Winter 2014 : Vol. XII : Issue 17

REVENUEMonetization & High-Performance Marketing

performance

CPS & CPA Network Rankings

BLUEBOOK

2014

5 Growth Areas For Performance Marketing7-Point Check List for Affiliate Programs10 Ways To Boost Your Revenues In 2014

http://www.millionairenetwork.com

revenue.mThink.com 1

REVENUEperformance

While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the content of this publication, the publisher will accept no responsibility for any errors or omissions, or for any loss or damage, consequential or otherwise, suffered as a result of any material published here. The information published in Revenue+Performance is not intended as a substitute for legal, accounting, tax or other professional advice. The publisher assumes no responsibility for statements made by advertisers in business competition. All editorial submissions, whether solicited or unsolicited, become the property of mThink. State-ments and opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of Revenue+Performance, mThink, its affiliates, advertisers or any other agent. The name “Revenue+Performance” and the phrase “Super-Affiliate Insights” are the intellectual property of mThink. The entire content of this publication is protected by copyright; full details are available through the publisher. All rights reserved. These trademarks or copyright materials may not be used in any media for any purpose without the express written consent of mThink.

© 2014 mThink ISSN: 1549-7615

Advertising Index:

AMDays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Context Conference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

DiabloMedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

eMetrics Summit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

eTail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

iBallers.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

Max Bounty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OBC

Matomy Media Group/MediaWhiz . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Millionaire Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IFC

Rakuten LinkShare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

W4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

PUBLISHER & EDITORChris Trayhorn

DIRECTOR OF ONLINESheila Fox

PRODUCTION DESIGNRick Greer

Revenue Performance is published by mThink55 New Montgomery, Suite 617

San Francisco, CA 94105

mThink: Intelligent Performance Marketing

CHAIRMAN AND CEOChris Trayhorn

VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETINGYvonne Schellerup

DIRECTOR, WEB DEVELOPMENTRocio Santillana

Disclaimer: Revenue+Performance and revenue.mThink.com include editorial and/or advertising that refers to affiliate programs that often include many different websites. Occasionally those programs may include websites offering education in casino or card games. In such cases no promotion or endorsement of those sites should be inferred or implied – our editorial coverage and/or advertising relates only to the affiliate program itself. Revenue+Performance magazine and revenue.mThink.com do not accept advertising that promotes online gambling.

Dedicated To Monetization + High Performance Marketing

Contents10 Ways To Boost Revenue in 2014 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2By Melissa Feemster, Rakuten LinkShare

Assessing 5 Growth Areas of Performance Marketing in 2014 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3By Daryl Colwell, Matomy Media Group

Explore the Millionaire Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Sponsored content by Millionaire Network

The Best Performance Marketing Networks In The World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8By Chris Trayhorn

The BLUE BOOK Top 20 – Affiliate Networks . . . . . 11Blue Ribbon Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12The BLUE BOOK Top 20 – CPA Networks . . . . . . . . . 13

New Year’s Cleanup: 7-Point Checklist for Your Affiliate Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14By Evgenii “Geno” Prussakov

You’re a Link in the Chain, Are You Making it Stronger? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16By David Palmer, Dedicated Media

2 REVENUE+performance – ISSUE 17

Managing Performance – Melissa Feemster, Rakuten LinkShare

Given that industry analysts at Forrester predict that the affiliate marketing industry will grow to $4.5B by 2016, now is the perfect time to refine your program, pick up some new, good habits, and set the foundation for a record setting 2014. Here are 10 recommendations to help in this.

1. Leverage the channel’s strengths. Affiliate marketing is great for driving new customers, closing repeat customer sales, and driving volume. Yet it can be even more effective when you seamlessly integrate it with other marketing channels. Why not increase your distribution by carrying the same promotions such as discounts, gifts with purchase or site-wide deals in the affiliate channel just as you would in other channels?

2. Collaborate with your affiliate network. Account managers exist to help you drive successful affiliate programs. Tap into their expertise to foster introductions and facilitate regular brainstorming sessions with your partners. Share your goals and be sure everyone is working toward the same objectives. Is profitability most important to you? Be sure you give affiliates a preview to the new season’s high margin merchandise. Do you want to drive more new customers? Be sure you share new customer data with your publishers through the reporting in your network. Are you launching a TV campaign to drive more customers to your site? Let advertisers know how you’re building your base via your account manager.

3. Closely analyze your results. While it may initially seem like you don’t have enough time to conduct deep dive analytics, you’ll find that if you spend time understanding traffic, conversions, and the overall health of your affiliate program, you’ll actually save time in the long run. If your network has the capability to automatically email reports to your inbox weekly, take advantage of this feature to remind yourself to focus on the numbers.

4. Participate in industry events. One of the best ways to drive a successful affiliate program is to get out from behind your desk and shake hands with the community. Often you get more done in a twenty minute meeting than many phone calls over a month. A few of the events to put on your calendar this year are Affiliate Summit, Brand Innovators, eTail, Shop.org and the Rakuten LinkShare Symposiums.

5. Be social on social media. In between meeting your colleagues in person, you’ll want to keep up with them on social media. More specifically, Twitter is a great way to connect and engage with the affiliate marketing community.

6. Follow the industry news. If you track what’s happening in the industry, you’ll have an advantage when it comes to being able to respond to industry shifts and trends as

10 Ways To Boost Revenue in 2014By Melissa Feemster, Rakuten LinkShare

well as learn about the latest technology being offered by your performance marketing network. Some of the best resources for keeping up-to-date on the news are mThink (of course), as well as the Affiliate Tip blog and the Performance Marketing Association website. You’ll also want to read the blogs of your performance marketing networks. This will give you more insight into what’s happening at the companies while also presenting another opportunity to engage colleagues by joining online discussions.

7. Reach consumers everywhere. Think globally to be sure your audience is as big as possible. Advertisers, be clear with consumers about your international shipping policies and consider finding partners to expand your reach globally. Publishers have global audiences. Don’t just look at the country where they are based – know that their loyal users will be everywhere. And, if you want to test how your products will sell in a given country, consider launching a test with your publisher partners to leverage their consumer distribution there to gauge your sales volume.

8. Expand your program to include mobile. This holiday season kicked off with record-breaking levels of mobile traffic and transactions, and we’ve moved beyond just tracking to optimizing for 2014. If you’re an advertiser, test mobile only offers with publisher partners and consider linking apps to track in app purchases from traffic generated on a publisher’s app. If you’re a publisher, ask your performance marketing network what exactly they’re doing to ensure affiliates are properly credited for mobile transactions, and customize marketing programs with advertisers who want to test new mobile promotions.

9. Take charge. The most successful affiliates and advertisers are those that hop in the driver’s seat and immerse themselves in their program as opposed to taking a passive stance. While we’ve all heard that success requires hard work, this maxim rings especially true when it comes to affiliate marketing.

10. Be the type of partner you want to do business with. The easier you make it to earn commissions, the more popular your program or site will be to your partners. Follow the terms and conditions, and always bring new ideas to the table to test.

Here’s to a great 2014!

About Melissa Feemster

Melissa Feemster is SVP Global Client Services at Rakuten Marketing and Rakuten LinkShare. Prior to LinkShare, she worked in Account Management at Ogilvy, in brand management at Campbell Soup Company and in Corpo-rate Communications at McDonald’s Corporation. Melissa holds an MBA in Marketing from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Busi-ness and a BA from DePauw University.

3revenue.mThink.com

Performance Marketing – Daryl Colwell, Matomy Media Group

The performance marketing industry continues to grow in both size and stature. With performance-based advertising now comprising 66% of all online advertising in the United States according to the IAB, it’s safe to say that performance marketing has become a mature and influential part of the online advertising ecosystem.

The coming year will see a number of new growth opportunities for performance marketing companies. Here’s an in-depth look at what to expect in four key growth areas of performance marketing in 2014.

What Advertisers Really Want: Multichannel Marketing Solutions.

Advertisers’ growing preference for multichannel marketing solutions is the one trend that is sure to dominate performance marketing in 2014. Marketing in the digital age is a complex, resource-intense endeavor. In a competitive business environment in which many brands are experiencing decreasing marketshare, CMOs need the assurance that their marketing partners can provide a holistic, multichannel solution to their digital marketing challenges. They want a single gateway that will help them engage, acquire and retain customers more profitably while also building awareness and affinity for their brands.

Advertisers need scale, speed and simplicity in order to achieve true results from their online marketing campaigns. A lot more performance-based advertising budgets are bleeding into multichannel campaigns, instead of being focused on one specific media channel.

To take my own organization as an example, in the last year we accelerated our focus on building a multichannel business via smart acquisitions, first with the U.S.-based performance media company MediaWhiz, then with mobile affiliate network MobAff and finally with our acquisition of Adquant’s social advertising agency, formerly known as Adotomi. Each of these acquisitions gave us additional scale, expertise and clients to compete in key markets and verticals. But, more importantly, they allowed us to offer advertisers, networks and publishers a range of online marketing opportunities integrated through one gateway.

Mobile is Everywhere.

Marketers have long been predicting that this (insert year) will be the “Year of Mobile.” We’re well past that point. Mobile is now everywhere, and it should be incorporated in every performance marketing campaign you run in 2014.

Mobile is in social, it’s in search, it’s in social and it’s rapidly spreading across email. Simply put, mobile is reshaping the performance marketing industry in ways we haven’t seen in many, many years.

Advertisers are projected to spend $25 billion globally on mobile advertising in 2014, compared to $15.8 billion spent

Assessing 5 Growth Areas of Performance Marketing in 2014 By Daryl Colwell, Matomy Media Group

worldwide in 2013. EMarketer estimates that North American advertisers will spend just over $12 billion in 2014 on mobile ad campaigns (52% of the worldwide market), while their western European counterparts will spend $6.4 billion on mobile, or 25% of the total worldwide mobile ad spend.

Clearly, the demand for mobile advertising is moving in the right direction. However, several issues persist, including quality and effective metrics to measure the performance of mobile campaigns.

The mobile marketing ecosystem enters 2014 at an interesting and exciting phase in its evolution. Gone are the “Wild West” days of anything-goes tactics, having been replaced by a more sophisticated, focused brand of mobile advertising. But quality and control issues remain, which could make some advertisers hesitant to invest in performance-based mobile marketing.

In order for 2014 to truly be the ‘year of mobile’, several things need to happen: the industry needs to mature; better measurement and tracking; maturation of programmatic buying; and consolidation among smaller players must take place.

Email Isn’t Dead. It’s Thriving.

Email is poised for another strong, if not bumpy, year. Today, practically every business does some form of email marketing. Let’s face it: Email isn’t going anywhere, despite numerous predictions in recent years that email is dead.

But how effective are your email marketing campaigns? That is the question every marketer should ask in 2014. More precisely, are your email campaigns helping you acquire more customers or just aimlessly filling up consumers’ inboxes?

Success in email marketing in 2014, will require a mix of great creative and a strategic customer acquisition email strategy. Here are five strategies you can use to improve your email campaigns in 2014:

1. Add click-to-call to every email. Click-to-call should be in every performance marketer’s toolkit in 2014. This form of search marketing enables consumers to easily contact your business via a one-step dialing process. By implementing a click-to-call feature in every email, you ensure that consumers who want to take an action now with your business can do so and don’t have to find your phone number within the email and dial it themselves.

2. Use mobile wisely. One of the best ways to improve your lead generation and customer acquisition efforts is to mesh mobile and email. Our internal analytics show that for many merchants, between 30 and 60% of their marketing emails are now being read on a mobile or tablet device. Marketers should

4 REVENUE+performance – ISSUE 17

take advantage of this by segmenting their subscribers by device and operating system and sending messages that include specific keywords.

3. Design your emails for mobile. Seventy-six percent of consumers use their smartphones to sort emails before viewing on a computer, according to BlueHornet. Your email campaigns should be designed and optimized for mobile since more than 80% of non-optimized emails will be deleted without being read and 30% of consumers will take the additional step of unsubscribing entirely. A clean, simple email design is more likely to produce an action from a consumer using a mobile device than a complex, multilayered email that will eat up the battery life of a consumer’s mobile device.

4. Use compelling creative. While too many images in your email is a recipe for disastrous clickthrough rates, having compelling email creative is a must. Inboxes are highly cluttered these days. It’s important to make sure your email stands out by employing creative that complements the “from” and “subject” lines. Email creative should compel a subscriber to take a specific action, hopefully one that the creative has specifically highlighted. Once the consumer opens the email, make sure the creative follows what the “from” and “subject line” promised. Consumers will quickly delete your message, or unsubscribe to your offer/list, if you falsely advertise in the subject line.

5. Implement real-time replies. One of the great things about email marketing is that the data it yields often can be collected in real time to create new customer segments. In 2014, invest in a real-time email marketing capability, or partner with a company that can help you do so (such as Matomy), to achieve better email marketing performance through more timely and targeted emails.

Get Ready for Performance-Based Social Advertising

We’re witnessing the beginning of the performance-based social advertising era, especially in mobile. Look for Facebook and Twitter to continue to make additional inroads in providing marketers with more advanced performance-based ad solutions in 2014, just as they did last year with the addition of CPA ad buys (Facebook) and direct-response cards (Twitter).

Twitter’s recent acquisition of MoPub means advertisers now have new mobile targeting capabilities to play around with on the social network. Twitter expanded those ad targeting capabilities even further in November by allowing marketers to more granularly segment audiences on mobile (iOS and Android) by operating system version, device, and Wi-Fi connectivity.

Facebook is now mobile. Forty-nine percent of its Q3 2013 ad revenue came from mobile, an increase of 8 percent from the second quarter, and a giant leap from early 2011 when it had no mobile advertising revenue. Facebook mobile advertising gives marketers an unparalleled ability to target consumers with quality content-based ads, increasing engagement and ultimately improving performance and ROI.

Social will play an increasingly important role in performance marketing in the future (full disclosure: we made a social acquisition

Successfulbrands share

brilliant methods, inspiring insights, & analytics best

practices…

MARCH 16-20SAN FRANCISCO

www.emetrics.org

PRODUCED BY LIFETIME ASSOC. PARTNER

mThink readerssave 10%

when using promo code: MTRM14

Performance Marketing – Daryl Colwell, Matomy Media Group

5revenue.mThink.com

in 2013 when we acquired Adquant’s social advertising agency in October). The combination of mobile and social is still maturing but you can already see the possibilities emerging. The ability to mix mobile’s real-time marketing capabilities with social’s customer engagement and emerging customer acquisition capabilities is a digital marketer’s dream.

Look for mobile social campaigns to become an increasingly important part of advertisers’ online marketing mix in 2014.

Digital Video Advertising Gets Its Moment

Video has historically not been perceived to be a “performance” marketing channel for many of your typical performance advertisers. Historically, it has been reserved for advertisers looking to make a branding splash without necessarily a call-to-action. This outdated perception will change in 2014.

Digital video advertising will explode in 2014, with U.S. advertisers projected to increase their spend 40% from 2013, to $5.75 billion, according to eMarketer. Considering performance-based advertising makes up more than 60% of all U.S. online advertising spend, it is a safe bet that performance-based digital video ads will be a big market in the performance industry in 2014.

Don’t think of video ads as only a desktop opportunity. eMarketer expects mobile video ad spend to surpass $1 billion in 2014 and exceed $2 billion by 2016. Make sure your digital video ad marketing strategy includes mobile.

Video can and should be promoted with some sort of incentive attached to it. At a recent Appnation conference it was reported that when there is a “hook,” incentive or virtual currency (choose the word you think most accurately describes the incentive) to digital video ads more than 80% of consumers will video an ad in its entirety. When there is no “hook” just 20% of digital video ads are viewed to completion. These figures, coupled with the fact the prior method of video ad buying is often less expensive, makes it hard to resist performance-based digital video advertising as a marketing strategy for 2014.

Here are three quick tips to make your digital video ad campaigns more performance-oriented:

• Add click-to-call• Add a lead-gen form at the end of the video or ad • Ensure you have social media signals (Facebook, Twitter and

LinkedIn shares) embedded at the end of the video.2014 is sure to bring a number of new opportunities, speed bumps

and surprises in performance marketing. Companies and networks that adapt to advertisers’ growing demand for multichannel marketing solutions and the emerging power of mobile and social media will be well positioned for success and growth in the coming year. Those that hew to outdated business models, or fail to provide a multichannel gateway of performance-based advertising solutions, will see their marketshare erode at the hands of more nimble and savvy competitors.

About Daryl Colwell

Daryl Colwell is the senior vice president of business development, U.S., at Matomy Media Group, a global performance marketing company. He can be reached at dcolwell@matomy.com or on Twitter at @dhcolwell.

Performance Marketing – Daryl Colwell, Matomy Media Group

http://www.millionairenetwork.com

Sponsored Content

8 REVENUE+performance – ISSUE 17

Online Advertising BLUE BOOK

The LeadingeCommerce AndMulti-ChannelRetail EventRelationships, QualityInteractions & Top-RatedContent Is What We Do

Retailers – Get 25% OffWith Code ETW14REVPA

March 3-6, 2014JW Marriott San Antonio Hill CountryResort & SpaSan Antonio, TX

Register Now:1.888.482.6012etail@wbresearch.comwww.etailwest.com www.theeTailblog.com

Lead Sponsors:

IQPC-WBR eTail West RevenuePerf Ad 2.1:Layout 1 13-12-13 1:59 P

The Best Performance Marketing Networks In The WorldChris Trayhorn, mThink.com

This year the BLUE BOOK survey attracted 50% more respondents than ever before, mak-ing it the largest research survey in the perfor-mance marketing industry. Tens of thousands of industry professionals came together to iden-tify the best affiliate and CPA networks in the world. Within these pages you will find 40 of them, as chosen by the advertisers and publish-ers of the international performance marketing community.

These are networks that have been able to thrive and grow in an environment that is not just competitive but is also increasingly difficult in terms of regulatory enforcement. Evolution in times of change is the mark of a survivor spe-cies – all of these networks have shown that they possess the combination of intelligence, responsiveness and resilience to succeed in the longer term. This can only be achieved by good leadership.

The BLUE BOOK rankings themselves have also evolved this year, with more networks than ever dropping out of the rankings or being acquired. This is a sign of the increasing rate of change in the industry and of the drive towards con-solidation. There will be fewer networks in future, but they will be bigger and better, and this is a good thing.

We have also modified our ranking algorithm for the CPS rankings in order to reflect the changing state of technol-ogy and the growing importance of tracking platform eco-systems. As a result we see the entry of two “non-networks” into the rankings, Performance Horizon Group and Impact Radius. Both are changing the way that affiliate marketing is regarded within enterprise-level boardrooms, and are break-

9revenue.mThink.com

Online Advertising BLUE BOOK

The Best Performance Marketing Networks In The WorldChris Trayhorn, mThink.com

BLUE BOOK #1 CPS NETWORKRakuten LinkShareThe Best CPS Network In The WorldRakuten Linkshare repeats their #1 ranking from last year in what was an incredibly close competition. Some big account wins from major ecommerce customers together with a focus on service carried them over the line.

“In a year of unprecedented change for our industry, Rakuten LinkShare is honored to have earned this achievement for the third consecutive year,” said Melissa Feemster, senior vice president, Global Services, Rakuten LinkShare. “Our focus on delivering outstanding service and innovative technology and analytics has resulted in a successful, global community of advertisers and publishers that today recognize and honor our commitment to their success.”

BLUE BOOK #1 CPA NETWORKMax BountyThe Best CPA Network In The World The Canadian network owned by brothers JP and Steve Sauve has been in or around our top 5 CPA networks for several years now, a result of the profes-sionalism they show and the long-term relationships they have built in the industry. The #1 ranking for 2014 reflects this consistency and stability.

JP Sauve, Max Bounty’s co-founder and CEO, said, “A decade ago, MaxBounty set out to offer affiliates and advertisers exceptional value as an alternative CPA network in performance marketing. I like to think that our first place ranking today is a reflection of our expe-rience, stability and ethics in a fast changing industry. Thank you to all who have helped us achieve our goals.”

The BLUE BOOK Top 20 is not a simple list of the biggest net-works. Instead, it takes into account reputation, influence, clientele, popularity and scale. Publishers and advertisers are self-identified and are provided with different questionnaires depending on whether they primarily run CPS campaigns or CPA/CPL. In addition to the main survey, we also accept input from the Blue Ribbon Panel of industry experts as well as our own research and aggregation of traffic data, measures of in-dustry influence and as many other pieces of information as we can gather.

Methodology

ing new ground in terms of technology and marketing sophistication. The ongoing integration of performance marketing into the overall marketing mix so that corpo-rate brand managers can use simple integrated marketing dashboards will be one of the stories of 2014.

SoLoMo, or SoLoMoGlo if you’ve had your morning cof-fee, is the big driver of our business right now. Social com-merce, mobile, video, new payment systems, gaming and apps mean that performance marketing is positioned per-fectly. Brands should and must bring performance market-ing into their mix if they are to succeed in the years ahead. The networks in these pages are the ones to help them do just that.

This year’s BLUE BOOK survey was bigger than ever, with over 20,000 industry professionals taking the time to give their views. There is no better guide to which net-works are really doing the job of serving their advertiser and publisher partners. Look for our ad:tech edition in April for more detail on these results, and see overleaf for our new look Blue Ribbon Panel of performance market-ing industry experts.

The BLUE BOOK Top CPS and CPA networks: the best networks in the world.

#1NETWORK

2 014

REVE

NUE+

PERFORMANCE BLUE BOOK

BEST CPS NETWORKSWORLDWIDE

#1NETWORK

2 014

REVE

NUE+

PERFORMANCE BLUE BOOK

BEST CPA NETWORKSWORLDWIDE

10 REVENUE+performance – ISSUE 17rakutenmarketing.com

Rakuten LinkShare is part of Rakuten Marketing’s integrated marketing solutions.

World Class Service and Technology Trusted by the Best Brands

Display & Retargeting Paid Search Marketing Product & Coupon Feeds

11revenue.mThink.com

Online Advertising BLUE BOOKTOP 20 Affiliate (CPS) NetworksNetwork URL Survey comments or notes

1 Rakuten LinkShare

linkshare.com Rakuten Linkshare and CJ fought to a close finish this year. LinkShare sneaked it with their high levels of satisfaction from advertisers.

2 Commission Junction

cj.com CJ is felt by some to have a technology lead over their competitors and is a little more popular with publishers. A very professional network.

3 ClickBank clickbank.com Still huge even as they have had to evolve with the changing rules on promotions and disclosures. Massively popular with entry-level merchants.

4 ShareASale shareasale.com Everyone likes and respects SAS. The only reason they don’t win every year is that they don’t quite have the scale of the top 3.

5 Affiliate Window/ zanox

us.affiliatewindow.com The best network in Europe and increasingly prominent in the USA. Well worth a look for any publisher or advertiser looking to go global.

6 AvantLink avantlink.com Stable, professionally operated and a great business model. Very popular with the advertisers in our survey. What more could anyone want?

7 Amazon Affiliates affiliate-program. amazon.com

The industry entry-point for many publishers. Ease of use and broad product offerings make it simple.

8 LinkConnector linkconnector.com A terrific range of trusted brands and a focus on proprietary technology keeps LinkConnector high on our list.

9 TradeDoubler tradedoubler.com Another very strong European network and founded way back in 1999, TradeDoubler has global reach and a great publisher network.

10 eBay Enterprise/ Pepperjam

ebaypartnernetwork.com pepperjamnetwork.com

Pepperjam is slowly being absorbed into the eBay brand. Lots of scale, but perhaps lacking the personal touch.

11 Avangate avangate.com An energetic Eurpean network focused on digital downloads and SaaS, Avangate overtakes oneNetworkDirect in this year’s rankings.

12 oneNetworkDirect onenetworkdirect.com oND is still popular but there are signs that the network is suffering from poor PR in regard to associated Digital River company Direct Response Technologies.

13 FlexOffers flexoffers.com A network that promises original product review content for publishers and full compliance monitoring for advertisers - within a multitude of product verticals.

14 Webgains webgains.com Based in the UK but with an active US office, WebGains tries to stay focused on solid, core values.

15 Affiliate Future affiliatefuture.com A new entry to the Top 20, based in NY and owned by Progressive Digital Media Group.

16 Facebook facebook.com The social media giant has made big strides with affiliates and has the money to win the Internet.

17 AffiliateNetwork.com affiliatenetwork.com Based in Manhattan and with a great reputation, especially for their email campaigns.

18 RevenueWire revenuewire.com Not quite as good a showing in this year’s survey as in previous, but a solid, reputable network.

19 Performance Horizon Group performancehorizon.com PHG is breaking new ground in terms of real-time, large scale, SaaS tracking. A new paradigm?

20 Impact Radius impactradius.com Run by legends of the industry, with top-class technology and great results. Well worth their inclusion.

12 REVENUE+performance – ISSUE 17

Online Advertising BLUE BOOK

Blue Ribbon PanelChris Trayhorn, mThinkChris Trayhorn is the Chairman of the Performance Marketing Industry Blue Ribbon Panel and the CEO of mThink.com, a leading online and content marketing agency. He has founded four successful marketing companies in London and San Francisco in the last 15 years, and is currently the founder and publisher of Revenue+Performance magazine, the magazine of the performance marketing industry since 2002.

Jay Weintraub, Grow.coJay Weintraub is the Founder and CEO of Grow.co, a customer acquisition think tank and strategic advisory services firm serving growth stage and enterprise level brands. A thought leader in online marketing and lead generation, Jay was previously the Founder and CEO of LeadsCon, the largest community of vertical media and marketing professionals, which he sold in 2012. Prior to LeadsCon, Jay was part of the founding management team of Los Angeles based Oversee.net, as well as spending two and a half years atAdvertising.com before its acquisition to AOL. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.

Matt Frary, Smarter ChaosMatt Frary is CEO and Founder of SmarterChaos.com, an Internet marketing and sales agency focused on large brands. Matt was a founder of a former top-30 online ad network called ROIRocket.com, and is a frequent speaker at online marketing conferences. As a Mentor at The Founder’s Institute in Denver, CO, Matt enjoys working with start-ups to realize positive ROI quickly and is a passionate and serial entrepreneur.

Melissa Feemster, Rakuten LinkShareMelissa Feemster is SVP Global Client Services at Rakuten Marketing and Rakuten LinkShare. Prior to LinkShare, she worked in Account Management at Ogilvy, in brand management at Campbell Soup Company and in Corporate Communications at McDonald’s Corporation. Melissa holds an MBA in Marketing from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and a BA from DePauw University.

Chad French, PeerflyChad French is President/CEO of PeerFly, Inc. As a seasoned programmer and affiliate marketer, Chad built the PeerFly Affiliate Network from scratch. Chad’s now 5-year-old company is considered one of the fastest growing performance marketing networks in the industry and is ranked #2 in the BLUE BOOK rankings of the best CPA networks in the world for 2014.

Ricky Ahuja, Affiliate Venture GroupA serial entrepreneur, Ricky Ahuja has been known and well respected for his strong acumen as an online marketer and social media expert. His agency was ranked in the Top 10 on 2012 list of the “Top 10 Networks” and was most recently nominated as a Top 20 Ad Network on Blue Book survey by Revenue Performance.

Evgenii “Geno” Prussakov, AMNavigatorEvgenii “Geno” Prussakov is an author, blogger, speaker and affiliate marketing consultant He is also founder and chair of Affiliate Management Days conference, and owner of AM Navigator, an affiliate program management and consulting company.

Cristian Miculi, AvangateCristian Miculi is senior affiliate marketing manager for Avangate, an eCommerce solutions provider that enables Software and Software-as-a-Service companies to sell their products via any channel and any model with a view to optimizing both online and offline revenue.

Peter Klein, formerly of MediaWhizPeter Klein has 20 years of online and offline marketing experience. For the last 5 years, he was SVP of Media for MediaWhiz until November 2013. He was responsible for the creation and growth of many performance marketing divisions, including the MonetizeIt Affiliate Network, Data Acquisition, List Management, Display practice, and the Education portal. Peter holds a BS in Business Management and Marketing from Cornell University.

JP Sauve, Max BountyJP Sauve is the CEO of this year’s Blue Book #1 ranked CPA network, MaxBounty.com. He co-founded the network with his brother Steve in 2004, after seven successful years as a super-affiliate. JP has three children and lives in Ottawa, Ontario.

Blue RibbonPanel

2 014

REVE

NUE+

PERFORMANCE BLUE BOOK

BEST CPA & CPS NETWORKS

13revenue.mThink.com

Performance Marketing – Daryl Colwell, Matomy Media Group

Network URL Survey comments or notes

1 MaxBounty maxbounty.com Max Bounty wins this year for their consistent quality, longevity and experience. Received high votes in all categories.

2 PeerFly peerfly.com Chad French’s network has grown fast and came a close second this year. Loved by publishers for their strong affiliate management team.

3 Clickbooth clickbooth.com Clickbooth seems to have been around forever. Lots of scale but just a fewer votes across the industry than the top two networks.

4 Neverblue neverblue.com Being acquired by GlobalWide Media a year or two back hasn’t slowed down Neverblue at all. Another very strong showing.

5 Matomy Media Group

matomy.com Matomy has made several acquisitions recently and their ranking benefited from being combined with that of MediaWhiz. How well they manage the integration is the question for 2014.

6 W4 w4.com W4 has a very experienced team and it shows. They have consistently improved their rankings and show no signs of slowing down.

7 Adknowledge adknowledge.com Despite one or two PR hiccups this year, Adknowledge remain a hugely popular network with well-regarded technology.

8 Adscend Media adscendmedia.com The content-locking kings, Adscend has terrific reach. If you want to monetize content, look no further.

9 CPAWay cpaway.com Tom Dietzel is well-respected in the industry and is known for new technology initiatives.

10 Mundo Media mundomedia.com One of several Canadian networks in our Top 10, Mundo Media is growing fast across several verticals using proprietary technology.

11 Above All Offers abovealloffers.com A new entry for this year, Above All Offers is especially popular with publishers. Based in Eugene, OR.

12 Affiliate Venture Group affiliateventuregroup.com Ricky Ahuja’s well-liked network with a good team working in both the USA and India.

13 A4D a4d.com Formerly known as Ads4Dough, A4D has a loyal and enthusiastic tribe of publishers. Based in San Diego, CA.

14 Convert2Media convert2media.com A drop in our ranking this year mostly due to a reduced showing from advertisers. Still a strong network with good offers.

15 Diablo Media diablomedia.com Another new entry to the rankings this year, Diablo Media has been around since 2006. Well respected.

16 Millionaire Network millionairenetwork.com Millionaire Network actually ranked in our CPS table last year, now ranking well with their CPA business. A private, invitation-only network.

17 Fluent fluent.com Fluent is boutique performance marketing network, that newly entered the rankings last year with a focus on smartphone apps.

18 Adperio adperio.com Adperio has dropped a little in our rankings for no other reason that other networks have raised their game. Still a strong contender.

19 CPA Trend cpatrend.com Based in New York, CPA Trend focuses on 100% direct deals, no brokered offers and high levels of service.

20 AdWork Media adworkmedia.com A Florida-based network with global reach.

TOP 20 CPA Networks

14 REVENUE+performance – ISSUE 17

Managing Performance – Evgenii “Geno” Prussakov, AM Navigator

There are a number of things that might impede the performance of your affiliate program. I have distilled some of the the more deadly ones into a New Year’s checklist which you can apply to your own affiliate program, improving its long-term performance. Here are the seven key areas to which you should pay special attention in 2014:

1. Channel Cannibalization

I’m sure you’ve heard how affiliate marketing is sometimes being called a “marketing channel.” But it is dangerous to treat it just as one of the many marketing channels that you use. In reality, the nature of affiliate marketing is such that it encompasses all online and even certain offline marketing channels. So, in order for your affiliate program to coexist with your own marketing efforts, complementing what you are doing and adding value, it is imperative to understand it as a marketing context which embraces the array of marketing methods that your affiliates use. At times their efforts will be in direct competition with what you yourself are doing. To ensure a healthy co-existence of the affiliate marketing program with your own marketing, avoid channel cannibalization and partner with those affiliates who can complement what you’re doing, helping you in the fight with your competition.

2. Brand Misrepresentation

When accepting a new publisher into your affiliate program you are entrusting them with your most valuable asset – your brand. Do you know how exactly they are promoting you? You should! The last thing you want to happen is to have an affiliate misrepresent your business, your product, your brand. In fact, this is one of the major reasons why I always recommend against automatic approvals of affiliate applications.

3. Paid Search-Related Violations

Whether you run your own PPC campaigns or not, safeguard yourself against trademark-related violations in paid search, clarify your policies regarding “TM+ bidding” (e.g. “brandname coupon” or “brandname review”), display URLs or direct linking of affiliate paid search ads to your website via their affiliate links. While some advertisers resort to “closed PPC policies” (i.e. disallowing affiliate paid search altogether), I do not believe this to be the best solution. There are plenty of quality paid search affiliates out there. Just choose your partners wisely, and police all.

New Year’s Cleanup: 7-Point Checklist for Your Affiliate ProgramBy Evgenii “Geno” Prussakov

SAN FRANCISCO

MARCH19-20

2014

MASTERING THE MANAGEMENTOF AFFILATE PROGRAMS

produced by

SAN FRANCISCO

www.amdays.com

Whether your company already has an affiliate program, or you are

just considering the affiliate channel, AM Days offers you the most valuable insight into how

other online retailers are successfully implementing and

managing their affiliate programs.

mThink readerssave 10%

when using promo code: MTRM14

15revenue.mThink.com

4. Domain Name Violations

Just as with paid search, ensure you have clear domain-related policies in place. And once you do, fight cybersquatters and typosquatters using such tools as CitizenHawk and TypoAssassin.com.

5. Traffic Hijacking

Much has been written lately about “software” that prompts end users to perform a click, setting the affiliate’s cookie on their machine. Toolbars, add-ons, “browser helper objects,” shopping helpers, reminders of all sorts… whatever you call them, affiliate adware is notorious for hijacking direct address bar URL type-ins, organic traffic, email traffic, other affiliates’ referrals, and more. If you have such affiliates aboard your program, take time to analyze how exactly their software works, and determine if their activity add value.

6. Coupon-Related Violations

What is your policy regarding coupons? Do you allow affiliates to use them? If so, may they harvest coupons from your customer-oriented email campaigns, your social media efforts, or just use the ones intended for affiliates specifically? Are you policing pseudo-couponing (affiliates claiming to have your coupon(s) when in reality you do not offer them)? What about affiliates using the “click-to-reveal” technique? Some “couponers” can truly add value. However, there are many more than do not.

7. Federal Trade Commission’s Rules

Lastly but nonetheless extremely importantly, pay a special attention to the FTC’s rules regarding endorsements and testimonials. Are your affiliates disclosing their relationship with you on their websites? In the Federal Trade Commission’s eyes, they are your “endorsers” while you are their “sponsor.” The FTC is clear on their expectations of both you and them. In 2011 we witnessed an advertiser facing a fine of “$250,000 for deceptively representing endorsements … that were posted on blogs or other websites created by affiliates.” You may read more about this case and how to comply at http://bit.ly/FTCGuides

The first step is to cover all of the above in your affiliate program’s policies. However, having affiliate policies in place won’t safeguard you against violations. Your Policies and Terms of Service give you the grounds to police and enforce compliance. Make it your affiliate manager’s daily routine to do so!

About Evgenii Prussakov

Evgenii “Geno” Prussakov is an author, blogger, speaker and affiliate mar-keting consultant. He is also founder and chair of Affiliate Management Days conference, and owner of AM Navigator, an affiliate program man-agement and consulting company.

16 REVENUE+performance – ISSUE 17

Expert Insights – David Palmer, Dedicated Media

As a performance marketer, you are a link in the marketing value chain. Are you making it stronger, serving a purpose, and adding long term sustainable value? Or, are you simply a go-between who’s collecting a profit just by passing on the hard work to others?

The term value chain was coined by Michael Porter to describe the processes an organization goes through to add value to their raw goods or services in order to create profit. In the performance space, as work becomes specialized and fragmented this concept often translates into a literal chain of companies involved in the execution of a plan, from advertiser, to agency, to network, to publisher, who all contribute to create profit for a campaign.

When upstream companies (advertisers or agencies) look for partners, they want to find people who add unique and measurable value that will increase the profitability and performance of the campaign for everyone. The more value you contribute to the entire chain, the more indispensable you are as a partner and the more profit you can command. The less tangible value you contribute, the easier it is to eliminate you altogether. But how can you demonstrate this value and increase your profit margins?

Increasing Your Value

Ask yourself these questions when considering the value your organization brings.

1. Be an expert. What do you know that no one else knows? Is your expertise and experience grounded in unique and measurable value that is firmly in line with the upstream partners’ goals and objectives? Does your expertise create efficiency resulting in cost or time savings?

2. Real work coupled with real experience. The rationale between adding a downstream player in the chain often comes down to the resources, scale, and efficiency created by the specialism. Are you leveraging institutional learning that would take years to replicate, or are you figuring things out on the fly and doing the least amount of actual hard work possible?

3. Technology that matters. Have you built technology that creates efficiency and strengthens your value proposition? Technology with real value should add value all the way up the chain, not just make your life easier.

4. Market making or Market taking? Are you widening the mouth of the sales funnel not just closing people at the narrow end? Are you market making or market taking? As advertisers continue to refine their multi-touch attribution models, it’s critical that the value that you bring helps customers along the entire customer journey. In the

You’re a Link in the Chain, Are You Making it Stronger?David Palmer, Dedicated Media

performance world, results matter, but not all results are created equal. If the sales you generate are not on par from an AOV or LTV perspective, then that directly detracts from the value you bring in the chain.

5. Protect the brand. A brand name carries value in itself. It brings to mind specific characteristics such as quality, trust, innovation, and style, based on associations in consumers’ minds. Every touch point between a brand and a consumer is an opportunity to increase or decrease this brand value. Placing ads in the right context, using the correct brand voice, and following compliance best practices are all ways to protect a brand’s value. Many people fail to prioritize brand protection because its benefits and consequences seem the farthest removed from your immediate objectives. Performance partners cannot remain in business without delivering on the promise of brand safety, and they rely on their individual downstream partners to uphold this promise for them.

InboundLogistics Operations

OutboundLogistics

Marketing& Sales Service

Firm Infrastructure

Human Resource Management

Technology Development

Procurement

Advertiser

Agency

Network

Publisher

MARGIN

MARGIN

Why it Matters to You

Businesses utilize partnerships because they allow them to leverage others’ expertise and proven success. If an advertiser can do exactly what you’re doing why should they share their profits with you?

The real tangible value that you are able to create directly relates to the rates you can charge for inventory or services and the overall value of your organization.

Addressing these questions and creating value through people, processes technology, and ethics cement your company’s position in the value chain and allow you to talk to upstream partners about points of differentiation that are substantive and meaningful.

About David Palmer

David Palmer is the General Manager of Dedicated Media, a leading perfor-mance marketing company. He develops strategic and innovative technology solutions for the challenges facing today’s affiliate marketing industry.

Right Message.Right Time.

MARCH 18, 2014MARRIOTT MARQUISSAN FRANCISCO

www.contextconference.com

Attend and learn howto succeed in the age of

data-driven, personalized marketing.

mThink readerssave 10%

when using promo code: MTRM14

produced by

w4.com

2013

Thanks to all foranother great year.

Performance Ad MarketTM

©w4

http://www.maxbounty.com