Practical Blogging

Speakers:

Jon F, Owner – WickedFire.com and Managing Partner, Coastal Synergy LLC
Andrew Johnson, Author, Web Publishing Blog

Jeremy Schoemaker, President, ShoeMoney Media Group

Some highlights:

Commission Junction – Schoemaker and Jon F took time to talk specifically on the CJ.com non-pays. Many of us have been burned by Commission Junction, but I’ve not seen anything like what Jon F saw (170K chargeback, 30 days post payment). CJ really should tighten their belts.

A recommendation from Jon F was for Merchants and Networks to listen well to the blogs and forums. You can’t know where you stand if you don’t listen to the buzz.

2nd Tier Traffic – Seems to deliver international traffic sometimes, so make sure international conversions are ok. As well, click fraud is widespread here.

Landing pages – When you have no control over landing pages, how can you maximize the conversion. Andrew Johnson said you might call the company and see if they’d allow you to create your own page and have it company approved. Azoogle specifically was named as a company that can work with you. Shoemoney implied Ringtones usually have pretty good landing pages. Jon F said don’t feel bad about threatening them with your leaving to go to another network.

My thoughts:

I think I’m going to finally close my Commission Junction account. I’ve been fed up with their inability to cater to the affiliate (the $250 datafeed setup and lack of RSS support sums that one up nicely) and the fraud complaints just aren’t going away. CJ has never been a big moneyearner for me anyway…