mThink

Forrester Research senior analyst Andy Hoar delivered a fascinating keynote at the Rakuten Linkshare Symposium last week.  His theme was the continuing evolution of e-commerce and the insights he brought will have a lot of consequences for the performance marketing sector. Some of his points restated things that anyone that has been paying attention already [...]

Press Release January 31, 2013 The US online travel market has grown exponentially in the last 12-24 months, with the WTCC reporting that it reached $313billion in 2012*.  Global performance network, Affiliate Window has experienced firsthand the benefits of this growth with a range of new travel and tourism brands joining the network in 2012.  [...]

I’m confused why we refer to this world of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Pinterest, YouTube, Google+, MySpace, etc., as “social” media. From everything I’ve experienced, it should really be called “anti-social” media. The sad reality is that social media has devolved into a series of faceless and impersonal interactions through PCs, smartphones and tablets, whereby [...]

Press Release  NEW YORK CITY – June 26, 2012 – Rakuten LinkShare today announced the results of a study it commissioned by Forrester Consulting on the direct and indirect value of affiliate marketing. The report, “Affiliate Marketing – The Direct and Indirect Value that Affiliates Deliver to Advertisers” explores how affiliate marketing sites are meeting [...]

Five million people use Twitter every day. Each month, more Americans visit YouTube than watch the Super Bowl. It’s clear that the Internet is fundamentally changing. What does this change in online behavior mean for e-commerce?

With a name like “negative option billing” it should come as no surprise that this practice has received a lot of negative attention lately from the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”), various state attorneys general and other regulatory bodies. Despite this trend, marketers and consumers alike have found this billing method to be a convenient and useful payment option over the years.

There are a lot of ways to approach affiliate marketing. Here are a few of my favorite tips.

Feature Co-branded Messaging –
Among the fastest-growing areas of affiliate marketing, loyalty and cash-back sites have come to play an increasingly important role in affiliate programs. Given that these types of sites are responsible for delivering a huge number of sales and often have a very loyal member base to benefit from, maximizing conversions is obviously key.

How does one achieve this? Through co-branded initiatives.

Some say there’s no such thing as an overnight success. Others believe everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame. I don’t know about those old clichés. But I do know someone who proved that worldwide fame can come quickly.

For Mia Michaels, who was already well known in the dance industry, being a part of the TV show So You Think You Can Dance exposed her magnetic personality to millions of primetime television viewers. After years of hard work, Michaels became an instant celebrity.

The cofounder of the web’s fourth-largest site tells what’s wrong with our notions of performance-based advertising and user-generated content. 

It’s hard to say which is more surprising: that the fourth-largest website has only two dozen employees or that it doesn’t make any money. But one thing that almost never raises an eyebrow about Wikipedia.org is that it’s outrageously popular.