MediaWhiz Blog: Archive

Kirshenbaum Bond has developed a novel way to put some skin in the game with their clients. They have developed a stock portfolio of their publicly traded clients and will link their financial rewards to the portfolio’s success. See the NY Times article @ Advertising: Agency Combines Clients’ Stocks for a Mini-Mutual Fund .

Having an agency link their financial reward to the client’s is a great thing. It aligns incentives and gets the agency focused on the returns the client’s marketing investments are generating. Not something typically seen from large brand oriented agencies, but clearly a winning formula. Hats off to Lori Senecal and the KBS&P team for aligning their rewards with their client’s financial results in this clever way.

But, “hello,” we in performance marketing have been doing just that for nearly a decade! MediaWhiz, and other performance marketing agencies, have been getting paid for results since 2001. We get paid to create the specific customer actions that our clients know, with statistical predictability, will generate profits. In most cases it is not our bonuses that are on the line but our entire fee. It’s not just some “skin in the game” but our financial lives on the line. We live or die by daily market results which determine whether our programs are providing a positive ROI.

As the competition for high quality customers becomes increasingly intense, every dollar a client invests in marketing needs to be productive. Great marketing programs will be continuously optimized to ensure they are creating the customer response that will lead to profits. Aligning the agency’s incentives with the client’s financial results is a strong step toward making this work. It’s great the KBS&P team will get a bonus if their client’s stock goes up. But if an advertiser wants more than a little skin in the game, if they want marketing partners fighting for their client’s profits as if their lives depended upon it, they should add more performance marketing to their overall marketing mix. As a performance marketing agency, we at MediaWhiz understand our financial life, just like our client’s, depends upon driving more profitable marketing. Now that’s alignment!

In a recent article penned by Mediawhiz CEO Jonathan Shapiro and published by iMedia Connection, Jonathan makes the argument that traditional marketing budgets should be tossed out the window. To his point, the Internet allows brands more visibility into the performance of their marketing efforts than they have ever had before. Combine the visibility the Internet allows with performance based distribution channels and you’ll see there is no cap on what you can spend.

In Jonathan’s words;

“Future winners in the online marketing space will understand that success means investing in performance marketing programs of continuous improvement that provide increasing and demonstrable profits. That’s performance marketing, and you won’t want to cap its success with an annual budget.”

Read the whole article here.

Death of the Marketing Budget

Mediawhiz SEO industry expert John Carcutt is popping up everywhere. This time, at Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas, as a member of an expert panel discussing the relationship between SEO and Affiliate Marketing.

Blogger Stephanie Lichtenstein, creator of the influential affiliate marketing blog, stephanielichtenstein.com had this to say about John;

“Since I know a little more about John Carcutt. I can tell you that he is
the real deal when it comes to SEO. He hosts a weekly podcast called
SEO101 on Webmaster Radio every Monday. He also has been in the game for a long time calling himself the, “SEO Oldtimer.”

The details of the panel are listed below.

When: Sunday, January 17, 2010
What: Monetizing Blogs for Affiliate Marketing and SEO
Learn to maximize affiliate commissions using blogging, increasing your
community, and utilizing SEO.
Who:
Kristopher B. Jones, President, Pepperjam Network, A GSI Commerce Company
(Twitter @pepperjamceo) (Moderator)
Drew Bennett, Professional Blogger, BenSpark.com (Twitter @BenSpark) John
Carcutt, SEO Manager, MediaWhiz (Twitter @JohnCarcutt)
Tim Jones, Owner, TheRealTimJones.com (Twitter @TheRealTimJones)
Murray Ross Newlands, Founder, Affiliate Heat (Twitter @murraynewlands)
When: 1:30pm – 2:30pm
Where: Brasilia 1-2 Rio Hotel
Passes: Platinum, Gold

Look for John’s video summary =of his panel session on January 17. Stephanie Lichtenstein will also be covering the session and explore MediaWhiz’s MonetizeIt business.

We are proud to announce that ScribeFire QuickAds, our ad optimization product for web site publishers, will launch out of beta today marking three months of significant business growth and technological innovation. Quickads is the first ad platform to enable publishers to serve both optimized banners and in-text ads on their sites via a single platform.  Since its launch in July of 2008, more than 5,000 web site publishers have signed up with QuickAds to increase their revenue earning potential.

ScribeFire QuickAds greatly simplifies ad inventory management with a powerful optimization decision engine, which matches each impression with the highest revenue producing ad.  Ads are selected from the MediaWhiz ad inventory pool, which is fueled by MediaWhiz’s experienced sales team and relationships with over 100 ad networks.

ScribeFire’s advanced in-text advertising solution guarantees site publishers the highest degree of relevancy between content, keywords, and ads.  In-text ads appear as double underlined keywords that reveal a relevant advertisement upon rollover.  It is an easy way to add subtle, contextually relevant, and eye-catching advertisements to a web site.

ScribeFire’s display advertising solution accepts high impact Flash and Video banner ads, along with static JPEG, Pop-Unders, and animated GIF ads in IAB-standard ad sizes (e.g. Leaderboard: 728×90, Wide Skyscraper: 160×600, and Medium Rectangle: 300×250).

“It is very exciting to launch ScribeFire QuickAds out of beta after just three months,” said Patrick Gavin, President of ScribeFire. “Small publishers the world over now have a powerful and incredibly easy way to generate top dollar for their web site’s ad space.”

“ScribeFire is making it easy for websites to optimize all the ad networks, and take advantage of our substantial and highly experienced sales force,” said Jonathan Shapiro, CEO of MediaWhiz. “To be the first ad platform to offer publishers the ability to run fully optimized banner ads as well as high ROI in-text advertising is a remarkable accomplishment by the ScribeFire team.”

“Any blogger, with any level of technical know-how, can get these ads going and start making money on their blog…almost immediately,” said Barry Schwartz of the Cartoon Barry Blog.

“I am thrilled with this new discovery… it has opened new avenues (for web site publishers) to earn money from (their) blog or website,” said Jobin Sebastian of TechMartini.

Shane of Ask Shane.org wrote, “I’m really impressed with the QuickAds interface.  Very clean and easy to use…they’ve definitely worked hard (and successfully) to create a very nice system.”

ScribeFire QuickAds is available for FREE download at the ScribeFire website.

MediaWhiz announced a new payment option for its web publishers that provides their earnings on reloadable, Prepaid MasterCard® cards. The service is provided by Payoneer, Inc., an approved Member Service Provider of First Bank of Delaware.Publishers that use MediaWhiz’s highly successful link marketing product, Text Links Ads, and its innovative blog product-review network, ReviewMe, can elect to receive payments to fully functioning Prepaid MasterCard cards instead of standard paper check or PayPal options. The cards can be used worldwide at any store, ATM, or online location where Debit MasterCard is accepted.

Payoneer’s service provides a global-friendly alternative to checks, wire transfers and other online payment methods. Publishers benefit by having immediate access to their money while avoiding the hassles associated with lost or stolen checks, hold times and fees, and the lack of availability of PayPal in certain countries. Additionally, cardholders can spend and/or withdraw funds in their own currency without the need for a bank account.

According to MediaWhiz, publishers who opted for this payment method during a six-month trial rollout reported tremendous satisfaction with getting their earnings faster, lowering foreign currency exchange rates, and gaining 24×7 online account management access from anywhere in the world.

This service allows MediaWhiz to turn the payment process into a brand-affirmation opportunity. Cards bear the MediaWhiz logo, reminding publishers of where their earnings came from with each use. MediaWhiz also found that Payoneer was a significant cost-saving option considering its large number of publishers, 40% of whom are located outside the United States.

“Publishers perform just about every business function at online speed and expect the same when they get paid,” said Jonathan Shapiro, CEO of MediaWhiz. The company paid nearly $100 million to its network of over 30,000 publishers in 2007. “Our publishers love their co-branded cards from Payoneer because they get paid faster, and the overseas publishers can keep more of their earnings. We love it because it lowers our processing costs, and keeps an important community of ours happy.”

Patrick Gavin, President of MediaWhiz Display added, “Payoneer integrated simply and easily into our existing payment infrastructure – and let us use payment as a marketing advantage, especially overseas.”

“We see tremendous growth opportunity for the use of reloadable Prepaid MasterCard cards as recurring mass payment vehicles through service providers like Payoneer,” said Alonzo Primus, President and Chief Operating Officer of First Bank of Delaware. “We are eager to help industry leaders such as MediaWhiz gain a competitive edge with innovative payment solutions.”

Yuval Tal, CEO of Payoneer added, “As the Internet makes a global player out of every web site, Payoneer can help online advertising leaders like MediaWhiz take exceptional care of their publishers, and their own bottom line.”

MediaWhiz has been ranked #256 in the 2008 Inc. 5000 list of Fastest Growing Private Companies in America.  

Additional rankings:

• Ranked No. 19 in the Top 100 Businesses in New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA
• Ranked No. 21 in the Top 100 Advertising & Marketing Companies

Deal Boosts MediaWhiz’s Lead Management Technical Capabilities

We recently acquired LeadROI’s Lead Management System, which enables advertisers to better manage, optimize, and monetize their lead generation campaigns.

“The LeadROI technology acquisition provides MediaWhiz with a powerful new platform that makes aggregating, distributing, and converting leads from multiple sources more efficient and profitable. This is a huge value add to our clients who are looking for ways to truly understand and improve their lead conversion processes going forward,” said Ed Kats, Executive Vice President of MediaWhiz.

LeadROI provides unparalleled end-to-end visibility into the campaign process, from initial lead generation to sales conversion. The robust and scalable system has been used by dozens of direct marketers to streamline lead generation program management and boost company sales performance. Some of its most notable features include Interactive Dashboards / Reporting, Automated Lead Distribution, Workflow Management, Campaign Management, Pipeline Management, and an Integrated Auto Dialer.

“MediaWhiz is one of the most successful results-driven marketing companies online today, and we are excited to take our business to the next level,” said Raj Parekh, Founder of LeadROI. “Our initial focus with LeadROI was the financial services vertical, but by joining MediaWhiz, our lead management system will realize its true potential – to drive better ROI for companies across additional verticals such as automotive and insurance.”

With the LeadROI platform, MediaWhiz now has one of the most complete lead generation service offerings in the online advertising industry. “A robust lead management system is a great addition to our MediaWhiz Leads offering, which includes our Full Service Lead ProgramsT, Registration ServicesT, and our Premium Lead Marketplace, LeadVIPT. It sets us apart and ensures our existing client base, which received over 40 million leads in 2007, will see continuous improvement in the performance of their lead campaigns,” concluded Ed Kats.

MediaWhiz to Take World-Class Online Advertising Platform to Next Level

We welcome our new Chief Information Officer, Sal Guido, to our senior management team.

As CIO, Guido will run the IT infrastructure of MediaWhiz. His role includes implementing strategies to evolve MediaWhiz platforms and infrastructure to align with the Company’s strategic growth plans. He is also responsible for overseeing application development across all MediaWhiz technology groups.

Guido’s technology career spans over twenty years. His most recent success was as Senior Vice President of Technology at Miva, an online media and advertising network company in North America and Europe. While at Miva, Guido helped the company architect a platform consolidation solution that dramatically improved efficiencies and scalability. Guido also worked with the board of directors, senior management, and the global business units to collaborate on Miva’s strategic requirements to develop business justifications and technology strategy to meet revenue and cost control goals.

Guido also served as the Director of Enterprise Computing at Tyco International where he managed an annual operating budget of $115 million, and built the business justification model that was presented to Tyco’s Board of Directors for the consolidation of 260 data centers into 8 regional data centers. Prior to that, Guido served as CTO at New Media Technology, and VP of Infrastructure at Viacom International.

“We’re very excited to welcome Sal to the MediaWhiz team,” said Jonathan Shapiro, CEO of MediaWhiz. “Sal’s previous senior technology management experience and proven track record will enable us to keep our online advertising technology solutions well ahead of the competition, which will be a huge benefit to our clients.”

Sal Guido adds, “MediaWhiz has grown rapidly into a leading full service online advertising company …one that I am thrilled to be involved with. I’m particularly excited to be a part of a company with such an innovative technology culture and a suite of products that I can help take to the next level to ensure the company remains a leader in the space.”

Adam Riff, the Director of Search at MediaWhiz was published in DMNews on June 30, 2008. Read his article below.

With increasing costs and competition in search, marketers must continue to be creative to achieve a high return on advertising spend. One answer may be fusion search, which is a method of “fusing” data to execute multiple search techniques simultaneously. These methods include pay-per-click (PPC), search engine optimization (SEO) and, more recently, social media optimization (SMO) and video SEO.

PPC is at the top of the list for two basic reasons. First, there is no other method that can deliver more data in less time. Also, PPC data will allow you to identify the long-tail keywords that you will use in your fusion campaign (provided you did your keyword research). Fusion campaigns are based on those long-tail keywords that cost little and return a lot.

For example, let’s say you’re running an account for a travel client that sells trips to the Bahamas. You’ll likely come up with several thousand key­words that include misspellings, buying phrases, long-tail and competitor domains. After iden­tifying these keywords, you can run a PPC campaign and begin accumulating your data.

Search marketers know that “Bahamas trip” will elicit high volume and a low conversion rate. It will also be expensive and highly competitive, which will result in a cost per action that your client may or may not be able to afford. Savvy search marketers will begin mining their PPC data for the thousands of long-tail terms they added, such as “Bahamas cruises” or “look­ing for the best price on a Bahamas cruise,” that have one to two conversions over a sufficient data period (let’s say two weeks). You would then utilize these long-tail or “fusion” keywords to formulate a multifaceted search campaign across the other chan­nels at your disposal that include SEO, SMO and video SEO.

For SMO, you could create a lens on HubPages, a popular social media site, that centers around your keyword “looking for the best price on a Bahamas cruise” and will link to your client’s site. With the right methodology, your client’s site and the Hub­Pages lens will likely get ranked organically for “looking for the best price on a Bahamas cruise.”

For video SEO — assuming that the client has video content or you create it for them — you can tag that video with the same keyword used in the above example and use specific techniques to get your video ranked for that keyword.

You’ve now utilized your data to fuse the highest converting, lowest competition keywords into an extremely effective, multi-faceted strategy, which will achieve a higher return as well as build long-term organic reach.

Read the original article here

Learn more about MediaWhiz Search

We are excited to announce that we recently acquired ScribeFire (www.scribefire.com), the Web’s #1 Firefox® blog-editing technology. In addition we released the beta version of ScribeFire QuickAds, online advertising’s first ‘point and click’ ad optimization technology.

ScribeFire enables users to easily drag and drop formatted text from the web into their blog(s), as well as post entries and take notes, directly through the Firefox browser. ScribeFire currently has over 150,000 active users, and is compatible with all major blog services (e.g. WordPress, TypePad, Blogger, Yahoo 360, etc.).

ScribeFire QuickAds’ ‘point and click’ ad optimization technology, the first to enable web publishers to serve fully optimized banner ads without the hassle of adding additional code, greatly facilitates online advertising integration on blogs. Web publishers can add IAB-standard in-page ad formats (e.g. Leaderboard: 728×90, Wide Skyscraper: 160×600, and Medium Rectangle: 300×250), and in-text advertisements to their blogs via an easy three-click process.

ScribeFire QuickAds’ ad optimization decision engine automatically selects the highest revenue producing banner to display on the user’s website. Ads are selected from the MediaWhiz ad inventory pool, which is fueled by MediaWhiz’s experienced sales team and relationships with over 100 ad networks. Web publishers can access comprehensive ad inventory performance and earnings data on the ScribeFire website.

“ScribeFire is a great addition to the MediaWhiz portfolio of products,” said Patrick Gavin, President of ScribeFire. “Our patent-pending ad optimization technology and relationships with over 100 top ad networks will enable bloggers to see the greatest possible value for their ad inventory. Our dedicated sales force exposes small web publishers to advertisers and ad
networks that they previously had little or no access to, and with no monthly minimums or up-front costs.”

“Direct advertisers and ad networks now have the opportunity to reach massive audiences visiting an increasingly influential medium, the blogosphere,” added Jonathan Shapiro, CEO of MediaWhiz. “ScribeFire QuickAds’ innovative technology has the added benefit of enabling advertisers to auto-optimize multiple ad units based on key performance metrics, thereby improving the overall performance of their campaign.”