Affiliate marketing fraud, or at the very least the perception of it, remains an industry-wide blight. Regardless of federal regulations and threats of increased government oversight, affiliates, advertisers and publishers continue to do themselves more harm than good playing a constant game of one-upmanship. Whether it’s buying bad conversions, deceptive ads and links or charging for clicks that haven’t been used, affiliate marketers must cease and desist with these irresponsible practices.

The temptation of affiliates to adopt new traffic sources without considering the effect they will have on advertiser conversions is an example of individual greed undermining industry growth. But affiliates are not solely at fault. Advertising and publishing networks have their own bottom lines to meet. As profits and conversions rise, networks tend to concern themselves less with the long-term health and tricky legalities of affiliate marketing. But this needs to change.

Affiliates, advertisers and publishers need to resist the temptation of the quick money fix. Business owners rely on sound publishers just as publishers rely on legitimate network offers. Advertisers, publishers and business owners must view themselves as being part of a trilogy responsible for driving results and continuously improving profitability and the industry as a whole.

Though affiliate marketing fraud is a problem, all is not lost. The release of the Blue Book’s Top 20 performance marketing networks proves that following the rules can maximize profits. Still, these performance marketers must apply the best practices they used in achieving their top 20 rankings to put an end to the misleading affiliate offers currently polluting the online space. Affiliate abusers have been one step ahead of the game for far too long. As skilled marketers, this is one game of one-upmanship we need to win.

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It turns out the infinite online space is anything but; the Internet is going through something of a cyber jam. By September 2011, the final extensive batches of addresses will be distributed. Yes, final. A few months later, there will be no new addresses available. I can sense the creation of www.2000glitchredux.com rapidly approaching. But in all seriousness, the ramifications of IPv6 could ultimately prove devastating – to some.  

While the major search engine and online presences are ready for the switch, small businesses in particular are wary of the new technology from financial and systemic standpoints. But they aren’t the only ones feeling the heat. Content providers also need to get with the IPv6 program. And did I mention performance marketers?

IPv6’s impact on a full-service digital marketing suite of products and services may be hard to quantify but it is necessary to understand. Now is the time for digital agencies to leverage the power of IPv6 and implement it into their marketing strategy. Developing expert knowledge relevant to the coming internet protocol will foster trust with customers, essential for improving optimization, increasing consumer profitability and driving results.

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Native apps still hold many advantages over emerging web apps. Depending on publisher size and industry, native apps provide better bang for the click with greater monetization and value among smaller and pay-per-download providers. But according to findings in a new Global Intelligence Alliance (GIA) whitepaper, it’s only a matter of time before the native app gives way to the webbie.

The paper theorizes that web apps will become a superior publishing platform able to increase and improve developer attention. User tracking and engagement are its strengths. By 2013, web app functionality will rival that of native apps on multiple channels. GIA believes that its tracking and engagement advantages along with its versatile functionality will decrease the native apps mind-share by 1/5^th, down to 24%. Large publishers are big fans of the web app. Web apps fit in nicely with their business philosophy – distribution and development cost control.

If the web app has an Achilles heel, it’s the click-through rate. By and large, native apps generate better CTRs. But in lieu of cross-channel attribution and the multi-channel effectiveness of the web app, does the native apps click-through advantage really matter? And when you throw the cost, speed and simplicity of the web app into the mix, those smaller and pay-per-download providers may get caught up in the web app sooner than expected.

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Some call themselves social operating sites or people platforms. Others stick to the widely accepted social media and/or social networking nomenclature. You say tomato, Steve Jobs says apple. Regardless of classification, newbies to social like Pip.io, Diaspora and OneSocialWeb are pitching their sites as untainted alternatives to Mark Zuckerberg’s privacy invading juggernaut, FaceBook. The ire over FaceBook’s controversial Open Graph application and its “Like” tool has spawned QuitFaceBookDay.com, a campaign calling for users to cancel their accounts on May 31^st. Be that as it may, if people are so up in arms over FaceBook, why are these new sites struggling to get off the ground? Why have only 13,000 of FaceBook’s 400 million members vowed to sever ties with the social network?

I think the inconvenient truth of the matter is that for all their complaining, users are experiencing a crisis of conscience and a struggle for identity. FaceBook initially marketed itself as a place for friends. Those friends created the rules of the game. Users started marketing themselves, their interests, their industries, their affiliations. It should not be called invasion of privacy if you’re doing the striptease. And stripteases get noticed.

Companies, large and small, caught on to the power of social networking and influencing in marketing their products and services. The place for friends changed into the home for honchos. FaceBook traditionalists, if they could really be called such, may hate the thought of sharing face time with big business but that’s the price of innovation.

I’m sure many FaceBook users are tempted to test the social waters, whether or not they completely opt to jump from Zuckerberg’s ship. But the reality is FaceBook successfully separated itself from the pack by continuously improving its model, not settling on one formula or aspect of social networking to survive. For social newbies to truly compete with FaceBook, they would be wise to forego an independent strategy. They should outsource digital performance marketing expertise to draw from what Zuckerberg has mastered and invest in innovation, improved analytics and optimization to drive results far greater than 13,000.

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As we tip toe toward economic recovery, marketers would be wise to remember the role email marketing played in making the recession a wee bit more tolerable. It was one of the few strategies that effectively drove profitable results both globally and domestically. The news that the recession is over is certainly welcome but simply announcing that its end is here doesn’t guarantee that consumers will get the memo.  After all, it’s true what they say about assuming. Taking a passive approach will fail to engage potential customers.

Email marketers must engage and involve consumers by giving them more control of information by emphasizing social networks, Email Preference Centers, (EPCs) and the overall value of sharing data. Sharing is caring. Continuous improvement means continuous metrics advancement. Marketers need to strengthen email marketing usability and functionality across channels. While digital and traditional markets haven’t always been simpatico with regard to email marketing, leveraging e-commerce along with in-store promotional strategies can enhance email marketing capabilities. Ultimately, the better your email marketing methodologies, the more advanced your data acquisition and lead generation systems will become.   

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The traditional advertising agency is in a state of flux. Long accustomed to creating campaigns for print, radio, television and direct mail clients, the traditional agency model has been slow to adjust to the demands of digital advertising, namely online, viral and mobile marketing. When you consider that advertising is rooted in creativity, that outside the box strategy drives success within the medium, the unwillingness of, or perhaps more frighteningly the ineffectualness of traditional markets to evolve is rather mind-boggling. But on the heels of the Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) Council’s latest State of Marketing survey, the potentially devastating financial fallout to conventional advertising agencies may be precisely the spark the genre needs to get with the interactive age.

The survey reveals that senior marketing experts are anticipating a significant shift away from traditional agencies in favor of increases in digitally-minded hires, in-house training solutions and working relationships with digital agencies. In keeping with the study’s findings a new breed of consultant is springing forth to provide systemic, infrastructural and technological advances to marketers in lieu of old-fashioned advertising agencies. Given that the CMO manages nearly $200 billion is annual marketing budgets, the figurative dark cloud hovering over the traditional model is becoming more demoralizing by the minute.

Traditional advertising’s dilemma has been performance and affiliate marketing’s gain. PPC and SEO are not only cost-effective alternatives to conventional advertising, they bolster visibility increasing ROI. And yet with all the gloom and doom talk, traditional advertising has not picked out its coffin just yet. Last time I checked, television watching and radio listening hasn’t gone the way of the dinosaur. The T-Rex never did get with evolution. It didn’t adapt. There’s still time for traditional advertising to embrace digital. But it would be unwise to wait much longer.

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Privacy be damned. With Open Graph, Facebook’s addition to its online platform, the social networking giant is making a thinly veiled play to steal the search crown from Google. Open Graph will allow users to tailor social features on any website and share their modifications through Facebook. For publishers, Open Graph is a search marketing coup d’état allowing them access to Facebook’s four million users whether or not they possess a brand page. For performance marketers, this unprecedented amount of information could improve targeted advertising. Oh and then there’s that little privacy thing.

Open Graph offers a “Like” button, which enables users to put their stamp of approval on certain products and services. In actuality, this feature enhances search utility. Why is this important? Well, in lieu of the recently revealed Nielson Facebook study results, social advocacy on ads increased buyer intent fourfold. The privacy implications of Open Graph may come back to bite Facebook but if it doesn’t, lead generation experts should send Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg a Christmas card. While Google’s philosophy is to improve the way the world accesses and searches for information, Facebook adheres to the belief that social advocacy in the extreme is the key to online advertising dominance.

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Social media users get a kick out of feeling important and influential without the risk of face to face confrontation. The relative anonymity of the web makes it a breeding ground for complaining consumers, especially in the realm of social media.  Negative comments about a particular brand or product can be severely detrimental to a company’s short-term and long-term growth and profitability. This seems like a common sense deduction but a recent Opinion Research study suggests that companies have missed that memo.

According to the survey, 20% of those polled have used social media to speak negatively about a brand. Shockingly, 64% of companies do not have a social media policy or structure in place to combat such negative reporting. And in keeping with the non-confrontational benefits of spewing negativity online, 18% of those surveyed admitted to using an alias in social media circles exclusively. These findings scream out for Online Reputation Management.

The numbers don’t lie, which should make it easier for digital marketers to explain the advantages of instituting an ORM platform into a client’s business model. It’s all about accentuating the positive – controlling the branding message, generating buzz around a product or service, monitoring user postings and improving visibility and enhancing their page one search engine position. By employing this level of due diligence, existing and potential clients will experience the short-term and long-term growth and profitability currently eluding them. But it is up to those in the digital marketing industry to get this positive message out.

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Online advertising has taken a direct hit to the solar plexus with the current privacy debate sweeping digital marketing. Facebook is the obvious place to lay blame but the reasoning behind the decline in online behavioral advertising goes beyond whether or not you “Like” Mark Zuckerberg. The Ponemon Institute, a privacy research group, finds that marketers are 75% less likely to track a web user’s browsing habits for campaign targeting. Privacy and transparency have display advertisers running scared. This trend needs to change. It’s time to get proactive.

It’s not good enough to wish the privacy hysteria away. While it’s true that mass panics tend to quell over time, especially those involving Facebook, a passive approach shouldn’t be the first option. It’s like waiting for the three run homer in baseball. Sometimes you get one but it still means you had to get a few runners on base to make things happen. How should display advertisers go about their rally?

Don’t shy away from transparency, embrace it. Mapping out precise, explicit data detailing buyer intent ensures accuracy and establishes client trust. And though privacy advocates will continue making waves, technologically advanced user-metrics designed to target the right audience will alleviate any fears the general public may have. After all, they will be shown ads that interest them, which should ease the notion of privacy invasion.

The onus is on display advertisers to make clients and consumers understand the benefits of online behavioral tracking. There’s revenue to be made and customers to generate.

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We’ve all heard the old adage, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” Now, before you panic, this blog post will not regress into a litany of clichés. And you have Facebook and Nielson to thank for that. In a study examining the reach and effectiveness of Facebook impressions, Nielson determined that users of the social networking site were more prone to notice ads and purchase brands if they featured earned media and social advocacy. Alas, good impressions that incorporate positive word of mouth win out.   

Nielson’s research involved analyzing three forms of Facebook impressions: Homepage ads, Social impressions and Organic impressions. Essentially, Nielson was evaluating the strength of paid and earned media, the former referring to advertising publicity and the latter alluding to publicity gained through favorable opinion. A “Become a Fan” ad created solely to engage the user with a brand is a homepage ad, an example of paid media. A “Become a Fan” ad that also lists the names of other fans in the user’s friend network is a social impression, a blending of earned and paid media. Lastly, an organic impression is a promotional tool that appears on a page belonging to the user’s friend. This impression announces that the friend is a fan of a brand, a type of earned media.

Nielson concluded that social advocacy in Facebook ads doubled awareness among users. More importantly, it resulted in a 4x increase in buyer intent. The lead generation significance in the wake of these findings is palpable. Performance marketers should incorporate the Nielson study into their CPM pitch. The message to advertisers shouldn’t be about making a good first impression. The message should focus on making three – creating a compelling home page to foster organic impressions, stressing the importance of social impressions by investing in paid media and giving due consideration to each impression category for premium campaign effectiveness.

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