Think Affiliate Summit is just for sales? Think again. Here are some reasons why you should be bringing a mailer to Affiliate Summit:

We know the offers: We’ve looked through networks and networks of offers. We’ve tested bingo offers, dog insurance offers (even flying monkey offers!), and everything in between looking for the next big offer. When an advertiser comes to your booth and pitches an offer, chances are pretty good that we’ve at least seen it before. We likely have an idea about what kind of payout we’re getting from other networks, rough conversion rates, and eCPMs. We can cut to the chase and save everyone some time – whether that means getting business going sooner, or saying thanks but no thanks.

We know the data: If your company is involved in list brokerage, put your mailer in touch with the person managing your data. We manage the data ourselves and know the behavior of the list. Save your clients some time testing and give them the offers that the list responds to. It will keep your complaint rates lower and your IPs cleaner, and generate more revenue for list manager and broker alike!

We can help optimize creatives: Mailers know how to optimize delivery to the major ISPs. An advertiser’s creative team might use javascript in their html code because it’s visually appealing, but we know that most ISPs won’t even let that into the junk folder, let alone inbox. Better delivery means more revenue for both parties.

We can help optimize landing pages: I couldn’t count the number of diet, bizopp, and debt offers I’ve tested throughout my career at Intela. Do you know what separates the top 5% from the rest? Your mailer might!

ESPs are there: ESPs are starting to come to the Affiliate Summit conferences, not just the ad:tech conferences. ESPs are a fantastic way to diversify your mailing platform and learn how to improve your deliverability. Who better to talk to your ESPs than a mailer?

Next time your company attends an Affiliate Summit, bring your mailer with you; the business they can generate will pay for the plane ticket!

Jen Hanson

Director of Email Marketing

Affiliate Summit East was a breakout show for Intela. We had our first platinum sponsorship and our very own CEO, Jim Mansfield, gave a speech on Tuesday afternoon titled “International Options for US Affiliates.” Jim’s talk was well received and fostered a great discussion among the attendees.

It is no surprise that there is so much buzz surrounding affiliate marketing internationally. Global internet usage is slated for an impressive 10% growth in 2008 fueled by proliferation of developing markets in Asia (+14%), Latin America (+19%), and Africa (23%). More developed markets in Europe are set to increase internet usage 8% vs. the United States maturing market growth of 4% for 2008.

The rising number of internet users is fueling a dynamic shift of advertising dollars to an ever increasing online audience. The UK, as a country, poses a tremendous opportunity for affiliate marketers. The Times Herald reported yesterday that UK online ad spending overtook television spending in 2007. Per capita, the UK advertisers spend the most online per user (over $200 per user versus the United States which spends $140 per user). These trends are expected to grow as the US experiences an economic cool down and emerging markets start heating up. The world economy is poised to undergo a dramatic shift where future growth will no longer be carried on the backs of the US consumer but by lots of emerging markets with a growing middle class. Company earning reports will be dependent on these emerging markets, as will the advertising and marketing industries ability to target these markets effectively.

Here are a few things to be aware of (including the benefits of working with an established international affiliate program and pitfalls to watch for when working overseas):

Traffic Opportunities
A surprising percentage of the traffic you currently have to your site or on your list may already be from other countries. Make sure that you monetize these opportunities and these users. By only being focused on one type of user you may be missing other lucrative opportunities. Implement geo redirect options and make sure that you work with a network with a variety of international campaigns to choose from.

Marketing Opportunities
Get to know your audience – culture, habits, and types of merchants and consumer brands for the country that you are trying to target. Being culturally relevant will help you connect with your target audience and will elevate your response rates over your competitors that are not doing their homework. Choose to work in countries that pose less of a language barrier; preferably ones in your native tongue such as UK, AUS, and CAN. Work with an affiliate partner with international experience that gives you insights to the market.

Currencies
Exchange rates are a blessing and a curse. The dollar to pound conversion rate can fluctuate dramatically in a single day. Work with an affiliate that can help you absorb the market swing. Otherwise you have the potential to witness your commissions change overnight for better or worse.

Intela is a global performance-based marketing firm, specializing in lead generation and customer acquisition. Intela has been working in the UK for the past 2 years and has recently launched an exclusive UK affiliate network - www.crispads.co.uk. Intela just opened its first international office in London, UK and has advertising opportunities in UK, CAN, AUS, FR and US traffic. Go to www.crispads.com to learn more.

Intela conducted a number of drawings to give away a bunch of £50 bills at the Affiliate Summit in Boston. It was a great show and we were pleased to award Rodney Granderson of Granderson Avenue LLC the British currency for his spending pleasure. Congratulations Rodney! Hope you enjoyed the show as much as Intela did.

Intela, a global performance marketing company, specializing in lead generation and customer acquisition, launched their new CrispAds UK Affiliate Network today. This addition exemplifies Intela’s presence in the UK market and adds to the expansion of their network outside the U.S.

The new site is tailored specifically to our UK clients. Some key features are: payment in British Pound Sterling, UK based affiliate management and a global network with top converting US, UK, AU & CA campaigns. The affiliate team will be based in Intela’s London office. As Intela continues to expand, we will build out more country specific sites to focus directly on the client at hand.

“Intela offers a variety of services for advertisers and publishers, alike. Our clients span the globe across verticals that include travel, entertainment, finance, education and more,” Intela’s CEO, Jim Mansfield, said. “We leverage more than a decade of experience uniting advertisers and publishers for optimal results.”

With this launch, Intela will also physically be expanding into the UK very soon. More details to come!

Jim Mansfield, CEO of Intela, will be speaking on Tuesday, August 12th at Affiliate Summit in Boston. Mr. Mansfield’s topic of discussion is International Options for US Affiliates and will specifically be held in Classroom B - Amphitheater at 2:00pm-3:00pm.

Intela, a leading global performance marketing company specializing in lead generation and customer acquisition, is the platinum sponsor at the Affiliate Summit East show in Boston taking place August 10 – 12, 2008.

“We’re very excited about the platinum sponsorship and I am thrilled to speak about the international experience Intela has gained in the last few years,” Jim said. “It’s going to be a great show and we look forward to exploring new business opportunities with everyone attending.”

I’ve been following Twitter a lot in the news lately - because quite frankly, I’m interested in why people are interested in Twitter. The micro-blogging application allows users to post real time, short entry updates at any time. As of March, there are now 3 million+ updates per day. Clearly people are busy tweeting.

What’s even more interesting than why anyone would care to know you’re at the grocery store, is what the business model is behind twitter and Facebook apps that allow you to throw a sheep or battle other vampires. Gaining the traffic, building in viral looping schemes to invite friends to join and making your product sticky and relevant is the new key to the game. VC’s are willing to give a reprieve on immediately implementing a revenue model, in light of “utilities” that provide a good user experience and form connections not so much with users, but rather between them.

Meebo is a chat and IM application that is being integrated into many Facebook apps. What is the marketing benefit? Stickiness, engagement. The longer you stay, the more engaged you are. The more engaged, the harder it becomes to delete that app. The more popular apps continue to grow and build steam, they generate page views and visit length and can command the ad dollars.

This is why Twitter is so interesting. They are hesitant to alienate a wired crowd by forcing a revenue model which could stunt twitter’s astronomical growth. So which way will they go? Will they embed ads for Expedia each time you mention “Travel”? Will it become a hyper local reporting tool that augments or supplants news publications with on the ground, finger to the pulse reporters? Or will it be a bunch of chirping. For now, Jeff Bezos thinks it’s a bet worth taking… time will tell.

A pixel is a tiny, 1 x 1 image that is imbedded on a confirmation page that enables accurate tracking of an online campaign.

Here in the production department at Intela, we are constantly working with our client’s pixels: placing the pixels in different offers and then using them to track the success or failure of specific campaigns. The proper placement of a pixel is essential to a campaign “firing” or in simpler terms…working!

To better understand, these are the general steps to a pixel successfully performing its “job” within an offer’s confirmation page:

1. Consumers are redirected to a merchant’s landing page through a tracking URL which writes a cookie containing the campaign, affiliate, date and misc. information.
2. A tracking pixel is placed on the confirmation page by the merchant.
3. Once the consumer reaches the confirmation page, the tracking pixel executes and reads the cookie from the user’s machine.
4. Information read from the cookie is used to create a transaction in the tracking platform for reporting purposes.

In addition to placing pixels, and tracking them - we, in the production department, spend a good amount of time troubleshooting different problems that can occur with pixels. Some of the most common are:

1. Post pixel placement and offer testing: have we seen/verified that the correct pixel is tracking with the correct offer? If it has “fired,” then both the client and we will see what is called a successful lead.
2. Did you begin your test by clicking through your tracking link?
3. Is your merchant’s landing page loading completely?
4. If the success page is secured (https), are you also using a secured pixel URL?
5. Do you have duplicate IP or other traffic filtered turned on?
6. If needed, is the proper Internet proxy being used, in order to open the initial URL?
7. Have you verified that the cookie has been written to your computer by the tracking URL?
8. If it has “fired,” then we as well as the client will see what is called a successful lead.

If properly utilized, placed and tracked, these tiny invisible pixels can provide a wealth of information as it pertains to affiliate marketing, target markets, and the status of market share. The cliché is, however, also true: garbage in, garbage out. By using the technology we have at Intela, we are able to not only track and provide real-time campaign information, but we also have the ability to drive revenue and help your company grow… all thanks to a little 1 x 1 pixel. Isn’t technology wonderful?

Two years ago today, I began my adventure at Intela. My first day as the new Office Manager, my boss at the time, Ryan Wilson, had the day off. He set up meetings for me with all the departments to get a feel for who I would be working with. Considering I was only working with 10 people at the time, this did not take up much of my day.

We only had one suite in the building so space wasn’t tight and I could actually find room in the refrigerator for my lunch.�I also never had to wait for the bathroom.

I was the only other female to Jennifer Mansfield. Needless to say, I was a bit intimidated but super excited for the journey I was beginning.

Now, Intela has grown to over 30 employees and my title has changed to Operations Manager. We occupy the entire building and space is certainly close quarters. I’ve learned a ton over the past two years and am even more excited now to be part of such an awesome company. The growth has been both scary and fantastic all in the same. I look forward to more anniversaries as I continue down this road with what was once a small company and now seems�ever-growing.

Without specifically calling out our competition, I did an analysis of our main tracking url on Google Trends against some of the top UK based affiliate and lead gen networks. Intela has been growing rapidly and appears to have caught them on a unique user basis. This is looking at just UK traffic.

While not everyone does all their traffic through these specific urls (we don’t) its a good indicator of how much our network and our UK base has grown in 2008. Thank you to all our publishers and advertisers for all their support!

We’re very excited to announce the expansion of our London office. Arikka Greene, currently based in our US office as an account executive and new UK Sales Manager, will be visiting the UK frequently until her visa goes through in early fall, at which time she will relocate to London permanently. Other US staff will follow to help work with UK based clients and train new London-based staff.

Additionally, Intela is expanding its UK work force and looking for an affiliate manager/online media buyer based in London.

Intela is already one of the largest UK sources of performance based traffic and lead generation and by moving more sales and operation support to London, we can expand much further. This move will allow Intela to grow our UK-focused business and make ourselves physically available to meet new business opportunities anytime.