More often than not, you’ll
find a connection between the Trends and the
Thoughts. This time is no different. As an Apple fan
(hold your comments please), I can’t help but feel a little
sad at what I perceive to be the upcoming fall from grace of the
iPod. Apple makes great products, and they will continue to
do so. Great products, aside, it’s hard to compete with a
company that can gain market share as quickly as Microsoft.
Like cancer, they can squeeze the life out of another
company if they so desire.
https://www.lynxtrack.com/signup.php
Whether related to
Microsoft’s entry into the digital music space or not, Apple
recently announced one thing that really made me as a direct
marketer excited, an affiliate program. I wasn’t able to
find the details, but its existence in many ways validates
what we do. It’s too soon to call this a trend, but so often
companies only include branding in their campaigns, or if
they include performance-based aspects they exclude those
that do it best. I think if you ask any sales person that
has been in performance-based marketing for several years,
they will tell of the difficulties of getting brands as
clients. I’ve heard that consumer package goods represent
the holy grail of potential clients; yet, they haven’t done
anything riskier than coupon sites.
I’m encouraged though. On
August 11th Blockbuster officially opened its
Netflix competitor, Blockbuster Online. Less than two weeks
later, several performance-based companies and affiliate
networks had the program. Wal-Mart too can be found, albeit
only on affiliate networks. For Blockbuster to be available,
they had to design their site to allow for integration with
performance-based companies. In a sense, we were included
into their rollout plan and not some afterthought.
Blockbuster and iTunes lead
me to think back to 2000 and 2001. At that time, it was rare
to see a well known consumer brand advertising online,
forget about doing so through performance-based ad networks.
For those in that realm, the ads often felt like scraps of
other brands or the ugly cousin of the infomercial. The
clever marketers took advantage of the performance networks
and in many ways helped stigmatize this section of the
industry. Big brands could have done well, but it seemed as
though they were sitting on the side lines or more likely,
ignoring the space.
I have always felt that
those of us in performance-based marketing have had to earn
our dollars, and except for the random new advertiser
paying four times what others do, we don’t get any handouts.
We don’t get dumb money. We don’t get brand money, and the
beauty of the brands, even if on a performance basis can be
seen in the success of today’s registration paths. Branding
has value. Brands have value, and their value and the
connections they have with consumers allows their message to
carry extra weight and draw them in. Performance marketers
don’t look to diminish the value of the brand. Rather, we
offer an extension to the branding dollars. We offer a means
to spend money on results. We don’t want to replace the
efforts of other channels; instead, we can enable growth
through growth – each dollar spent comes from more revenue
being earned.
Overall, it
seems that through the efforts of many of the readers, those
representing big brands have started to see this space as
less of a risk. We are starting to get our own brand. Good
business practices help companies stay in business and
weather the storms; we’ve had enough storms that many of
those that insist they have no reason to take an advertisers
brand into account, have gone away. The power of the brand
and their offers can outweigh some of the downsides that
come from the protections they require. Similarly, it seems
that some have started to see performance-based marketing
for the performance side and not as free branding, choosing
to make their offers actually appealing.
iTunes and
Blockbuster are just the beginning. We as a whole have
become more sophisticated and employ more avenues with
greater targeting than we did previously. More inventory
sources, too, work on a performance basis. To some, there
still is an element of the Wild West when it comes to
performance-based marketing companies and channels. People
will still think spam, but as our methods keep improving, we
will get the clients that can take our earnings to the next
level.
