All popular affiliate marketing tracking platforms currently, or at one time, relied heavily on what is known as ‘Pixel Tracking’ as the mechanism to measure the performance of CPA campaigns. This mechanism requires the advertiser to place an image link to a third party on their web site, which allows the reading of cookie information on the consumer’s computer to determine the source of the traffic. As early as 2002, a major shift in the browser and anti-spyware add-on market has been moving toward blocking the ability for third party links to read cookie information. This seriously impacts the accuracy of performance statistics, and in most cases adversely affects the publisher as they are not credited for conversions where third party cookies are blocked. In turn, publishers’ pixels placed with the ad network to fire when a conversion happens do not fire as well. This can equate to up to 30-40% of uncredited conversions. In order to prevent this, Advent uses mechanisms to detect when third party cookies are being blocked, and can take appropriate measures to continue to accurately track the source of a conversion. Additionally, Advent prefers to use other methods of tracking which can avoid the third party problem entirely. Contact a sales rep to see how you may be losing conversions with other networks, or even with the software that you are licensing now.
“So this is only a problem if you use analytics software running on another company’s website which sets a cookie through yours — a third-party cookie. Tracking repeat visitors by other means, acceptable for audit standards, turns out to be as accurate as third-party cookies. In some cases (such as the insurance site) it may actually be more accurate not to use persistent cookies.” Third Party Cookies are Dead
DTC (direct to customer) advertising has the potential to make millions of lives easier by relaying information about breakthrough drugs that can help to better the quality of life for so many around the world. Unfortunately however, as of late, many of these campaigns have come under fire for misleading consumers when it comes to side effects and the effectiveness of some of these medications. For example, in a poll of 737 hip and knee surgeons, 77% of those polled believe that DTC ads mislead patients by exaggerating the benefits and downplaying the costs of treatment. Although many of these DTC ads should be doing a positive thing by keeping the public informed of updated practices, they often times are used to undermine or second guess a doctors’ opinion, yet the patient is not aware of how tried and true these methods are. Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives made an effort to change all of that.
On Wednesday September 19, the House took a number of steps to improve the safety of the public by increasing the amount of funding for the Food and Drug Administration. The bill, passed by the House in a 405-7 vote, is being called the most significant drug safety legislation in 40 years. The Senate is expected to pass the bill as early as today and it is anticipated that President Bush will then sign it. The bill renews two programs for five years and provides the additional funding to be used for more thorough testing of drugs after they have hit the market, and also to update labels on medication with additional warnings. The fees paid by drug makers to the FDA were $305.5 million last year and as a result of this, will increase to $417.8 million this year.
This additional funding will allow the FDA to work with advertisers and the medication manufacturers to create a safer environment for all. This will be especially emphasized within the advertising world, as the bill also gives the FDA authority to fine advertisers up to $250,000 a day for continuing to run ads that have been deemed misleading, and then $500,000 a day for the second time it occurs within three years. The bill did leave out any mention of ad curbs, which would prevent marketing new drugs for the first two to three years once they are on the market. This in itself was a victory for the industry as it could have tremendously impacted the $4.5 billion dollars spent on these DTC ads each year.
Despite the fact that ad curbs did not make it into the bill, the bill itself is still a huge victory for everyone, not just the advertising industry. The FDA now has the power to more carefully regulate medication dispersed throughout the world and if they are more careful with performing after market testing of drugs, they can then change the labels and fewer ads will be deemed misleading. The problem of these misleading ads do not rest on the industry, nor should they solely rest on the manufacturers, the FDA needs to make a stand to protect the public and on Wednesday they did just that.
While the days of the lead generation wild wild west were exciting and filled with new opportunities, the industry seems to be showing signs that it is growing up. Industry expert and blogger, Jay Weintraub, recently announced that he will be organizing a conference called LeadsCon, focusing on innovation and issues facing the lead generation industry. Leadcon will add to the list only a handful of lead generation focused events that have sprung up over the past year.
In addition to conferences and expos, there has been a movement to set standards, and establish a foundation for companies to expand upon. Leading the way for a more structured future, the IAB recently published a Lead Generation Data Transfer Best Practices, which is the groundwork for a more accountable and standardized lead generation industry.
This maturity is essential for our industry’s stable expansion, and I look forward to seeing what Jay and other’s have in store.
Everyone is always looking for the next “Big ” idea, but in the current 2.0 landscape, small is redefining big. After all, people don’t want a big idea; that means a lot of work. They want a big money idea, & it’s looking like “widgets” may be just that.
If you have been hiding in a cave for the past couple years, or you’ve just been busy adjusting the bunny ears on your TV, then you may need a little background info.
Widgets are simple little web applications that can be embedded into a web-page or areas of your desktop operating system. They are used to display media, interesting content, news, product information, and just about anything else. If you really want to simplify things, you could compare them to pieces of flair on your Chatchski’s uniform. In other words, anything that you, or someone else, might find interesting or funny, can be quickly and easily pinned right on your site with levels of interactivity that blow the “Honky for Jesus” pin out of the water.
Widgets have been around for years, but with the increasing popularity of web apps and API’s for sharing data, compounded with the explosion of social networking sites (millions of new micro-webmasters), many people believe we are looking at the perfect storm. At first many of the mainstream social sites like MySpace were skeptical of opening their networks to the 3rd party intruders, but they are quickly learning that they must embrace them. This past spring, Facebook shifted their business to a more open platform in-order to encourage the building and integration of these widgets within their site.
While may of these widgets started as a way of sharing information, and consolidating the number of sites a web surfer must visit to fill their daily data appetite, they are quickly evolving into serious business models. Just ask Max Levchin, one of the co-founders of PayPal, and the mastermind behind one of the webs most popular widgets “Slide.”
“Call them bling for your blog. They’re all over the Internet — some 220 million people used widgets in May alone, according to ComScore — and their viral-like success has set off a frenzy over how to make money from them.” [money.cnn.com]
As the hypes builds, popularity grows, and companies figure out how to best monetize this new front, obviously everyone is going to want their cut. In fact, it was announced just this week that MySpace is looking at jumping into the mix as-well…
“MySpace is considering lifting a ban on commerce on the popular social networking site as a way to increase its own profits, according to a published report.” [money.cnn.com]
It will definitely take some time to determine the effectiveness of a widget based business models, supported by e-commerce, display advertising, and even lead generations, but the hype is there and soon we’ll surely find out.
Embracing the warm sun and cool ocean breeze, Motive Interactive is pleased to announce the opening of our Ventura, CA office. The South Lake Tahoe office will remain our Corporate Headquarters. This addition will give Motive, better face-to-face access with Advertisers and Publishers.
The new office is located at 505 Poli street, downtown Ventura in the [beautiful & huge] City Hall building. While we are working on getting the office all setup and everyone settled we would also like to get the word out that we are actively looking to fill some new positions at Motive.
Account Executive [ info ]
Media Planning
Account Manager
Network Coordinator
So if you are in the area, give us a ring, stop on by or meet us after work for a couple cold ones at Dargans Irish Pub.
See You Soon!
-Jake Fields
I’m currently traveling back from the Affiliate Summit conference but I thought I would post a quick link to some photos from the event.
Web 2.0, Mobile 2.0, RSS 2.0, Business 2.0 – what in the world is 2.0 anyway? Some speculate that it’s nothing more than marketing hype and a new buzz word that professionals can throw around to make themselves look knowledgeable and important. Others swear it’s the beginning of a new age of media. Well, believe it or not, there is a rhyme and a reason behind the 2.0 phenomena.
Remember the good old days of the Web? The days when all you needed was an idea and a domain name and you could rake in millions? (Well, maybe it wasn’t exactly that easy – but you get the drift.)
Well, that Web was the first Web. That Web was Web 1.0. Web 1.0 was the Web that crashed and died in 2001. Web 2.0 is today’s Web and Web 2.0, my friends, is alive and well.
The term “Web 2.0″ was coined by O’Reilly Media during a brainstorming conference. The people attending this conference theorized that today’s Web is no less valuable than the Web of yesteryear. In fact, today’s Web has even more to offer. It’s not a new Web, just a different Web, a web of user generated content, mashups, shared information sources, lightweight programming models, web base applications, social bookmarking, and maybe something more apparent to novice web surfers, design elements consisting of large fonts, white space, shiny buttons and images with reflections.
Wikipedia has multiple explanation that define “Web 2.0”, a couple of which are..
“the transition of web sites from isolated information silos to sources of content and functionality, thus becoming computing platforms serving web applications to end-users;”
“a social phenomenon embracing an approach to generating and distributing Web content itself, characterized by open communication, decentralization of authority, freedom to share and re-use, and “the market as a conversation”;”
In an article written by Tim O’Reilly , he tried to illustrate exactly what he meant by Web 2.0. In the article, he compared the old Internet (Web 1.0) with the new Internet (Web 2.0) by referencing websites and trends such as Ofoto vs. Flickr, Britannica Online vs. Wikipedia, personal websites vs. blogging. The comparisons do help in creating somewhat of an understanding of exactly what was meant by Web 2.0.
Of course, the phrase caught on and everyone started using it (and adapting it). So now we have Mobile 2.0, RSS 2.0, heck – I might as well just call myself “Jake 2.0”. It seems that the bigger and better version of everything is now being coined as “2.0″ and while some are confused as to the exact definition of 2.0, it’s clear that it means things are changing.
To be continued…
Apparently Google is beginning an aggressive network-wide campaign to shut down AdWords arbitrage sites. According to www.jensense.com, Google has started to contact AdSense publishers to let them know that, “their use of their AdSense account is an unsuitable business model and that accounts would be disabled as of June 1st.”
From the people I have spoken with, I’ve either heard “What is Adwords Arbitrage?” or “Finally, I was so sick of that junk.” No matter who you are, I’m sure you have come across these sites before. They drive traffic from either the organic or the paid results on Google and send users to pages that contain almost no content except for Google AdSense links. While these sites contain tons of links to seemingly relevant information, they are actually just an unnecessary spam stop on the way to the real information you are looking for.
It is purely a numbers game. Publisher purchase Google keywords at a low rate and then pump their sites full of AdSense links that will allow them to make a little margin by clotting up the arteries of the AdWords, AdSense and effectively the overall Google results.
I’d gladly give anyone who’s been able to exploit this flaw in the Google megamodel a pat on the back (nice hustle buddy, now it’s time for a real job) but I’d definitely like to thank Google for finally closing this hole. There was nothing worse than getting stuck in 5 page AdSense loop when trying to quickly get to some real information. Granted, there is plenty of bad content out there, but when it is being supported by one of Google’s main business models, that is a step in the wrong direction.
Interactive Advertising, Marketing and Multimedia Specialist
