CAKE's parent company, Constellation Software, is acquiring TUNE. The announcement yesterday means that two of the biggest network and partner tracking platforms will be under the same ownership. This is a continuation of Constellation's strategy of rolling up SaaS companies under their Perseus Operating Group, with specific focus on performance marketing. In a blog post, … [Read more...]
Capitalizing on Fame
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 … [Read more...]
Consolidate, Optimize and Maximize
You can maximize the performance of your marketing campaigns by consolidating all of them under a single ad platform. This will save time on administrative tasks, offer comprehensive analytics on campaigns across multiple channels and help you optimize them accordingly. Affiliate software is in a unique position to consolidate campaigns from across different channels because it … [Read more...]
Skinflint Search Marketing
I admit it - I'm a skinflint. Call me a tightwad, a miser - I don't care. Basically, I'm cheap. And even if you're not cheap by personality, you might need to conserve cash by necessity. If that's your situation, don't despair. The Internet is tailor-made for you. Internet marketing, and search marketing in particular, is the land of the free. So step up, you skinflints, and … [Read more...]
Late for a Date
This column was supposed to be the last in our series on redesigning SostreAssoc.com, the website for my design firm Sostre & Associates. I even said in my last article that, "By the time you read this article, the new design will be live on our site and we'll have started crunching the analytics data." Unfortunately, things didn't quite work out that way.Due to various … [Read more...]
Video + Twitter = Seesmic
I recently had to stop Twittering. It was awful. The doctors said I would go blind.Seriously folks, even for as big of an Internet geek as I am, I was completely overwhelmed by the massive flood of 140-character messages from friends and colleagues that bombarded me 24 hours a day. So at the time of this writing, I'm off the Twitter-pipe, for now.But just when I thought I was … [Read more...]
Video Goes Viral
Thanks to social networking sites such as YouTube, online video has quickly become an everyday part of the online experience. While marketers have been slow to capitalize on video so far, the low cost of producing content and potential for increasing reach will make it essential to performance marketing.The audience that watches Web video skews younger, but nearly everyone … [Read more...]
Getting Into the Mashup Mix
It's become a new art form to combine various existing elements to create something totally new. However, it can also be dangerous creative and legal territory to navigate when particular items are protected by copyright laws. Some online marketers, eager to leverage new technologies for promotional purposes, are uploading and sharing video creations with copyrighted materials … [Read more...]
Home Office Advantage
Many online marketers started out working from home as a way to escape the Dilbert-like cubicle farms of corporate life in favor of a flexible schedule. And while these home-based workers may have managed to avoid rush-hour traffic, endless meetings and the watchful eye of superiors, their work life is hardly about hanging out in pajamas. According to 2000 U.S. Census data, … [Read more...]
CJ’s Missing Link
When Commission Junction announced its Link Management Initiative (LMI) on May 23, the reaction from the affiliate community was swift and decisive. It was interpreted as a mandatory change for affiliates from HTML to JavaScript links and it was not embraced. In fact, it sparked petitions, anti- LMI buttons, forums and message boards decrying LMI and hundreds of blog entries … [Read more...]
Power Tools
Sometimes even the simplest tasks can only be performed using the right tools. There's no point in using a chain saw when a paring knife will do the job.These are not reviews, ratings or recommendations. It's just a collection of software, services and tools that we've come across and wanted to share with you. Here they are in no specific order.T3Report.comCyData Services Inc., … [Read more...]
Mining for Keywords
Now that you've set up your search engine marketing campaign and it's chugging along nicely, how do you take things to the next level? You've picked out some good keywords, written some good copy and you're getting a reasonable ROI, but every time you look at your pay-per-click campaigns, you just know there's more that you could be doing to maximize your investment. And you … [Read more...]
Casting a Wider Net
Podcasting is emerging as an interesting and potentially lucrative opportunity for online marketers who want to reach a wider audience.The figures for podcasting vary, but by all counts the podcasting market is poised to explode and online marketers want in. A report from The Diffusion Group, a technology research consulting firm, showed that the use of podcasts is expected to … [Read more...]
Defend Yourself Against Click Fraud
The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" That's what the Chicken Littles of the world would have you believe when they discuss how click fraud will doom the world of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Of course, some Chicken Littles have a vested interest in raising awareness of this supposedly rampant problem, considering many of them are the purveyors of products that help … [Read more...]
Stumped About Stopping Spyware
Tuan Le is mad. And when he's upset, he speaks quietly, deliberately and very thoughtfully. He's hardly a hothead. But nothing gets him more riled up, if you can call it that, than knowing he's losing a large percentage of revenue from his two affiliate Web sites to other affiliates that are acting in unethical and unfair ways. Le, who's been an affiliate for the last few years … [Read more...]