Chris Dessi - Vice President zanox, Inc

This coming Sunday I'll be competing in my first ever 1/2 Marathon. After catching the running bug a few months back (I entered a 5k, then a 10k and now the 1/2 marathon), I'm feeling better than when I was 25. It's amazing what your body can do when you set a goal, define a road map to meet that goal, and execute.

I can't help but make the connection to our daily business lives. How many of us say "I want to be a CEO", but never map out the strategy to get there? Recently I've been able to start road maps outlining different aspirations in my life. What stimulated my recently found laser focus was that I stumbled upon a list of "things to do before I die" that I'd created when I was about 20, and updated when I was about 22. I had to take a moment to say "well done" because there were more boxes checked off than I expected when I first found the document. Afterward my wife and I sat down to review the list. We both agreed that I should map out what steps I need to take to accomplish each thing on my list. She also encouraged me to seriously evaluate the validity of said list. The activity in contention was "make-out with a Playboy bunny"....unless my wife decides to pose for the "hot wives of westchester" addition, I think I'll have to remove that one, but I digress.

I'll keep you posted on the 1/2 marathon, and hopefully I start posting my progress on some of the "things to do before I die"...

oh yeah...here's a pic of my triumphant finishing of my 10k on Father's Day!

NEW YORK - (Business Wire) zanox, a global leader in performance-based online marketing, today announced the company’s significant growth in the fiscal year 2007, including global revenue generation of more than 166 million EUR (261.8 million USD), across key sectors including the T.I.M.E.S. (Telecommunication, Internet, Media, Entertainment, Software), Travel, Retail & Shopping and Finance verticals. Overall, the Berlin-based provider of affiliate marketing experienced 55 percent company growth, surpassing industry averages of 33.2 percent for the online marketing sector (as reported in the PwC Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2008-2012).

“zanox brings affiliate advertisers and publishers together on a global scale with an international footprint unrivaled by other ad networks,” said Christopher Dessi, Vice President of Advertiser Sales, North America. “We’ve made significant strides over the past year and are dedicated to growing the company’s U.S. presence with new customers, key partnerships and product upgrades throughout 2008.”

zanox’s corporate growth and increased revenue are credited to investments from German Axel Springer AG and Swiss PubliGroupe AG made in May 2007, which enabled the company to grow the number of subsidiaries as well as significantly expand it’s global reach to encompass more than one million sales partners in 200 countries. zanox currently employs 350 staff in total with 150 in Berlin and has offices in 25 other locations worldwide, including the China, France, Spain, Italy, UK and zanox U.S. headquarters in New York City.

“Since its inception almost a decade ago, zanox has continually evolved with the online marketing landscape with an ultimate goal of advancing the monetization of the Internet,” said Thomas Hessler, CEO of zanox. "Looking ahead, zanox will continue searching for new and innovative ways to provide maximum value to advertisers and publishers through further collaboration with our partners, and continuous expansion of the network through global alliances.”

Be sure to check out the zanox Web Services Contest 2008 which will award One Million Euro (roughly 1.57 million US Dollars) Venture Capital for the best business model based on the zanox Web services. Deadline for entry is September 30, 2008; open to registrants in the United States.

About zanox

zanox.de AG is the global leading provider for success orientated online marketing and offers global solutions for efficient commercialism of products and services in the Internet for advertiser and supports publisher in achieving sales out of their traffics. The portfolio of zanox contains tools for cooperation- and search engine marketing to build up a decommission system and reference marketing via email.

zanox was founded in 2000 by CEOs Thomas Hessler, Heiko Rauch and Jens Hewald and employs more than 350 people. Headquartered in Berlin zanox operates offices in USA, UK, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, France, Poland, Scandinavia and China. More than 2,000 prestigious international companies across the business sectors TIMES, Travel, Retail & Shopping as well as Financial Services utilize the zanox network.

Since 2007 Axel Springer holds 60% and PubliGroupe 40% of zanox. Axel Springer is Germany’s biggest newspaper publishing house and third-largest magazine publisher. PubliGroupe AG is an independent, internationally leading marketing, sales and service group for media and advertisers, supporting these in implementing their communication and media strategies with marketing and technology services.

The Fatal Flaw of Pay for Performance

By Christopher Dessi, Vice President of Ad Sales for zanox, North America

The Harvard Business Review, however interesting, is not always at the top of my reading list for a seven-hour flight to the UK. I’m more of an Esquire kind of guy, but I recently relented and forked over the cash for good old HBR (I still bought an Esquire to keep me entertained). While flipping through the articles, it struck me that the issues discussed on those pages transcend industries and are widely appealing because they affect any business. The contents seemed to be custom produced by writers that perhaps had been listening in on my team meetings and brain storming sessions over the past six months. This reminded me that some dilemmas – strategic, operational, motivational and ethical – are universal.

One piece in particular sparked my interest immediately, as it resounded for the performance-based online marketing industry yet had little to do with it. Odd. The title of the article was something along the lines of “The Fatal Flaw of Pay for Performance.” I immediately devoured the article, quickly realizing that it had nothing to do with online marketing. It was, however, fascinating and perfectly applicable.

The article discussed how rewarding a CEO for performance may satisfy certain critics so they don’t get swept away with backdating stock options, or the like. One of the main points addressed in the piece, which I felt was perfectly appropriate for our industry, is that when people (or in our case publishers/affiliate marketers) are rewarded for performance only, there is a fatal flaw – the temptation to cheat.

We open the system up for fraudulent activity because the one responsible for performing is so desperate to meet a certain benchmark that they loose site of the bigger picture. The article listed examples of CEO’s who had “cooked” the books. In my mind, I thought about rampant fraudulent leads I’ve seen over the years – affiliates forging applications, entering fake emails, even using stolen credit cards – all with the intent to be paid for performance.

The bottom line is, however appealing it is for advertisers, if not properly regulated, this model is flawed. You don’t want a CEO to be rewarded for something he or she didn’t really do. Nor do we in the performance-based marketing industry want to reward someone for performance they didn’t achieve on behalf of our advertisers.

The model shouldn’t be just pay for performance, but rather pay for performance with integrity. Let’s be honest though, there are too many affiliates and publishers to cut out all of the shady guys. So, how do we solve this dilemma? The first step is to be AWARE of the issue, and then monitor, regulate and participate.

Once you’ve recognized the existing threat, it’s important to monitor your affiliates and the manner with which they generate leads for your advertisers. Have a task force assigned to not just monitoring, but identifying and then terminating the relationship if the publisher is seen to be doing anything out of the ordinary. It’s also crucial to regulate the publishers that join your network. It’s your integrity as well as your advertisers’ at stake, be in charge and lay down the law. Finally, participate in removing these publishers actively as well as educating your advertisers about the pitfalls of pay for performance (i.e. Don’t allow incentivized traffic on lead generation offers).

My trans-Atlantic encounter with HBR ultimately reminded me that pay for performance is flawed – a dilemma that echoes across all industries. For those of us in performance-based online marking, particularly affiliate marketing, it should be clear that pay for performance with integrity is always better, albeit difficult to execute, and therein lies the differentiating factor for the best networks.

Ad:Tech Miami Conference attended – June 3rd

After spending a full day in sessions and walking the floor at Ad:Tech Miami, the message is clear – the Latin market is growing exponentially

Highlights/Insights
Hispanic online market has grown 18% YTY
Top 25 % of Latin consumers use the internet 250% MORE than the general market
Bottom 50% use it 78% less than the general market
Most of those users are under the age of 25
38% have some college education
76% use cell phone as the PRIMARY phone
19% use the internet to connect with family and friends, and they’re generating their own content online – blogging, social networking etc.
Major US Markets = LA, NY, Miami, Houston, Chicago

Top Latin Markets = Brazil, Mexico
Latin American has 87% online search penetration - 3million searches per month
Brazil = 90% online search penetration

Mexico
2008 27.4 million Mexicans are online
70% have broadband. (Most likely due to the usage of internet cafés – this does not indicate that they have broadband services in the home).
97% of Mexicans multi task while online
- 50% on the phone
- 41% while working
- 35% listening to music
- 25% watch TV

49% user generated content
33% own a blog
96% growth this year
2011 = $192million
UP 134% in 2008
Only 1.5% of total ad spend is going toward digital in Mexico.

Brazil and Mexico have a great deal of online user’s spending money online. There is also a huge potential in the US market for advertisers to target Spanish speaking Americans. Latino culture in the US is becoming more educated, and more versed in the online arena. Social networks are exploding, and Latin Americans are generating content to stay in contact with family back in their mother countries.