Building Trust in Today's Business World

Building Trust in Today's Business World

From the pre-internet era to Web 2.0 and beyond, times have changed, but fundamental business values have not.

It used to be that you could trust someone by their word and the look in their eye when you shook hands. Just because there is less personal contact today, it does not mean that traditional values can be disposed of.

Business has become more virtual but the loss of interpersonal contact does not mean that companies should be able to ‘get away' with more or obfuscate the truth. Trust still must be earned, even if a virtual handshake replaces a physical one.

Even in the internet world, relationships are built one at a time and are not something that technology will ever replace. Relationships will always require trust and meaningful dialog between two mutually benefiting parties. Business partnerships are built with care and attention through intelligent dialog and genuine interest from both parties.

Building trust is a constant, ever-changing process that does not have an end. To grow trust companies must work together, plan, test and repeat. Trust requires learning from one another and sharing knowledge to mutual benefit. Trust means delivering what's been promised and more. Trust means being true to yourself and true to your word.

Understanding the Importance of Trust in Media

The words “trust” and “media” are historically contradictory. In fact, in today's online world, the synchrony of these two ideas is almost extinct. However with more and more of the marketing budget being allocated to online advertising, trust is of extreme importance. Marketeers need their budgets to perform for them, and they need to trust their partners with their investments. So marketers need to be able to trust the affiliate networks that they pay – and rely on - to bring them leads. Real leads. Marketers need a media partner they can trust.

Finding an Affiliate Network Built on Trust

With so many options in today's industry landscape, finding the right affiliate network can be a daunting task. First, businesses should ask pointed questions to ensure the affiliate network is closely aligned to the company's success. Businesses should also review case studies on past and current performance of existing clients. Second, companies should review the existing client lists of an ad network to determine which other companies have trusted them - and received positive results - in the space. Finally, businesses should request a “trial period” to ensure successful results.

Finding the right affiliate network shouldn't leave a marketer feeling nervous. Marketers should be confident about working with the right partner to generate returns on their investment and make sure their brands are protected from an un-vetted network of advertisers and affiliates. Companies that believe in putting the trust back into business should collaborate. Companies should partner with an affiliate network that offers:

1) Trust, Honesty and Integrity.
2) REAL Leads.
3) On-Time Payments.
4) World Class Technology.
5) Excellent Customer Service.

If you have any questions about this topic, feel free to contact me at Jivan.manhas@gmail.com

By Jivan Manhas, Managing Director, Advaliant. For more information, please contact press (at) advaliant (dot) com.

Advaliant (http://www.advaliant.com/) is a next generation performance marketing company comprised of the Advaliant affiliate ad network and the Advaliant services agency. Advaliant offers a ‘one-stop-shop' for solutions across all online marketing channels including: affiliate and search marketing, contextual and display advertising, lead generation, e-mail marketing, mobile marketing, data management, Web publishing and list management.

Advaliant affiliate ad network and services agency work seamlessly together to deliver high-performing, customized, marketing campaigns that create awareness, generate leads, drive sales, and retain customers. Advaliant is a wholly owned subsidiary of MediaTrust.

Wanna Date My Ad? Why Recommending Dating Partners and Pushing Ads are One in the Same

Written on April 10th 2007 Author by Joseph Matheny

So, being that my background is largely in building social applications, all the way back to the late 80s, when I hosted BBSs on my old Mac se, until now. I often see the world through the goggles of social software. In fact, in a round-about way, all my software excursions, including DVD, have always included a data gathering and customization component somewhere in the schema. That is, in fact, how I came to build a customized ad delivery platform using Flash generator and eventually ended up in my current position, CTO of a marketing technology company MediaTrust. All that to explain why I’m about to say this: technically speaking and even philosophically speaking, there is no difference between recommending a potential dating partner and ‘recommending’ a ad to an end user.

Tick-tick-tick. I can hear you thinking about that.

But you know I’m right. The same matching algorithm that I use to cross match a person to a person, I use for matching a person to an ad, or an ad to a piece of content or the triangulation of ad, user and content. The more the system knows about you and the longer an ad and content exist in the system, the longer trail of behavior exists for all said entities. Yes, content has behavior, ads have behavior. There’s cross reference and trends of other entities that access both, there’s view, responses, etc. Yes, this is a long trail of information, so a weighting system is used to attribute heavier relevance to recent activity, versus older activity.

Example: 20 something, male- buys lots of beer and sports paraphernalia, gets married (behavior changes), becomes expectant father (behavior changes), has a child (behavior changes), etc.

Of course, some behaviors will remain persistent, some will change slightly, some radically, some will disappear, and other new ones will emerge. So, the relevance window will be defined by many factors from target to product to season. As television and broadcast in general start to move towards the MPEG 4, 7 and 21 standards, this scenario maps to the near future world of teleputing (see Gilder’s Life After Television). As I said in last month’s screed, it will be the responsibility of our industry to build and keep trust, and we will only do this by delivering relevant, contextual, permission marketing and never abusing or betraying that trust.

You may have figured it out, but my ultimate goal is not to deliver bigger and better ads for bigger and better conversions. I know, I feel like I just stood up and blasphemed at mass, but it’s the truth. Better and more relevant/contextual ad delivery is a byproduct and admittedly necessary component to a media scenario I seek. That is to say, a complete, on demand, relevant, intelligent, immersive, mediascape that is responsive, realtime, and always on. Part of maintaining the ‘in game’ experience is the removal of the ‘interruption’ qualities of advertising and marketing. See my friend Dave’s book This is Not a Game for a deep dive on the ‘in game’ experience and how it relates to marketing.

Next month, I will be sending another podcast from the floor of Ad:Tech SF. Only this time I’m telling you in advance because I’d like to talk to anyone who is developing technology along these lines. I’ll interview you on camera and trade anecdotes, and give you your 15 minutes right here on ADOTAS. Also, we can talk about a new standards and practices organization I am starting up: http://www.themediatrust.org

Contact me at pod@mediatrust.com and set something up, or take your chances and hit me up as I roam the floor. I’ll be the guy with the Canon XL1S on my shoulder.

Until next month, happy networking.