“I think the question: ‘What are you going to DO for me?’ is not so unreasonable (to ask outsourced search optmization practitioners). 

For many years retailers were told: ‘We can’t show you, because it’s like a treasure map, once you’ve seen it, you won’t pay.’ That’s fine, the problem is the treasure map you bought five years ago looks an awful lot like the ones for sale now.

The best practices in SEO web page design are well known, so why not simply have your web designers follow these well established principles?  If the issue is execution, does it really cost the rates Sara quoted — $25K per month is $300K per year — to do the work??? Seems like a big chunk of change to me.”

George Michie

“This page (a parked domain) converts extremely well.  How do I know this?  Google has something called ‘Smart Pricing’.  Smart Pricing basically indexes a affiliate, like ourselves, against Google.com’s traffic… and it says ‘how much value do advertisers get—what’s their conversion rate—on traffic coming from us versus coming from Google.com.’

And you know what they (Google) tell us?  Our traffic actually converts higher than Google.com.  We are one of the exceptions not the rule.”

Dan Warner

Source:  AdTech conference, 2006, where Mr. Warner COO of domining firm Fabulous.com, described a typical parking page for pay-per-click advertising revenue generation using syndicated ads delivered by Google’s AdSense network.

I’m specifically labeling this an Opinion as I’m going to come down rather hard on DoubleClick’s Performics division which, at the recent Affiliate Summit event, announced that it has proof that one’s affiliate marketing program (or “channel") is valuable (did anyone ask?).

Again, this study, like so many, asks retailers to set aside critical facts—i.e. the self-serving sample used.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Commissioned (under-written by parties with vested interests) research is bunk; always has been, always will be.  The latest offense to our intelligence comes in the form of a Performics-funded, comScore Networks executed study that looks across the surfing habits of around a million profiled (demographically) Web shoppers.  These shoppers allow comScore to track and log every single move they make across the Web in return for the rather dated, 1990s-esqe “faster Web connection speed” promise. 

Garbage In = Garbage Out
Without a good sample, research falls flat.  In the case of Performics’ study we know a good deal about the comScore sample (the consumers) but what about the other study participants… namely the affiliates or “publishers” as we now call them.  The study focused on 63 merchant sites with active affiliate marketing programs across all three major affiliate marketing networks and 19 “large affiliate publisher sites.” Nineteen?  Yup… nineteen and we have no idea who or what flavor they come in or why a more statistically representative number was not used.  This information is not provided although nothing could be more relevant!

(and able to impact/skew the data analysis)

Irrelevant Results
I suggest that, given the “secret sample,” we are left with one intelligent option: discard the findings as there is so much room for manipulation of the data.  Performics has given us a…

1) Limited (19 large affiliate publishers)
2) Partial (no information on who or what type)

... sample to accept as being worthwhile, honestly representative of one’s own affiliate program.  This simply cannot be the case as retailers are (or should be) much more discerning about their decision-making processes.  Who has 19 affiliates in their program and, more importantly, neglects to categorize them (indeed set customer acquisition, ROI expectations based on these categories) in this day and age?

UPDATE (see Comments): Performics reports, “The 19 publisher sites were an additional (emphisis added by editor) analysis of the study to provide Performics’ clients with demographic and performance data for those specific publisher sites.”

Propping Up Affiliate Marketing
Which brings me to my closing remark: Why is affiliate marketing in need of propping itself up?  What is wrong and why is this study needed… in particular in the retail segment?  I think the answer is as obvious as it is troubling and signals that we’re on the cusp of change.  Indeed, mergers and acquisitions seem in order.  Yet what about all the trouble points—from legal battles (Lands End... Dell) to behind-the-scenes technology battles (eBay) that drive marketers away from affiliate marketing networks?  It looks like the wagons are circling.  What’s next for affiliate marketing?

In announcing this study, Chris Henger, VP of affiliate marketing at Performics, said

“Our clients consistently meet their online marketing goals via effective affiliate marketing and our more than 300 advertisers recognize the high value customers this cost effective channel delivers. This research essentially provides the industry with a data-driven, third-party profile, of the affiliate consumer.”

I invite Mr. Henger to respond to my criticisms, consider providing reasoning behind the sample size (on the affiliate side) and release names of affiliate/publisher companies and/or categories so retailers can better understand this study.

Perhaps a Manifesto is needed.  I call on Sam Harrelson to put together something similar to SausageManifesto.com (a grass roots list of demands/considerations for, in this case, the search marketing industry’s leaders/power brokers to take the click fraud bull by the horns—stop the tapdancing).

“How you first met a customer” is different from “how the customer first purchased from you.”

“All too frequently, we multichannel merchants refer to channels as Catalog, Web, and Storefront to describe marketing efforts. 

In fact, this is really a mix of marketing and transaction terms, and any generalization made with respect to this mix of channels can be somewhat misleading.”

-- Al Bessin

(via Alan Rimm-Kaufman)

On J.G. Wentworth SSC Ltd. v. Settlement Funding LLC

“... this is a big win for advertisers. The court holds that, as a matter of law, the use of keyword-triggered ads and keyword metatags cannot confuse consumers if the resulting ads/search results don’t display the plaintiff’s trademarks. 

Given the inconsistencies of past rulings, I simply don’t believe that this case will be the final word on the matter. However, if other courts follow this conclusion, we would see a reduction in the quantity of silly litigation over keyword advertising and keyword metatags.”

“The search engine, despite its recent shortcomings has caused a ‘behavior’ change among a large swathe of the world’s Internet population.  We keep coming back to it, more and more often, looking for something… anything really.”

-- Om Malik