Editor’s note: This is the first post in a two-part series on predictions in performance marketing in 2013.
The performance marketing industry has undergone massive changes in 2012.
The list of challenges the industry weathered over the past year is long and varied. It includes news of several long-standing affiliate networks going out of business; email delivery getting more difficult; Facebook and Google all but banning affiliate marketing; the federal government becoming more involved in the cash advance and “for-profit” education verticals; the rise of real-time bidding (RTB); data management platforms (DMPs) becoming critical in display advertising; and mobile marketing efforts gaining prevalence among marketers’ digital strategies.
While performance marketers shift priorities and tactics on the fly, the good news is that money continues to pour into performance marketing for its scalability, ROI focus and measurable results.
With all that in mind, 2013 looks to be a significant growth year for the companies that continue to survive in performance marketing. Further advancing the industry’s prospects will be the increasing influence of Online Darwinism — a term I coined to describe the natural evolution of the performance marketing industry, particularly its ability to rid itself of rogue marketers and agencies. (more…)
The performance marketing industry continues to grow. And with that growth comes significant opportunities — and challenges — for digital marketers looking to tap into performance marketing’s core strengths: data, technology and accountable results. Recently, I sat down with Peter Klein, MediaWhiz’s senior vice president of media services and head of MonetizeIt, the agency’s affiliate network, to discuss the state of performance marketing and his predictions for the industry’s future.
You can read a full transcript of the interview here.
It’s not much of a stretch to state that performance marketing is the future of online marketing. The 2012 IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report indicates that more than two-thirds of all marketing transactions will be paid for on a performance basis. Total U.S. spend on performance marketing will grow by almost $5 billion, to $25 billion in online advertising revenue, versus 2011 spend.
Peter Klein, who is head of MonetizeIt, the MediaWhiz affiliate network, has been in performance marketing since the early days of the industry. With nearly 20 years of experience, he has seen the industry grow into one of the most highly demanded forms of marketing. In addition to his duties running MonetizeIt, Klein also oversees MediaWhiz’s AdNet Display Advertising and Data Acquisition divisions.
He recently sat down with us and discussed the state of performance marketing and how they can help your business more profitably engage, acquire and retain customers.
Sultan Riaz: Let’s start with the basics: What is affiliate marketing? Peter Klein:Affiliate marketing is a type of performance marketing that involves advertisers, publishers and an affiliate network. An advertiser is typically a direct response client/brand that has a product that they want to sell or generate leads for. The publisher, also known as an affiliate, is the one that actually conducts the marketing via the media channel they specialize in. The affiliate resides between the two entities. It acts as everything from operations, compliance, technology, tracking and media planner.
The three marry together nicely to form a kind of performance marketing ecosystem where everybody shares in the profits and work towards driving marketing results (more…)
MediaWhiz’s leaders are continually sought after as resources for opinions, advice and expertise, based on our deep understanding of industry trends, the needs of our customers and the broader marketplace in which we operate.
For the week of Nov. 26-30, 2012, MediaWhiz experts were quoted or featured on a variety of digital media news and trends, including Peter Klein’s predictions for Performance Marketing in 2013; what lead-gen marketers must do in 2013; the success of the click-to-call campaign for MediaWhiz; and what marketers are thankful for in 2012 | Read previous MediaWhiz In the News posts.
DMConfidential | Nov. 28, 2012 | Op-Ed by Peter Klein
The performance marketing industry has undergone massive changes in 2012.
The list of challenges the industry weathered over the past year is long and varied. It includes news of several long-standing affiliate networks going out of business; email delivery getting more difficult; Facebook and Google all but banning affiliate marketing; the federal government becoming more involved in the cash advance and “for-profit” education verticals; the rise of real-time bidding (RTB); data management platforms (DMPs) becoming critical in display advertising; and mobile marketing efforts gaining prevalence among marketers’ digital strategies.
While performance marketers shift priorities and tactics on the fly, the good news is that money continues to pour into performance marketing for its scalability, ROI focus and measurable results.
MediaWhiz, a leading integrated digital media agency, today released results from the first six months of managing clients’ click-to-call campaigns in partnership with RingRevenue. Total calls into MonetizeIt, the MediaWhiz affiliate network, nearly quadrupled from the second to third quarters of 2012 as a result of the integration of RingRevenue’s patented call performance-marketing technology. Calls driven through the network increased 64 percent during that time period.
Search Engine Journal | Nov. 27, 2012 | Op-Ed by Marc Purtell
The key to remaining competitive in organic search is to always be two steps ahead of the search engines. Given the frequency and impact of search engine algorithm updates, those who don’t consider the long-term effects of their optimization efforts are subject to pitfalls similar to those many brands experienced after Google’s Panda and Penguin updates of 2012.
Part of the puzzle of predicting the future of search engines will take with respect to changes to their search algorithms is first understanding their goals and aligning them with the goals of any brand’s SEO campaign. Google’s mission is to provide users with the most relevant and useful information relevant to a user’s search. Therefore, in order to maintain organic performance, a brand’s content plan must take similar aim.
DMConfidential | Nov. 26, 2012 | Featuring Peter Klein
Holiday offers Just as consumers should be doing, marketers should be budgeting for the holidays. More specifically, they should be planning on ways to capitalize on the festive season by having enough money in their budgets for seasonal offers to their clients, according to Peter Klein, senior vice president of media services at MediaWhiz.
“Lead-generation marketers must ensure their budgets have enough leeway to meet seasonal offers for the holidays,” he says. “The holidays are the best-performing season for cash-advance offers. It’s important to keep existing clients happy, as they will undoubtedly present additional budgets to hit for year at the last minute. Lead-gen marketers need to do their best to meet clients’ year-end demands to ensure inclusion in advertisers’ 2013 budgets.”
Plan and set goals Part of closing one year is planning for the next, so it’s only logical for lead-generation marketers to do likewise. But how should they go about this? “Review your financial projections for 2012 and plan realistic goals, month-by-month, for 2013,” Klein says. “Once the numbers are planned, it’s critical to outline how you plan on hitting these numbers, such as staffing, advertisers and potentially acquisitions.”
He adds that the first quarter requires special attention, given the slow start that’s likely to come thanks to New Year’s Eve/Day and conferences. “There are good offers to take advantage of, such as tax season and auto insurance, to help offset some of the slowness and set the proper tone for 2013,” Klein says.
Review org charts and processes The end of the year is when people tend to take time off – it’s also a good time to take a sober look at your org chart and processes, according to Klein.
“If you are able to move the business forward without some of your employees, then you need to cut ties or upgrade their positions,” he says. “If you can’t succeed and are inundated with tactical maneuvers, then it’s time to get job specs together for the positions you need and seek out the right staffing level.”
As marketers ensure that org charts include positions, descriptions and an ideal model, they should also make sure that all processes are running smoothly. “Whether it is establishing weekly meeting agendas, sales processes, offers setup or just basic document storage, the quieter, post-holiday weeks at year-end are the time to go through everything in preparation for a successful 2013,” Klein says. He adds that marketers don’t even need to be in the office to carry out these kinds of audits.
DMConfidential | Nov. 21, 2012 | Featuring Peter Klein
Peter Klein, senior vice president of media services atMediaWhiz:
“I’m thankful for a dedicated, hardworking team that has continued to drive client results despite many challenges this year in our space — from Yahoo in email, to Google in search and Facebook in social media, among many others. I’m also thankful for the industry making significant positive progress in lead quality via great monitoring services, such as CPA Detective, in addition to the stellar self-regulation efforts from industry leaders and organizations like the Performance Marketing Association. I’m most grateful for the advertisers that see the value in paying for performance vs. branding, which is contributing to the growth of performance marketing by billions of dollars each year.”
Accountability and accuracy are two issues that seem to forever plague the performance marketing industry. Whenever advertisers and publishers call for greater accountability from their affiliate networks, they are often met with silence.
Since we believe strongly in high standards of accountability, we set out earlier this year to improve the results of the click-to-call campaigns run through MonetizeIt, the MediaWhiz affiliate network. We found the perfect partner to do so, RingRevenue, the industry-leading provider of call performance marketing solutions. In February we partnered with RingRevenue to develop a comprehensive pay-per-call program to drive high-quality inbound phone leads to advertisers.
Today, I am proud to announce preliminary results of that partnership. In just six months of partnering with RingRevenue to run our click-to-call campaigns, we have quadrupled total calls run through MonetizeIt. Calls driven through the network increased 64 percent during that time period.
Here are some more impressive statistics showcasing the success of MediaWhiz’s partnership with RingRevenue:
MediaWhiz has doubled its number of advertisers earning revenue from click-to-call campaigns run through MonetizeIt in the six months since the partnership was signed.
Click-to-call conversion rates in the network are 20 percent, exceeding the industry average.
Publishers in the network earning commissions from click-to-call campaigns are experiencing an average 160-percent increase in earnings-per-publisher.
Needless to say, we’re very impressed with the performance of our click-to-call campaigns run in partnership with RingRevenue. Results of the partnership indicate it offers a lucrative opportunity for advertisers and publishers to increase their lead-conversion rates. (more…)
There’s no doubt that performance marketing is a significant force in online marketing, and will continue to grow. What will 2013 have in store for the performance marketing industry? As I see it, there are four key trends that will influence performance marketers’ work in the new year:
1. More brands will invest in performance marketing. The 2012 IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report indicates that more than two-thirds of all marketing transactions will be paid for on a performance basis. Total U.S. spend on performance marketing will grow by almost $5 billion, to $25 billion in online advertising revenue, versus 2011 spend. This indicates that performance marketing will continue to dominate the online ad-spend model. Brands that consistently miss their online marketing ROI targets will comprise the majority of new spend on performance marketing campaigns, as they seek to take advantage of the industry’s guaranteed results. Traditional agencies will continue to focus on branding for their clients in the digital space, and farm out performance marketing budgets to trusted affiliate networks and marketers.
2. Lead quality and compliance take center stage. As brands continue to invest their marketing dollars in performance marketing, they will place increasing pressure on performance marketers to achieve their investment goals. The SaaS and lead quality product market will blossom. These two dynamic sectors of online markets will help advertisers pay for only top-quality leads, enabling performance marketers to get paid appropriately for such quality. The government will continue to get involved in online marketing regulations, such as Do Not Track legislation, and more states will attempt to pass nexus tax laws. Efforts will likely be minimally intrusive, and the industry will push for self-regulation efforts as a means to limit involvement.
3. Mobile lead-gen has its moment in the sun. Mobile marketing will become a much larger piece of the advertising budget in 2013. eMarketer forecasts 138 million smartphone users in the U.S. next year, comprising 43% of the total population. It will be critical for advertisers to optimize websites and create shorter lead-generation forms with click-to-call for mobile devices. In our “always on” world, consumers need instant gratification from the brands they allow into their online world. Advertisers that provide consumers with access to immediate customer service will win their business.
4. Consolidation of media channels. A larger premium will be placed on internal media sources to provide quality and consistency. As such, the lead-generation industry will see a continued and more aggressive consolidation of affiliate networks. Many affiliates will merge with or acquire one or more of their affiliate media sources. Specifically, many mailers and media buyers will join forces with networks to increase margin, reduce compliance risk and deliver on allocated budget to survive and create a competitive advantage.
Long dismissed as a niche form of online marketing, performance marketing has become a multibillion-dollar force in the digital-media ecosystem. For CMOs, performance marketing, of which affiliate marketing comprises the largest share of revenue growth, is no longer a marketing strategy that can be ignored or delegated to junior-level marketing managers. It is now a driving force behind many brands’ online growth and customer-acquisition efforts. As such, it requires CMOs’ devout attention to properly use and scale in order to realize long-term customer-acquisition value.
The rise of affiliate marketing, and its growing influence with digital marketers, is no accident.
Affiliate marketing has existed for more than a decade. It helps advertisers achieve their ROI goals by using publishers (affiliates) to conduct their marketing efforts via multiple media channels on a pay-for-performance basis.
Affiliate marketing can be used for any vertical, brand, company, language, time frame, or demographic. Importantly, it is a useful testing ground for CMOs who desire online marketing channel options, instant gratification, speed, and a clear measurement of return on advertising spend (ROAS) or return on marketing (ROM) investment. In fact, many affiliate marketers are experts in industry metrics and traffic sources, and can help CMOs develop campaigns based on long-term brand and customer-acquisition. This is critical as the industry evolves into a larger mobile-consumer target.
But affiliate marketing’s benefits extend beyond lead generation. Affiliate marketing professionals and networks are at the forefront of innovative online marketing campaigns. The rise of social networking sites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pandora, were largely built on affiliate marketing ad spend revenues.
Every brand in the digital age needs a strong lead-generation component to its online marketing strategy. Affiliate marketing is CMOs’ answer to that need.
The benefits of affiliate marketing are more thoroughly explained in a new MediaWhiz insight paper from, “The CMO’s Guide to Affiliate Marketing.” It outlines critical steps CMOs should take to begin working with an affiliate; defines core terminology; and information on why it is critical for CMOs to invest some of their marketing spend in the affiliate marketing channel.
Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt of an interview with Jeremy Leonard, SVP of strategy and operations at MediaWhiz, that was published Oct. 9, 2012, in Website Magazine. Read the full interview here.
If you’re looking for an edge (and who isn’t) check out Website Magazine‘s interview of Jeremy Leonard, the SVP of Strategy and Operations at digital media agency MediaWhiz and a real whiz when it comes to conversion optimization.
Numerous well-known names fill the MediaWhiz client roster including Nielsen, Home Depot, Discover and many others – and Leonard’s experience with these brands and their challenges shines through in the interview below, providing Website Magazine readers with compelling insights into high-level lead generation and conversion optimization, some guidance on the debate over form length, and how traffic quality and mobile devices are forcing advertisers to shift their approach quickly.
WM: FOR THOSE IN OUR AUDIENCE THAT AREN’T FAMILIAR WITH MEDIAWHIZ, DISCUSS THE AGENCY’S ROLE IN THE DIGITAL LANDSCAPE.
JL: MediaWhiz is an integrated digital media agency that works with brands to help them more profitably engage, acquire and retain customers. Clients include a broad range of leading advertisers such as Unilever, Nielsen, CarpetONE, The Lasik Vision Center, Home Depot, Discover and First PREMIER Bank.
Historically an online performance marketing agency we have evolved into a digital customer acquisition agency focused on direct response and lead generation. We have practice areas in affiliate marketing, search, creative display advertising, email, data acquisition and social media.
WM: WHY SHOULD AN AGENCY (OR ANYONE) BE CONCERNED WITH CONVERSION OPTIMIZATION WITHIN LEAD GENERATION SPECIFICALLY?
JL: Great question with several compelling answers:
Everyone should be concerned with conversion optimization for a very simple reason: consumer traffic to your website isn’t free. Even if your site traffic is coming from SEO or Facebook “Likes,” you spend time and money to generate that traffic. Marketers should naturally demand a return on that investment. That ROI should be in the form of consumers completing a specific call-to-action. In the world of lead generation, that call-to-action will be in the form of a qualified lead or sale.
Some advertisers may look at lead generation specifically and think, “Well, I’m only paying a publisher for a lead – why would I need to go to the trouble of making a site optimize properly? I don’t pay for anyone who doesn’t convert.” This couldn’t be further from the truth. Performance-based lead generators have hundreds of advertising offers that they can run to their display inventory, drop to their email lists or make SEM bids. The offer represented by your website is no better than if the publisher can’t generate a fair return on its media investment.
Poorly converting sites will result in a high number of clicks but a low number of leads; this instantly tells the publisher that the problem is not with its traffic but with your site. Your offer will be taken out of rotation, and you will be lucky if anyone sends traffic to your site again.
MediaWhiz’s leaders are continually sought after as resources for opinions, advice and expertise, based on our deep understanding of industry trends, the needs of our customers and the broader marketplace in which we operate.
For the week of Nov. 12-16, 2012, MediaWhiz experts were quoted or featured on a variety of digital media news and trends, including online lead-generation in the post-PC era; extolling the role and value of affiliate marketing; best practices for online lead conversion; and what it’s like to be a digital media buyer. | Read previous MediaWhiz In the News posts.
Ori Carmel, VP of performance strategy, MediaWhiz To understand the impact of mobile on the lead-gen industry, and online marketing as a whole, marketers should look toward the developing countries in Africa and Central and South America. There they will find the future of mobile lead generation and e-commerce.
Lacking infrastructure, entire regions in the developing world have leapfrogged the PC era. People in these regions rely on mobile technology to operate and streamline many aspects of everyday life, including business interactions, regardless of how large or small those businesses are. At the click of a button individuals can conduct their entire business cycle, including acquiring new customers and solidifying existing ones through mobile-optimized e-commerce and lead-gen platforms.
For the lead-gen world, the implications are massive. As the U.S. transitions to the complete mobilization and personalization of both information and access, potential and existing consumers can now be reached at any time, in any place. This ongoing shift, which is only speeding up, is changing consumption patterns of information and purchasing right before our eyes. Marketers can gather more precise and relevant information to better tailor offers to behavioral and demographic profiles. Brands can pinpoint the exact moment at which the potential client is most receptive to signing up or converting.
Furthermore, with increasing resources going toward tailoring brands’ mobile presences and usability, consumers continually grow accustomed and now expect to be able to gather info, sign up and transact online. As a result, consumers are more receptive than ever to being targeted for intelligent, value-driven offers and opportunities on their mobile devices.
The future of PC usage in the U.S., or anywhere else for that matter, is far from obsolete. However, it is certainly past the growth stages of its life cycle.
Rodney Dangerfield would have loved affiliate marketing. It gets no respect, at least not from CMOs and senior marketers.
Long considered the ugly stepchild of digital marketing, affiliate marketing has grown to become one of the leading drivers of brands’ online marketing success. It accounts for more than $21 billion in online advertising revenues in 2011, according to the IAB.
Thankfully, this lack of respect is starting to change. Marketers are taking notice — affiliate marketing is a powerful force in brands’ online marketing strategies. Read more …
I typically write about performance marketing, but in the wake of being harshly affected by Hurricane Sandy, as so many others up and down the East Coast have been, I am going to write about appreciation. As I write, my family and I are on day eight of life on Long Island with no electricity, no heat, no TV and, worst of all, no Internet access! This situation has helped put into perspective what I take for granted as part of my daily life.
I have friends and family that have had their homes flooded or destroyed entirely, all while I escaped with only minor property damage and transformation of my home into a wine cellar at 55 degrees. I haven’t slept more than a few hours in the last week.
Trees and power lines are down. School has been closed all week, and Halloween offered a much-needed break. Lines of 50-100 cars and three-hour waits to get gas can still be found on every major street corner. My car has become an expensive generator to charge my phone. My office, located on Water Street in Manhattan’s Financial District, has been closed since the storm. Regardless, I continue to repeat to myself: “I am lucky, and I appreciate what I have.”
It’s amazing what the human spirit can overcome, and there are many positives to take away from this experience. (more…)
