Vinny Lingham - “An Affiliate’s Life”

An Affiliate’s Life Vinny Lingham Affiliate Dag May 19, 2009 Twitter: @yolaweb

About Vinny
Vinny Lingham
Founder, CEO
Seasoned entrepreneur who founded award-winning search engine marketing company, Clicks2Customers.
Awards: YGL Honoree 2009 by the World Economic Forum, High-impact entrepreneur by Endeavor Global, and 2006 Top Young IT Entrepreneur.
Serves on numerous international advisory boards for search engine and affiliate marketing, including Commission Junction and Yahoo!
Speaks at conferences around the world and is frequently cited on Web 2.0 trends.
Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

Life as an affiliate Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

Clicks2Customers
Founded in 2003
Grew the business from 6 people to 70 people
Awards: 2004 Commission Junction Horizon Award for Innovation, 2006 Minister's Award for Overall Excellence (Small/Medium Enterprises), 2007 nomination for Best New Affiliate at the LinkShare Golden Link Awards
Built a cool technology, which is how Yola (formerly SynthaSite) was created
Affiliate Marketing Model and Excellent Customer Service
Clients include 3 of the top 30 online retailers in the US, 2 of the top 10 UK travel brands, and the biggest online retailers in both South Africa and Australia.

Benefits of being an affiliate Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

Challenges of being an affiliate
Change in Terms
Fluctuating exchange rates
Short term gains
Crowded marketplace – many pitfalls and risks
Not easily scalable

Key to becoming a successful affiliate
Keep the team small
Stay focused
Much value is in the long tail of search
Focus on the user
Don’t compete against the media agencies who are incentivized by their clients to spend more money by paying them on % of spend models
Detailed Business Intelligence
Grow revenues by optimizing campaigns, not just increasing bids
Align metrics between affiliates and marketers
Focus on real value linked to ROI

Key to growing and staying successful
Be ready for volatility in earnings
Maintain a healthy cash balance
Excellent communication between the affiliates and the advertisers
Transparency to establish trust and protect merchant brand equity
Need to be flexible and able to follow the trends, e.g. twitter
Network: Attend Industry Conferences and build your profile and reputation
Don’t just be another invisible affiliate

Lessons learned as an affiliate
Conversion rates are important
Try to engage your traffic so that it becomes recurring and reduces your cost of traffic acquisition
You have a small window of opportunity to getting $$$ from a customer
Work with reputable affiliate networks

How the PPC ecosystem operates in different economies Information Commerce Entertainment Natural Listings Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc. Good Times Bad Times CPC Price Impact in Current Economy I C E I C E A L A L People tend to spend less time searching People tend to spend more time bargain hunting

Customer Lifetime Value 20% 80% Affiliate businesses can’t be too big because the revenues are only short term. 0 5 24 12 Months Party Affiliates and Merchants share this portion Merchants Typical Company Size 5 100 Ex. Share of money to the Affiliate $50 $200 Duration 1-5 months 6-24 months

Why did I leave affiliate marketing?
Merchants did not always understand their own business nor their customers life value
Merchants kept running out of a budget (retarded concept)
Affiliate Marketing was becoming commoditized
I reached the glass ceiling and felt like I couldn’t go any higher
Wanted to build my own product and services
Didn’t want to make $$$ for other people, instead leveraged my skills for my own benefit
Wanted to build a strong business model for affiliates to market

Affiliate Marketing Glass Ceiling Clicks2Customers
The chances of building a billion dollar company in affiliate marketing are very small
The industry size determines how big companies can grow to
Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc. Scale Revenue Level to Achieve % Who Achieve This $100K Easy 50% $1 million Moderate 10% $5 million Difficult 5% $10 million Exceptional 1% $50 million Almost impossible .01% $1 billion Impossible ???

Challenges of now running a start-up company (Yola)
More overhead
Higher investment
Must wear multiple hats
Staying on top of your email
Many stakeholders
Managing growth and capacity

Choose: technology company or affiliate?...
… You can’t be both

Do what makes you happy Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

Thank You Contact Info: Vinny Lingham Email: vinny@yola.com Blog: vinnylingham.com Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

Vinny Lingham - “An Affiliate’s Life”

by affiliatedag on May 31, 2009

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Vinny Lingham - “An Affiliate’s Life” — Presentation Transcript