Maximize your traffic: MediaTrust Landing Page Rotator live today! | Mediatrust Blog

Maximize your traffic: MediaTrust Landing Page Rotator live today! | Mediatrust Blog

MediaTrust Launches Innovative Landing Page Rotator #Optimization Technology

Affiliate Publisher & Advertisers Increase Performance ROI Dramatically With New System

Continuing our efforts to create an industry-leading platform, MediaTrust is proud to announce the release of our automated landing page optimizer.

Through regular updates and improvements to our technology, we are committed to providing our publishers with simple and effective tools that will help them increase their earnings. Our Landing Page Rotator is an optimization tool, which is already available on a number of campaigns, with the list continuing to grow. Just check the tracking section of your favorite campaigns and look for the “Optimize Landing Pages” check box.

The Landing Page Rotator is designed to ensure the traffic you generate is reaching the landing page that converts best for your type of traffic, automatically optimizing the results. When activated, the tool performs a test on all incoming traffic in an effort to determine accurate conversion rates. As conversion rates can vary greatly for each traffic source, the tests are performed on individual traffic sources rather than on network traffic as a whole. The landing page with the highest conversion rate for each source is then served increasingly often.

Additionally, the tool continues to perform tests on a small subset of the traffic. If any traffic source changes, with a resulting change in conversion rates, the optimizer will begin serving the page that performs best under the new conditions. There is no need for any manual intervention.

The landing page report we recently released will help you monitor all of these changes. Conversion rates and commission statistics are available for each landing page, making it very easy to track the lift provided by the landing page optimizer. Simply monitor the landing page report on a regular basis, noting the conversion rates for each page and the total. Over time the total conversion rate will increase, and you will clearly notice the larger amounts of traffic going to your top page.

In the competitive world of online marketing, optimization is becoming increasingly important and MediaTrust is pleased to be at the forefront. Do not hesitate to contact your publisher manager if you have any questions.

MediaTrust Launches conversionChat Services to Reel Customers Back In

MediaTrust Launches conversionChat Services to Reel Customers Back In

Automated chat feature draws exiting visitors back into the purchase cycle, improving advertiser conversion on traffic by up to 30 percent

ConversionChat offers the consumer a personalized and relevant way to engage with a brand or product and gain valuable purchase information

New York, NY (PRWEB) February 23, 2010 -- MediaTrust, a New York-based digital performance marketing company, has added conversionChat services to its performance marketing platform offerings to help online advertisers recapture exiting traffic before they leave a marketer’s site. Developed in MediaTrust Labs following the company’s recent Kenzei acquisition, conversionChat is the latest addition to MediaTrust’s suite of conversion marketing and email remarketing solutions that help advertisers and publishers maximize revenue from their traffic.

MediaTrust conversionChat re-engages users via exit chat services when they begin a form or shopping process but do not complete it. The feature draws customers back in by answering questions and/or offering incentives to complete the sales process. Testing has shown that this conversion marketing tool can potentially bring back up to ten percent of total sales or leads, improving return on investment for online advertisers by up to 20 percent when used with other MediaTrust Conversion Solutions. Services such as conversionChat have become very popular recently as marketers seek to optimize the output they attain from existing interest and traffic they generate.

“ConversionChat offers the consumer a personalized and relevant way to engage with a brand or product and gain valuable purchase information,” said Peter Bordes, co-founder and CEO of MediaTrust. “At the same time, this remarketing tool helps our partners generate additional revenue from traffic they’ve already captured, and increase their conversion rates and ROI on their media spend– it’s a win-win for everyone – especially in the lean-budget times we live in.”

ConversionChat uses custom creative to match the look and feel of the advertiser’s site or offer. Setup involves just a single line of JavaScript placed on the advertiser’s page. The feature can be used for save-a-sale, up-sell and cross-sell transactions. It is also applicable to affiliate marketing, because it can track initial sales back to publishers for credit.

“ConversionChat helps budget-minded marketers do more with less,” said Mike Stocker, vice president of strategic development with MediaTrust. “It’s an easy, cost-effective way to win more sales – it should be on every website with a lead form or commerce engine.”

ConversionChat is the first innovation to emerge from the recently announced MediaTrust Labs initiative. It is the latest addition to MediaTrust’s Conversion Solutions, which allow advertisers to attain more from their online marketing efforts by increasing the likelihood of retaining and converting a new customer. MediaTrust’s suite of remarketing products is designed to optimize a marketer’s return on traffic using intelligent software tools that retarget by reaching out to the customer after they have left the traditional conversion path.

For more information on conversionChat and MediaTrust’s robust set of remarketing tools, visit http://mediatrust.com/conversionsolutions.html.

About MediaTrust
MediaTrust makes pay-for-results online advertising easier. MediaTrust offers an innovative online technology platform, supported by best-in-class service, and access to the best direct response advertisers and affiliate publishers in the industry. MediaTrust enables its publisher and advertiser partners to easily create and deploy pay-for-performance marketing campaigns that deliver leads and sales. In 2009, the Company was ranked 9th fastest growing U.S. Company by Inc. Magazine and the number one performance marketing network on mThink’s online advertising Blue Book list. Founded in 2004, MediaTrust is headquartered in New York City with offices in Toronto and Santa Barbara.

For more information on MediaTrust's pay-for-results advertising and publishing solutions, please visit: www.mediatrust.com, or follow the company blog: blog.mediatrust.com, or call 1-877-987-8785. MediaTrust news and updates can also be found on Twitter (@MediaTrust) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/mediatrust).

MediaTrust Acquires Kenzei Conversion Marketing and Email Remarketing Platform

 
On this week’s special edition of Relevantly Speaking, MediaTrust is announcing the acquisition of conversion marketing company Kenzei. Scott Parent talked to Mike Stocker today on the floor of Affiliate Summit West.
We are committed to making MediaTrust the most comprehensive and full service performance marketing platform. The Kenzei acquisition helps us execute on this vision. We are excited about Kenzei being a part of our team and we look forward to working with their existing customers as well as new ones.

Kenzei’s solutions help advertisers increase their site conversion, improve data monetization and improve communication with consumers by retargeting website and shopping cart abandoners via a unique set of automated email and phone solutions. As of this announcement, Kenzei’s conversion marketing and email remarketing solutions will be integrated into the MediaTrust offering and marketed as MediaTrust Conversion Solutions.

"We’ve long admired Kenzei’s innovations in helping advertisers increase conversion rates after consumers have abandoned forms and shopping carts,” said Peter Bordes, CEO of MediaTrust. “Kenzei’s performance-based solutions are incredibly compatible with both MediaTrust’s technology and philosophy. This acquisition is the first of many steps we have planned in 2010 towards fulfilling our vision of becoming a full-service performance marketing platform for results-focused advertisers and publishers.”

The Kenzei offerings being added to MediaTrust’s pay-for-results solutions include:

• ConversionMail, targeting consumers who have completed just part of a multi-step opt-in process or have abandoned a shopping cart;
• RemarketMail, enabling marketers to up-sell and cross-sell additional relevant items from their own catalogs to existing customers; and
• ConversionCall, which automatically follows up with consumers who abandoned a signup process but provided a phone number

“I could think of no greater home for the Kenzei family of products than MediaTrust, which has a much-deserved reputation as the best-performing and most trustworthy performance marketing player,” said Mike Stocker, CEO at Kenzei, who will stay on as vice president of strategic development at MediaTrust. “Working together, we will be able to provide advertisers and publishers with results second to none.”

Via a single login, MediaTrust offers a diverse set of services for advertisers and publishers working with performance-based online advertising campaigns. The company's proprietary cost-per-action platform supports campaigns using display advertising, paid search, social media, and e-mail, and includes a network of vetted, trusted publishers to ensure the highest quality results. Combined with the newly acquired Kenzei retargeting solutions, the MediaTrust digital marketing platform will enable advertisers to setup, track, manage and maximize value from performance-based campaigns.

trendwatching.com's January 2010 Trend Briefing covering "10 CRUCIAL CONSUMER TRENDS FOR 2010"

trendwatching.com's January 2010 Trend Briefing covering "10 CRUCIAL CONSUMER TRENDS FOR 2010"

Opportunities aplenty in 2010 for those obsessed with satisfying consumer needs in new ways

January 2010 | First of all: It’s going to be another interesting year. Has the global recession really, officially ended? And if so, will the aftermath cause pains for years to come? Whatever the outcome, we find ourselves spotting more recession-proof opportunities than ever before. Why? Consumers, recession-stricken or not, still value innovations that are pragmatic, or exciting, or those that save them money, or entertain them.... oh well, you get the picture.Time to get busy again!

Win an Amazon Kindle Pre-Loaded with the Top 10 Marketing Books of 2009!

Win an Amazon Kindle Pre-Loaded with the Top 10 Marketing Books of 2009!

Earlier today MediaTrust published our picks for the Top 10 Marketing books of 2009. We believe that reading any, or all, of these books will help you to elevate your business to the next level. That said, you can go out and buy them yourself, or you can enter our swanky little contest to win an Amazon Kindle pre-loaded with these books.
You only have to do two things to enter:
1. Make sure you are following us on  Twitter.
2. Tweet out the following: Attendance at ASW + @MediaTrust list of Top 10 Marketing books of ‘09 = becoming a better marketer! Details: http://bit.ly/4qIYl1 #ASW10
Because we believe in the value of education in our industry, we want to reward those that are taking the next step to expand their knowledge of Performance Marketing by attending Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas. After you follow the instructions above to enter our contest, make sure you stop by the MediaTrust Meet Market Table #34 to drop your business card off for an extra chance to win. To be clear, you don’t have to attend ASW to enter, but it could help your chances.
We’ll be picking a winner on February 1st, so you have until then to enter. Good luck!
UPDATE: We’ve had a few inquiries, so I wanted to be clear that this contest is open to entries worldwide. So get in there and Tweet from far and wide

MediaTrust’s Top 10 Marketing Books of 2009

As the media world shifted platforms over the past decade, marketers and advertisers scurried to replace their traditional methods with innovative alternatives. MediaTrust published the "Top 10 Marketing Books of 2009" which is a compilation marketing thought leaders. In 2009, a handful of books popped up to untangle the mystery of connecting with contemporary audiences and building consumer trust. Here are ten of our favorite marketing books that came out this past year:
The Whuffie Factor
Tara Hunt
Marketing consultant Tara Hunt explores the concept of building online Whuffie (social capital) both for brands and individuals. Hunt focuses on word of mouth engagement, a strategy she calls Pinko Marketing. A breezy, entertaining read – a solid Freshmen effort from a young, creative Canadian.

Free
Chris Anderson
After introducing the concept of the Long Tail back in 2004, Chris Anderson returns, this time examining a different byproduct of online abundance – the rise of pricing models which give products and services away for free. How can this exist in a capitalist system? Free answers that question.

Crush It
Gary Vaynerchuk
Wine connoisseur Gary Vaynerchuk candidly exposes his recipe for web success in this quick, upbeat read. By customizing his career to match his own DNA, Vaynerchuk has built a multi-million dollar business, and successfully branded himself as the internet’s most passionate wino.

What the Dog Saw
Malcolm Gladwell
After fourteen years of staff writing for the New Yorker, author/sociologist Malcolm Gladwell has explored the most fascinating reaches of modern society. What The Dog Saw is a collection of his most memorable articles — adventures that not only thrill, but also engage the mind.

Super Freakonomics
Steven Levitt, Stephen Dubner
The two rogue economists behind the 2005 best seller Freakonomics continue their offbeat investigation of incentive-based decision making. Their subjects of study? Prostitutes, suicide bombers, drunk drivers and more. Who knew Economics could be so gritty?


Inbound Marketing
Brian Halligan, Dharmesh Shah
Hubspot founder Brian Halligan provides a How To guide for getting noticed on the web without spending a dime. This book gives a comprehensive overview of SEO, social media marketing, and everything else you need to expand your web presence at no cost.


Baked In
Alex Bogusky, John Winsor
Two of the advertising world’s leading creative directors team up to tear down the wall between production and marketing. According to their theory, future products must be designed with innovative marketing elements baked in, in order to survive the shifting media climate.

The Backchannel
Cliff Atkinson
Ever notice how audience members use their laptops or smart phones during live events to create their own conversation through social media? Atkinson describes methods for presenters to effectively harness this chatter, and use it to create more interactive presentations.

Trust Agents
Chris Brogan, Julien Smith
Two of social media’s biggest names join forces to demonstrate the impact, both positive and negative, that digital influencers can have on brands. This book, a mix of case studies, theories and tutorials, will help individuals build their digital integrity, and brands build their social value.

Why She Buys
Bridget Brennan
Women are responsible for 80% of all purchases in the US, but 90% of the marketing execs trying to reach them are men. Why She Buys delivers luminous insight into female purchasing patterns, while giving advice on respectfully marketing to today’s sophisticated woman.

Bonus – Marketing Book of the Decade:
The Tipping Point
Malcolm Gladwell
How does a fad become a phenomenon? In this marketing masterpiece, Malcolm Gladwell studies business sensations that emerged from humble origins, and dissects the fundamentals of their success. While the 2002 publication date may seem ancient, The Tipping Point is more relevant now than ever.

Relevantly Speaking Interview with Jim Banks on UK Affiliate Markets

This week on Relevantly Speaking Scott Parent talked to Jim Banks of Unanimis about the current state of international affiliate marketing. Jim gives a great interview and point of view on what is happening overseas and the difference between the US and UK markets.

Download or watch using Quicktime: iPod | Hi-Definition
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Search Engine Strategies Chicago Conference panel “The Oprah Winfrey Litigation: What Affiliate Marketers MUST Know“

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
I am thrilled to be joining the Search Engine Strategies Chicago Conference panel “The Oprah Winfrey Litigation: What Affiliate Marketers MUST Know“ Wednesday, December 9th from 2:30pm-3:45pm at the Chicago Hilton. The panel is led by a fellow affiliate marketing executive and thought leader Kris Jones. Kris is the President of the PepperJam Affiliate Network – which was just acquired by GSI Commerce. The panel promises to touch on a very hot and controversial topic, and certainly one that is on the forefont of many of our MediaTrust initiatives – like the launch of our compliance center and anti-fraud technology.

Notice that the panel description does slant towards the favor of the merchant and places most of the responsibility on the affiliate’s shoulders. This is a position that I will be countering as we have seen merchants equally participating in using the same tactics on thier landing pages. Affiliate networks are also responsible in making sure both the affiliate publisher and advertiser are compliant. We have experienced affiliates asking how they can make sure the merchant on the other side is compliant as well as the advertisers. Our position is that we are all in this together and need to collaborate to proactively get ahead of these issues and help set the regulation frame work . Rather than waiting in the grey area for regulation to to be dictated to our industry from regulators who dont understand online marketing and disrupt our industry.

I am very pleased to see a well-rounded panel and good affiliate industry representation at the SES show. I hope to get a chance to connect with everyone at the show. Here is more info on the panel:

The Oprah Winfrey Litigation: What Affiliate Marketers MUST Know
In August, Oprah Winfrey’s production company brought a lawsuit against over fifty Internet marketers and their affiliates alleging numerous intellectual property rights violations against the marketers and the affiliates. Because many of the merchants used affiliate networks, these merchants were being sued regarding actions by affiliates that the merchants did not know or pay. Because many of the affiliates disappeared the moment that they were sued and because many merchant/network contracts preclude indemnification, the merchants may be liable for significant damages.

Using the context of the Oprah case, the panelists on this session will discuss whether the merchant/affiliate network model needs to be changed and how the risk can be mitigated. While the industry is unlikely to ever be risk-free, it is possible to manage risk by:

* Understanding how techniques like behavioral and contextual targeting affect consumers, affiliates and merchants
* Understanding the legal and regulatory environment
* Understating risks involved with prospective marketing partners
* Using and maintaining proper contracts that allocate risk and provide appropriate indemnifications, and
* Keeping informed about the changes in technology, marketing practices and the regulatory environment.


Attendees will learn how to identify these issues and develop policies and procedures to keep informed about the current technology, marketing strategies and regulatory compliance. The ultimate goal of this knowledge is to help insulate merchants from liability and protect their brands and reputation.

Moderator:

Kristopher Jones, President & CEO, Pepperjam

Speakers:
Mark Rosenberg, Of Counsel, Sills Cummis & Gross P.C.
David Adler, Partner, Adler Law Group
Grant Crowell, Senior Media Analyst, ReelSEO.com
Peter Bordes, Founder CEO and Chairman of the Board, MediaTrust

Search Engine Strategies Chicago Conference panel “The Oprah Winfrey Litigation: What Affiliate Marketers MUST Know“

View more presentations from MediaTrust.

Relevantly Speaking Podcast

This week we’re taking a break from the business of online marketing on Relevantly Speaking. Instead we’re getting into the Holiday spirit and thinking about charitable causes. How can we make a difference in the lives of those less fortunate as a community? As Individuals? MediaTrust’s own  Christopher Smith talks about his work with WhatGives!? and how everyday ordinary people can do something good, tell someone about it and do it again.
As one final programming note, we want to let you know that the next installment of our EDU Webinar series goes live this Monday, December 14th. It features MediaTrust Head of Sales,  Jivan Manhas talking about the importance of international affiliate marketing.

MediaTrust Honored with Top Industry Ranking in mThink’s Blue Book

MediaTrust Honored with Top Industry Ranking in mThink’s Blue Book

Performance Marketing Platform Selected as Number One of Twenty on mThink’s Performance Marketing Networks and Performance Marketing Platform Selected as Number One of Twenty on mThink’s Performance Marketing Networks and Exchanges List

 

MediaTrust, the digital performance marketing company, has been appointed the top spot on mThink’s Online Advertising Blue Book Top Twenty Performance Marketing Networks and Exchanges List. mThink’s Top 20 list is compiled based on expert views, traffic data, measures of industry influence and other editorial factors. The appointment is a testament to MediaTrust’s leadership and innovation in the performance marketing space.


"mThink has its finger on the pulse of the performance marketing industry, and we are honored that the company has recognized MediaTrust in this way,” said Peter Bordes, CEO of Media Trust. “mThink’s accreditation of MediaTrust validates our two-pronged approach of creating a best-in-class performance marketing platform and raising awareness of the efficacy of performance marketing amongst the broader advertising community.”

Via a single login, MediaTrust offers a diverse set of services for advertisers and publishers working with performance-based online advertising campaigns. The company's proprietary cost-per-action platform supports campaigns using display advertising, paid search, social media, and e-mail, and includes a network of vetted, trusted publishers to ensure the highest quality results. In 2009, MediaTrust was ranked the 9th fastest growing U.S. company by Inc. Magazine.

About MediaTrust
MediaTrust makes pay-for-results online advertising easier. MediaTrust offers an innovative online technology platform, supported by best-in-class service, and access to the best direct response advertisers and affiliate publishers in the industry. MediaTrust enables its publisher and advertiser partners to easily create and deploy pay-for-performance marketing campaigns that deliver leads and sales. In 2009, the Company was ranked 9th fastest growing U.S. company by Inc. Magazine. Founded in 2004, MediaTrust is headquartered in New York City with offices in Toronto and Santa Barbara.
For more information on MediaTrust's pay-for-results advertising and publishing solutions, please visit: http://www.mediatrust.com, or follow the company blog: blog.mediatrust.com, or call 1-877-987-8785. MediaTrust news and updates can also be found on Twitter (@MediaTrust) and Facebook.

Relevantly Speaking – Interview with Burst Media CEO Jarvis Coffin

Relevantly Speaking – December 2, 2009 | Mediatrust Blog

Over the Thanksgiving break, CT Moore of Revenews sighted Relevantly Speaking in his article titled “5 Online Video Ideas for Businesses.” He praised us for our “high production” value, but took us to task on what he called a violation of blogging etiquette. We’ve got some stuff to say about that.

We’re also talking to Burst Media CEO, Jarvis Coffin, about why online advertising should be viewed with the same lens as traditional media. Jarvis talks a lot about creativity, accountability and brand safety in the online advertising world.

Download or watch using Quicktime: iPod | Hi-Definition

Subscribe (FREE) to the show in iTunes: iPod | Hi-Definition

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How Would You Fix Tiger's Image?

"How Would You Fix Tiger's Image? Inc Magazine asks !

Entrepreneurs in public relations weigh in on how they would repair the billionaire golfer's scandal-plagued image."

At the end of the day yesterday i was asked by Inc Magazine to give a quote on how i would advise Tiger Woods on the PR front. I had no idea why they would be asking me. So i shot off the response, and low and behold when i got home from the office Tiger was all over the media . Good food for thought regarding how social media has changes our world drastically, and certainly drastically changed the may PR handled Tigers response.

The Inc article was beyond timely and i certainly understand the relevance and insights they pulled from other CEO's in relation to last nights media blitz. Good food for thought here in the article.

Facebook's virtual currency conundrum | Blog | Econsultancy

Social networking giant Facebook is reportedly going to pull in approximately half a billion dollars this year in advertising revenue. It's a significant amount, but hundreds of millions of dollars more are being made on Facebook through virtual currency transactions that Facebook has no part of.
Facebook, of course, has its own official virtual currency, Credits, but most Facebook app developers can't integrate them with their apps, and are not required to use them.
In short, Facebook created a thriving developer ecosystem with its open platform, but the 'open' nature of it has potentially cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars a year in revenue. Ironically, apps developers like Zynga, which have developed own virtual currency, are some of Facebook's most lucrative advertisers. They make lots of money from their Facebook apps, and Facebook gets some of that back in the form of ad buys.
But if Facebook is going to get where it needs to go, that's not enough. Rumors are now circulating that Facebook may be planning to inject itself into the virtual currency trade that takes place on its service by mandate.
According to Insider Facebook, Facebook is talking to large developers about virtual currency, and mandatory use of Facebook's Credits system is on the table. Ostensibly, Facebook would be looking to take a relatively substantial cut of the revenue. Perhaps even "an Apple-like range around 30%" as Inside Facebook speculates.
From a business standpoint, this is a no-brainer. Facebook could probably generate more than $1bn in revenue in 2010 if it muscles in on the virtual currency business. And there are good reasons why developers would be interested in Facebook playing a stronger role. After all, by making Credits universal, there'd be a single virtual currency that all Facebook users can put to use on any app that features virtual currency. That, of course, makes the virtual currency more valuable to end users.
Unfortunately, there are a number of challenges that may make Facebook's life difficult. A mandatory Credits regime would:

• Change the very nature of the Facebook platform. By mandating that Credits be a virtual currency option in all apps that employ virtual currency, Facebook would be going back on what it told developers when it launched the platform: "You are free to monetize your canvas pages through advertising or other transactions that you control". Even if developers are free to use third party virtual currency platforms alongside Credits, the requirement that Credits be used too is not "control".
• Change Facebook's relationship with developers. Right now, developing an app for Facebook doesn't create a formal relationship with Facebook. Yet if Facebook mandates that all (or some) developers support Credits, it will essentially turn Facebook into a development 'partner' of sorts, which could raise some interesting issues. For instance, will developers have creative control over the implementation of Credits, or would Facebook require that integration be done in a certain way? If so, it's worth considering that Facebook's requirements may be at odds with the creative desires of the developer.
• Create new responsibilities and burdens for Facebook. Right now, Facebook does have a variety of rules that developers must abide by. And it does occasionally enforce them. But even so, the recent scam offers controversy has led to a lawsuit in which Facebook is named as a defendant, even though it really wasn't involved. So imagine the potential liabilities Facebook could incur when it is directly involved with the majority of the virtual currency transactions that take place in third party apps. What if a rogue developer creates an app that scams users out of Credits, for instance? Facebook will certainly have to police against these sorts of things, but that will be tough and costly.

If Facebook does make Credits mandatory, all of the above lead me to believe that the company would likely have to move towards an App Store model for apps taking advantage of virtual currency. That's a big shift, and I can't think of any development platform that has ever made the type of transition we're talking about here: very large and almost completely open to very large and very controlled. How developers react is a big question mark. I certainly wouldn't be pleased if I had a bunch of apps making good money and was suddenly forced to invest in integrating Facebook's virtual currency system and therafter having to give up a double-digit percentage of the earnings from it.
Frankly, I think Facebook probably underestimated how successful its development platform would be. In an effort to lure developers, who in turn would build apps that would lure more users, Facebook seems to have overlooked the possibility that those apps themselves would become so lucrative. It was merely trying to get more users which it would figure out how to monetize those users later.
And so it figured it would throw developers a bone: let them figure out how to monetize their own apps. Ironically, it was the developers who created the more lucrative business model and Facebook has left hundreds of millions of dollars on the table with its "you build it, you monetize it, you keep the money" approach. Now it wants to get those dollars back. It will definitely need a lot of good luck.

Ad Management Plug-Ins And Tutorials For Your Website

The world of digital media and advertising is moving and fragmenting at a blister rate. There are so many different ways to publish and even more ways to look at monetizing your blog and web site.  There are almost to many choices out there in the noise of ad solutions, ad network & affiliate networks. Publisher also need to keep in mind that time is money, and a important aspect of any ad solution is ease of use so you can focus on quality content, users experience and the myriad of social distribution mechanisms for increase your community, traffic and reach. Smash Magazine has created a good list of plug-ins that can simplify your ability to not only manage ads on you site. But what type and how they show up on the site based on your content and users. Remember that not all ads are created equal.

"There are plug-ins for virtually every CMS and blogging platform out there that allow you to rotate banner ads or insert blocks of ad code.
This post is a collection of ad management plug-ins for WordPress, Movable Type, Drupal and Joomla! to get your started. At the end are a few tutorials for creating your own banner ad rotation scripts in PHP and ASP (so that even if a plug-in is not available for your CMS of choice, you’ll likely be able to build your own)."

1. Plug-Ins For WordPress

Who Sees Ads?
Control which visitors see ads on your website, based on where they came from, whether they’re logged in, how old the post is and more.

AdRotate
A simple tool that lets you manage banner ads (even for multiple sizes and different placement) on your website.

Ads For Old Posts
This plug-in automatically inserts an ad block in your posts once they’re past a certain age.
OIO Publisher
An ad manager that focuses on maximising your revenue, saving you time, and keeping you in complete control of your ad space. The php-script can be used to sell and serve ads and it is also available as a ready-to-be-used Wordpress plugin.
OpenX Manager
Lets you integrate the open-source ad server OpenX, along with the ability to import data from an existing OpenX server.

WP125
Manage 125×125 pixel ads without having to edit your template or keep track of when advertisements need to be removed.
Advertising Manager
A plug-in to manage Google AdSense or other ad network ads.
Twitter Brand Sponsors
Allows up to 10 different brands to syndicate their most recent tweets on your blog’s sidebar.

All in One AdSense and YPN
A plug-in to integrate AdSense and Yahoo! Publisher Network ads into your blog.
WordPress Classifieds Plug-In
Another plug-in to create a classifieds section on your blog.
OmniAds – WordPress Ads Plug-In
An ad plug-in that allows you to post HTML or PHP units within your code.

Post Layout WordPress Plug-In
A plug-in to let you control where your AdSense ads appear within a post.
Feed Layout
Add advertisements or other items into your RSS feed.
Smart Ads WordPress Plug-In
A plug-in to automatically insert ads at the beginning and/or end of each post, depending on the post’s length, age or category or the blog member’s status.
Another WordPress Classifieds Plug-In
An easy-to-use plug-in for creating a classifieds ad page on your blog.

AdSense Revenue Sharing
A great plug-in if you want to share your AdSense revenue with multiple authors on a single blog.

WP-banner
A plug-in that allows you to put banner ads in a widget or a DIV anywhere on your website.
Random/Rotating Ads
Show any kind of ad on your website, either in widgets or in your template.
Clickbank Hop Ad Plug-In for WordPress
Lets you add Clickbank ads to your website through a configurable widget.

2. Plug-Ins For Joomla!

Featured Entries and Ads
This plug-in lets visitors to your website purchase a featured entry or ad, and it completely automates the process, with PayPal payment included.

MultiAds
Lets you insert any type of ad in your website’s articles.
Adsense and YPN Inserter
A plug-in to insert your Google AdSense or Yahoo! Publisher Networks ads into your website automatically, with full control over position and display.
YOS Ads with pop-in and inject features
Lets you insert ads on your website via either a pop-in (separate window) or inject page (between two other pages).
Hide GoogleAds in PDF
If you let users create PDFs of your website content, this plug-in will hide AdSense ads in those PDFs.
Text Link Ads Module
An easy-to-use plug-in that handles all the technical aspects of managing Text Link Ads.

Hide Google Ads in RSS Feed
This plug-in prevents AdSense ads from showing up in your website’s RSS feeds.
Chitika eMiniMalls Mambot 1.0
Automatic integration of Chitika eMiniMalls in your website, including automatic placement of ads, selection of a default ad channel and color adjustment of ads.
Phoca – Google AdSense Easy
A very quick and easy plug-in for adding AdSense ads to your website by just copying and pasting in your AdSense code.

Page Peel Banner
A plug-in that manages page peel banner ads for your website, including impression and click statistics. It supports JPG and Flash ads.
AdSense Deluxe Module
AdSense management plug-in that includes a complete set of ad formats.
AdSense Easy Insert
Allows insertion of two AdSense ads around your content (one before and one after).

3. Plug-Ins For Drupal

Advertisement Module
A module for displaying ads (graphical or text) in a random order anywhere on your website. Ads can be automatically or manually inserted into your website.

ad_flash
An add-on that allows Flash advertisements to be displayed with the Drupal ad module.
Affiliate
Allows you to set up your own affiliate network and issue affiliate links to partners.
Classified Ads
A module that allows you to create a text-based classified ads section on your website.
Click-Thru Tracking
Allows website owners and admins to track click-through rates on their websites, for ads or any other links.
Pay2Publish
Allow visitors to your website to publish free listings (content) on your website and then upgrade to paid versions at any time.

Rotor Banner
A plug-in for creating blocks of rotating content on your website, where you can place banner ads or anything else you want.
Slidebox
Create ad boxes of any size that float into your page from above.
Simple Ad Block
A very simple ad management plug-in that places an ad block onto your website in which you can paste code from AdSense or any other ad network.

4. Plug-Ins For Movable Type

Page Layout Plug-In
Allows you to create and use page layout templates, which facilitate the hiding and showing of ads and other content on certain pages.

Google AdSense Widget
This widget allows you to view your Google AdSense daily earnings in your Movable Type dashboard.

5. Ad Management Tutorials And Articles

Which Ad Manager Plug-In Makes Managing Ads Easiest?
This article provides a great comparison of ad management plug-ins for WordPress, listing the pros and cons of each.
Blogtalks.net
A collection of articles about managing ads on your blog, including “How to track clicks” and “Tips for using OpenAds with WordPress.”
How to Integrate Advertising into Your Blog
A great overview of things to consider when integrating advertising in your blog, as well as some practical how-to information.
How to Set Up Google Ad Manager on Your Blog/Website
Comprehensive overview and set-up instructions for using Google Ad Manager on your website or blog.

Banner Rotator
Another PHP tutorial on showing rotating banner ads on your website. This one stores information about the ads and the views that each ad gets in a MySQL database.
Rotating Banner Ads Using a Database
An ASP tutorial on creating a database-driven banner-ad rotation script.
Dynamic Banner Administration
A comprehensive ASP tutorial on putting rotating banner ads on your website.

Display Ad Optimization's Teracent Bought By Google

Yet another out of Google in the 4th quarter adding another expansion building block to the Google ecosystem. Google has bought Teracent for an undisclosed amount. Teracent has developed a platform for dynamic ad optimization and enables dynamic offer management for direct response and brand marketers who want to turn online display advertising into performance media. The startup is led by Vikas Jha was previously was VP of Engineering at Inktomi for 7 years.

Teracent has raised $5.8M to date much of it from New Enterprise Associates. Teracent competes with Tumri, which seems to be doing better in terms of revenue and has a deal with Yahoo to optimize display ads there.
Another smart move by Google. Display ad optimization is a nascent market but has proven to be effective.This further confirms the emergence and growth of dynamic smart ad technology that turns display inventory into interactive units.
View - site

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the @MediaTrust community & #affiliatemarketing

Hello MediaTrust Community!
Its that time of year where we give thanks here in the US, so it's a great opportunity to let you all know how thankful we are for helping us get to where we are today.
This year, your partnership helped us become the 9th fastest growing Company in the US, according to Inc Magazine, and you helped us earn the #1 spot on the mthink Bluebook Top 20 Performance marketing networks. You also helped us articulate a new direction of the performance marketing landscape by participating in our community blog and podcasts. Thousands of you are followers of our twitter and facebook profiles, and your feedback, input and comments have helped shape our platform and industry into an innovative and robust community of driven and resourceful individuals.
As a way of thanking you, we have been working diligently to bring you new features to make performance marketing with MediaTrust easier and more efficient. Here are a few things we have been working on:

• We're refactoring our entire code base to make the platform faster and more efficient
• We've added hybrid tracking (cookie-based and cookie-less) to ensure conversions are correctly attributed to the referring publisher
• We've enhanced our fraud detection tools to minimize fraudulent activity, enabling us to maintain the highest payouts from our advertisers
• We've added a compliance center to our website (http://mediatrust.com/compliance.html) to aggregate key information for our advertisers and publishers

As always, our goal is to provide you with a rich community and the most innovative tools to make your performance marketing activities even more 'bountiful'. Feel free to contact us with comments, suggestions and ideas so we can make next year even better.
Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Peter Bordes and the MediaTrust Team

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Relevance Remains a Challenge for E-Mail Marketers - eMarketer

Relevance Remains a Challenge for E-Mail Marketers - eMarketer

Relevance Remains a Challenge for E-Mail Marketers

NOVEMBER 23, 2009

Batch-and-blast has consequences

It might seem obvious that marketers must send relevant messages if they want to be noticed and appreciated by consumers. But the CMO Council and InfoPrint Solutions Company’s “Why Relevance Drives Response and Relationships” report indicates that they have a problem being faithful to audience preferences.

US Internet users deluged with mass e-mails have little time for irrelevant promotions and newsletters, and they have enough experience to know how to unsubscribe. More than nine in 10 respondents to the CMO Council survey had unsubscribed from an e-mail newsletter at some point. Relevance—or lack thereof—was the No. 1 reason.

Web users also complained of receiving too many to manage and getting tired of all the clutter. In many cases that clutter can have consequences for marketers: 22% of respondents have decided not to purchase from a company because of irrelevant promotions, either via e-mail or direct mail. A further 41% said they would consider doing the same.

Promotional e-mails were the most common thing for respondents to find in their inbox, with 60% saying they received such e-mails most. E-newsletters were the next-most-common type of messages.

But it was the least common messages that were most likely to be opened—monthly bills and bank statements. Only about four in 10 recipients said they “always” opened promotional offers or newsletters.

“Irrelevant, impersonal communications, be it email or traditional mail, is a waste as it does not engage a receptive recipient,” said Liz Miller, vice president, programs and operations, CMO Council, in a statement. “It is no surprise that consumers are opting out of irrelevant emails. However, what is a grave sign for marketers to heed is that customers will disconnect and stop doing business with brands who continue to send messages that demonstrate a lack of intimacy, customer insight and individual understanding.”

Keep up on the latest digital trends. Learn more about an eMarketer Total Access subscription, today.

Check out today’s other article, “Digital Convergence for US Households.”

Affiliate Fraud Roundtable Discussion :: Affiliate Marketing Indsider

  LISTEN TO BROADCAST HERE
The latest edition of the Affiliate Marketing Insider podcast tackles "affiliate marketing fraud" one of the biggest challenges our industry faces. Affiliate fraud is an increasingly problematic issue that is causing our industry to have to come together in a new way to create technology. Set standards and guidelines.

Joining Wade are three people who are now working to lead our industry’s attempt to self-regulate affiliate fraud: Rebecca Madigan, Executive Director of the Performance Marketing Alliance, Jivan Manhas, Head of Sales for MediaTrust and Mark Roth, co-founder of Offer Vault

Tracking202 Acquired by Bloosky Advertising Network

The Tracking202 team leaders Wes Mahler & Steve Truong announce on their blog that they have been acquired by Bloosky Internet in an all cash deal. The deal has been covered by TechCrunch since 202 has been on Michael Arringtons radar when he posted about the Facebook click fraud issue that was reported on this year. Congratulations to Wes & Steve who are passionate affiliate marketing indusrty veterans and technologists who have done an outstanding job creating much needed innovation in our segment of the online marketing industry.

Here is the email that went our from the 202 founders ::


From: noreply.newsletter@tracking202.com
Date: Sat, Nov 21, 2009 at 3:54 PM
Subject: Tracking202 Has Been Acquired!
To:
We have some BIG news to announce today. As of a little over a week ago, Tracking202 has been acquired by Bloosky, another company within our space. We wanted to give you details about everything that has been going on that has lead up to this point as we’ve always been 100% transparent with our users and would want to remain so. We felt this acquisition was beneficial for everyone and there are a lot of things we wanted to disclose in this blog post to clarify why this deal makes a lot of sense for all of our users.
Tracking202 was founded a little over 2 years ago and have grown tremendously in the short time span we’ve been around. Many may not realize this but we’re still very much a bootstrapped startup operating out of our house! Literally we have desks in the living room, bedrooms, kitchen, etc… Its not what you would have probably have imagined for the growth we’ve seen and support shown from all of our users around the world. We appreciate everything and all the love you’ve given us. But as you may have realized, we were perhaps growing too fast.
As some of you may have noticed in recent months, its been getting harder and harder to answer support around the clock the way we use to in the early days. The number of users grow larger every day and unfortunately we didn’t have enough resources, staff, or funding to keep on doing support and everything else without infringing on time spent innovating on the technology everyone has grown to love. Above all else, we only have two full time programmers on board, one of them being Wes himself who’s pretty much coded 98% of everything we have today!
Having said that, we were limited on growth in several areas and with the launch of our new network, had a hard time keeping up with the sheer volume of affiliates that were getting on board with our software and network. Lately, its felt like we were in a catch-22 situation, working hard just to maintain things, even when we gave our best efforts its been difficult to continue to grow the company and help the community the way we have wanted to.
Several months back, we had the privledge of meeting with the founders of Bloosky. At the time, we were thinking of strategic ways the two companies could work together to help each other out. Wes and I were also debating about bringing outside funding to continue growing the company. Although we were affiliates early on and for the most part, have self funded Tracking202 with all the campaigns we’ve built in our early days, it got to a point very early on where we no longer had time to run any campaigns and went full steam into Tracking202. With that, the company grew based on what it was able to bring in itself for revenue in terms of software subscriptions, advertising, and of course now network revenues. However its difficult to scale when you have limited resources, time, staff, and funding to continue to grow.
After debating long and hard about bringing on venture capital (VC) to grow the company who probably wouldn’t understand our business, we decided we didn’t like that option. We felt it was in Tracking202’s best interest as well as the interest of our users and the community we created to keep VCs out of this. What started as just a discussion on a simple business partnership ended up becoming talks of a potential buyout. This made a lot of sense to us because Bloosky was already involved in the space and more than just funding, they had extensive knowledge and ideals that complemented Tracking202 VERY WELL. After long talks, the deal made a lot of sense.
Before I dive into why I think this partnership is great, I wanted to give you guys a background on what Bloosky does for those unfamiliar with the name. Many companies in the space know who they are but they don’t have such a strong presence among the affiliate community. The reason for this is because most affiliates don’t deal with Bloosky directly or run Bloosky’s offers. Over the last couple years they have focused on working with other types of publishers, emailers. The other thing they are known for is their advertising relationships and focus on providing advertiser services. They have call centers, creative services and a strong ad sales team. They pull in an average of 60-100 new offers per week!
Tracking202 on the other hand as many of you know, is a publisher focused company with a strong affiliate base and technology that control several traffic sources such as search, social, contextual, media buys, etc… basically other than email. Like two halves of the same coin, the combination of the two companies made perfect sense. So what does this mean to our users?
Wes and I are staying on board to continue our vision of what we believe Tracking202 should have been since day 1. This deal gives us an equity stake in Bloosky and allows us to gain valuable resources necessary to continue doing what we do best. Above all else, Bloosky shares the same passion, values, and vision we have, which is one of the key reasons we were excited to do this. We would never compromise our values or visions for anyone, hence why we didn’t want to go the VC route when we could of. With this deal moving forward, this allows us to put more emphasis on support where it is needed. We now have more resources and funding to accelerate on the growth of the technology side building faster and bringing more tools, and to help the community as a whole to help our affiliates better. We saw several positives in this and Bloosky have been very supportive of everything we’ve done and wants to see our goals achieved. We hope with this, you’re able to get a glimpse of things to come and see why this is so beneficial on so many levels. We hope to make Tracking202 an even greater company in the near future. Thanks for everything to every one of you guys out there! We couldn’t have done it without the support and love you guys have shown us. The ride had been wild and it’ll only get wilder from here on out =]

Affiliate Benchmarks 2009 Affiliate Marketing Research Released

AffiliateBenchmarks' Second Annual Survey Reveals Challenges Associated with Significant Growth in Industry

 Affiliate Benchmarks the research division of NetExponent just released its 2009 Affiliate Research Study. It is the most comprehensive report of its kind, with participation from 3,500 affiliates. It surveyed publishers on topics ranging from creative and promotional preferences, to business model segmentation.

• The results affirm that affiliate marketing has exploded over the past 2 years.  And you might be surprised to learn that there is a much higher number of full time publishers than previously thought.
  

• The study uncovered several proven practices in which high income veteran publishers are engaged, and which appear to separate them from low income novices.
  

• Advertisers, OPMs and networks might be surprised to learn how often and in what ways publishers want to be reached. 

AffiliateBenchmarks uncovers the needs, challenges and opportunities in today's rapidly growing affiliate landscape

“The affiliate industry is growing and evolving rapidly, and it is essential for new affiliates joining the game to quickly come up to speed on the latest trends and strategies if they want to compete in this lively marketplace.”