is lead by my friends at Azoogle with their $13.50 payout. Erhg, sorry, now known as EpicDirect. Many of the other networks are just piggybacking those offers. I would have linked to eFLOW network and their offer, but at the time of this writing, their link was down. For those who don’t know, BuyCostumes is a huge supporter of the affiliate marketing industry, and heavily involved with making this industry better, so I would 100% support them this season through Azoogle/Epic Direct.

In the Zip and Email Submit category, relative newcomer QwikMedia has taken stage with the “I like that Victoria’s Secret” offer and its Pepto-Bismol colored landing page. Qwik media has taken a well-known method of promotion, worked with some of the top companies for their back end, created a great landing page and has made something that converts better than any other zip and email submit right now in the space. Also, take a quick look at EWA’s QualityHealth offer, I understand its converting really well. If you are looking for a place to place this, some of the sub-tier search engines like 7Search actually have some good space for giftcard relevant keywords.

I’ve been told that Ringtone and Mobile offers are HOT again after several major players in the space have gone out of business or closed their doors. Flycell has taken a place in the market behind Sony Mobile aka Jamster, but is going strong in our space because of their new relationships with networks. AdCommunal, the Canadian Based organization and home of “Sir Owen”, has become one of the new homes of ringtone offers, especially with their new Flycell New Landing Page offer. This is actually one of the most popular offers right now on OfferVault and I’d recommend getting in touch with those folks soon.

Last of all, I want to talk about the Gold Offers out there. They are doing amazing for almost anyone, especially spammers…umm… sorry, the editor told me I need to call them “Permission based e-mailers.” These offers are huge right now because the price is gold is going through the roof and certain conservative celebrities are really pushing gold right now their radio and TV shows. The best converting Gold Offer is still through mega-network Neverblue at $50 CPA. From what I am told, this continues to be the best place to get this offer.

Before I forgot, If you didn’t know, there is a great function offervault has that no other company has instituted (I’ll have to ask, but I think they own the patent to the idea.” Their search agent allows you to choose keywords and thus campaigns and the send you notices when there are changes in those keywords. This is huge, can you imagine doing a campaign say for DirecTV for $15 only to find out later you could have got the same thing from Abacus Affiliates for $18?

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George Avery Gets It, and so does GetAds.

George Avery used to be the right-hand man at Affiliate.com (the network formerly known as CPAEMPIRE) until a few years ago. Not soon after Affiliate’s parent company MediaBreakaway was hit, and then subsequently lost a multi-million dollar lawsuit from Myspace, he left the company along with half-a-dozen other employees to start GetAds, a direct competitor.   Avery’s company took its own path, broke away from the “spamking” labels that could have followed them and became a major player in the industry seemingly overnight. He’s one of those guys that everyone likes, his way of doing business down to earth and because of that has earned the trust of his clients and affiliates. Also, as an ex-hockey player and hockey fanatic, he’s always willing to get down and dirty to protect his clients best interests.  In the Denver area, when people ask about affiliate marketing, GetAds and George have become synonymous with the growing industry. He provides some real insight in this interview to compliance issues, how to run a company and how to do business in general.

GetAds has managed to stay out of trouble with no major lawsuits, no compliance actions. What are you doing to keep your company clean that other companies may not be doing?
At GetAds we have a very proactive approach to compliance. We monitor our traffic constantly to make sure that if a rogue affiliate is doing something against the Terms & Conditions of the offer, we are the ones to catch them first. You can’t rely on the Advertiser to monitor things, by the time it is flagged by them it is too late. Each of our Affiliate Managers is trained on what to look for and how to deal with fraud & illegitimate traffic. They are the front lines of our defense. It’s really just about staying educated about what is going on in the industry and keeping ahead of the frauders.

What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned in the industry? What can you pass on to others in the industry from this lesson?
The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that networks live and die by their relationships. It doesn’t matter how great your offers are if nobody likes you. With so many competitors in the industry, affiliates can choose to run with whoever they like. That’s how we get them in the door, and then we keep them there with our offers & service.

What do you feel that GetAds provides to advertisers that other networks do not provide?
We are constantly telling advertisers how they can improve their offers. Whether it is landing page tweaks, little details in the path, or even suggesting a new traffic type, we tell them what they need to know to make more money. We have advertisers coming in to our office, meeting with us at shows for strategy sessions, and doing calls on a regular basis to make sure the entire process is flowing smoothly. When you work with us, you aren’t just setting the offer live on our network and leaving it there, you are getting the full package.

What do you feel that GetAds provides to publishers that other networks do not provide?
For publishers, we really get to know them. We want to have an intimate knowledge of their business and how they market offers. That allows us to bring in better offers and make better suggestions to them on how to increase their profits month after month. We are always talking to our publishers to find out what they want, what we are doing right, and what we need improvement on. It really boils down to the relationship. The stronger your relationship is with your network, the more money you will make in the long run.

What lessons have you learned from Hockey that you can apply to managing affiliates?
The number one thing is that it takes a team. Hockey is not an individual game, and neither is managing affiliates. You need people that are each good at one aspect of the business, and when you put them all together you get the full effect. You also need to be ready for anything and look at the game from all angles. You never know where the game winning shot is going to come from.

What do you look for in affiliates that helps you know they might be a good choice to approve?
We look for affiliates that are serious about their business, and are willing to be transparent in how they market. I’m not saying we need to know your landing pages, keywords, campaigns, etc., just that we need to know how offers are being marketed. We want affiliates that know the difference between Incent traffic and Non-Incent traffic. Basically, we want to work with anybody as long as they are serious about making money and they are willing to follow the rules.

I know you are familiar with DirectTrack, but what made you choose LinkTrust?
We worked with DirectTrack for years at CPA Empire (affiliate.com), but when we started GetAds we decided to go with LinkTrust. The number one reason is tracking. We just have less issues with tracking discrepancies on LinkTrust. Plus, they are a smaller company, like us. I like that I can call the CEO on the phone if we have issues and he will get them taken care of ASAP.

What changes do you expect in the next year for Performance / Affiliate Marketing?
It’s only going to get bigger. The projections for 2011 are something around $28 billion for the online ad industry, and affiliate marketing is going to be a large piece of that. I think we are going to see more networks shutting down and consolidating, much like we saw in 2010. Margins are slimmer, and a lot of people are being pushed out.

What products do you think would benefit from Performance Based marketing, and how would you bring them into the industry?
I think that any product in the world would benefit from performance based marketing. They key in bringing them into the industry is to make sure that the advertiser understands exactly what their goals are. They need to know exactly what a lead or sale is worth to them. They also have to have their back-end conversion funnel optimized so that they are ready for the traffic. Once they have those things in place, and if they have solid cash flow, we can bring their product to market.

What technology do you want to see created for the industry?
Anything that will help us prevent fraud and lower advertiser scrub rates as well as stopping other networks from scrubbing. Affiliates need to get paid for the work that they do in promoting offers. Nobody wins when there is fraud or scrubbing in the picture.

GetAds can be found here.

George Avery used to be the right-hand man at the Affiliate.com until a few years ago. Not soon after Affiliate’s parent company MediaBreakaway was hit, and then subsequently lost a multi-million dollar lawsuit from Myspace, he left the company along with half-a-dozen other employees to start GetAds, a direct competitor.Avery’s company took its own path, broke away from the “Spamking” labels that could have followed them and became a major player in the industry seemingly overnight. He’s one of those guys that everyone likes, his way of doing business down to earth and because of that has earned the trust of his clients and affiliates. In the Denver area, when people ask about affiliate marketing, GetAds and George have become synonymous with the growing industry.

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ClickBooth Explains Parties

ADOTAS – How do you explain the mystique of ad:tech? What makes it such a remarkable event for digital marketers: the breakout sessions? The evocative panels? The intense networking?

Or… Is it because the parties freakin’ rule?

ClickBooth’s parties have become such the thing of digital marketing legend that when a rumor floated claiming the affiliate network wouldn’t play host to fun and games this year, ad:tech almost canceled the conference. (No, not really.) Fortunately, the boy and girls at CB proved that was bunk — “Affiliate Apocalypse 2: Return of the Immortals” will be held tonight (Wednesday, Nov. 3) from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. at Marquee (289 10th Ave. between 26th and 27th Sts.)

Thao Tran, head of social media for ClickBooth, chatted with me about why parties are an important part of the ad:tech experience and why I can never remember how I got home after a ClickBooth event.

ADOTAS: ClickBooth is known for its fantastic ad:tech parties — why does the company pride itself on its parties?

TRAN: Because we work hard and we play hard. Have you seen our campus? Besides, our parties are a great way to get to know everyone outside of their suits and ties. It’s more of getting to know the industry players on a more personal level.

What’s on the menu for this party? How are you upping the game from past parties?

Hehe, that’s a pretty good question. How about having a full PREMIUM open bar? We’ve gotten a lot of RSVPs already. If people don’t get there early, they’re looking at standing in a line that has been known to extend around the block.

Where is it better to party — New York or San Francisco?

New York, definitely! But we reserve the right to re-evaluate that decision before ad:tech San Fran.

Who parties harder — affiliate marketers or search marketers? Can ad network people even hold their liquor?

We know of some search marketers who can throw it down all night and some affiliate marketers who would make the “Jersey Shore” kids look like wusses. Let’s just say that some of our reps have competed against them and have lost. Anyone up for a challenge?

Do we have to fight for our right to party? Who do we have to fight?

No, but you will need to fight your way through day two of ad:tech.

Why does my head always hurt so much the day after one of your parties?

Because that’s when you know you partied like a rockstar! That kind of life ain’t for everyone.

There was this really hot brunette I was chatting up at the last San Fran party, but I totally forgot her name. Could you help a brother out?

That was actually Clicky in a wig. But he’s gotten a haircut since then, so hopefully there won’t be any more confusion. Awkward!