Top 10 Things I learned at CJU 2006 (Commission Junction University)
September 20th, 2006Top 10 Things I learned at CJU 2006 (Commission Junction University), by Durk Price
CJU was just completed in beautiful Santa Barbara, California. With over 750 affiliate merchant advertisers, affiliates and super-affiliates (plus about that many CJ and ValueClick employees) it was a tremendous opportunity to learn and network.
To follow are the Top 10 Things I Learned at CJU 2006:
Serious
- PPC Affiliates do not kill Advertiser’s PPC programs. The best quote was from David M. Lewis of 77Blue (http://www.77blue.com): “Advertisers make 100% of the transaction, Affiliates make 10%-15% of the transaction, so Affiliates can’t bid as high.” The net is that Affiliates deal in the margins of the PPC business looking for inefficiencies and special knowledge they have earned over the years to make money. PPC always enhances the Advertiser, since more sales are always good.
- When at CJU- NETWORK like crazy. Everyone, I mean everyone was open and sharing. I think this comes from the fact that there is plenty of business out there and that sharing information leads to more business opportunities.
- Dave Taylor is EVERYWHERE. Dave Taylor of www.askdavetaylor.com fame was touted in a really good blog presentation from James Omdahl from Insureme.com (www.insureme.com). Besides using really killer graphics from the GapingVoid blog (http://www.gapingvoid.com), James used Dave Taylor as his mentor example. Now you know why I have AskDaveTaylor on my blog roll.
- People in the affiliate industry are really sharp. I know this may seem weird, but affiliate marketing used to be easy. Now it is very sophisticated and the level of talent and expertise on both the advertiser and affiliate sides reflected its importance.
- EBay has over 203Million Users worldwide. Enough said.
Not so Serious
- Santa Barbara Airport is nothing like DFW Airport. I thought I was in a foreign country. This airport wasn’t as big or as nice as the one in Columbia, Missouri where I grew up.
- AskANinja.com (www.askaninja.com) is great media. I am hooked and I only saw it the one time. I am signing up today. Now being shown on the Revver network (www.revver.com) another new entry into the ever increasing Internet as media sweepstakes. The tagline for the show is “The audience is up to something.”
- AveAGoodDay.com (www.aveagoodday.com) is one of the funniest video applications I have ever seen. Completely addictive. Send this to a friend and get the yucks rolling. This was almost as good as the first animation from the South Park guys.
- Social Networking is the next big thing for affiliates. Like duh! So how do big advertisers figure out which one(s) to go with. There in lies the trick.
- Keywords and buzzwords from CJU: “the long tail”, social networking, user generated content, “YOU” are the brand, disintermediation (look it up on Wikipedia), social media market as friends of the advertisers, social ecommerce, underground ad units.
That’s it that’s all I learned. I’m gong back next year, that’s for sure.
Durk Price is a professional affiliate manager. He has managed affiliate programs for large retailers like LimitedToo, BeautyTrends.com, WeShipBabyGifts.com, CampSaver.com, Stanford Social Innovation Review and others. He has launched affiliate programs and had affiliate sales account for 27% of total online sales within 90 days of launch. His primary focus is managing affiliate programs for retail companies. To learn more about his services of putting top level affiliates together with top quality merchants visit www.eaccountable.com or email him at durkp[at]eaccountable.com.
September 20th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
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September 20th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
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November 21st, 2006 at 5:17 am
CJ is excellent with thousands of affiliate merchants, however their reporting is aweful