Austin, TX (PRWEB) May 09, 2013- The Affiliate Summit Pay It Forward Scholarship program was started by conference founders Missy Ward and Shawn Collins to make the education and networking experience of Affiliate Summit available to affiliates who might not otherwise be able to attend.

The most recent event, Affiliate Summit West 2013, had over 5,000 attendees and hundreds of exhibiting companies.

Each recipient of the Affiliate Summit Pay It Forward Scholarship will be awarded one VIP Pass (a $1,249 value) to Affiliate Summit East 2013, taking place in Philadelphia on August 18-20, 2013.

VIP Passes include breakfast and lunch on Monday and Tuesday; admission to the Meet Market, exhibit hall, keynotes, all educational sessions on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday; participation in the Newcomer program; access to all recorded session videos; and presentations.

Some comments from recent Affiliate Summit Pay It Forward Scholarship recipients:

“I had a great experience at the show, there was an enormous amount of great information to absorb, and it really made me very excited about doing more with affiliate marketing.” – Sarah Davidson, Palm Valley Marketing

“This was my first Affiliate Summit, and thought it was great. I learned quite a bit. I was able to meet face-to-face with my affiliate managers and discuss positives and negatives about the program, and resolve my issues in person. Invaluable!” – Ken Weiss, Lowell Trading, LLC

“I had a great time at the conference and learned a lot. The food was delicious and I met some inspiring people. Thank you for believing in me and giving me the opportunity to tool myself to make some changes and better my finances. I’m excited to put into practice everything I learned.” – Trina Boice

“The Pay It Forward Scholarship was simply the best thing that has happened to me for my Affiliate Marketing career. I was able to network, learn and have fun all within the realm of the industry. I will not miss another Affiliate Summit West after my experience.” – Julio Medina, meDevelopment Mobile

“Affiliate Summit West 2013 was a really memorable experience! I was impressed with the quality of the speakers, the information that was presented and the community of affiliate marketing.” – Carol Charron, A Michigan Thing, LLC

“I enjoyed and learned a lot in the seminars. You guys picked some really great speakers. The meals were great! I especially appreciated the long lunch hours. It made it easier to enjoy the meals and not feel like I had to shove my food down. I am very excited about keeping in touch with my new contacts and about how they might influence and help me be a better affiliate marketer. Thanks soooo much for the opportunity!” – Marcia Brown, Poovey Marketing

Applications will be voted on by the Affiliate Summit Advisory Board. All applicants must also have valid US addresses to qualify.

In order to be considered for an Affiliate Summit Pay It Forward Scholarship, interested parties must complete the online application.

This three-day conference will include an exhibit hall with affiliates, merchants, vendors, and networks, as well as multiple tracks of educational sessions covering the latest trends and information from affiliate marketing experts.

The keynotes for Affiliate Summit East 2013 will be Rae Hoffman, CEO of PushFire; Dr. Randal Pinkett, Chairman and CEO of BCT Partners, as well as a philanthropist, author, and Season 4 Winner of NBC’s The Apprentice; and Wil Reynolds, Founder of SEER Interactive.

Google’s man in charge of stopping SEO spamming, Matt Cutts, confirmed that the changes in many people’s web rankings were not the result of a new Penguin update.  In addition, he confirmed that there was a major penguin update coming out in the next two or three weeks.  The odd thing is he said it was going to be penguin 2.0 which will be released.  By my count it should actually be penguin 4.0.  Last October’s major update was known as penguin 3.0, so there is quite a bit of confusion in many SEO circles.

Whatever Google decides to call next week’s update, that still leaves a lot of people wondering what happened to their search rankings late last week.  Most people think it was just a smaller, incremental change (Penguin 1.9, or 3.9, or whatever) but there hasn’t been any confirmation that there was any change at all from Google.

The fact is, however, there were too many people noticing too much of a change in their rankings to believe that it was just the normal Google dance.  Whatever you want to call it, Google did make some sort of change last week that got everyone moving around.   The big question, however, is what will the upcoming ‘Penguin 2.0’ look like.  If the changes last week were not even acknowledged by Google than one could expect that the upcoming adjustments will be quite a bit more impactful.

There is little doubt that millions of website owners around the world will be keeping a close eye on their rankings over the next several weeks to see if they will be affected by this upcoming change.  There has not been any reliable rumors about what types of things this change will be impacting either, so that will make many people quite nervous as they wait and wonder how this will impact their earnings.

As with all updates to Google’s search algorithms, however, if you stick to only legitimate SEO practices you should have nothing to worry about.  What are your thoughts about the update from last week?  Were any of your sites impacted?  How about the ‘Penguin 2.0’ change which is coming up, are you nervous?

Despite all the complaints and criticisms users have made since the Facebook Home app was released, it has continued to grow in the number of users. In just under a month it has reached the 1 million downloads mark, which is significant for a number of reasons. First, it shows that Facebook users are willing to give this new way of accessing their content a try. It also indicates that while they were not happy with the initial release, people trust Facebook to make the necessary changes to correct the problems.

Within the first month Facebook has released one significant update which fixed a number of performance problems and bug fixes. They also announced a second, larger, update which will add new features including an improvement to the ‘dock’ feature so people can access their android apps more quickly and easily.

Facebook also reports that they are seeing the desired benefits of people using Facebook Home. Those who use this app are more engaged with Facebook in general. People who user Home are spending up to 25% more time on Facebook as well as leaving more comments and likes. As more and more people begin using this app it is hoped by Facebook that the Social Network will become more ingrained in people’s day to day lives.

What makes hitting the one million downloads mark even more impressive is that it was only released for the Samsung Galaxy S3, Samsung Galaxy Note 2, HTC One X and the HTC One X+ initially. It has since been made available for the HTC One and the Samsung Galaxy S4 as well. As it continues to be released for more devices the rate of downloads is only likely to increase.

While the app is doing quite well, the actual Facebook phone which came out around the same time is not showing the same promise. The price on it has already been dropped from $99 with a new contract to just $.99 with a new contract on the AT&T network indicating it was not selling well at all. It is, of course, still too early to count out the Facebook Phone as it has only been on the market for a month.

Have you tried the Facebook Home app yet? What do you think? Will the added engagement of users with this app increase the effectiveness of advertising on Facebook? I’d love to hear what you have to say!

WordPress has long been the number one platform when it comes to creating and managing blogs, and with the recent release of the top 100 blogs from Technorati, they are continuing to grow.  Each year when Technorati releases their list of the top 100 blogs it comes with a lot of great information not only about the content of the blogs, but also the technology behind them.  Included in this report is the breakdown of what blogging platform is being used by each of the pages.

In 2012 48% of all the blogs in the top 100 were using WordPress giving it a dominating lead over any other platform available.  This year they have grabbed up an additional 4 spots giving them a full 52% of the top 100 blogs.  Custom coded blogs are in second place with 12% and Drupal in 3^rd with just 7% which really shows just how much of a lead WordPress has over the competition.

Most people accredit the fact that WordPress is such a leader in this area to them having an extremely easy to use product which can be customized in almost endless ways.  They have also partnered with many of the top website hosting companies so people making new pages can install WordPress in just seconds with no technical skills at all.  Allowing third parties to code their own add-ins to the platform has also been a huge advantage for WordPress.

While this news may not surprise many people given the fact that just about everyone in the marketing world has owned or worked on at least one WordPress site, it does seem like good news to me for people in general.  Having this platform which is not owned or managed by Google, Microsoft or any of the other major players in the Internet world seems like it helps keep the playing field open for all types of people and businesses.

What are your thoughts on this?  Are you surprised that WordPress has managed to keep such a commanding lead even against some other powerful platforms?

ClickBank announced that Matt Hulett, a seasoned tech executive, has been named the new CEO, joining the executive leadership team of the affiliate marketing giant.  Prior to this position Matt was the president of the gaming division at RealNetworks.  He also has over 23 years of experience working in the tech industry so he has a good idea of what types of challenges and opportunities ClickBank will face in the near and long term future.

In his new role Hulett will oversee 110 employees and focus on new growth opportunities for Broomfield, Colorado based ClickBank.  ClickBank has been a one of the leader sin the affiliate marketing world for years and continues to set the standard in this field.  Millions of marketers find the products they want to promote using ClickBank because of its reputation for consistently offering the best products and always paying affiliates on time and in full for the sales made under their name.

Neither Matt Hulett nor ClickBank have given much information on any major changes that might be taking place in the near future, but when a new CEO comes in changes are never far behind.  Marketers around the world will be watching every move of ClickBank to see how this transition will unfold.

What do you think about the new CEO of ClickBank?
I think he’s got the experience and knowledge to make some real positive changes, but you never really know what you’re going to get when someone new is put in charge.  I’ll be watching this closely to see what happens.

Adknowledge’s email channel, has announced the launch of its new “Mobile Optimization Initiative,” a program giving members of the company’s advertising network free optimization of their CPA creatives in order to increase mobile conversions.  AdStation testing has shown 20% – 40% increases in conversions with creatives optimized for mobile, and is now making these advances available to all advertisers in the AdStation network.

“We are thrilled to be doing this for our advertisers,” said Matt Hoggatt, General Manager of AdStation.  “We’ve been running CPA ads optimized for mobile for the past several months and experiencing fantastic results throughout the testing process. We couldn’t wait to begin optimizing all of the CPA creatives for our advertising partners within the network.”

AdStation has also made it a priority throughout the process to maintain brand integrity, as well as the look and feel of the original CPA ads. The changes are mostly technical in nature and end up being indistinguishable from the original creatives to end consumers. These new optimized creatives have been assembled and tested in-house by AdStation’s award-winning design team, and were optimized to display equally well on tablets and mobile devices. And because the ads are entirely new, they are free of fingerprinting issues that plague traditional online advertising, something that has caused deliverability issues for many networks.

“AdStation is happy to do this for its advertisers,” Hoggatt said. “If optimizing their ads for mobile makes them more money, that benefits AdStation, as well. Our team works hard to ensure that the original look and feel of the ads don’t change, keeping everyone happy. It’s a total win-win.”

AdStation mobile optimization revolutionizes current landing pages with complementary solutions promising increased conversions, better user experience, improved call-to-click button utilization, the ability to fill out lead generation forms without zoom capabilities, simpler content navigation, and more.

For more information about the Mobile Optimization Initiative or to sign up for the AdStation Advertiser Network, visit AdStation Today

One in ten profiles on online dating sites is fake, according to a new research conducted by dating website SeekingArrangement.com, which deletes more than 200 fraudulent accounts every day.

CEO Brandon Wade told the New York Daily News that they are not talking about lying about your age or weight, but are talking about scammers who are trying to take your money.

According to the FBI, more than 50 million dollars is stolen every year in romance scams.

Wade’s company compiled a list of the most common characteristics from the 60,000 accounts it has deleted to help singles spot warning signs.

“Scammers tend to prey on a few things. They want you to trust them, and they want sympathy,” Wade said.

He said that 63 percent of fake profiles describe themselves as widows, while a whopping 36 percent of fraudsters describe themselves as Native American, mistakenly thinking it means only that they’re from America.

It was found that the bogus accounts are more likely to belong to a woman- 71%, than a man- 29%.

The research also suggested that Catholicism is the most common religion among the fake profiles.

Location varies, but many fake profiles are listed in Nigeria, the Ukraine and the Philippines.

When it comes to work, fraudsters often claim to be engineers or royalty or to be self-employed.

Wade also hopes that his “Face of Fraud” research encourages other dating websites to be smart when searching for fraudulent profiles.

Ad network, “xAd”, recently released its first quarter insights report which included quite a few surprising results.  The report included information from surveys performed as well as actual performance information about their advertising network, along with information from other sources.  While it will come as no surprise that advertisers are using more location based information to display their ads, the actual numbers are quite surprising.

One interesting piece of information is that of the survey respondents, 46 reported that they rely on their mobile devices (Smart Phones or Tablets) exclusively to conduct online research.  This is for a wide range of different products and services.  What does this mean?  That people are using PCs even less than most people expected, and that the drop in PC usage for product research appears to be plummeting.  Of course, everyone knows that PC usage is on the decline but this is quite a bit more significant than expected.

The report also finds that there was a huge jump in clients who are using geo-precise ad targeting.  This type of advertising often uses the GPS device within the smart phone or tablet to get an exact location of the user to display ads tailored to where they are.  This is a significant improvement over traditional geo location targeted searches which use the city or zip code typed into the search.  Geo-Precise ads went from 27% of the xAd network’s ads up to 58%.  Traditional advertising on their network which uses no location based information at all dropped from 9% to 2% from Q1 2012 to Q1 2013.

With this much momentum occurring in just one year it is obvious that geo-precise ad targeting is going to be huge over the coming years.  While xAd is one of the smaller mobile advertising networks, it seems likely that the bigger players will see these numbers and start pushing for more geo-precise advertising as well.

Personally I see geo-precise advertising becoming a game changer in the mobile ads market.  Companies are most likely going to be willing to pay a premium for being able to display their advertisements to customers who they know are only minutes from their place of business.  When the ads are created and displayed properly it should lead to sales being made within a very short period of time after seeing the advertisement so companies will not have to worry about the effect of the ad losing impact or bringing the customer to a competitor.

What do you think?  Will the growth of this precise type of advertising continue through 2013?  How will companies begin taking advantage of this exciting advertising method?

London, UK – 8^th May 2013 – Award-winning global digital media agency 7thingsmedia has defended their title of ‘Best Agency’ for a third year in a row at the Performance Marketing Awards.

In an industry valued at £9 billion by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the agency have yet again been selected as the leading authority. Besting competition from the likes of  Arena Media, LBi, MEC, Mindshare and Starcom MediaVest truly cements 7thingsmedia positioning within the digital media power agencies.

Judges commended the agency for their ‘attention to detail, strong results and a visionary ethos for clients’ and also noted that they are ‘a team who really “get” performance marketing’.

7thingsmedia reported a 170% revenue growth in 2012 and continues to expand its staff across affiliates, display, lead generation, mobile, PPC, SEO and social media within their London & New York offices.

Chris Bishop, Founder & CEO of 7thingsmedia commented: “To be awarded this prestigious and highly sought after title for the first time was an incredible achievement, but to continue to retain this award for the third year running is testament to the desire and passion within the company.  Being only four and winning this award for the last three years is a clear message to the industry about our approach and ability.”

The agency were also awarded the ‘Best Consumer Targeting Campaign’ for their work on Liberty London and shortlisted in six other categories including ‘Best in Retail’ and ‘Best use of Performance Marketing as Part of a Multi-Channel Campaign’.

ENDS

About 7thingsmedia

7thingsmedia is a global digital media agency with a proven track record of delivering hugely impressive returns for clients such as Agent Provocateur, boohoo.com, James Villa Holidays, Liberty London and MARS.

With offices in both London and New York; 7thingsmedia’s services span the digital marketing mix; affiliates, display, lead generation, mobile, PPC, SEO and social media.

7thingsmedia – http://www.7thingsmedia.com
Twitter – @7thingsmedia

Pay attention: Earlier in the year YouTube announced that they would be entering into the paid subscription based market this year and have sense made great strides toward that goal.  Experts believe that by the end of the week the first channels may become available.

These won’t simply be higher quality user generated content channels either, YouTube is partnering with a variety of different video producers including television studios to   supply the content of each of the channels.  YouTube’s new service will be similar to those offered by Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu.

What will set YouTube apart from the competition is that they will allow people to purchase up to 50 subscription channels individually with fees as low as $1.99 per month for each channel.  This will allow customers to pick and choose exactly what types of shows they are interested and not have to pay for everything that they don’t want to see anyway.

YouTube continues to be an innovative arm of Google and with this additional revenue it is likely they will be adding significantly to the bottom line of Google’s overall numbers.  This paid subscription option is on top of the advertisement supported channels which have become very popular across the YouTube platform.  Many marketers are adding ads to their videos to supplement their income streams where YouTube and the video producer share the advertisement revenue.

What role advertisements will play in the new subscription based channels is yet to be seen, though it can be expected there will be limited, if any, advertisements initially.  Most people, however, will accept advertisements being displayed between shows or on the side bars while watching videos online so this may be yet another opportunity for YouTube to partner with content creators to bring people the high quality entertainment they want.

YouTube continues to be a powerful tool which is used by marketers around the world, and that is not expected to change at all.  Even with these paid subscription services available through YouTube most people will continue to use the site as they always have, to find or share the great user generated content everyone loves.

Using YouTube as a revenue generating site for marketers will continue to have huge potential as the number of monthly visitors continues to grow.  In March of 2013 YouTube surpassed the one billion unique monthly users mark, which is an incredible number that should be very encouraging to all marketers using this platform.  I believe that having this premium service will actually help to bring in new people to the free side of YouTube as well which opens up new opportunities.

Do you think YouTube can be successful in the premium channel market?  They are getting in quite late compared with Hulu, Amazon and Netflix so it may be hard to steal away customers.   What do you think about selling How-To Videos and other services via this method? Is this a CPA Network Goal? Then again, backed by Google it is possible they will shoot to the top of the streaming premium video market quite quickly!  Share your thoughts on this big move by YouTube!