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As part of the ReveNews 2010 Affiliate Industry Preview Series, I interviewed industry leaders to get a sense of their plans and goals for 2010. Today’s interview is with Lisa Riolo, co-founder of Impact Radius, who is our “mystery guest” for this series. Together with fellow co-founder and industry veteran Todd Crawford, Lisa spent several years incubating the technology and vision behind their new technology platform. Just don’t call them a network.

How did you and Todd end up on this project and what made you launch Impact Radius?

Todd and I worked together in the past but the thought of just doing the same old thing, like creating yet another affiliate network, was not appealing to us.  What we wanted to do was find an opportunity to help the whole industry evolve and really give back to the performance space. We asked ourselves, from the inefficiencies we had seen, how we might do things differently?

We realized that there is a great deal of performance-based advertising opportunity untapped in traditional channels.  The traditional space- newspaper, television, radio, etc. is doing performance advertising but doesn’t have the same tools and technology that we’ve become accustomed to in the online space. What excited us was the prospect of creating more efficiency within the traditional space in order to really increase automation.

We then asked ourselves, how do we make a great advertising model even better by creating a single platform that brings everyone together transparently in a way that sparks additional growth in the industry.  That’s just what we set out to do.

Those two ideas were our primary objectives in coming together and launching Impact Radius.  We felt this was the opportunity to fix some of the fatal flaws we had seen in the current industry and make a great model even better.

Can you give a “for instance” in terms of the offline space because I think a lot of readers understand how the performance based model works online but are maybe not so familiar with offline examples?

If you ever watch infomercials on TV, you’ll see a product being promoted and typically there is a line that says “wait there’s more” or “order now”…those are direct response ads.  Currently direct response (DR) ads that are run on a performance basis only represent about 2 or 3 percent of the total ad spend in direct response TV. If you look at the late 90’s, early 2000’s, the metrics in the online space was similar with probably less than 5 percent of all the advertising that was done was on a performance basis. You look at it now and it’s close to 70percent according to the latest Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) metrics. We feel there is a similar opportunity for growth offline.

We realized if we could provide the tools and the real-time reporting to an already metric-driven community there a possibility we could double the percentage of performance based ads in a relatively short time period.  So one of our goals is to provide the broadcast TV networks and the radio networks the tools necessary to efficiently increase the amount of inventory that they are carrying on a performance basis.  Really ratchet up the yield that they get or payouts that they receive so they can push up the rates that they are getting on their regular DR general advertising.

I jokingly mentioned at the start of the interview that many will categorize you as a network for lack of a better term. What do you think of yourselves as?

I think many will miscategorize us as a network but what we really are is a multi-channel performance advertising platform.  Other than technical support we don’t have services, we are not an agency and we’re definitely not a network or an affiliate network.  We’re really just the tools and technology used to facilitate performance based advertising relationships in a transparent way.

With the recession happening in 2009 it’s a pretty ballsy year to develop a platform and then launch at the beginning of 2010.  Are there any concerns about launching in this kind of economy?

We all know there is more resilience in this type of economy for performance-based deals and performance-priced deals and I think this makes it a good time for us to approach both traditional and online marketers and say to them, “Here’s an opportunity to create more efficiency and ultimately more profitability with your current relationships.” That’s what makes working on this type of price model attractive.

Being able to launch with $6 million dollars in venture backing from companies like Redpoint Ventures shows there is a lot of faith in our model. We feel the time is right.

Well it’s obliviously appealing as an advertiser to be able to approach multiple channels at once.  What kind of technology hurdles were there in implementing such a solution?

One basic thing is getting all the processes in place that go into supporting customization of ad creative.  For example, if you’re an advertiser and you want to work with one of the TV broadcast networks it’s very difficult unless you have that ad creative in place.  What we did was build those processes into Impact Radius so that trafficking instructions, dub house instructions, all of those are handled automatically through our platform. We wanted to take what were manual processes and make them systematized and automated.

You mentioned transparency several times and I’ve heard you and Todd talk about your “clear box philosophy”.  Can you go into that?

As we built our technology we spent a lot of time trying to address current pain points. One that came up across the board was the lack of access to basic information, like contact information.

Take a look at the current affiliate model on many networks today.  Traditionally, our industry has accepted a ‘black box’ approach to conducting business, keeping relationships hidden and key information contained. It doesn’t make any sense. So we designed our product to always facilitate direct relationships, direct negotiations with everyone on the platform.

Also the mode in which an offer is posted on many networks makes no sense. Typically the advertiser’s offer is posted, yet the affiliate or media partner who is generating the result doesn’t really have any say in what the terms and conditions should look like. If you look at all other forms of advertising those terms and conditions are initiated on the media partner’s side, right?  The insertion order is based on starting with the media partner but in the affiliate space traditionally it’s always been the advertiser.

I don’t think those are matters of preference, rather, it’s simply a matter of the way the technology was designed.  A built-in inefficiency.

We designed our product to always facilitate direct relationships, direct negotiations with everyone on the platform. One of the things we introduced is a “both-way” negotiation tool with the insertion order so a media partner can push the terms and conditions that are optimal for them to the advertisers just as easily.  We built a directory on our platform where an advertiser can search for media partners, and vice-versa, even if they’re not already working together.  Once they are working together all their contact information is available right in the system.

The reason we’ve designed the product and the features this way is because we’ve learned over time that those direct relationships produce optimal results. It’s our belief that direct negotiations and open communication will only accelerate growth.  What we did was step out from in-between and have our clients work together directly as much as possible. Our job is to be the tools and the technology to facilitate the relationship.

How do you feel that will impact things like fraudulent leads?

As an advertiser you work with a media partner and have complete visibility to everything they are doing to promote your campaign.  Plus, prior to entering the relationship you have the opportunity to see their business model.  For example, you’ll know if a media partner will be doing email drop to promote a product, giving you the ability to better monitor such issues as CAN-SPAM compliance.  The whole system is designed to facilitate direct visibility with those relationships.  So I think the quality issue is very much addressed because of that increased visibility.

The way you are describing the services it seems like a no brainer, so why hasn’t any of the other networks or someone else created such a model earlier?

We had the huge benefit of not only tremendous experience but the ability to start from scratch. We had a blank canvas, so to speak. We knew what worked and what wasn’t so optimal.  We understood these various points and could implement solutions from the bottom up.

Whereas, I think today if you look at most of the networks out there they started around ten years ago, but what they are doing is bolting on another solution to their existing framework. Using that method it is impossible to be flexible and address the many challenges that effect performance-based relationships. We tried to accommodate all the different scenarios in terms of how partners work together as we built our platform rather than building the technology, and then trying to get those relationships to adapt.

With the broad perspective of features you are trying to support how did you avoid “feature creep”?

(laughs) One of our biggest challenges was, if we have such a flexible, robust system, how to keep it simple enough that users don’t get overwhelmed?  We spent a great deal of time, once the back-end system was built, working with clients and finding out where they were hitting snags. We tested how long took for an advertiser to go live, and once they were in what does it take for them to get data out of the system.

Our goal was practical flexibility. So it was really a matter do defining the business practices that we need to support and designing the user interface to support those user needs. Even though we are just now launching we’ve actually been in business for quite awhile with clients active on the platform and giving us feedback so that we could continually make improvements.

Let’s take a look at the industry as a whole. One thing that obviously had a big impact in 2009 and the later part of 2008 was the so-called “Amazon Tax”. How do you feel that will play out in 2010?

Todd Crawford was very active in the development of the Performance Marketing Association.  He was the first president for the advisory board until they were able to elect an actual board, and we still feel very strongly about supporting the PMA and will continue to work closely with their efforts.  I think what is optimal and ideal and what is realistic are certainly two different things.  I would love to see some standardization in tax legislation across the states because I do think it could have been acted efficiently.  I’m not sure that will happen.

We all understand that the states are desperately looking for revenue but I think enacting legislation that is fair is the issue.  With revenue continuing to diminish in various states, legislators across the county are looking for ways to find some new dollars.  I think that legislators find our industry, in part because Amazon has such a high profile, a very easy target.  This year will be a difficult year on the legislative front so we will work closely with the PMA and any other efforts that are being made.

So let’s talk a little bit about forward-looking technology.  What do you feel will be the biggest game-changers in the technology in 2010?

From our point of view everyone is too busy chasing the hottest new consumer facing technology or widget.  We feel what is really revolutionary is making all the process that are out there work together.

A good example is having the capability to support commerce tracking through mobile technology but that is not something we’re necessarily showcasing, simply because everyone says mobile is the next big thing.  We decided instead to really support what consumers have already adopted today.  Consumers can pick up a phone, click on a link to respond to a contextual promotion and, advertisers want to track that seamlessly.

So when people ask basics like can we do video? Yes.  Can we do rich media? Yes. But let’s take if offline: What if an advertiser has a promo code they want to place on a billboard to attract consumers who are on the road? Can track and report that and provide the financial clearing house function for the owner of the billboard as a media partner in our system?  Yes, we can do that, too.

From our point of view what is key is not the technology but the ability to use it to reach consumers in ways they’ve already adopted to track across channel   That is what we designed and built in the components of our system, along with the flexibility for consumers to keep adding as new technology develops.

What are Impact Radius’ goals for 2010?

One of our goals is to encourage adoption of the performance model among traditional media by leveraging our toolset online.  It’s an educational goal in saying okay, these are the processes that you follow today and now here’s a new set of tools that you can use.  We can show them how it’s going to improve and make their lives easier and more profitable.

The other is to honestly spark innovation within the industry as a whole.  We’re not just looking to come out with a better widget.  We want to grow the whole industry and bring in players who have never worked together with the opportunity to do so. For the health of the industry it is important for companies to expand their distribution and get involved with partners whom they’ve never really worked with before.

We’re very excited about what we’ve built here. We really feel it will revolutionize the performance space.

That concludes our our 2010 Affiliate Industry Preview Series, I want to thank Lisa Riolo for taking time out during her busy schedule to take part.

Go here to read the rest:
2010 Affiliate Industry Preview Series: Interview with Lisa Riolo of Impact Radius

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The formation of an industry requires the development of a group identity. Often that development is neglected because group members are focused on growing their business. Over the last year the affiliate industry has been experiencing growing pains in the form of legal challenges brought about by such things as the so-called New York Amazon Tax. In the aftermath of that tax being ratified a group of New York affiliates pulled together to provide guidelines to those impacted by the tax. Melanie Seery was part of that group and found herself drawn into the role of advocate on behalf of the affiliate industry. As part of that advocacy effort she recently launched new industry organization Affiliate Voice.

Almost a year after the New York Amazon Tax was passed I sat down with Melanie Seery to discuss her involvement in the affiliate industry, her quick learning curve with political advocacy, and how she sees the tax issues evolving.

How did you get started in affiliate marketing?

I got involved in affiliate marketing about five years ago. Before affiliate marketing I had a business writing employee how-to manuals, which is really, really boring work. I would go into a business, take each and every position and write down step by step everything that employee had to do in the course of the day. Not fascinating and not interesting from a creative perspective. After that I got into multilevel marketing. What I liked about MLM was that I was selling vitamins and health food products. I really enjoyed that aspect of helping people be healthy. But when I started I didn’t realize how big a component recruitment was to MLM. Ultimately it kind of discouraged me. That’s when someone told me about affiliate marketing and sent me off to Commission Junction. After some exploring I found an interesting coffee merchant and that was the beginning of it.

Why is being self-employed and working at home important to you?

I am independent by nature and have been self-employed for the past 12 years. It’s real important for me to be home with my children and my family. My children have neurofibromatosis, so do I. Neurofibromatosis is a neurological disorder that can cause tumors to grow on nerve endings. There are lots of challenges to maintaining health with such a disorder, as you can imagine. I have to keep constantly on top of it with my family. Being self-employed allows me to maintain that balance.

At what point did you feel affiliate marketing was the right business for you?

It was two or three months down the line and all of a sudden I started getting some really good sales. I created sites around my interests. It wasn’t just things I liked to drink like coffee, tea and accessories. After the birth of my children I began reaching out to parents whose children had similar disorders. I would post topics like, “How do I get my child to sleep all the way through the night?” I found myself connecting with other parents and sharing information. The process of creating a support group of sorts became another website.  Before you know it I had several websites going and 10 more ideas.

Affiliate marketing seemed to pull the best of all worlds together for me because I could use my writing to educate while sharing my creativity and connecting to other people. It was like talking with my friends and community; only in this case I’m being creative and making a website. It’s amazing being able to grow a business out of that sharing. It’s very exciting for me.

Everybody seems to start with Commission Junction. At what point did you realize that there were other networks?
Through places like ABestWeb I found networks like ShareASale. The discovery of ShareASale was a major point turning point for me. It was a combination of finding a network that had smaller niche merchants and allowed for real personal contact with the network and with the merchants in the network.

I sort of came out of my shell and found myself becoming part of the industry when I received my first invitation to a ShareASale Think Tank. It was funny but I thought to myself, “They must have me confused with somebody else”. Because even though I was doing well I still didn’t think I was doing as well as everybody else out there. I had never met anyone in the industry prior to that or even spoken with anyone on the phone. The Think Tank showed me the importance of being an affiliate in direct touch with the merchant. It’s all about relationships in this industry.

When did you first hear about the Amazon Tax and how did it affect you?

We had heard rumblings prior to April. But we also heard from New York lawmakers that it would never pass. Suddenly when April came around we learned that Governor Patterson had signed it into law. It took us by surprise because of our “it could never happen here” attitude. I don’t think we ever truly realized how much it would impact our businesses.

Now I see the same process happening in other states like California, Minnesota and, Connecticut. It’s phenomenal how quickly things change.  It’s great to see the industry is actually being proactive and stepping forward to fight these bills before they become law. It’s a lot easier to fix things before they’re broken.

When the New York law took effect many merchants removed affiliates from their programs. This destroyed a lot of businesses.  But what was worse was the lack of communication between merchants, networks and affiliates. There were a lot of behind the scenes activities with program managers and their CEOs about that never brought the affiliates into the loop. That did a lot of damage. We would get terminations with little or no notice. Once they passed the law we started to receive sudden terminations in the mail.  Even retroactive terminations-it would be June 15 and you’d get this email from a merchant that told you were deactivated as of May 30.

Affiliates were kind of steamrolled and quickly our incomes and businesses were gone.

A group of us got together and said this isn’t right. We felt there had to be a solution we could work out. That’s when Kevin Webster and I started talking about holding a meeting among New York affiliates. When we announced it a lot of people stepped up to help, providing us resources so we could find a good corporate lawyer.

At the time I had set up a personal blog that I put together to help keep people up to date about what was going on. It was called New York Affiliate Voice, which is what many people think the name of the group is, but it’s really the Albany Group because that’s where we first  met. We managed to set a course of action and put together a plan for how New York affiliates and any remaining merchants who wanted to work with us could go from here. In many cases it still wasn’t enough because merchants were still terminating affiliates rather than attempting to comply with the new law.

My income was down 72% last year because of the knee jerk reaction of many businesses. From the affiliates I talk to that’s pretty average.

Were you frustrated with the fact that the industry was slow to respond to this threat?

At the time we were all frustrated because all we saw was a lack of action for New York affiliates. There was a sense of hopelessness or resignation in everybody. At the time when we were going through the horrible effects of this law upon our businesses, I kept thinking why doesn’t anybody care about us?

I think the whole industry was in a state of disbelief. I remember two things were said to me after the New York Affiliate session at Affiliate Summit. They were: 1) We didn’t understand how deeply this would impact your, meaning affiliates, business and livelihoods. People sometimes forget that for many of us this isn’t just a hobby. It is the income that we rely on to pay a mortgage, to pay our bills, to take care of our children and our families and, 2)  everybody felt they “didn’t know what to do”.

I think it had to be the affiliates who took control the situation in New York because that was the group directly affected. It empowered affiliates to take a course of action and pull together. It let everyone know this was a serious challenge to our industry. I am proud of the things the Albany Group put together.

Was that your first involvement with political advocacy?

Yes. (laugh) I learned a lot over this last year. I learned an incredible amount about the legislative process, not only in New York but in other states as well. I found myself thinking, I don’t remember learning the ins and outs of how this works back in school. I think people take so many things for granted, including how their local government works.

At the beginning of this year you won several awards including the Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Award for Affiliate Advocate of the Year. How did that impact you?

One thing it showed me was that we made a difference last year. And by “we”, I mean there wasn’t just me, there was a whole group of us that pulled this together. What the recognition also did was start me thinking about advocacy in general because I knew it was important. Basically, the work on the New York Tax Law took over the whole last 10 or 11 months of my life. Over time it became a larger part of my day whether it was answering emails from affiliates or phone call questions from a merchant. I realized that I had to make a choice of whether I wanted to be an advocate or an  affiliate. I came to the conclusion that the advocacy needed to continue and I couldn’t give it up.

How did Affiliate Voice come about?

When I made the choice to focus on advocacy I was simply going to change New York Affiliate Voice into a type of advocacy group. When people found out about my idea they kept asking why just New York? I ended up speaking to Haiko de Poel Jr. and Rhea Tannenbaum and they encouraged me to form a larger organization and call it Affiliate Voice to open it up to everybody. So I took the ball and ran with it so to speak.

After the beginning of the year there seemed to be a lull then suddenly there was a domino effect of new legislation that came out.   How have you perceived the recent changes?

Well, that’s a good way to describe it. There was that little lull and I was just beginning to think that I could go back to focusing on my business. Then legislators in my area that I had gotten close to working with the Albany Group, pointed me towards pending legislation in several states, including California. It seemed to spring up one after another. Equally scary is legislation on the books in some states that includes sales representatives, solicitors and other representatives in the definition of “nexus”. It is so open to interpretation and in my mind it could easily encompass affiliates as well.

What’s the biggest misunderstanding that legislators have about the affiliate industry?

I think it is important to understand both sides of the issue. See the states are faced with incredible economic challenges right now. They have to find new revenue resources. In the Quill Corp. v. North Dakota case it was ruled that in order for an interstate transaction to have sales tax applied to it, as opposed to a use tax, there has to be a substantial presence on behalf of the business providing the goods.

What’s happening is these tax bills you are seeing are not new taxes. The only thing that is changing is the method which the states are using to collecting the tax. That’s a not just something legislators are saying to make it sound better to consumers. That is in fact what is going on.

If you look at how quickly internet shopping and affiliate marketing have grown over the last couple of years it is easy to see why states want to collect this tax. It’s an incredible amount of revenue they’re losing out on.

But by the same token those states that are trying to enact these anti-affiliate laws have to understand how uneven this makes the playing field for affiliates and publishers in their state. In their current form these laws will prompt many merchants to simply avoid paying the tax by cutting loose all their affiliates or moving to a different advertising model. For those reasons it won’t bring the kind of revenues states are hoping for.

Also legislators have to understand the complexity involved for a merchant trying to deal with the more than 7,500 different US tax jurisdictions regarding interstate transactions. It’s not just a matter of installing some software and remitting sales-tax. Each of these 7,500 different tax jurisdictions has a different set of guidelines a merchant must comply with.  Can you imagine 7,500 different filings every quarter?  What business has those resources?

How do you see this playing out long-term?

I believe it will come down to some kind of federal involvement, maybe through the Streamlined Sales Tax Project, which is still gaining momentum. The Streamlined Sales Tax Project is a destination-based sales-tax which allows each state to designate one flat rate. All states that have sales and use tax will have to charge tax on the same items. Because right now items that are taxable in New York may not be taxable in California or vice versa. So the Streamlined Sales Tax Project wants to unify and streamline the process by designating which items are taxable in every state and allow each state to have one flat rate with the tax being paid by the receiving State. That’s the ideal situation. The governors in general are pressing for such a process but to enact it nationwide will be a slow process and require changes to multiple state laws.

Recently Scott Jangro wrote an excellent article posing the question of whether the affiliate industry needs two associations? Are you worried about an us-versus-them mentality creating a split in the industry?

I think having two organizations actually strengthens the industry. I don’t look at the Performance Marketing Alliance and Affiliate Voice as competing. I look at us as two slightly different entities but with the same relative goal which is to help change the direction of our industry, to help spur new growth, and not leave our destinies in the hands of legislators who have no clue what we are all about as a professional industry.

Prior to launching Affiliate Voice I reached out to the PMA to let them know we wanted to work together and complement one another’s strengths. I think Affiliate Voice is well suited to advocate for an Affiliate Bill of Rights and help affiliates maintain their business should these anti-affiliate taxes or other similar legislations be ratified. The PMA can do more with lobbying and organizing challenges to legislation.  They are very well equipped to do this.

I have no interest in wasting energy or time in petty politics or some kind of nonproductive competition.  Every industry has multiple organizations and the affiliate industry shouldn’t be any different.

What are the goals for Affiliate Voice in 2009?

We are working on establishing an industry Code of Ethics. We also want to formulate and ratify an Affiliate Bill of Rights to help improve relationships between all parties in the affiliate industry. In terms of keeping up with all the legislative efforts in various states, well, that will be an ongoing challenge throughout the whole year.

Since affiliates by nature seem to be fiercely independent and private.  Do you feel they will join an organization, any organization?

As people get used to the idea that you can be part of an organization without having to open your business model to scrutiny attitudes will change. Especially if we can demonstrate how organizations can achieve good things. Perceptions won’t change overnight but I think people will come to realize that they need organization.

Right now I feel the affiliate industry is a bit demoralized but, as people see two groups out there fighting for change they will become more encouraged at the efforts being taken. Personally I am encouraged with all the effort I’ve seen over the last couple of months with people rallying and stepping up, including the networks, to take a public stance against this type of legislation. I have seen merchants reaching out to their affiliates to help provide advice. All this effort is such a fabulous change compared to what happened in New York. It shows we have learned as an industry. I think this could be a rough year while we battle this legislation but ultimately we’re going to be able to adjust this industry and be all right.

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I always say going on a long drive with someone tells you a lot about them. When you walk 60 miles with someone it reveals even more. Last year I was shanghaied into walking such a distance with Missy Ward, founder of Affiliate Marketers Give Back, during which she fractured her foot but still persevered. But not out of some personal aggrandizing need to grab attention. Rather it was her passion for a cause that drove her forward. That cause is the fight against breast cancer and it’s one she is championing again this year.

I sat down with Missy to discuss what drives her.

What spurred you to take up the fight against breast cancer?

Every choice is personal. For me over a decade ago someone I know very, very well was going to her routine doctor’s exam. She didn’t know much about checking for lumps and while she was there her doctor found a lump in her left breast. Since she was young and there wasn’t a history of cancer in her family the doctor said it was probably nothing. Unfortunately when the tests came back it wasn’t nothing, it was breast cancer.

I watched this girl’s life totally change at that point. She had something that everyone is afraid of.  It’s the big C-word. When it enters your life directly or through a friend it changes things permanently. I watched her go through the fear, anxiety, and pain of treatment, just trying to keep it together with this thing, this disease, looming over her. It broke my heart; I just wanted to be there to support her. Since I couldn’t fix her, the only thing I knew how to do was to start doing some fundraising in hopes that one day no one else would be stricken with this horrible disease.

Over the course of years, while I have been involved in doing what I can to raise funds and awareness, I have seen other family members and friends stricken by the disease. Gosh, you know I have a nine-year-old stepdaughter; the thing that I want most in this world is to help eradicate breast cancer by time she gets boobies.

How did Affiliate Marketer’s Give Back start?

For the last ten years or so I’ve been raising funds for the Susan G. Komen and the National Breast Cancer Foundation on my own as well as through Avon sponsored events. I really didn’t have a good way to help raise a lot of money to be donated. When I started I was a single mom just trying to keep my head above water. I donated my time to the Avon walks and helped raise funds that way.

Shawn (Shawn Collins, co-founder Affiliate Summit), my business partner held similar beliefs as to why fighting breast cancer was important. Both of us have been impacted by breast cancer in our lives.  We felt it was an important cause and we wanted to step-up efforts and really generate support. We had a natural platform with Summit. Over the years we have done different things, like wearing crazy shirts or having goofy events, to help fundraise and increase awareness.

The one thing that affiliate marketers do really well is when there is a cause that everyone can get behind we band together in support. Whatever else bad that’s going on within the industry, whether it is personal rivalry or politics, gets put aside when affiliate marketers rally around a cause. So I figured what better way than to turn to the industry where I formed my career and see if I could get people together and really start turning up the fundraising efforts.

In 2007, I decided to do my first 60 mile breast cancer walk and it made sense to me to launch a site that could bring attention to the event.  When I launched Affiliate Marketers Give Back the idea was to make the site a central place where people and companies could easily participate.  I was also hoping I could get some people to do the walk with me.  I was having little bit of a recruiting problem at the time.

For that first walk one person stepped up to the plate: that was my friend Connie Berg from Flamingo World (pictured below, standing on left, with Missy Ward). All it took was a little poking, prodding, and pushing until I finally mowed her over and she said yes. We did the walk together and raised about $40,000 that year.

Last year I started drumming up forces early to do the walk again. Thanks to the site and Connie’s example we had more interest. 16 people originally signed up. We raised a ton of money doing the walk as a team and it was one of the proudest moments I’ve had in this industry. To see the folks from every aspect of our industry: affiliates, networks and merchants participate. We even had Laura Przybek from Buy.at come all the way from London to take part.  It was definitely one of my highlights and we raised almost $60,000 all totaled. It’s something I’m so proud of and I’m looking forward to drumming up our efforts again this year.

That’s three walks in three years, how do you keep yourself motivated both physically and mentally?

Well I do run after two kids every day. I try to take care of myself. I walk and run in the mornings.  I do a five mile run in the morning after I drop the kids off at school and I try to do some weight training. It’s been really cold here in Orlando this winter, in the 30s when I wake up in the morning, so I’ve had to hit the treadmill at the gym instead.

What’s funny is that sometimes people have no idea how tough it can be. They are just like, “Well it’s just walking; it’s not like you’re running”.  Well you’ve been there with me and you know that people have to keep in shape to complete it. It’s no easy task.

That’s why a team is important. You have to be able to motivate each other.  This is why I was so thankful to have had Connie with me during that first walk. When you’re at the 30 mile mark and you realize you’re only halfway there and that there is another day and a half of walking, it can take the wind out of you. To be able to rally with the people around you, knowing it’s for a great cause, helps you get over that hump. You say to each other that you’re going make it then grab a beer afterward or rub each other’s feet and of course you remind each other what you’re doing this for.

What was the most cathartic moment for you from the last walk?

Member of 2008 team pictured above, see more here.

When I wound up taking that stupid step off the curb while Tweeting because I wanted all of our people who donated to feel like they were actually taking part in the walk with us, I realized that my foot felt really bad. Of course at that moment I didn’t know it was broken. Then it started swelling up to the size it was when I was nine months pregnant. Still, despite all of our injuries the way the team pulled together to help each other make it through the walk was amazing. That moment at the end when, even though at some point we were all spread out throughout the walk, we stopped so we could cross the finish line together as a team was the most amazing experience for me. The love I have for you guys is never ending.

Do you ever find yourself getting frustrated while trying to motivate people around the cause?

I think that everyone has to find ways to put bread on the table for their family. Having been a single mom no one understands that better than me. What I’m doing with Affiliate Marketers Give Back is make an easy way for folks who may not necessarily have the time to walk for three days straight to pitch in. Here people who might not know how they can participate can have a central resource with all sorts of information. It also makes it easier for companies to give contributions. I want to be a facilitator. I am proud to do it and I’m honored to do it. I just want to have people participate in whatever way they feel comfortable.

Do you ever get frustrated with either the progress being made towards eradicating breast cancer or with people’s education levels about the disease?

It seems to me the treatment for breast cancer really hasn’t changed much in the last ten years.  The treatment of cancer through chemo, through radiation, through surgery remains the same. Hopefully with continuing efforts and funding we will create a treatment breakthrough and one day eradicates this disease.

What I have seen change are people’s attitudes towards the disease. They realize it is so much more rampant than they thought. I remember years ago when women didn’t talk about it as a general topic, much less bring it up if they had breast cancer. I honestly didn’t even know when I had family members pass away from breast cancer. It was a hush-hush thing. People just didn’t talk about it or weren’t aware of it. Nobody talked about boobies as much as they do now.

For me, if I could get all of our Affiliate Summit attendees to lift their arms during the keynote speech and feel their boobies twice a year then at least everyone there is doing a self-exam. Anyway I can be out there to promote awareness, to get folks to get themselves checked out, is extremely important because as we all know an ounce of prevention…

Someone was teasing me last year at Summit. They mentioned that Katie Couric went on TV and did a live colonoscopy. Her husband had passed away from colon cancer and that was her turning point, to raise awareness about colon cancer. The person who was teasing me suggested that I should take off my shirt and show everyone how to do a breast exam live at Affiliate Summit.

But seriously, it’s so important that people get themselves checked out whether it’s men or women.  For me, beyond fundraising, making everybody aware that they have to be vigilant, they need know how to check themselves out, is crucial.  And if they don’t know how, they need to ask their doctor to teach them how to self-exam the proper way.

Recently Jeremy Schoemaker, Owner Shoemoney, stepped up with an auction on eBay where he offered to wear a company’s shirt for the length of Summit as a fundraiser, which is very impressive. Is it difficult to get guys interested in supporting the cause?

Jeremy Schoemaker and Train Signal present check to Missy Ward at Affiliate Summit.

Back at Affiliate Summit East in Boston we were asking people to give $10 donations and passing out “I Gave Back” buttons in return. It was easy to get money from women but it was not so easy to get guys involved. So I started going up to the guys and asking, “What’s the problem, you don’t like boobies?” When you put it to the guys like that they suddenly found it very easy to give.

When Jeremy told me what he was planning to do I was taken aback. Our friendship has grown stronger over the last year and he came up with this idea without any prodding. I was so proud of him. And proud of the guys from Train Signal for matching the donation because as they told me they had employees and family members affected by breast cancer and wanted to really show their support. Together they raised $10,000 which was just huge.

You’re a guy why did you take part in walk?

Well, with people flying all the way from London to basically my backyard in order to participate in an event for such a great cause, there was just no way I could pass. Everyone’s passion was obvious and I couldn’t just sit back on the sidelines and say I hope it goes well for you.

So, am I am hearing rumors about you coming out of retirement?

Three years ago I said that I was done with managing programs. I needed to focus on the things that we were trying to grow, like Affiliate Summit. Plus there are so many awesome OPMs available that really the industry doesn’t need another one. Last December as I was laying out what I want to accomplish in 2009 realized I had a little bit more bandwidth. I figured a great way for me to approach fundraising this year and stay connected with the issues in the day-to-day affairs of the industry was to take on one client. The idea is that I would manage their program and in lieu of the fees that they would pay me to manage a program, all the proceeds would instead go to National Breast Cancer Foundation.

I’m excited about the responses that I’ve gotten, with over 50 merchants who are interested in participating. It’s nice to be able to kind of sit back and look at them strategically. To think about which one I can really help grow and still earn a ton of money for the National Breast Cancer Foundation. It’s an exciting win-win situation.

What would your advice be to people who feel they don’t have enough opportunity to make a difference whether it is for breast cancer or any other good cause?

I think there are a number of things that folks can do that really are painless giving. People come up to me all the time and say, “I am so over my head with my business that I don’t have any bandwidth to walk with you or to get involved with anything”. For me it’s very simple: if it’s a cause you believe in even something small like putting a penny from every dollar towards a cause is a painless way to give back.

The idea is to contribute what you can whether it is purchasing a button or a shirt or simply donating time to a cause. There are always a number of different events going on at Affiliate Summit that don’t take a lot of time. For instance, the last Affiliate Triathlon took about an hour; people signed up, and had fun with the events. Again it was painless giving.

Of course I welcome more walkers and they can always pop up an Affiliate Marketers Give Back banner on their site.

If anyone has any ideas for things they are doing locally to help take on breast cancer I would love for them to be featured on the website.  The site isn’t about me and what I am doing it is about featuring what the industry is doing to give back. I would encourage folks that are doing something wonderful locally and paying it forward to call me, e-mail me, heck Twitter me (just not while I am walking), and let me know what they’re doing. I would love for the site to be used as a central location to help people get going with their efforts.

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Championing the Boobies: Missy Ward and Affiliate Marketers Give Back

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A good affiliate manager is hard to find. It is not just a matter of having the right contacts, but also a matter of managing merchant expectations while enabling growth in the affiliate channel that is both ethical and sustainable.

The recent glut of new OPM firms who provide third party affiliate management services for merchants is a direct testimony to those challenges. One firm that has been doing it right for a long time is multi-award winning AMWSO. I sat down with Chris Sanderson, Director of AMWSO, to discuss the challenges of being an OPM.

What brought you to affiliate marketing?

As part of Web Studio One, I was working on Mondera back in 2001. During one of my off periods from web development, I was invited to look at the site and see if I could help out the marketing programs. That’s when I first took a look at this thing called affiliate marketing and I thought to myself, that’s kind of interesting.

At that time their affiliate program was on BeFree and was doing approximately $50,000 a month, which was a pretty big chunk in those days. I kind of looked at it, saw opportunity and decided to play with the program since no one was working on it. I dug in and the first thing I noticed is that the BeFree platform actually required a software application for you to be able to login. Being that I was based in Thailand and it was a painfully slow process to even look at the reporting. I’m unsure if it was a BeFree issue or a distance issue but being the client we couldn’t have something slow down interaction with our affiliates so drastically. Plus BeFree support would hardly give us the time of day. In terms of what issues we were having it seemed that in their mind any technical problem was our fault.

So I looked around for a new network but CJ wasn’t very open. That was the reason we ended up moving Mondera over to LinkShare because their response was very friendly and helpful. At that time my direct contact at LinkShare was a woman named Lisa Hass. She helped me with affiliate issues and she was the one that recommended I check out ABW. I joined and learned a lot. Over time the Mondera program grew significantly from around $50,000 to $400,000 sales a month which became a healthy portion of their overall marketing effort.

As I say it was kind of accidental, our stepping into affiliate marketing. It really grew out of playing around with a client’s program and our company ended up adopting affiliate marketing as kind of like a lost child. Things just sort of grew from there.

At what point did you think about becoming an OPM firm?

At that time I was the general manager of Web Studio One which was actually owned by the same company who owned Mondera. I kind of took on the affiliate program, as I said, for fun. At the time we really didn’t think of it as a business model for Web Studio One. But then as we were more successful we started getting calls from merchants who saw what we were doing with Mondera and wanted us to help grow their program.

Sometimes it takes someone banging on your head enough times with a baseball bat before you realize what is in front of you. Despite multiple requests we really didn’t think of it as a potential new business. We just sort of took on new clients like KegWorks, and Forzieri. Again we hadn’t planned this growth and didn’t really realize how big it was until we found ourselves six-months down the line with several clients in tow.

What does AMWSO stand for?

I get that question a lot. What’s funny is it stands for Affiliate Marketing by Web Studio One. That was the brand that grew out of our former web development business. As the brand became well known there came the question of whether we should change the name but our brand recognition was already so strong that we stuck with it.

What is the biggest challenge when dealing with merchants?

These days, our biggest challenge is probably in closing the deal with a new client. When we first started there weren’t many companies in the OPM business. When we contacted merchants or when merchants came to us the distance factor of being in Thailand wasn’t an issue. They were happy to have a company that knew what it was doing in affiliate marketing space.

Nowadays there are a lot of new OPM companies in America and in Europe. When we pitch to American clients the common question is why we should work with you since you are overseas. That has become the primary barrier for us. In many ways this is just a perceived barrier on the part of the client because once things are set up everything runs very smoothly. We get some firms that are surprised to hear we are in Thailand. The bigger companies especially seem to want to have their firms local. For example it’s often easier from them from the legal aspect in terms of contracts and many prefer bringing in vendors for meetings on a regular basis.

What is the biggest challenge when dealing with affiliates?

I think the biggest challenge as an OPM is to maintain a privacy curtain between the different programs you manage. You tend to want to pitch out a new client program to all of your affiliates. You got to realize sometimes that isn’t the right or ethical thing to do. To try and recruit them very swiftly across new clients isn’t the best course.

First of all, it’s not really the right thing to do in terms of your relationship with the merchants; using their program as a recruiting pool for another program especially when the affiliate signed up specifically for a particular merchant. At the same time even when an affiliate has been working directly with an OPM for a long period they don’t necessarily want you to move their information from client to client in terms of the kind of niche they occupy. Especially if they haven’t given you direct permission to do so. There are of course affiliates that don’t mind and are quite happy to hear that you have in a new opportunity for them. In many cases however an affiliate can feel that it is a violation of their privacy that you are suddenly sharing their information or using information about them and their tactics on programs you run but that they haven’t shown interest in.

Of course a merchant comes to you because you have those relationships so you need to make sure you don’t abuse them relationships and have it backfire on you. Finding that balance between leveraging your contacts and making sure you are not unethically taking advantage of the information is the biggest challenge in being an OPM.

Is there a success story you would like to highlight?

For us Forzieri is a huge excess story. They were one of our very first clients and they’ve been with us for almost five years now. In this very competitive industry when you’ve had a client with you for five years that kind longevity is a big success in and of itself in a.

When we took over the Forzieri program in 2003 it was riddled with fraud. There were many overseas affiliates running fraudulent orders to claim the commission and then reversing the orders after the commission was approved. We went in there, cleaned up the affiliates and drove increased sales year-over-year with the program, helping Forzieri expand in the US and the UK. For us that’s a great success.

What’s funny is that we’ve worked with them for five years but we just recently met Andrea Forzieri, the owner, for first-time. So when we talk about the ways relationships work in this industry and the challenges of working overseas in many cases we haven’t actually met many of our clients in person. Andrea happened to be on holiday with his fiancée and Thailand was one of his stops in Asia. It was great after all these years to meet him and put a face to the voice.

It’s funny that anybody can go to a meeting in New York or Las Vegas, but if you have a meeting in Thailand you might be on vacation. Do you find advantages being overseas?

At first we never saw any clients in Thailand but lately there has been a spade of people that are heading over to Asia. Bangkok is a very central place geographically. Sure, some come because they are on vacation but a large part of it is that companies are looking at Asia in terms of how they can expand their business overseas. They want to know how they can get into Japan and China and the other Asian markets. In the US the OPM market is very crowded but in Asia it is still pretty empty. Being in Bangkok has become an advantage because many US firms are looking at ways to expand in Asia. A lot of merchants are heading in our direction.

What changes do you see in the affiliate industry?

Personally, it would be nice to see better integration between the social media side of things and affiliate marketing. Whether that’s going to happen or not I’m not sure but there is definitely experimentation where people are seeing if affiliate marketing can really generate sales in the social space.

I see this being a big challenge because many social media sites are very anti-selling. They don’t want to see ads, they don’t want to see links, and they often don’t want to see people’s products. It would be nice to see developments that smoothly integrate affiliate marketing in such a way so social communities will accept them and social media can be a viable outlet for affiliates and merchants.

Technologies like video have been hyped up over the last few years but still present a challenge in terms of making the process easy enough so the majority of affiliates can be involved. ShareASale has launched their video system recently which helps make it easier for their affiliates. I think what you’ll see is continual refinement of tools that will generate sales through social media.

What about Google’s impact on the affiliate industry?

A lot of people are concerned about Google stepping into the affiliate space, wondering if they are going to flex their muscles and how that will impact things. They could easily say we’re doing affiliate marketing now so how do we block off everyone else’s affiliate programs within our search engine results. Do they suddenly block affiliate sites who are not promoting Google affiliate programs? Of course people are concerned about it.

As an OPM I think it’s great to see Google in the affiliate marketing channel because it will help them to understand better exactly what affiliate marketing is. People in our industry remember Google cracking down on affiliate sites in the past, pushing results for those sites to the side and pushing down their rankings in search. I think now with them more involved it will give them more understanding about what affiliate marketing is and what we do and hopefully improve results in terms of Google search for everyone.

What about future plans for AMWSO?

We actually have an investor coming aboard this year. It will allow us to open a sales team within the US for the first time. This will get rid of the perceived overseas issues with potential new clients. Myself, unfortunately I will still have a VISA issue to resolve but what’s important is that we will have an AMWSO team in the States. We hope to get that set up in the next six months.

Our goal is to help merchants reach new markets. We are also looking at growing our Asian clientele to take advantage of the trends I mentioned earlier. We see a lot of talk about mobile marketing in the US while mobile marketing in Asia has been massive for years. So we are looking at how we can help US clients get involved in the mobile commerce overseas. We see a lot of potential growth for us in that sector.

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AMWSO Proves Distance is No Object in Affiliate Management Success

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Traditionally, successful jewelers have served as both fashion counselor and gem educator to their loyal customers who come searching for just the right gift. As one of the largest, most respected online jewelers, ICE.com attributes its growth and success to carrying on this tradition with its’ online customers. Recently ICE.com won the 2008 Publisher’s Choice Award at the LinkShare Golden Link Awards. I sat down with Paresh Vadavia, Affiliate Program Manager at ICE.com, to discuss the key to the success of their affiliate program.

The online jewelry space is very crowded. What makes ICE.com different?

People like ICE.com because of our wide selection of jewelry. Our merchandising team does an excellent job of discovering and staying on top of the latest worldwide trends in fashion. We bring those to our customers.

Another aspect is convenience. For purchases over $150 we offer free shipping and during the holidays we also offer a variety of enhanced shipping options for our customers. Let’s say it was the holidays and a customer wanted to get an item before Christmas. We usually run promotions that will allow them to get their purchase the next day.

The quality of our customer service also distinguishes us. We go out of our way to focus on customer service and make sure our customers are happy. We are committed to providing them an extraordinary shopping experience. We want to help them find the perfect gift and part of that is helping educate them in differences on such things as clarity, color, cut and carat weight. Our customer serviced apartment is very adept at managing the consumer’s questions about things like the four C’s.

Is it difficult to for ICE.com to get name recognition compared to more traditional jewelers?

Our PR team has done a great job of getting us out there in front of the consumer and improving our brand recognition. We were featured in the Matthew McConaughey movie “Fool’s Gold” and in the bridal comedy film “27 Dresses”. With our growth and our listing in the Internet Retailer Top 50 our visibility is growing.

Why should affiliates choose ICE.com?

I find it one of the key things affiliates look at is who we are as a company. When we start working with new affiliates we attempt to let them know who ICE.com is as a merchant so they feel comfortable sending their members or customers to us. They want to know that they are working with a solid company and that we will convert the traffic they send us to sales. They want to know what our ratings are on consumer sites like BizRate and other quality monitoring sites where people leave feedback. It is important for affiliates to feel comfortable with who we are before they send customers to us.

Our affiliate program experienced 64% growth in sales in 2007, and we have a very good conversion rate. We have a very competitive commission at 15% and a standard discount offer of 20% that we give out to affiliates so they can give their consumers an incentive to shop.

In terms of an affiliate team, we provide dedicated support focused on building relationships. It is that support and focus on relationships that they seem to really appreciate. I go through our affiliates’ sites personally attempting to provide them tips on what would work better on their sites when it comes to promoting ICE.com. We also do have the advantage of being on two networks with ICE.com on LinkShare and with our sister company Diamond.com on Commission Junction. It gives us overall more time to work with affiliates in our niche.

Since customer education is so important we give affiliates a link to the section on our site where we maintain a customer education center. I often hear affiliates ask whether they can use that content there to build out education pages of their own. We are okay with them using our content to help their customers become more knowledgeable about jewelry.

What’s more important to affiliates Commission or Conversion?

I think affiliates look at the conversion rate as probably the most important. Internally I do as well. I expect a certain conversion rate from traffic from all of our affiliates. If an affiliate is not converting at a certain rate I reach out than to them by taking a look at their site and approaching them with ideas on improvements that can be made.

More importantly beyond the commission and conversion rate is the quality of the relationship. Relationships really grow the program. Sure at times, an affiliate might make a few extra dollars on the commission rate somewhere else but they know that in myself and my team they have people dedicated to helping them grow their business. We watch out for them. Sometimes we’ve found that affiliates will mistakenly place non-affiliate promotional codes they’ve picked up from our other channels onto their site. In those cases they are still sending us traffic but it isn’t being tracked properly through the affiliate channel. We work with them to put the proper tracking in place. It’s not only for links to ICE.com. If I am looking at an affiliate site and see any issues with the site, say broken links for instance, even if they are not are links to us I will let the affiliate know about them. I think at the end of the day the quality of the relationship is the defining factor.

How has the so called “Amazon Tax” in New York impacted you?

It has been a tough ride. Initially when the law was announced there was the knee jerk reaction in upper management about possibly removing New York affiliates. I was totally against it. I know first hand that it’s taken a lot of time and energy to build those relationships. If you send out the message that you are leaving New York affiliates behind other affiliates from other states would not appreciate that move.

After lots of discussion and taking a look at what other merchants were doing we came up with two things. First was to update our terms and conditions so that affiliates in New York State are not allowed to do paid search and e-mail marketing. It does limit what they can do but it is a good compromise as opposed to having to have them remove all the links. Second, since the focus of the new law is that you’re not allowed to pay commissions on sales, we decided to extend New York affiliates out a CPC deal for traffic sent to us. We want to give each affiliate a proper CPC deal as compensation. There is a lot of manual work involved for us to look and make sure that affiliates who are sending more traffic are properly compensated. But I think that is the best route to maintain these important relationships.

As soon as we made these changes we hear from New York affiliates who came to us and said they really appreciated us taking the time and effort to be creative in looking at another avenue to work with them.

As a Golden Link winner what do you find different about LinkShare than other networks?

We got a lot of positive feedback this year from publishers letting us know though that they’ve appreciated of all the time and effort we have put in to helping them grow their business. It is nice to win an award that represents recognition for all the effort that we have put in to the program

One of the strengths specifically with LinkShare is the support that they provide, especially by having an account rep that is up-to-date with our program and up-to-date on what’s happening within the affiliate industry. The support we get from LinkShare from our weekly calls to the ability of our account reps to help us reach out to new affiliates is great. They do a great job.

I am really looking forward to seeing what LinkShare does with the new merchant interface. I know that affiliates have been very happy with the new publisher interface and I am looking forward to seeing some of the tools that I hear the new interface will allow merchants to use. It should be very interesting.

What changes do you see in our industry over the next year?

There are so many things that change in our industry. The way the New York law suddenly appeared is an example that can radically impact things. This is really one of those industries where you don’t know what to expect and you just have to be up-to-date in order to anticipate which direction things move.

I’ve noticed a lot of new innovative affiliates in the space who are trying new things and developing a business models that are new to our industry. This last Affiliate Summit in Vegas was enormous and tons of new affiliates were there. I think the industry is still thriving.

One of the things that we’ve been testing is the use of video and widgets. Out of our top affiliates I’m not sure how many have adopted the use of widgets or video technology but I would definitely like to see more use of that technology. We can create widgets quickly on our end but we do need the affiliates to use the technology so we can refine what works and what doesn’t and improve on the technology itself.

What can we expect from ICE.com over the next year?

On the consumer end we are moving to a new e-commerce platform that allows us to do more in terms of promotions, including short-term one day sales events. It will help the whole company from merchandising to fulfillment to run more smoothly. The old system has basically been part of our company from the start, with us adding components and patches of work to it over time. The new system is a complete overhaul and is far more robust, allowing us to create offers and unique specials which we couldn’t do with the old system. For the consumer the site itself will look the same, just the backend functionality will have changed.

We are also working on a microsite for our affiliates to make it easier for them to learn about the program and give them faster access to copy and creative. Our newsletters will be archived on the site and we will highlight new technology like our video and widgets. My goal is to create the microsite so things are really less of a push method where we are pushing information to affiliates and instead we are creating a location for them to learn and grab the resources they need to be successful.

You’ll see ICE.com building a lot more brand awareness with TV, radio and print spots. As the company expands we will be testing different avenues to raise brand awareness. As active as we’ve been in the affiliate industry there are lots of publishers who still don’t know about us or not working us. I think raising consumer awareness will help open a door toward working with new publishers.

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The internet represents the largest research tool in history with millions of information sources available. But how do you know the validity of the sources you come across? Beyond the realm of academic research, this challenge also impacts consumers when it comes to finding unbiased reviews of a product. It is often difficult to tell whether a review is coming from a real consumer or if it was placed there inorganically as a marketing tactic. Buzzillions has set out to provide a resource where consumers can trust the reviews they read.

Founded by parent company PowerReviews in September of 2007, Buzzillions is the consumer facing portion of the PowerReview network. The model works like this: retailers engage PowerReviews to implement product review services on their websites, a service provided at no cost. In exchange the retailers allow PowerReviews to aggregate those reviews on Buzzillions.com.

Recently Buzzillions won the 2008 Golden Link Award for Most Innovative Publisher of the Year. I sat down with PowerReviews CEO Andy Chen to discuss Buzzillions’ innovative platform and their commitment to quality reviews.

What kind of shopper comes to Buzzillions?

Some people feel that reviews and review sites are fairly ubiquitous. But the reality is reviews are only ubiquitous in a few categories: electronics, books, and music, and video. If you’re looking for other items like furniture, golf clubs you would be very hard pressed to find any place to go.

If I am looking for a digital camera, I’d go to CNET or Consumer Reports to find that review. However if I’m looking for a barbecue grill where do I go? Buzzillions provides that space. The merchants who sell in the niche categories do a lot better on our website then they do anywhere else. We are one of the very few places where you can look for a porch swing or a pot rack and find reviews on those types of items.

Our goal is to be a credible resource for consumers searching for unbiased reviews to help them find the right product. Consumers are smart. If they go to a site where all the reviews are overly positive then they don’t believe the reviews are unbiased. And the consumers go away.

The thing that actually makes us really unique is that we allow users to narrow product searches by certain criteria like: pros, cons, best uses, and lifestyle. For instance if you’re looking for a digital camera you don’t have to just browse by price you can say, “Hey, I am a professional, Show me products that are recommended by other professionals”. The type of lens, tripod, or a case you would buy to go with that camera depends on what you do. A wildlife photographer would have a different case for their camera then a wedding photographer.

How do you build lifestyle profiles?

When a consumer buys off our retail partner’s site they often solicit their users to come back and post a review of the products purchased. This is how we collect the reviews. For example, a retailer will send an e-mail to a customer that says, “Thanks for buying. We hope you’re happy with the product, tell us what you think.” Within that review process we give them the opportunity to answer profile style questions.

Let’s say I went to Toys “R” Us and I bought a car seat. I might say, “Hey, this is a great car seat for travel. The best thing about it is that is lightweight or it folds and I can carry it. And oh, by the way, I’m a mother of twins.” Using that example we would then we create a profile around mother of twins.

When you combine product category plus the type of information in the review survey Buzzillions turns into a customized recommendation engine.

What about consumer privacy concerns?

There is no private information that is this transmitted during this process. The customers are the retailer’s customers and the retailer manages the login and all shopping cart information. All the retailer does is pass us the information attached to the review and survey itself. We don’t expose the e-mail address or other information that is passed between us and the merchant.

Now we do, on Buzzillions, have an optional Craigslist style verification with our system that allows people to verify who they are after they post a review. On our site there are verified reviewers and we also have verified buyers. Since our retail partners know who has purchased from their site, they flag this person as a verified buyer. Ultimately, will this help increase the credibility of the review. It also limits others’ abilities to game the system by posting faulty and fake reviews. Amazon, for example, is pretty notorious for such reviews appearing on their site, where in a book review you will notice that the reviewers are both the writer and the publisher. Our goal is to maintain the credibility of our reviews.

What about merchants who shy away or are concerned about posting negative user experiences?

First and foremost, at Buzzillions the reviews are all about the product. Our moderation policy is to filter out comments that deal with the level of service and not the product. For example, if a customer buys a great product they loved but it’s shipped late and the customer posts a one star review that would not be a valid review because they loved the product. We try to separate views about the product from views about the retailer. We actually do provide a service review which we separate and send to the retailer so they can get feedback, but we see really spend a lot of effort to make sure the product review is about the product and not the service.

Still, a merchant has to be able to be stand behind what they sell and be ready to deal with positive and negative reviews.

What about retailers who feel like they can do build the review system themselves?

I think it’s widely accepted that reviews are a good thing. Most retailers who haven’t done them yet realize that they are never going to get to implementing reviews them themselves. They realize they are not to be able to build it, manage it, and more importantly moderate it because it takes staffing people to read reviews and to maintain editorial policy. The advantage with Power Reviews is that a hard technology is provided free of charge as well as the moderation. Both are important. Plus installation can be very quick. As fast as 48 hours we can have a retailer up on the site. That kind of implementation is just not within the realm of possibilities for most companies; to do it that fast with so many features and moderation resources.

Why CPA over CPC?

One of the big problems with CPC businesses is that you are forced as a retailer to trim your feed. Meaning, I am willing to pay 35 cents a click for a $200 set of hiking shoes but not 35 cents a click for a $20 pair of flip-flops. So I am going to eliminate all the flip-flops from the feed. What happens is that you tend to get only the high-margin high profit products and even at that standard it’s a barely profitable proposition for the merchant. A lot of merchants find themselves participating in CPC types of models like because they have to because that’s where all their competition is. However it is not hugely profitable place for them to acquire customers.

The other aspect of the CPC model is it is solely about lowest price. Customers often go there when they’ve already decided what to buy and are just trying to determine the lowest price. If you think about how it works; if I’m a customer looking for lowest price I am only going to search for those items on sale or discount off of MSRP. For merchant to pay CPC in that model lowers the profitability significantly.

Buzzillions is all about finding the right product and not the cheapest product. The best product can be the $20 flip-flop. So here are a couple reasons why we chose the CPA model. We wanted to encourage variety and not have merchants feel the need to remove products from the feed. CPA is perfect because every transaction is going to profitable. Plus, because we are helping customers to find the right product, customers tend to convert easily after they found that product.

As an affiliate what is more important to you Commission or Conversion?

We normalize all of our leads we send a retailer into the effective revenue per click. To a certain extent it doesn’t matter what the merchant offer is, it matters what the results are. If we are sending a thousand potential customers to one merchant and thousand to another merchant we will measure success in terms of revenue per click. That is how we determine where we want the clicks to go.

Obviously there are good rules of thumb. We know that reviews are more of a research phase than a ready to buy phase and we take that into account. Obviously the cookie length the retailer provides is important to us. Ideally we need a certain cookie in order to capture to capture any of the benefit. The ideal cookie length would be a minimum of seven days but 15 days is where we capture most of the value.

What is the biggest challenge in working with data feeds?

One of the big issues we run into is that sometimes retailers use different SKUs for the same product. Sometimes when they send the feed to a network like LinkShare, they have different SKU set then when they send the same feed to us. So we spend a lot of time matching them together. If you imagine a SKU was written for product 123 you would expect that the skew you would receive from LinkShare to match. The price, the stock status, the current description and the photo should all match. That’s the largest challenge: how do we take this standard data feed and match up to the review data because some merchants use different methods in creating feeds.

We would like to see more normalized product data. Just to be able to see that product A from a certain retailer is the same as product to B from a different retailer quickly. I think that is one of our biggest issues. If they had unique universal product numbers attached we could do a lot better job. It could certainly make it easier for us to help our customers to find the right products.

As a Golden Link winner what do you find different about LinkShare than other networks?

What I find is that they are very proactive about matching Buzzillions to the right merchant partners. They actually spend time reaching out to merchants that they feel are appropriate for us and vice versa. Plus they have a good technology base that we can leverage and scale.

I think one of the main reasons we won the award is that we have an incredibly high conversion rate and we don’t use coupons to do that. When you think of typical affiliates they show some kind of the hot deal, but we have among the highest conversion rate and we don’t show any offers. I think it’s a pretty amazing feat and is what makes merchants love us.

It would be nice if LinkShare could give us a normalized category within Merchandiser, for example, a master category tree. We have spent a lot of time mapping products to the right category within Buzzillions.

What are Buzzillions’ goals over the next year?

We are working on how to increase the customer’s confidence even more when they are in the buying cycle. You’ll see more confidence building features built into the site.

Think of a great off-line experience, for example, going into an REI and buying a backpack. You say, “Hey, I want a backpack.” A great sales per person would ask you what you want to do with it and what other types of backpacks you’ve had in the past. You could want to use it just for school, on a day hike, or use it for a three month trek. Based on what you say and what the sales person gathers from experience, they will say, “Here are three great backpacks that are going the right for you.” Very likely you’ll leave with one of those three.

So for us it’s about getting a better understanding of what drives that purchase decision and incorporating it better into our recommendation engine. We have a big challenge because we cover thousands products from over 2500 merchants. Some categories we understand very well but some niche categories are not well developed. We are always looking for those specialty retailers to help us develop niche categories who are experts in the products they sell.

Video is a big topic these days. Do you see a video element playing a role your reviews?

We actually do support and do have the functionality currently for customers upload video reviews. We haven’t seen much use of that feature. I think it’s mostly because there is a high barrier to entry: you have to be willing to videotape yourself plus you have to have the technical ability to process and to edit and upload the video. All that is out of a lot of people’s range, plus people don’t have the desire to go through that much effort. I think video is interesting and you can see it is a growing trend but it is definitely not a driver of today’s sales.

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