Interesting News out of HasOffers today which raised almost $10M in cash from investment companies, with Accel Partners being the main funding source. While investments and funding is a normal part of doing business, they had always been thought a very cash rich cash positive company. No huge scandal here folks, but it does give time to look at the changes in the industry and really see what is going on. Here are a few points that I found really interesting about the press release:

1)   Of course, that they needed cash. Usually this is done because a company is not cash positive and needs to get through the hard time, or they are planning huge expansion in a competitive market.

2)   More than likely, it’s the later, they are planning to make a huge push into the market. If you notice their press release, they are calling themselves a “Software as a service” company, instead of an “affiliate tracking company.” Cake Marketing was the first company to start using that term in our industry to really push their company into the tech industry. It’s a whole change of what they were doing before, which frankly was allowing anyone to open an affiliate cpa network easily.

3)   They are heavily pushing their mobile tracking, app install tracking, and so on, as part of their press release. It’s clear that the money they need is to try to get a huge market share of that growing industry.

4)   All those companies don’t have their own mobile system? I really thought OfferMobile, Tapit, Tapjoy etc had their own software. It’s interesting, because the main value of companies right now in the mobile space is their technology

5)   Despite Peter Hamilton as the CEO, the twin Lucas Brothers are still running the show and have become angry cavemen as their newest promo photo shows.

Press release below, enjoy:

SEATTLE, May 21, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — HasOffers, the SAAS leader in mobile advertising attribution raises $9.4M in its first round of funding led by Accel Partners, with participation by Seattle investors Rob Glaser, founder of RealNetworks, and Chris DeVore of Founder’s Co-op. The bootstrapped startup with 79 employees will use the new investment to expand its engineering organization and accelerate development of its analytics and attribution software tools.

Founded in 2009 by twin brothers, Lucas and Lee Brown, HasOffers features two SAAS (software as a service) products:

– HasOffers.com provides white-labeled software for networks and agencies

to manage their performance advertising programs.Clients include:

Bucksense, Tapjoy, SponsorPay, Applift, PocketMedia, OfferMobi, Crobo,

Tapit

– MobileAppTracking.com (MAT) attributes installs, in-app engagement and

purchases back to ad partners (such as social networks, publishers, and

mobile ad networks).Clients include: SuperCell, HotelTonight, Spotify,

LivingSocial, Electronic Arts, Square, Yahoo! Integrations include:

Facebook, Tapjoy, InMobi, Millennial Media, AdColony, Drawbridge

“We really didn’t need to raise money based on our current cash flow and ability to keep growing, but this partnership with Accel changes the game for us, allowing us to increase our engineering efforts and quickly scale our internal processes to meet a massive need in mobile advertising. I really believe Accel is the perfect partner for engaging this mobile ad ecosystem,” said Peter Hamilton, CEO of HasOffers.

As part of the financing, Rich Wong, Partner at Accel Partners will join the board. Rich previously worked with and led investments in leading mobile companies such as Mopub, Admob, Rovio, the maker of Angry Birds, 3LM, and Mobilespaces. In addition, Accel Partners has also invested in leading global mobile companies such as Supercell, HotelTonight, Spotify, Kayak, Hailocab, Trulia, and others — many of whom are customers of the service.

“We’re seeing a market shift in online advertising from the CPM or display oriented world of the past to a more programmatic, performance based approach,” said Rich Wong, Partner at Accel Partners. “Mobile advertisers are igniting that progression by demanding real user engagement from their advertising partners, and MobileAppTracking provides them with an objective way to evaluate performance of these campaigns.”

MAT is integrated with over 150 major mobile ad networks and publishers to make it easier for mobile app developers to work with any partner they choose. As a third party, open platform, the company maintains an independent relationship with ad networks, RTBs, and agencies and presents marketers with truly unbiased reporting.

“Our roots in performance advertising lead us to believe that successful advertising campaigns are built on relationships. Whether advertisers are promoting mobile apps or web campaigns, they must find the right partners with the right users, and both parties should be held accountable to campaign performance,” said Lucas Brown, Co-Founder of HasOffers. “That is exactly why unbiased attribution is so important.”

In conjunction with the funding announcement, HasOffers released the new Cohort Analysis Report for MAT. This real-time report allows clients to select a segment of app installs and correlate the in-app purchases and engagement that came from those users over time, revealing the true life-time value and revenue per install generated by various advertising sources.

Mobile improvements to the HasOffers.com product provide new attribution technology and parameters for networks and agencies to engage with mobile advertisers. With major UI improvements and mobile oriented reporting, the product is well positioned to be the dominating measurement and reconciliation tool for performance driven marketers with campaigns across devices.

About HasOffers

HasOffers was founded in Seattle in 2009 by twin brothers, Lucas and Lee Brown. The bootstrapped startup now employs 79 employees and is the leader in attribution analytics, providing marketers with the tools they need to measure and manage their advertising relationships.

About Accel Partners

Founded in 1983, and managing over $9.6 billion in capital, Accel Partners has a long history of partnering with outstanding entrepreneurs and management teams to build world-class businesses. Accel today invests globally using dedicated teams and market-specific strategies for local geographies, with offices in Palo Alto, California, New York City, London, and Bangalore, as well as in China via its partnership with IDG-Accel.

Accel has helped entrepreneurs build over 300 successful technology companies, many of which have defined their categories, including 99designs, Actuate, AdMob, Agile Software, Alfresco, Angry Birds (Rovio), Atlassian, BBN, Bonobos, Braintree, Brightcove, Cloudera, ComScore, Diapers.com (Quidsi), Dropbox, Etsy, Exclusively.in, Facebook, Flipkart, Fusion-IO, Gameforge, GlamMedia, Groupon, Imperva, Infinera, Interwoven, IronPlanet, JBoss, Kayak, Lookout, Macromedia, metroPCS, MoPub, Myntra, OPOWER, Polycom/PictureTel, Playfish, Portal Software, QlikTech, Rapt, Real Networks, Redback, Responsys, Riverbed, Spotify, Squarespace, SunRun, Trulia, UUNet, Veritas, Walmart.com, Webroot, Wonga, XenSource and Zimbra.

SOURCE HasOffers

/CONTACT: HasOffers, Peter Hamilton, CEO, press@hasoffers.com, o: 206-508-1318, Accel Partners, Rich Wong, Partner, rich@accel.com, o: 650-330-5428, Accel Partners, Stephanie Ichinose, Marketing Partner, sichinose@accel.com, o: 650-330-5436

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An interesting story out of the Google I/O conference last week actually took place just across the street from the conference center.  As Bing (Microsoft’s search engine) continues to attempt to gain relevance in the search engine wars they have been pushing a marketing campaign called “Bing it On”.  This push has been going on for some months now, but they are really taking it right to Google with the installation of a kiosk set up directly across the street from Google’s big conference encouraging people to take the challenge.

A sign telling readers to “Put the science back into computer science:  Test your Google bias inside” attempted to goad those from the Google I/O conference to come over and see which results they truly liked better.  While no statistics or other information were released about this tactic yet, it is at least an entertaining idea and it undoubtedly got the attention of many people attending the conference.

What is the Challenge?

If you haven’t seen the commercials already, the Bing it on challenge lets you type in five searches into a search engine.  The results from both Google and Bing will show up, but with all branding removed so you can’t tell which side of the screen contains the results from Google and which side has Bing’s results.  You then choose which results are more in line with what you are looking for.  After five searches you’ll see which search engine you choose for which searches.  Microsoft claims that people are choosing Bing nearly 2 to 1 when using this challenge.

Is the Challenge Effective?

The big question is whether people will be willing to move from Google to Bing for their everyday searching.  Bing has been slowly but surely climbing in the rankings, but they are still far behind Google.  Of course, when you include Yahoo search results, which are powered by Bing, it gets a little bit closer.  As of February 2013 Google still controlled 67.5% of all searches in the United States.  Bing was up to 16.7% and Yahoo! Contributed 11.6% with the other 5% being spread around over several minor engines.

Microsoft seems committed to the long term success of Bing so while they are still quite the minority in the search engine world, they are not to be ignored.  With how many billions of searches are done each year it will be possible for Microsoft to justify the time and money put into their search engine.  They are clearly seeing a slow growth, and with every percentage point they move up it is millions of searches which can be turned into more profit for the software giant.

I don’t think Microsoft will overtake Google anytime soon, but if they can break into the 20%+ range for searches, or 40%+ when combined with Yahoo I think it will be a game changer for the world of SEO and Internet Marketing.  People will begin to take Bing more seriously when it comes to ranking their sites which can only help the long term viability of the Bing search engine.  Personally I’m always happy with there is competition in any market so I’m rooting for Bing to keep moving up in the search world.

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The Yahoo! Board of directors has reportedly approved a deal to pay $1.1 Billion in cash for Tumblr, the popular blogging site which also fronts as the biggest porn site in the world.  This move has been rumored about for the past week or more, but it has now been reported in the Wall Street Journal that the deal has been approved.  A news conference is expected to be held in New York City on Monday for the official announcement.

This is the first major acquisition for Yahoo! Under the leadership of Marissa Mayer who took over the top spot at Yahoo! Last summer.  Analysts believe that Yahoo will use this purchase to help to connect to a younger, more active user base.  Tumblr has been growing in popularity for several years and many people have been predicting a buyout to come soon, Yahoo! Appears to have been the company to make the move first.

While this is the biggest purchase under Mayer, it is not her only significant mover since she took over at Yahoo, and as of yet she has not turned the company around.  Of course, it hasn’t yet been a year and many of her changes are still works in progress.  Most people think she is doing a good job with the Internet giant, but investors are still hesitant. There will undoubtedly be more information about this deal to come in the next couple of days, but this is a big move for Yahoo and may be quite significant for the future of the company.

However, how is Yahoo going to deal with the fact that Tumblr is mainly known as the largest porn site ever, used by everyone to distribute pornographic images in every way possible? While Facebook doesn’t allow adult, Tumblr on the other hand, by some people’s recognition, is over 75% pornography — or at least where the traffic goes to.

How is Yahoo going to deal with this issue? Are they going to block all the adult blogs, or just pretend they aren’t there and assume that American sensibility has changed?

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Jason’s interview set a new standard for performance marketing interviews. With thousands of people watching it, within a month it became a legend in the affiliate industry. We’ve decided that those who know little or nothing about affiliate marketing need to be pushed into watching this, because it gives enormous insight into the industry. If you didn’t know, Akatiff aka Smaxor is one of the few network owners that was also a major affiliate. He bought A4D (fka Ads4Dough) after making all his money in the performance marketing game…and transformed it into a private but highly successful CPA network. He’s also one of the most liked people in the industry, having tons of followers who listen to his ever word.

Why watch this interview again? Because its one of the few interviews that you will hang on every word and learn something from. He is known for refusing to do interviews, not being available to journalists and frankly I was worried that despite the trip he wouldn’t be interviews. Thankfully after a nice lunch and talking to him, he was open to providing this information and opening up to telling his secrets of success.

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Everyone knows that word of mouth advertising is among the most effective type available.  When your friend tells you to try something new, you’re far more likely to give it a shot than if you simply see a commercial with some random actors trying to explain why they love the product.  The problem for marketers is that it is almost impossible to scale up the effectiveness to the large campaigns most companies want.  That is, until today.  A partnership announced late last week matches the popular video generating platform VideoGenie with the media platform Moontoast.

Together these two companies are giving people the platform to create high quality video testimonials & advertisements for the companies they love.  These advertisements can then be shared on their newsfeed in Facebook as official advertisements from select companies.  Of course, the companies will have the ability to approve or deny any advertisement from becoming an official ad before it is published.

When an ad is published to someone’s news feed the person who published it will be effectively promoting this company directly to their friends and family through a medium that they are already used to, Facebook.  These individuals can then share the ad with their friends and even add on additional comments or video testimonials to the original ad to make it even more compelling.  The hope for companies using this type of advertising is that these ads will quickly go viral showing their products and real world testimonials to millions of people.

Several major companies have apparently already signed on to this new platform and more will certainly follow suit as they learn about this new and innovative marketing strategy.  Eventually the service will be expanded out to smaller companies and even individual marketers.   What types of steps will be taken to prevent false advertisements from being created has yet to be announced, but it seems like that will be an important part of keeping these types of ads relevant.  Having dozens of ‘Fiverr’ gigs creating these apparently authentic advertisements would only reduce the effectiveness of these ads.

The idea as it stands today, however, seems like an exciting opportunity for the advertising and marketing world to continue to become more social.  Would you use this type of advertising for your product or services?  I’m interested to see what kinds of costs or payment structure will be set up around this.  I believe this type of service has a lot of potential and is definitely something I’ll be watching closely as more details come out.

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Performance Marketing Insider has been covering the case of Shawn Hogan and Brian Dunning since the case was first launched a few years ago.  Every step of the way his supporters have come out saying that he wasn’t guilty, that he was set up. Now, as you may have read in PMI, both Shawn Hogan and Brian Dunning plead guilty and look like they are going to spend some time in jail meeting new friends. Strangely enough some of his supporters are asking why is what he doing illegal and incorrectly arguing that it was only some sort of “Affiliate agreement violation.”

Perhaps that’s part of the issue here: the weird belief that defrauding affiliate programs is nothing more than a “trick” and isn’t really a bad thing, let alone illegal.

Let’s first address that: Any type of method to “trick” an affiliate program is fraud. Affiliate programs are made specifically to pay you for a legit way of generating leads, sales, conversions, downloads or whatever.

There are tons of people generating real conversions and running a legit business, following the rules, and not breaking the law. If you are one of those people who run affiliate programs with the purpose of breaking their rules and defrauding the affiliate program or network, you are part of the problem. There is no excuse for anyone to do this because its been made clear through article after article both in numerous publications and blogs that this is not acceptable.

As mentioned, many people just think that it’s just a violation of some agreement, and not illegal. The laws are changing and many more laws are on the book addressing these issues more specifically in order to ensure that there is no wiggle room. However, there are also many many laws already on the book for some time that address these issues: specifically federal wire fraud laws. Basically, if you do anything fraudulent, receive funds for it, whether by check, wire or pretty much any method that crosses State lines or uses a bank, you are breaking the law.

For those who don’t get it, read it again. Wire Fraud is a very wide-sweeping principle that has been used to catch everyone from major organized crime lords to Shawn Hogan. Simply put it is used to prosecute anyone who creates a scheme for the purpose to obtain money based on false representation or promises and then uses some sort of electronic communications.

What does this mean for affiliates? If you are purposely breaking an affiliate agreement, creating a scheme to defraud a network, a program and they can prove that you did it on purpose: you are breaking the law.  The case against Shawn Hogan and Brian Dunning was prosecuted by the Department of Justice in order to send a very clear message to the bad guys in the Internet Marketing Community: we are watching you and we will take down even the very best of you.

What makes this case even more interesting is that both Brian Dunning and Shawn Hogan thought they got away with it. It was at least 4-5 years before they were prosecuted. This is how federal cases often work: it takes years to get to them, and often they collect as much evidence as possible before even arresting or raiding the people involved. So if you think you’ve somehow gotten away with an affiliate fraud crime, consider that you may already be the target of an investigation.

 Affiliate Fraud is a Crime. Period. 

Find Affiliate Fraud Solutions at CPADetective & Scrubkit.
Don’t run a network without one of them.

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Are you a victim of Google’s Penguin 2.0 or the “Super-Penguin,” as we are calling it here at PMI? If you’ve received the ice-cold shoulder of the Super-Penguin, there might be a few reasons that this is happening. We’ve put together a few tools and ideas how to fix your link profile and perhaps restore your search rankings in the world.

Don’t go all crazy and ask everyone linking to you to remove links. A lot of those links might provide you traffic and not be the cause of what is going on.  First of all you need to use a tool like Majestic SEO, which is easy to use on your own site and most importantly free. It’s a great way to find who is linking and then take positive steps to improve your link profile.

After you find all the links that are pointing to your site, make sure that you have a natural looking link profile. If most of the links are coming from one site, or a message board that you frequent I would highly recommend removing whatever is causing that. It’s a great way to get bad attention from the Super Penguin.

Here’s some simple ways to remove links:

1)   Ask nicely for people to remove links. You need to document how this is done, make sure to record your contact with any sites that seem to be spamming you without permission. The reason to do this is that you may have to prove to Google that you are taking positive steps, that you have emailed people to remove the links and if they didn’t, its not because you didn’t try.

2)   Use the Google Disavow Tool. It’s a great way to tell google that you don’t want these links to be considered on your profile, that they are crappy links and you aren’t involved with them.  Please note you need to sign up for Google webmaster tools.

3)   Ask Google to reconsider their slapping of you by using the reconsideration request form. This is why you will be keeping records of what you do, who you contacted, so you can show you have been actively trying to fix your link profile.

While we can’t guarantee this will work, it’s a simple way to start and many people have found these recommendations useful.

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Facebook’s new Graph Search feature has certainly made an impression on the digital marketing community. The feature hasn’t even been rolled out to the masses yet and already marketers are scrambling to find a way to use it to their advantage. If Graph Search enjoys even modest success, it will only be a matter of time before Facebook SEO becomes a viable business. Agencies will add it as a service line; Books will be written about it; Facebook SEO “gurus” will plaster all of our blogs with ads promoting their services. You know it is all coming. Well, the reality is that we don’t know how or if Graph Search will be a success. It is way too early to tell and there are too many external factors that will dictate the feature’s success. What we can do is predict some of the basic areas of digital marketing that it will impact and then marketers can start to prepare their campaigns by proactively addressing them. Here is a little infographic that Wedu’s Digital and Creative Teams put together to summarize the ways we see Graph Search changing digital marketing in the future.

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The enhanced ad campaigns released earlier in the year have been slowly picking up speed as some of the early adopters have announced the results they are getting.  With the latest announcement from Google there are now over 2 Million unique campaigns using the enhanced features and most of them are very happy with the results.

Sridhar Ramaswamy, the SVP of Ads and Commerce at Google who is also the leader of the enhanced campaigns announced that since the end of the first quarter when they announced 1.5 campaigns the growth has continued to grow well.   They also announced that the current list of features and benefits will remain stable at least through July 22^nd.  This is because many large companies which have not yet moved to the enhanced system were waiting until upcoming changes were put in place.  By letting the system stand as it is for several months they are giving more companies the opportunity to jump onto this new system.

Early Adopters are Happy with Results

American Apparel, one of the earliest major adopters of the enhanced ad campaigns, and several other larger companies using the system have reported improved conversion rates as well as reduced cost per click.  In addition they are spending less time on managing their ad campaigns.  One of the major benefits companies are finding is that they are better able to track mobile conversions.  Specifically, tracking the click-to-call rates on their ads has helped them find that many people are calling their businesses after seeing their ads.   It is reported that the conversions have risen up to 150% for those using the enhanced system for tracking click-to-call rates.

While it was mostly the larger companies which were discussed directly by Google, the stats do show that companies and individuals of all sizes are making the move to the enhanced system.  With everyone switching over at a steady rate it seems inevitable that the traditional AdWords system will eventually be phased out, and possibly sooner than most people expect.

The one downside to the enhanced system is that tracking for PCs and Tablets has now been combined into one area.  Google says they have combined the two because very few companies separated them out in the older version of AdWords anyway, and it is not worth the extra complication involved to have them listed that way.  For most people there is virtually no advantage to having them listed separately and it can make tracking more difficult.

If you’re an AdWords user, have you moved over to the enhanced system?  If so, please share your thoughts with us here!

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As an affiliate, one of your primary concerns is longevity. Is the offer that you are promoting going to be stable enough to promote for months/years and consistently generate income? Even if an offer remains a steady revenue generator, are you confident that your CPA network will pay you by your scheduled payment date? Can you be sure that you will be paid at all?

To protect your income, it’s important to constantly watch for indicators of the health of your CPA network. Failing CPA networks have common flaws, which you can avoid by looking deeper into your network’s policies, philosophies, and revenue generation strategies.  Answering the questions below about your CPA network can help you determine whether your network will last, or whether it will last for only a few more months.

Does your CPA network pay on time, every time? 

What is your CPA network’s track record of paying on time? Have there been periods of delayed payments longer than 48-72 hours? It is absolutely essential to work with CPA networks that will pay you on time when there are no specific issues with your account (e.g. fraudulent leads). The second that your CPA network stops paying on time, it’s time to dump them. And if there are many affiliates claiming that they aren’t being paid on time (even though you are), it’s still a good idea to “jump ship.” Additionally, a CPA network that can’t pay its bills on time when things are going well, certainly won’t pay their bills on time when things start to fall apart. There simply are no excuses for late payments.

Does your CPA network emphasize compliance? 

What is your CPA network’s stance on compliance? Is it simply “keep it clean…we’re ethical…ask your attorney” or do they go the extra mile for you? Look for a CPA network with at least one person focused on compliance. Even better, look for a CPA network that provides additional information regarding compliance (e.g. documents to help you understand how the recent FTC guidelines affect your campaigns) to make it easier for you to ensure your campaigns are “up to speed.” While you may still need to consult an attorney ultimately, a CPA network that proactively educates its publisher base about compliance is providing you with invaluable knowledge, while ensuring their affiliates are following the rules. This helps ensure the longevity of both the CPA network and your business.

What type of advertisers does your CPA network work with? 

This goes “hand in hand” with compliance and payment. Ask your CPA network how they determine whether they will work with an advertiser or not. Look for more than just the usual pay terms, EPC, and conversions. Look for compliance. An advertiser that has a non-compliant landing page to increase conversions is likely to get into trouble at some point or another, leaving your CPA network (and possibly you!) with a large, unpaid bill. At that point, who can you blame anyways? No one should have promoted the offer from the start! If you promote advertisers with legitimate, profitable business models, you are much more likely to build towards a stable, long term business.

Is your CPA network professional? 

Are they selling you on the dream of making millions and having enough money to buy a Bentley? If so, run away, and run away quickly. As we have seen in this industry already, many of the CPA networks with the “bling” attitude have gone under, leaving potentially millions of dollars unpaid to hard working affiliates. Enough said.

Your success is on the line, be sure that you have vetted your CPA network as much as they have vetted you!

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