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Holiday Season Sunshine?

Posted by Chris Trayhorn on 10/15/2009

As we report in the latest edition of Revenue Performance magazine to be published in two week's time, the upcoming holiday season is providing a little seasonal sunshine after a dark and gloomy year for many affiliates.Now eConsultancy has brought together some industry metrics that say much the same thing. They focus particularly on paid search as a leading indicator.

Chris Trayhorn is the founder of Revenue magazine and the founder and CEO of mThink.com.

 

Stop Ad Fraud

Posted by Chris Trayhorn on 10/15/2009

A new web site quietly appeared earlier this year and a little bird tells us that it's being run by a group of ad networks seeking to exchange information on impressions fraud. StopAdFraud.org currently only has three posts up but each has details on specific web sites that have allegedly caused fraudulent activity to occur.

Chris Trayhorn is the founder of Revenue magazine and the founder and CEO of mThink.com.

 

OMFG! The FTC is Gonna Get You!

Posted by Chris Trayhorn on 10/15/2009

We have been much amused this past week or so by the reaction to the FTC’s new guidelines for bloggers. They have been widely over-hyped – Mashable, I’m looking at you – and, while we understand that everyone wants to write a news post that catches attention, hysteria in this regard doesn’t add much value to the conversation.

"OMFG! The FTC is going to arrest me for keeping this book I reviewed!" is funny, but not super-helpful.

Chris Trayhorn is the founder of Revenue magazine and the founder and CEO of mThink.com.

 

Russian Affiliate Networks Exposed

Posted by Chris Trayhorn on 10/08/2009

This week news came of affiliates and networks being robbed by the "Bahama botnet", a major report on rogue Russian affiliate networks called "Partnerkas" and arrests in 48 countries in the largest cybercrime investigation ever. Other than that, it was a quiet week. /irony

Perhaps the best reading comes in a report from Sophos that describes Russian "partnerkas", bandit affiliate networks that specialize in spam for "fake watches, fake anti-virus software, fake pills and fake love."

Chris Trayhorn is the founder of Revenue magazine and the founder and CEO of mThink.com.

 

Multinational Phishing & Fraud

Posted by Chris Trayhorn on 10/08/2009

In probably unconnected news, the FBI announced this week that in collaboration with authorities in Egypt it has charged 53 people involved in a multinational phishing scheme. An additional 47 defendants have been charged in Egypt.

Chris Trayhorn is the founder of Revenue magazine and the founder and CEO of mThink.com.

 

And More Fraud News

Posted by Chris Trayhorn on 10/08/2009

Click Forensics presented a good report recently on the Bahama Botnet, that they describe as "one of the most advanced sources of click fraud we've seen." They describe a network redirecting traffic through 200,000 parked domain in the Bahamas plus others in Europe and the USA. This is a network that seems to be closely connected to the scareware attack on the New York Times a few weeks ago and is seriously affecting affiliate and network revenues. As well as big players such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.

Chris Trayhorn is the founder of Revenue magazine and the founder and CEO of mThink.com.

 

Google Hits AdWords Advertisers

Posted by Chris Trayhorn on 10/08/2009

Google has hit what seems to be many Adwords advertisers for having "multiple sites that violate our landing page quality guidelines." This seems to refer mostly to thin-affiliate and made-for-Adwords sites but Google also refers to sites that frame affiliate sites and malware installation sites. SEO Roundtable picked this up first and also links to a good forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Chris Trayhorn is the founder of Revenue magazine and the founder and CEO of mThink.com.

 

Tip of the Week

Posted by Chris Trayhorn on 10/08/2009

Google recently revamped the AdWords interface and it's caused many publishers headaches. Kelly Gillease put together a nice easy guide to making the most of the new features that are designed to give much more transparency into placement and search query performance.

Chris Trayhorn is the founder of Revenue magazine and the founder and CEO of mThink.com.

 

Bing Gains in Travel & Finance

Posted by Chris Trayhorn on 08/18/2009

The growth that Bing has shown over the last few weeks appears to be continuing. A new report claims that from early-June through to the first week of August Bing raised their share of clicks by 44%. While this is interesting for anyone using PPC and wanting to have more options for high-volume traffic, it's especially so for affiliates in the travel and finance sectors, as these seem to be seeing even higher rates of growth.

Chris Trayhorn is the founder of Revenue magazine and the founder and CEO of mThink.com.

 

Sponsor News: Trend Revenue Offers Complete Affiliate Marketing System

Posted by Chris Trayhorn on 08/17/2009

As new affiliates enter the industry in search of a new lifestyle or more income, they present a real recruitment opportunity for merchants and networks able to lower the barriers to entry. At the same time, as competition among affiliates heats up, even super-affiliates are attracted to offers that allow them to set up new sites quickly and easily. Trend Revenue has ticked all the boxes with the launch of what they describe as a state of the art affiliate marketing system that offers great looking site templates, product feeds, analytics and high payouts.

Chris Trayhorn is the founder of Revenue magazine and the founder and CEO of mThink.com.

 

Sponsor News: CAN-SPAM Compliance Solution for Networks

Posted by Chris Trayhorn on 08/16/2009

As the Feds begin to seriously crack down on badly run continuity offers and consider new guidelines on sponsored conversations, the online marketing industry is having to come to terms with the fact that regulation is only going to increase. Email and the CAN-SPAM act led the way in this regard.

Chris Trayhorn is the founder of Revenue magazine and the founder and CEO of mThink.com.

 

Revenue Performance magazine is here!

Posted by Chris Trayhorn on 08/05/2009

The new edition of Revenue Performance magazine hit the streets this week and was a big hit at Affiliate Summit East and Search Engine Strategies in San Jose. The latest edition includes a terrific article on Facebook advertising, an in-depth interview with Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia fame as well as pieces by Jim Lillig, Peter Bordes, and Josh James, the CEO of Omniture.

Copies are in the mail to subscribers and will arrive in the next few days. If you can't wait, then download a pdf version here.

Chris Trayhorn is the founder of Revenue magazine and the founder and CEO of mThink.com.

 

Squidoo Introduces Spam Controls

Posted by Chris Trayhorn on 08/02/2009

Many publishers using Squidoo lenses found they'd been dropped down the Google search rankings this week and, lo and behold, Squidoo have moved fast to clamp down on spammers.

Several features have been introduced to try and reduce spam including a control to ban Lensmaster from one or more groups at a time, controls to remove HTML from guestbooks and a ban on iframes.

Chris Trayhorn is the founder of Revenue magazine and the founder and CEO of mThink.com.

 

Is It Going To Work?

Posted by Chris Trayhorn on 07/29/2009

From the point of view of advertisers, this announcement is definitely A Good Thing. There are clear benefits and there seems little doubt that Google needs the competition. So in the short term we can all celebrate.

Chris Trayhorn is the founder of Revenue magazine and the founder and CEO of mThink.com.

 

What Does This Mean for Advertisers and Affiliates?

Posted by Chris Trayhorn on 07/29/2009

There are three clear benefits for advertisers that will arise from this partnership.

Perhaps the biggest is a simple result of the increased scale and reach of the combined offering. With a near-30% market share, campaigns will become easier to scale, long-tail keywords will be easier to monetize and analytics programs will have more data with which to work.

Chris Trayhorn is the founder of Revenue magazine and the founder and CEO of mThink.com.