An Affiliate’s LifeVinny LinghamAffiliate DagMay 19, 2009Twitter: @yolaweb

About Vinny

Vinny LinghamFounder, 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.

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Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

Life as an affiliate

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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.

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Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

Benefits of being an affiliate

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Challenges of being an affiliate

Change in Terms

Fluctuating exchange rates

Short term gains

Crowded marketplace – many pitfalls and risks

Not easily scalable

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Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

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

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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

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Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

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

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Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

How the PPC ecosystem operates in different economies

Information Commerce Entertainment

Natural Listings

Good Times

Bad Times

CPC Price Impact in Current Economy

ICE

ICE

A

L

A

LPeople tend to spend less time

searching

People tend to spend more time bargain hunting

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Customer Lifetime Value

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

20% 80%

Affiliate businesses can’t be too big because the revenues are only short term.

0 5 2412Months

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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

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Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

Affiliate Marketing Glass Ceiling

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 ???

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

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Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

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

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Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

Choose: technology company or affiliate?...

…You can’t be both

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Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

Do what makes you happy

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Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

Thank You

Contact Info:

Vinny Lingham

Email: vinny@yola.com

Blog: vinnylingham.com

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Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.