Christmas fun with Commission Junction

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Peter Wright

If you were in Hyde Park last night then there was a chance you may have had the pleasure of witnessing Commission Junction’s very own version of ‘Dancing on Ice’. It was CJ’s annual Christmas jaunt to the Winter Wonderland ice rink. Earlier in the day we held an award ceremony for CJ MVP of the year, and the winner was, drum roll please, John Coulson.  Huge congratulations go to John for his stellar work with clients, agencies, publishers and the rest of the CJ team.

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Meet the publishers: networking with Powerlinks, making the most of advertiser relationships with CJ

Posted on November 25, 2011 by Jay Singh

We love it when our clients are happy, and we love it even more when our clients relay that fact back to us because, well, let’s face it, who doesn’t love a good compliment! The Commission Junction publisher travel day is set up to let quality publishers meet with relevant advertisers – like having five pitches in one day.

Representing Powerlinks at the event was Head of Business Development Greg Carrol, here’s what he had to say.

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Meet the publishers – Neil from iSPY talks about meeting clients and expanding his world at the CJ Travel Publisher Day

Posted on November 24, 2011 by Peter Wright

This past Thursday saw ValueClick HQ play host to the Commission Junction annual Travel Publisher Day. We like to think of it as speed dating for the affiliate marketing world with Commission Junction playing Cupid.  These events are starting to cause quite a stir due to the direct meeting-to-conversion rate they’re producing, but don’t just take our word for it, let our clients tell you what they think.

We accosted Neil from iSPY to see what he thought of the day.
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Affiliate marketing can conquer the world – the global involvement of CJ in the affiliate industry

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Ulrike Kotzam

Last week saw the first annual affiliate conference in Prague; there are many more to come in the forthcoming series of events held by VIV NETworks, the local representative for Commission Junction.

The two affiliate companies, who combined boast the largest remit in the US, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, organised the event to share best practice ideas for the affiliate industry and to bring together publishers and advertisers; it’s something we do in the UK and is always a worthwhile activity.  Not only does bringing advertisers and publishers face to face help communication, but it increases the efficiency of any partnership.

As an affiliate network, efficiency is key – otherwise we’re wasting time when we could be boosting sales – so these events are a fantastic tool.  It’s not often that senior business managers and spokespeople come together to discuss current issues and successes within the affiliate industry, but there were several in Prague.  Vladan Hejnic, CEO of VIV NETworks, Petra Hergenroether-Magenau from Commission Junction who is responsible for the Eastern European market and Jan Penkala from Acomware, were all spokespeople at the event to spearhead discussions around key industry issues and developments.

This event just goes to show the power of affiliate marketing, not only is it an intrinsic element of the marketing mix in the UK and US, but it’s a powerful marketing tool around the globe.  Brands should be thinking about global campaigns and utilising information from any affiliate marketing exploit to learn more about consumers and behaviors, feeding into the affiliate mix and knowing their customers more and more.

The first affiliate conference was a huge triumph and a big step forwards in demonstrating the achievements and successes of the affiliate marketing channel.

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Meet – Stacey from Arena Media.

Posted on November 18, 2011 by Sophie MacKenzie

Agencies, affiliates, publishers – we work with them all.  Arena Media is one of the biggest agencies and we’re currently working alongside them with Legal & General to provide a stellar affiliate programme.  We caught up with the lovely Stacey Alexander, account development director, to give us a bit more information on her insights into the affiliate industry and how publishers can improve their chances of working with Legal & General.

CJ:           How long have you worked in affiliate marketing?
SA:          6 years now, 4 years client side and 2 years with Arena.
CJ:           What attracted you to the sector?
SA:          I think like most people I fell into affiliate marketing!  My career started at a regional newspaper back in 2004 where I worked on direct mail campaigns; I didn’t know anything about affiliate marketing until I joined Brightside in 2006.  A friend approached me with a role that had come up in the marketing team where she worked and thankfully I went for it!
CJ:           What do you think are the most important factors facing Legal & General in the affiliate marketing space?
SA:          Affiliates can drive large volumes of sales for advertisers in the finance sector but it is easy to become reliant on them for volume and overlook the longevity of the customers they refer to us. With this in mind, it is important to measure the overall value of a customer and then work with all publishers to grow a more loyal customer base. I believe this will be a key focus for Legal & General and it will be great to get to a position where we can reward our publisher base not just on  volume but also the value of the customers they drive.
CJ:           What technologies are you investing in at the moment?
SA:          We are investing in a new affiliate hub and also investigating PayPerCall tracking.
CJ:           What is your biggest bug-bear about publishers?
SA:          I don’t really have a bug-bear about publishers, I just find those who are easy to contact and are transparent with their activity work better with us and our advertisers.
CJ:           How do you think a publisher could work better for you?
SA:          As above just keep in contact and be forthcoming with idea’s and new ways to promote Legal & General.

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Commission Junction’s human touch; how we learn about each and every publisher

Posted on November 17, 2011 by Matt Baker

There are two elements to an affiliate network – advertisers and publishers.  Both are equally important to us and we dedicate huge amounts of time and effort to ensure we’re treating our publishers well and giving a valuable service to our advertisers.  It may sound simple, but cataloguing publishers is something we take pride in, we’ve even built a portal to do it.  Just so you know exactly what’s going on at CJ and what we do all day, we wanted to spend the time explaining some of our technology and processes.

It takes minutes to explore a website and understand a little bit more about it, but with over 60,000 publishers in the CJ network cataloguing them is a major task! So why bother?  Well, it’s important to really know what each of our publishers do, how they work and then make sure that we pair them with advertisers to ensure sales are achieved and we’re targeting the right audience with the right adverts.  It helps both publishers and advertisers so it really is worth the effort.

We produce these nifty graphs for every affiliate

To ensure we get through all our publishers we take on the approach of divide and conquer.  As soon as a publisher is earning they’re automatically added to our publisher portal ready for review by a member of the Commission Junction team.  The review process is easy but thorough as we refer to it a lot when building programmes for advertisers.

Not only do we classify each and every site on the CJ network, but we sub categorise as well.  We look at the business model, category covered and content style to classify each and every publisher.  It then allows us to track each publisher and report more thoroughly for our advertisers.  We’re completely transparent and honest with our advertisers and it helps us build bespoke programmes and design successful affiliate marketing plans.

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A cold but charitable excursion by ValueClick – we need your help

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Matt Baker

Do you fancy long distance skiing, competitive ice fishing and dog sledging at the weekend?  Well, here at ValueClick teams from across all businesses, including Commission Junction, are doing just that – all in aid of local charity Kids Company.

Local charities are important to Commission Junction, over the years we have raised thousands of pounds to support some of the charities in and around ValueClick HQ in Putney.  This Christmas, two teams of intrepid ValueClickers are heading to the most Northern reaches of Lapland where they’ll be competing in the Kids Company Arctic Biathlon.  It all starts with an early morning flight on the 4th December followed by a connecting flight to the outskirts of the Arctic Circle.

...not sure the ValueClickers will look this erudite

The disciplines will be perilous tasks including ice fishing, dog sledging and long distance skiing. Everything will be undertaken on traditional Norwegian skis – so it’s not the relaxing holiday that most of us are looking for this Christmas.  The team needs as much support as possible for their task and are trying to raise £6,000 for Kids Company.

Kids Company raise money for children who live below the poverty line so it’s an incredibly important cause and worthy of every penny.  If you can spare anything you can help in many ways – you can donate via our Virgin Money Giving Page or join in with any of our fundraising events.  Next up is the pub quiz in Brixton, let us know if you fancy coming by joining the facebook group.

Thanks for your support and please do wish us luck!

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Deeplinking tool update for publishers

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Antonello Martino de Carles

We always try to provide tools for our publishers, earlier in the year we launched a new Deeplinking tool; it was hugely successful and lots of our publishers use it.  We wanted to drop you all a note to say that this has been updated and is now IEv9 compatible.  The links in our old blog post have been updated too, but we thought it might be helpful to have them here as well.

The Deeplinking tool can be installed on Firefox, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer, so all bases are covered.  To launch installation, just click on one of the following links for the browser you want to run the tool with: Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome or Internet Explorer (32-bit version).

You can also click on one of the icons below to launch the Deeplinking download for that browser:

And here’s a step by step guide to using the tool: Continue reading →

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Launching PayPerCall with Directline Holidays

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Sophie MacKenzie

We’ve been developing our PayPerCall offering for a while at CJ and I’m really pleased to announce that today we’ve launched a new programme with Directline Holidays.  The company is one of the most experienced online travel agents in the UK offering holiday packages from all the major tour operators as well as bespoke holidays designed by their team of travel specialists.

The new PayPerCall programme allows affiliates to use a unique telephone number to display across any form of media, this call is tracked and commission is given to the relevant affiliate.  In essence PayPerCall technology bridges the gap between online affiliates and offline conversions, meaning that affiliates wont lose out on commission if their sale is converted offline, everyone receives reward for their hard work.

We’re excited about the prospects that the technology brings and can’t wait to see some of the results from our ‘maiden voyage’ with Directline Holidays.

If you think about it, there’s a tipping point where peoples behaviour changes, if something is expensive or the process is complicated you want to talk to someone about what you’re buying, it’s just human nature to get some reassurance.  Commission Junction has been running PayPerCall programmes in the US for a while now and has shown that calls convert more purchases than online adverts for high value purchases such as holidays.  We really hope that Directline Holidays can help pave the way for developments in the affiliate sector.

If you want to get involved or have any questions about the new programme please feel free to contact us, we always like hearing from clients, customers and consumers.  Email loconnell@cj.com or leave a comment and we’ll get back to you.

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The Annual Party with the IAB Affiliate Marketing Council

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Sophie MacKenzie

Party season will soon be upon us as invitations to Christmas parties, end of year parties and New Year parties are circulated.  The first on our list is going to be the IAB affiliate marketing council 2011 ‘Get Together.’

If you’re free on Thursday 24th November make sure you register for the event and come along; there will be a chance to network and discuss industry issues with publishers, advertisers, agencies and networks from the affiliate industry at the final AMC meeting of the year at 3pm at the IAB’s Offices.  Then the party starts at 5pm as everyone gathers for catch ups and networking.  The guest list will have up to 300 affiliate marketers so if you have any questions about the industry it’s the place to be.

Commission Junction is sponsoring the event and we will be there in full spirits.  There will be food and refreshments to kick start the event as well.

If you want to attend you will find all the details and can register here: http://www.amiando.com/IAB_AMC_Drinks

We hope to see you there!

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