Second factor to consider is larger name brands. Every year, online stores like Macys, Nordstrom, Target, Best Buy and even Amazon offer free shipping. Some outlets even offer free gift wrapping as a bonus. It’s come to the point that some stores are promoting online sales only this holiday season. Therefore brand marketing is made simple. The work is practically done for you.

Experts are predicting an online sales growth of 20% this holiday season. Bottom line is… how are you going to take advantage of it?

CrispAds ensures that every lead a publisher sends is delivered. If a lead buyer’s system is unavailable, CrispAds will automatically retry the leads until they are delivered and credit that publisher’s account. If an error occurs, we will batch the leads to the advertiser and credit the publisher’s account.

We understand how valuable your impressions are so we’ve used custom technology to implement the lead buyer’s filters into our system. This gives our publishers real time results they need to optimize their impressions. By scrubbing and validating leads in real time, CrispAds can not only ensure optimal lead quality for lead buyers but also give publishers the feedback they need.

Our reporting helps you monitor and manage accounts and budgets. It also gives you insight into the current state of your lead allocations. With detailed tracking, CrispAds allows you to optimize your marketing efforts. In the event a lead is rejected, a detailed reason is always given and you can download those leads from our interface for further review.

Publishers are invited to learn more and sign up at our CrispAds Lead Generation network.

Why should clients have to deal with a headache and the worries of the nitty gritty? They shouldn’t. They don’t have to. You don’t have to. We do the work for you by bringing you the best campaigns at the best prices, minus the games. Let your only worry be about which wonderful offer we are going to bring you next, not whether the price we give you is fair.

In just two and a half months, we have added 10 more employees to our team in the U.S. This is just the beginning of the growth Intela is to see in the future. We added people to several different departments including: IT (Ross Gardner, Isac Kalloor and John Bullock), Production (Kim Anderson), Sales (Loren Zimmerman, Candice Silverman and Bryan Richey), Email (Jamey Young) and our newest department, Online Properties (Scott Mitchell and Ed Wince).

The anarchy isn’t just in the US; we have now brought it to the UK as well. In order to keep the momentum going, we need great people to work in the London office. As of right now, we are looking for Affiliate Managers and Client Services representatives. If you are one of these exceptional people to fill these roles, check out the full detailed description. We are very excited about the opening of the London office and encourage all to check out our new UK site. The office is coming together nicely but will take more time and effort from all Intela employees to generate success. Be on the lookout for more updates on the progress of this terrific new move and the people who will be joining the Intela team.

Think Affiliate Summit is just for sales? Think again. Here are some reasons why you should be bringing a mailer to Affiliate Summit:

We know the offers: We’ve looked through networks and networks of offers. We’ve tested bingo offers, dog insurance offers (even flying monkey offers!), and everything in between looking for the next big offer. When an advertiser comes to your booth and pitches an offer, chances are pretty good that we’ve at least seen it before. We likely have an idea about what kind of payout we’re getting from other networks, rough conversion rates, and eCPMs. We can cut to the chase and save everyone some time – whether that means getting business going sooner, or saying thanks but no thanks.

We know the data: If your company is involved in list brokerage, put your mailer in touch with the person managing your data. We manage the data ourselves and know the behavior of the list. Save your clients some time testing and give them the offers that the list responds to. It will keep your complaint rates lower and your IPs cleaner, and generate more revenue for list manager and broker alike!

We can help optimize creatives: Mailers know how to optimize delivery to the major ISPs. An advertiser’s creative team might use javascript in their html code because it’s visually appealing, but we know that most ISPs won’t even let that into the junk folder, let alone inbox. Better delivery means more revenue for both parties.

We can help optimize landing pages: I couldn’t count the number of diet, bizopp, and debt offers I’ve tested throughout my career at Intela. Do you know what separates the top 5% from the rest? Your mailer might!

ESPs are there: ESPs are starting to come to the Affiliate Summit conferences, not just the ad:tech conferences. ESPs are a fantastic way to diversify your mailing platform and learn how to improve your deliverability. Who better to talk to your ESPs than a mailer?

Next time your company attends an Affiliate Summit, bring your mailer with you; the business they can generate will pay for the plane ticket!

Jen Hanson

Director of Email Marketing

]]> http://intela.com/blog/index.php/2008/08/25/why-you-should-bring-one-of-your-mailers-to-affiliate-summit/feed/ http://intela.com/blog/index.php/2008/08/18/international-affiliate-marketing/ http://intela.com/blog/index.php/2008/08/18/international-affiliate-marketing/#comments Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:52:40 +0000 nickh http://intela.com/blog/?p=129 Affiliate Summit East was a breakout show for Intela. We had our first platinum sponsorship and our very own CEO, Jim Mansfield, gave a speech on Tuesday afternoon titled “International Options for US Affiliates.” Jim’s talk was well received and fostered a great discussion among the attendees.

It is no surprise that there is so much buzz surrounding affiliate marketing internationally. Global internet usage is slated for an impressive 10% growth in 2008 fueled by proliferation of developing markets in Asia (+14%), Latin America (+19%), and Africa (23%). More developed markets in Europe are set to increase internet usage 8% vs. the United States maturing market growth of 4% for 2008.

The rising number of internet users is fueling a dynamic shift of advertising dollars to an ever increasing online audience. The UK, as a country, poses a tremendous opportunity for affiliate marketers. The Times Herald reported yesterday that UK online ad spending overtook television spending in 2007. Per capita, the UK advertisers spend the most online per user (over $200 per user versus the United States which spends $140 per user). These trends are expected to grow as the US experiences an economic cool down and emerging markets start heating up. The world economy is poised to undergo a dramatic shift where future growth will no longer be carried on the backs of the US consumer but by lots of emerging markets with a growing middle class. Company earning reports will be dependent on these emerging markets, as will the advertising and marketing industries ability to target these markets effectively.

Here are a few things to be aware of (including the benefits of working with an established international affiliate program and pitfalls to watch for when working overseas):

Traffic Opportunities
A surprising percentage of the traffic you currently have to your site or on your list may already be from other countries. Make sure that you monetize these opportunities and these users. By only being focused on one type of user you may be missing other lucrative opportunities. Implement geo redirect options and make sure that you work with a network with a variety of international campaigns to choose from.

Marketing Opportunities
Get to know your audience – culture, habits, and types of merchants and consumer brands for the country that you are trying to target. Being culturally relevant will help you connect with your target audience and will elevate your response rates over your competitors that are not doing their homework. Choose to work in countries that pose less of a language barrier; preferably ones in your native tongue such as UK, AUS, and CAN. Work with an affiliate partner with international experience that gives you insights to the market.

Currencies
Exchange rates are a blessing and a curse. The dollar to pound conversion rate can fluctuate dramatically in a single day. Work with an affiliate that can help you absorb the market swing. Otherwise you have the potential to witness your commissions change overnight for better or worse.

Intela is a global performance-based marketing firm, specializing in lead generation and customer acquisition. Intela has been working in the UK for the past 2 years and has recently launched an exclusive UK affiliate network - www.crispads.co.uk. Intela just opened its first international office in London, UK and has advertising opportunities in UK, CAN, AUS, FR and US traffic. Go to www.crispads.com to learn more.

The new site is tailored specifically to our UK clients. Some key features are: payment in British Pound Sterling, UK based affiliate management and a global network with top converting US, UK, AU & CA campaigns. The affiliate team will be based in Intela’s London office. As Intela continues to expand, we will build out more country specific sites to focus directly on the client at hand.

“Intela offers a variety of services for advertisers and publishers, alike. Our clients span the globe across verticals that include travel, entertainment, finance, education and more,” Intela’s CEO, Jim Mansfield, said. “We leverage more than a decade of experience uniting advertisers and publishers for optimal results.”

With this launch, Intela will also physically be expanding into the UK very soon. More details to come!

Intela, a leading global performance marketing company specializing in lead generation and customer acquisition, is the platinum sponsor at the Affiliate Summit East show in Boston taking place August 10 – 12, 2008.

“We’re very excited about the platinum sponsorship and I am thrilled to speak about the international experience Intela has gained in the last few years,” Jim said. “It’s going to be a great show and we look forward to exploring new business opportunities with everyone attending.”

What’s even more interesting than why anyone would care to know you’re at the grocery store, is what the business model is behind twitter and Facebook apps that allow you to throw a sheep or battle other vampires. Gaining the traffic, building in viral looping schemes to invite friends to join and making your product sticky and relevant is the new key to the game. VC’s are willing to give a reprieve on immediately implementing a revenue model, in light of “utilities” that provide a good user experience and form connections not so much with users, but rather between them.

Meebo is a chat and IM application that is being integrated into many Facebook apps. What is the marketing benefit? Stickiness, engagement. The longer you stay, the more engaged you are. The more engaged, the harder it becomes to delete that app. The more popular apps continue to grow and build steam, they generate page views and visit length and can command the ad dollars.

This is why Twitter is so interesting. They are hesitant to alienate a wired crowd by forcing a revenue model which could stunt twitter’s astronomical growth. So which way will they go? Will they embed ads for Expedia each time you mention “Travel”? Will it become a hyper local reporting tool that augments or supplants news publications with on the ground, finger to the pulse reporters? Or will it be a bunch of chirping. For now, Jeff Bezos thinks it’s a bet worth taking… time will tell.