Chris Dessi - Vice President zanox, Inc

Recently I've had conversations where I've touted the power of a good continuity program. From Ringtones, to Dating offers, continuity is the name of the game. After a small initial sign up fee the user is then obligated to pay on a (usually) monthly basis to the advertiser.

4 Secrets to success of a continuity program

1. Charge for the first months membership after the first 7 to 14 days as a member
2. Allow for incentivized traffic on these offers
3. Analyze - Measure and quantify your allowable acquisition rate
4. REPEAT

Ask any sales person at a network what year they were founded, and chances are the answer will be in or around 2000. Back then it was like the wild west for networks. Affiliates were making fast money, and most networks were not regulated. This was a fun time for sure. What most fail to tell you is the offers that made them the most money back then, are most likely causing them, or have at some time caused them the biggest headaches today.

Top Revenue Generating offers that cause the biggest headaches for Networks

1. Ringtones = WHY? FTC crack down
Some networks got themselves into trouble when (after seeing the massive revenue generating power of ringtones, formed white label solutions with the providers) - BIG MISTAKE. When the FTC investigated the call to action ie, "sign up for a FREE ringtone" the networks were being held accountable for the misleading communication in conjunction with the ringtone provider. Yikes.

2. Incentive Offers = WHY? Quality issues
Incentivized offers themselves are fine, and generate some phenomenal leads for the right advertiser (continuity programs with credit cards - like Blockbuster) is a great example, but when a rookie sales person tells you to allow affiliates to incentivize your offer and there's no credit card transaction involved you'll have 10,000 leads in one day that will be totally useless. Would you pay for them? I didn't think so.

3. Email Offers = WHY? SPAM
Email converts very well for many advertisers. Back in 2000 with limited regulation publishers would spam consumers and collect handsomely from the networks. Many networks have since implemented solid stop- gaps, but man those SPAMMERS kill ya! Ask the network if you can provide an unsub lisk, or if they have a master unsub list. Also, have a from line, subject line, text and html version. To ensure some control - make sure you (the advertiser) can dictate when the publishers can drop the emails.

Each of these types of offers still generate an immense amount of revenue on networks, but take up a lot of time and effort to regulate. When investigating a partner for your next campaign, don't be afraid to ask the network how they address each of these issues. It will save you the headaches in the long run.

So this morning I got into the office after a great long weekend to check my calendar. Holy Cow! I'll be out of the office 70% of the month bouncing around to come phenomenal places, and meeting with some of the best minds in the interactive industry. Next week I'll be in Cornado, California at the iMediaConnection Brand Summit. This is going to be phenomenal! They'll be more tahn 160 senior level marketing executives from major brand companies. Here is a brief sample:

The Advisory Board is composed of following industry thought leaders:

Jonathan Adams, VP, Director – Media, Digitas
Sean Cheyney, VP, Marketing & Business Development, AccuQuote
Jarvis Coffin, CEO, BURST! Media
Tom Hespos, President, Underscore Marketing
Clark Kokich, CEO, Avenue A I Razorfish
Scot McLernon, former SVP, Sales, CBS Digital Media
Dave Morgan, Chairman, TACODA
Mark Naples, Managing Partner, WIT Strategy
Correy Honza, Director of Internet Marketing, Quiznos Corporation
Sheryl Biesman, Manager of Online Marketing, Pharmavite
Bryan Stapp, CMO, Quicken Loans

I'll be at this show until Thursday of next week, and heading to Shop.org the week after in Las Vegas! Shop.org is the association for retailers online. I've attended this show in the past, and this is a top notch event that I recommend everyone attend.

I'll be sure to post a detailed review while at each event, and some post event thoughts

Continuity Programs continue to be some of the best performing offers on our CPA network. They are tailored to convert well, and due to the monthly cost to consumer, each advertiser that may have previously purchased media on a CPM, or CPC basis can now justify a certain amount of money (allowable aquisiton cost) to generate a conversion. They know that they can afford to do so because the quality of the conversions/sales that we generate is unsurpassed. Since the majority of these conversions are happening via search, we're finding that the advertisers churn rate is low, and therfore they can afford an attractive CPA to our affiliates/publishers.

Continuity Programs – Minimal upfront cost to register, coupled with a monthly subscription model.

Blockbuster
Netflix
Vistaprint
SunRocket
BMG/Columbia house
GE Money