ValueClick’s Commission Junction has given the boot to affiliate (and rival?) Azoogleads.  In an e-mail being circulated to advertisers working with the company, CJ claims Azoogleads is

“non-compliant" in that CJ “has identified a series of isolated violations with Azoogle and has worked closely with them to rehabilitate and make the necessary corrections, to no avail.”

CJ goes on to say…

“Unfortunately, given the nature of their sub affiliate business model, Azoogle has been ineffective in their ability to perform the requested corrections to meet the high standards as defined in the Code of Conduct (COC). At this time Azoogle is still in violation of the standards.”

CJ account services reports that Azoogleads will be disabled as of December 27, 2005.

Commission Junction, a company that continues to distance itself from advising its customers on who to partner with, is telling its clients “You need to determine if you are going to pay the publisher for those commissions that were earned.  Removing non-compliant publishers is a key part of our priority to maintain an ethical, high-value environment for all clients and it will bring long-lasting benefit to your affiliate program.”

Here we go again - being reminded that affiliate marketing DOES have an ethical, value-driven side to it.  Who’d have thunk… and to be reminded by the world’s largest affiliate network no less!  This, in my opinion, speaks volumes of affiliate marketing’s tarnished image.

Thanks to Robert Moskowitz for helping us understand Claria’s new Personal Web technology.  Moskowitz does a great job of summarizing the value proposition when he said:

“Imagine your best friend, a skilled reference librarian, watching you surf the Web and—by noting what you stop to read and what you bypass—continually offering you lots of additional, in-depth content you might not easily find on your own.”

In a world of already happy consumers who use Yahoo, Google Sidebar, ISP’s like Earthlink and a plethora of others to create personalized “home pages” that offer news and information content Claria believes they want more… they demand a more personalized experience.  Users simply aren’t happy with their “home pages” because they’re static and too difficult to update. 

As an example, says Scott Eagle, Claria’s chief marketing officer, wants his “home page” to collect email from two different providers (do people want to use a “home page” to centralize email? really?) and let him check Expedia (why not just go to Expedia?).  Eagle also wants it to reflect his current interests and offer new topics he might enjoy.  Finally, he wants the “home page” to not display content he’s no longer reading (hello… RSS!).  Finally, he says he wants manual control over all this.  Does any of this sound remotely familiar (as in, do users already have this tool)?

As I see it, there are few reasons why Claria is bound to fail.  First of all, they’re Claria and come with one heck of a tarnished image—especially in the “power user” category (people who might want to do all the nifty things his application will do).  Can MicroSoft have some kind of impact on this… and what’s in it for them now that the courtship is over?

Claria is choosing to do battle with some heavy hitters (Google, Yahoo, ISPs of all flavors, anyone employing RSS to update personalized content… which is just about everyone these days, etc.) and more importantly they’re not sure who the tool is aimed at.  I come to this conclusion based on Eagle’s comments which seem to signal both power users and dear old dial-up dad. 

The real wrench in the proverbial engine?  Privacy.  The nation is virtually burning advertisers at the stake and everyone from the FTC to Congress is heavily involved in protecting privacy.  Congress has only fueled citizen’s privacy concerns with passage of the Patriot Act and big business seems to be forever losing reems of financial data on consumers.  Identity fraud has us running scared… and along comes Claria’s success story?  Really?

Claria seeks to earn the trust of a nation that rejects even the most well-crafted, thinly disguised attempts at providing free tools or information in exchange for the opportunity to offer them “tailored advertising.” There’s always a catch and privacy concerns have never been greater.  Can a once trusted (remember the Gator wallet?) known prime offender give itself a new name and earn the trust of a privacy-centric nation?  Doubtful.  Tivo… now that is control.  Show me some commercials, please, and give me access to everything available on TV, cable and the Web—on my schedule.

Robert Rose’s recent “predictions for e-marketing in 2006” piece is worth a read in its entirety but a few jump off the page as being remarkably insightful. 

Rose suggests…

“You have to develop a trusted relationship by providing value to the relationship before they’ve bought from you.  In 2006, savvy marketers will begin to create programs that establish that relationship.  This is primarily going to come in the form of content.  Whether it’s a how-to on using products you sell, or creating affinity based content that relates to your customer base, it will be up to the digital marketer to create independent, high-value content for their customers.”

If word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing Kingpin, Brian Clark were here he would suggest, “duh!”

My angle is to follow this brilliant prediction (which is rooted in many early signs of market shift from professional associations to mega brands active investment in WOM marketing) with a question:  “Isn’t this a big opportunity for what the world knows as ‘affiliate marketing?’ Moreover, will affiliate marketing be trumped by WOM campaigns that quite literally reach beyond the Web and take to the streets, television, radio and multi-channel marketing venues?”

Perhaps they can co-exist?  If “We’re all publishers” as Rose suggests will affiliate marketing be—just as WOM marketing is—challenged to be more transparent and less filled with tomfoolery, media arbitrage?

Rose also predicts…

“Look for turnkey and specialized suites of technology solutions to emerge for marketers to make, distribute and generate leads from this content—whether it’s content publishing systems, podcasting or webcasting.”

This suggests that current frameworks/technology platforms may be either outdated or threatened.... and ties loosely with his prediction that Google will lose market share in the contextual ad space as well as move aggressively into competing with CPM/image ad networks DoubleClick and 24/7.

In February, the CMO Council published a joint study with the Promotional Marketing Association that proclaimed a majority of marketers admit that they, themselves, do not have a “very good” level of understanding when it comes to e-marketing.  Combine this with the CMO Council’s new report suggesting that a majority of those surveyed are not “well regarded and respected.” In fact, only 10% report being viewed by executive peers as “highly influential and strategic.”

“This study confirms marketers need to move from a tactical orientation to a more analytic and strategic approach that will enable them to realign marketing initiatives with the overall corporate mission,” said Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council.

MarketingVOX reports two-thirds of CEOs (polled in a separate survey by Chief Executive magazine) said their marketing groups are “mission critical” for creating top-line growth.  Duh!  Outside of sales and marketing who’s left?

What has the power to change such perceptions and why do technology marketers care to know so little about tech-based marketing?  What will shame them into action or will the “can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em” attitude CEO’s possess simply provide them with an insurance policy on remaining employed?

Tivo… the supposed ad-killer… now aims to become the advertisement helper.  Let’s face it, ads can be helpful to consumers when they’re actually interested in being influenced, pitched to, etc.  This is a large appeal of search marketing - consumers can find what products they want.  So… Tivo doesn’t want to stop at helping consumers tune out commercials; now they want to help TV watchers tune into relevant ads when they want them. 

Sounds like a Google-killer to me.  Hu?  Think about it: Does the Almighty Google.com (in its current state) help you or hinder you in your search for relevant ads or commercial information?  I tend to find its user interface cumbersome and riddled with garbage (i.e. type in just about any irrelevant word and receive “Looking for ______?  Find exactly what you want today.  eBay.com").  I’ll skip the “thanks to affiliate marketing programs” rant on this one.

Could Tivo beat Google to the punch by offering a better way for consumers to tune INTO advertisements?  Could Tivo give consumers complete control over advertisements and, thereby, become a more useful and popular utility?

*** THIS JUST IN *** December 2, 2005
MarketingVOX reports Tivo is stepping up the pace and getting into e-commerce.  Subscribers can now search local movie listings, purchase tickets, download music and exchange photos via Yahoo.

As you may know, eComxpo lives on for those of you who were able to snag a 90 day pass.  Myself, I couldn’t help but notice some of the outstanding information the conference continues to provide our industry. 

This year, Shawn Collins of ShawnCollins Consulting (and, of course, The Affiliate Summit) asked the following questions to his session attendees:

How do you recruit most of your affiliates?

To my continued amazement, nobody has taken Collins up on his dynamite best practice - that of using direct mail to recruit affiliates.  That stated, getting an actual mailing address on these characters can prove to be difficult… but perhaps not if given the right tools.  That stated, in today’s day and age, affiliates who hide (do not provide their contact details with Whois registrars and/or use Domains By Proxy to evade detection) should probably earn less consideration by marketers.  After all, what’s to hide when doing business together? 

Of course, I also know a place where you can find 200 top producing affiliates complete with names, address, email addresses and most of the time phone numbers… all of them eager to hear from potential marketing partners.

Which affiliate directories list your program?

Once a popular way to promote your affiliate program, directories have fallen out of fashion… probably given that there is no clear leading index and the data within them goes stale pretty quickly.  Combine this with the fact that affiliates know where to find marketers with affiliate programs—inside affiliate networks—and its no wonder directories have collected so much dust.

What is the strongest affiliate vertical for your program?

Here’s a great question that doesn’t focus on recruitment and responses are all over the board but, once again, look at how search stands out as the leader.  Is it any wonder?  Not to me as I just got done reading MarketingSherpa’s Search Benchmarking Guide book. 

What are affiliates suggesting is the biggest challenge for them looking forward?  Nearly SIXTY percent report their inability to control the search environment (paid and natural/algorithmic) as their biggest headache. 

eComxpo is already promoting its 2006 event and with 5200 registrants this October (and a solid line of sponsors) they’ve got a serious head of steam.