Recently chatter in the industry has brought to light the problems facing the once mighty Impulse Marketing Group. The company, once a mainstay in the industry seems to be facing significant financial distress. Several networks have expressed frustration in being unable to be paid by the company for months, taking to even Facebook to attempt to get paid.

The issue of cash flow in the performance marketing field is often a difficult one. As many affiliates and networks require aggressive terms, often weekly payments, on missed payment by a client can often put agencies and advertising into a difficult situation. Confidential emails between Impulse MG and a network suggested that Impulse was looking for a solution, but needed better cash flow in order to repair their debt issue.

Often as companies, similar to Impulse, face issues with cash flow, they start to pay their vendors slower and slower. While this can temporarily fix issues, long term it’s not a good plan. As the debt builds up more and more vendors are unlikely to continue running advertising, causing more damage to the cash flow. Some companies seek financing at this point, loans or factoring companies that will pay them earlier on invoices.

However, most companies facing this issue follow the path where they try to get more affiliates and networks to run their offers, in order to improve cash flow. This is usually problematic because getting paid by Peter to pay Paul is a poor solution and can be considered fraudulent. It means that the business knows they are in trouble, but “buying” media and using the profits to pay someone else.  This method, if it can be proven that there was knowledge of this, can lead to criminal charges.

We attempted to contact Impulse MG, but emails were not responded to.

Last night, like many of us, I learned of Steve Jobs’ death on a device that he helped invent. My IPAD 2, given to me by the kind folks at XY7.com popped an alert saying that he had died. I should say that it’s actually my almost-two year olds’ IPAD because he uses it as much as anyone. That in itself has to be a testimony to the innovation of APPLE and its product: that an 18-month year old boy can use an IPAD2 to play games, read books and interact with his parents (and grand-parents!) on a web camera.  The death of Steve Jobs actually touched me, almost as much as the death of Isaac Asimov in 1992. Perhaps that is in itself poignant, as many of the things that Asimov predicted in his books in the 1940’s became true because of Steve Jobs.  Whatever the reason was, I started to think about Steve Jobs and how Performance and Affiliate Marketers can learn from this man.

If anything, Steve Jobs was an innovator. Someone who likes to play with technology and create products that everyone could enjoy. That’s actually what got him originally fired from Apple, the company he founded. Those in charge at the time couldn’t control him, couldn’t get him on “the plan” they had for the company, and he refused to change to fit what they needed.  Jobs said of this, “I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything.”

From there he went out to create the company NeXT in 1986 and took many of the more innovate members of Apple with him.  At NeXT he did what he wanted, and created the corporate culture that he felt had hurt Apple. Everything from salaries to benefits was completely different from any major corporation at the time, and included health insurance for unmarried couples and same sex couples. The idea was that NeXT was to be a company that allowed people to THINK, to CREATE.

In 1996, Apple bought NeXT and the company soon became the foundation of the new Apple.  The corporate culture that he created at NeXT was transported into Apple and all the officers and senior members of Apple were replaced with NeXT counter-parts.  The NeXT operating system became the new Mac OS systems.

We all know the story after that, of the enormous success that Apple had, the products created and how they have changed the world.  In 2011, as society seems to be changing, as we find ourselves bailing out bankers while cutting health care for children, it’s hard to often celebrate success.  We’ve all become accustomed to hearing how bad it is out there, how there is no way to be successful, no way to change your destiny anymore.  As performance marketers however, I think we’ve all learned that is complete bull-hoey and that anyone can still find a level of success that could only be dreamed of by our parents.  Many of us are the next generation’s Steve Jobs.

We are creating products, promoting strategies and owning our own destiny. We use the newest technology, and then change it to fit our needs and our plans.

When things don’t fit our plan, we can pick up, start again, move on, and find a better solution. 

We are the innovators of the online marketplace. We all are Steve Jobs.

On that note, I leave you with the following:

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.– Steve Jobs

What we are not is interested in selling you with flashy images, gimmicks, and false promises. We are a small group of experienced media buyers, email marketers, social advertisers and search engine marketers. 1st class cpa was created with one simple goal in mind, To deliver our publishers with the top converting offers while maintaining the highest quality leads for our advertisers. We maintain strict fraud detection as we count on 3 sources of fraud detection, in house compliance team, 3rd party fraud detection company, and the reports from our advertisers. We pledge to our publishers that they can rest easy knowing due to are strict publisher screening, offers will not be taken down with no notice like most networks due to the quality of our publishers and we will always pay ontime. Furthermore, we pledge to our advertisers due to the same reasons we offer the highest available quality to your offers, ensuring that you pay for only true and solid leads, each and every time.

Please read comment at the end of this post from the owner saying that they are indeed still in business and have not shut down. We have removed the post for the time being, since the owner has now been in touch and confirmed that they are still in business, but working with only a small group of pubs because of fraud and other issues.

Please note that we do our best to confirm any information before publishing by trying to get information from those involved with the company. Unfortunately the status of a company is often hard to confirm, especially when there are other issues with technology, email and it seems, phones.

Now that Amazon has reached a deal  on the California Affiliate Tax in which the State of California will wait another year to enforce their affiliate tax scheme, Amazon has decided to re-invite their affiliates in California to join them.

Amazon had dumped all their affiliates, arguing that having any CA affiliates would hurt Amazon’s revenue by forcing them to charge tax to California residents. In response to the proposed plan, Amazon had started a referendum to change the law, but as part of the deal with California has stopped this push

Many people have criticized Amazon’s deal as being a way to curry favor with the State of California while abandoning the fight for affiliates. However, in a comment to a recently post about California Affiliate Tax, Performance Marketing Association director Rebecca Maddigan wrote that “Amazon has been the only e-tailer putting their money and efforts behind fighting the affiliate nexus tax around the country, and only Overstock has ever made any public opposition comments. I’ve been hearing rumblings from other e-tailers that they are mad at Amazon over this deal. Well where the heck where those e-tailers in this fight? Nowhere. Not a peep. We couldn’t get them to sign a single petition – not one e-tailer! They let the largest e-tailer in the world fight their battles. Shame on the other e-tailers for not engaging in their own destinies.”

Whatever the purpose of this deal is, one has to ask how many affiliates will re-sign up to the Amazon Associates program, when they know there is a possibility in a year they will again be abandoned. It almost seems like a weird abusive relationship on the part of Amazon, where they abandon affiliates, save their own ass, blame California for being mean and then apologize and say that they didn’t mean it.

Here is a copy of the Letter:

As you may have heard, California Governor Jerry Brown has signed legislation repealing the law that had forced us to terminate our California Associates. We are pleased to invite all California Associates whose accounts were closed due to the prior legislation to re-enroll in the Associates Program.

If you haven’t already re-enrolled, please click here:

https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/reinstatement/main.html

When asked to sign in, please use the same email address and password that were previously associated with your Associates account. To make your return to the Program as seamless as possible, when you re-enroll, your account settings (login, Associates ID, payment information, etc.) will be the same as they were previously. Traffic you referred while your account was closed won’t be eligible for advertising fees.

For further information about re-enrollment, please click here:

https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/t48

I’ve been fortunate enough in my 12 years in this industry to have worked in direct response, brand, and then back in direct response. One thing I have always noticed that has intrigued me is that while direct response and performance-based media buyers in general work their virtual tuchuses off, brand buyers seem to be less motivated to do their job. I’m pretty sure that most agencies don’t want to hear this, and most likely neither do their clients. However, if you are one of those people who have been trying to sell media in the last umpteen years, you know exactly what I am talking about. Since I’m no longer selling media (please delete this column if I open another network in the future), I feel that it’s alright to reveal the truth that so many sales people already know in this industry: brand media buyers are really damn lazy.

We’ve all had this conversation at all the events with someone, especially if we are in sales. It goes something like “No matter what, I can’t seem to get into this agency and present my property/network/new targeting solution. They are just booking all their media with AOL/Google/Turner…without looking at any other possibilities.” If you aren’t nodding your head in affirmation, it’s probably because you are at one of the few major networks or properties that all the media buyers rush to and you love that you barely have to work anymore to get their attention. It took me a while to wonder about the reasons for this, and I decided the following:

• “Reach” is way too important a word. Agencies need to spend their money, so what better idea than to spend it on some network – some large property that has huge “reach.” It’s easy; the forms are basically already filled out, so why not just send the money where you sent it last quarter? Doesn’t really matter if you are paying three times the amount what a direct response media buyer pushing the sales person would get. You are getting “reach.” On top of that, reach often gives substantial discounts, lowers the eCPM, and who really cares about “results” for brand advertising, right?
• Media buyers aren’t paid enough to care. Most barely make enough money when they start to afford a closet in NYC, let alone live a normal life. Yet they often control multi-million dollar budgets and will choose the company that gives them the best extra benefits. That means, whoever throws the best parties, whoever has the hottest sales women, and more than likely, whoever will hire them after they leave their low-paying job.
• No one wants to grow up to be a media buyer. The smart people build technology, get into sales, and create products. The kids who aren’t sure what they want to do in the advertising industry become media buyers. It’s sort of the limbo of the interactive advertising industry, where college kids get tested. In fact, many media buyers are even unpaid interns, learning copying and coffee skills while spending some Fortune 500 company’s budget.

There are two types of responses that this column is going to get from media buyers. The first being the media buyer who is saying, “This isn’t me. I work hard for my job; my agency really pushes to find good sources of media.” Yes, there are exceptions to the rule and there are some great agencies out there that really work for their clients. The second type of media buyer is the one who is cringing reading this, because it means that they are worried their boss or client will ask them about “reach” and why exactly they are booked on AOL every single quarter.

Facebook has introduced a new a unit that will expand in size if friends “like” the brand it is associated with.

This format will be a sponsored message that will promote a specific product, but based on the recommendation of friends, will grow in size. The purpose of the ad “growing” is specifically based on the idea that people tend to like what their friends like, and would be more likely to click on an advertisement (and thus make more money to Facebook) than ads that don’t have as many recommendations.

This comes on the heel of several other marketing changes being made to Facebook, some which have been heavily criticized as possibly breaking the current effective model. For example, people have pointed out that the newsfeed and ticker could actually hurt advertisers by taking attention away from advertising to the moving feed of updates.

In what could be one of the best new platforms for performance marketrers, Google will start beta testing Google Adwords for Video next week. This will allow advertisers to place video campaigns on sites like YouTube and the Google Display Network using their auction-based platform.

This will be an added function to Google Adwords and use the same login, but instead of just text ads, will be full video ads that anyone can create and upload. Using the platform, advertisers can set budgets, monitor impressions, views, click sand of course, all the normal optimization and ROI features of Google Adwords.

One of the coolest features is the ability to upload videos to a YouTube account and then use those videos to populate the advertising account. In theory this will allow marketers to create more advertisements on the fly and have easier access to the Google Adwords for Video platform.

The call-to-action on the video will be an overlay that will share information about the business and then drive traffic from that specific advertisement to any website.

As part of launching this, Google will be providing a $100 coupon for new advertisers who want to try the video.

Check out Hybryd Ads: Unique, In-House Offers you can get anywhere else

As per these articles, LeadClick and EAdvertising has shut down.

LeadClick was the parent company of Affiliate Network, EAdvertising.

From their website “LeadClick Media _®, a CoreLogic company, is a leader in performance-based lead generation, specializing in connecting consumers with service providers in the financial services, automotive and real estate industries. With our proprietary real-time lead filtering, integration and delivery platform, our clients get qualified new sales leads quickly, at the volume and frequency that suits their business needs and budgets. Since 1998, we have been a category leader in cost-per-acquisition (CPA) based lead generation, and we are 100% results driven. We don’t succeed unless our clients succeed.”