The acquisition of MediaWhiz by Matomy Media Group has been one of the big stories for the last few months and its effects are now being seen. MediaWhiz announced today a “brand consolidation” that will retire their long-lived MonetizeIt, TLA and White Delivery brand names. Instead, the MediaWhiz brand name will be applied across all performance marketing product lines.
This seems to me to be yet another step in the process of professionalizing the performance marketing industry. The creation of large, integrated performance marketing solutions companies is necessary in order for big agency and major brand budgets to move towards performance business models. The integration of Matomy Media Group and MediaWhiz is good for them, but what about their customers and partners?
I spoke with Peter Klein this morning, the senior vice president of media services for MediaWhiz, in order to find out what this means for affiliates, advertisers and for MediaWhiz itself.
Q: What is actually happening and when?
Peter Klein: As of this morning, July 1, MediaWhiz is the only distinct brand in the company, covering all of our performance marketing and SEO products and services. TLA is now MediaWhiz SEO, while MonetizeIt and White Delivery are now simply called MediaWhiz. Within two months we will have a new corporate website that will integrate all our capabilities together, including Display, Data Acquisition, Mobile, Social Media, and Search as well as Affiliate, Email and SEO.
Q: What is the reason behind the changes?
PK: Simplifying our brands will allow us to more closely align with our parent company, Matomy Media Group, so that affiliates and advertisers working with us will have access to campaigns, advanced media buying technology, expertise and customer acquisition solutions all over the world and in every important market. MediaWhiz is now the only performance marketing agency in North America with a global presence and global traffic in every major online marketing channel. Our performance marketing services are consistently ranked as some of the best in the industry, as evidenced by our #5 ranking in this year’s mThink Blue Book. There are many companies in the performance and affiliate marketing world that are downsizing or going out of business. MediaWhiz and Matomy together are expanding and enhancing our capabilities and services.
Q: What does this mean for your advertisers and affiliates? Do they need to take any action as a result of these changes?
PK: They don’t need to do anything. Advertisers will see a more diverse and yet more integrated set of lead generation and customer acquisition solutions. Affiliates have already seen in the last two months the expansion of our network to include mobile, international and app download offers as well as entertainment and dating campaigns. Advertisers and affiliates now have worldwide opportunities to grow their business with MediaWhiz.
Q: What does this mean for the future of MediaWhiz and Matomy?
PK: We believe strongly in the role and value that affiliate marketing plays in advertisers’ lead generation and customer acquisition strategies, and publishers’ traffic monetization capabilities. Furthermore, we believe that a more sophisticated and mature affiliate marketing industry, anchored by key companies, such as MediaWhiz and Matomy Media Group, will play a significant role in the continued growth in online marketing and lead generation.
We plan to continue to integrate our performance marketing and SEO capabilities so that any advertiser who wishes to work with us will have the ability to reach a consumer, and acquire a customer, in almost every conceivable online marketing channel possible, and to do so in the most efficient and cost-effective manner. And any publisher wishing to monetize his site traffic can do likewise across every major online marketing channel through superior campaigns from some of the world’s best advertisers. This is where the global scale of MediaWhiz and Matomy is one of our biggest assets. It will allow us, in the coming years, to be advertisers’ global customer acquisition solution, offering the expertise, capabilities and scale that few other performance marketing companies can offer.
Revenue Performance’s Analysis:
This is good news for the performance marketing industry. We have been saying for the last two years that the industry can not expand to its potential unless the huge numbers of affiliate and CPA networks consolidate into a few big, competent and credible players. Online and mobile marketing still has huge growth ahead as TV moves online and worldwide audiences become more connected. Performance marketing can lead the way in monetizing these opportunities but only if the networks involved have global scale. MediaWhiz and Matomy Media Group will be watched closely by their competitors. Expect to see others follow the same path in the next 12 months.