New Affiliate Marketing Industry Organization

June 13th, 2008

You may have wondered why there is no major industry organization to support affiliate marketing. I can tell you that many have tried this in the past and they have all failed for one reason or another. I have personally been involved in several attempts to build an Affiliate Industry Organization. One or two recent attempts even had the backing of Performics, LinkShare, CJ, Affiliate Summit, and several large agencies and advertisers. Unfortunately, they all fizzled out before they had a chance to take off. Hopefully that will all change with the formation of a new group called the Performance Marketing Alliance or PMA.

The group defines itself in these words:

The Performance Marketing Alliance is a new industry association for performance marketing professionals. The goal of the Performance Marketing Alliance is to raise the visibility and credibility of performance marketing.

Performance marketing is a comprehensive term that refers to online marketing programs where marketing partners are paid on the performance of their marketing programs. Stated another way, online merchants (also known as advertisers) pay their performance marketing partners (also known as affiliates or publishers) only when an action is completed, such as a sale or completion of a lead. Performance marketing includes affiliate marketing, CPA (cost per action) marketing, search marketing, lead generation, and other types of performance based programs. Performance Marketing is one of the most effective and measurable forms of online marketing because merchants only pay marketing partners when a transaction is completed.

The intent is to officially launch the Performance Marketing Alliance in January 2009 as a self-sustaining non-profit organization supported by membership dues, managed by a full-time professional staff and directed by volunteer industry leaders voted on to a board of directors.

It is important to note that this group is trying to go beyond the normal “Affiliate Marketing” classification in order to address larger issues facing pay-for-performance advertising.

I have had several conversations with the folks creating this group and I think they are on the right track to avoid the mistakes of past groups. Let’s wish them luck. The performance marketing industry desperately needs an organization to educate the online marketing community, promote best practices, condemn unscrupulous behavior, and promote performance marketing.

Some suggestions to help the PMA avoid the mistakes of the past:

Have a clear and well-defined vision - know where you are going so that members can all strive towards a common goal
Focus on integrity and transparency - this should not be a secret order of performance marketers…transparency is the key to trust building
Avoid being too pro-affiliate - affiliate marketing has many benefits but it is not the right answer for all advertisers…recognize the pros AND the cons of affiliate marketing so that everyone can make informed decisions. If the group is viewed as being affiliate evangelists then their statements will be less valued than if they are viewed to have a balanced outlook on the industry.
Quality vs Quantity - do not go out looking for tons of members by offering free membership because most of those folks will never add any value to the group. Focus on quality in order to ensure an active and committed membership base. Two ways to do this are to have a formal membership application and review process as well as requiring membership dues. Anyone who doesn’t meet set criteria or who is not willing to pay a membership fee is probably not qualified or committed to the group.
Dedicate resources - many groups fail because they are run by volunteers only and not dedicated staff. We are all busy executives who may have good intentions but get pulled in many directions…without a dedicated staff who will focus on this group it will almost certainly take the back seat to other pressing responsibilities and the group will suffer. Use member dues to fund this where appropriate.

I hope those tips come in handy.

Best of luck PMA!

UPDATE

I am pleased to say that I was nominated to the be on the Formation Advisory Board (FAB) for PMA. Perhaps this blog post had something to do with that. Thanks for the nomination PMA, I humbly accept.

Posted in Affiliate Marketing, NETexponent Fun by Peter Figueredo | | 1 Comments

Feel The Love - Client Love

June 11th, 2008

At NETexponent we have a term to describe the feeling we get when our good work is recognized by clients, “Client Love”. Client Love can manifest itself in many forms such as a friendly email note praising our efforts to a smiling face and pat on the back during a client meeting.

Our team at NETexponent feeds on this Client Love and (since we are a team) when one person gets Client Love they immediately pass it around the company and share that love with everyone. For confidentiality reasons I cannot share many Client Love examples with you but I just wanted to let our clients know we appreciate their business…but we crave- their Client Love!

Here are a few public examples so that you can see what I mean by “Client Love”

One of our newest clients announced our relationship on their own company blog.
Another one of our clients praised our PPC Search Marketing services on an agency comparison site.
Of course we love when clients let us post testimonials on our own website.
Clients sometimes post testimonials to LinkedIn.
Many folks have even joined our Facebook Group and/or Fan Page.

Thanks again to all of our loving clients…the feeling is mutual!

Posted in Meet Us, NETexponent Clients, NETexponent Fun by Peter Figueredo | | 0 Comments