South Africa's Online Industry Summit

[Gavin Levin]

About the Summit

The Online Industry Summit is a platform for industry leaders across Southern Africa to exchange views about the state of online and its developments.
Different sectors have now realised the power of doing business online. With more of all media consumption shifting to one it is vital that you engage your customers through the web channel. While search and e-mail have often led the way brands are beginning to recognise the importance of on-line advertising in the digital mix and its effect on buying behaviour, online and off.

However, like most marketing channels, it is at its most effective when it is planned, bought, executed and measured correctly. This summit aims to establish best practice and give delegates the tools to ensure heir campaigns deliver as effectively as they can.

Who should attend :

Marketing managers, E-commerce managers, Head of Digital, Business development managers,
MDs/CEOs/directors, Media planners/buyers, Agency account managers, Creative directors,
Internet/online manager, Media director/manager, Web developer/webmaster,
e-Business Managers, Online Managers, Operations Managers, Online publishers,
PR Agencies/Manager, Marketing heads of the banking, tourism and recruitment sectors.

TrafficSynergy.co.za is running the South African Online Industry Summit 2007 Campaign on our affiliate network.

Payout : 10% of Sale

Tickets start at over R6000 per delegate, so the earning potential on an average booking will net you over R600 per person!

Get more information on the summit (http://affiliates.trafficsynergy.com/z/978282/CD1/DigMAffAdv) or signup to TrafficSynergy (https://affiliates.trafficsynergy.com/affiliate_signup.html) as an affiliate and promote the campaign yourself.

[Koz]

Hi Gavin

The sumit looks exciting! I hope it goes well. Could you post some more information about it? Like where it will be held and what date. Also, how does the payout work?

[Chatmaster]

I do not know 90% of the people speaking at the summit... Should I feel silly then? The topics seems to be spot on and certainly worth discussing, but I would love to see profiles of the speakers.

[Paz]

Hi Gavin,

Good luck with the summit. It looks like an excellent list of topics all very important for the growing South African online industry!! I'm sure we'll send someone.

There's nothing on search engine optimisation though! I know you guys specialise in affiliate marketing and PPC but I do think you should have a presentation with an introduction to SEO - maybe you can invite Daniel or Chatmaster :grin:

[Gavin Levin]

Hi
We are not the organisers of the summit, we are just the lead/sale generation medium the organisers are using, although our CEO Eric Edelstein is chairing the first day.

The summit is on 7-9 Feb at Emporer's Palace.
Speakers include the heads of companies like :
News24, BidorBuy, Incubeta, MYBROADBAND.CO.ZA, ACCELERATION etc.

The fact that you haven't heard of them all shows this industry is bigger than most think ;-)

It covers a broad spectrum of online marketing arena's, but
Click link to see who else is speaking:ONLINE INDUSTRY SUMMIT SITE (http://affiliates.trafficsynergy.com/z/978282/CD1/DigMAffAdv)

It is great place to meet and network in the industry as guys working in the international market will be there too.

On the payout side:
TrafficSynergy.co.za is offering the Online Industry Summit as a campaign on our affiliate network.
So if you run the campaign through us, by signing up for FREE, we provide you with banners , text links etc to advertise the Summit to your traffic.

We track the lead to the point it becomes a sale.
At which point you will earn 10% of the sale price....PER PERSON!

So if you looking for discount, sign up to us to get an affiliate account.

I hope this gives you the info you were looking for, if not let me know.

[Chatmaster]

News24, BidorBuy, Incubeta, MYBROADBAND.CO.ZA, ACCELERATION etc.


Ironically these are the companies I do know. I know Andy Higgins from Bidorbuy, and Stephan Pretorius from Acceleration, am a member of mybroadband and know Rudolf Muller from there. Arthur Goldstuck also very familiar with and read his news letters very often. The problem is that other than positions the speakers have with companies, who are they, what is their background?

There's nothing on search engine optimisation though!
The topic list is very much representative of the South African industry. SEO is very new to the industry, however I would have expected to see it there as it is the foundation of online marketing.

maybe you can invite Daniel or Chatmaster I would love to see Daniel as a speaker at such an event. I believe he will shake up a few feathers as he has extensive knowledge not only limited to SEO but in general of online marketing.

[Gavin Levin]

I agree it would be good to have an SEO specialist there. Unfortunately we have no control of the contents of the summit, we are just the marketing vehicle they are using to promote it.

[Chatmaster]

Gavin, is your deal with KUGM exclusive? I mean late in 2007 I will also have an online marketing conference that I would like for you guys to be involved in the marketing...

[Gavin Levin]

Hi Chatmaster

Our deal for the Online Industry Summit is just another vertical extension of our model we use for Mortgage, Student Loan, Insurance, Online car sales,flight bookings etc.

Our systems support lead generation, as well sales tracking ,which we push out to our affiliates and other industry partners, providing a mechanism to extend you marketing reach on a "Pay for Performance" model.

When you have more detail let me know and I'm sure we can work together.

[daniel]

Hey Guys,

Sorry i have been scarce, i have been taking some needed time out.

Thanks for the compliment chatmaster. I tend to agree with all you guys, i have been working with UK companies running their SEO strategies for about 6 years now. Lately, and only lately have i seen the move over to South Africa. When i talk about SEO in South Africa, it has always been around, talked about here and there, but nothing as serious as the UK, where many Blue Chip companies rely on their SEO as their main lead driver.

As i mentioned, this is filtering into South Africa, along with affiliate and PPC campaigns. There is still a long way to go, especially between PPC and affiliate, and the cleanup of these campaigns.

Its probably not the correct area of the forum to be posting my views on this subject but i came across this the other day and thought it would be a good topic for us all to discuss. Anyway here goes:

The affiliate companies in South Africa are poised for tremendous growth, if they handle their affiliates correctly. I have recently come across some large advertisers in SA that run affiliate and PPC campaigns concurrently,
Unfortunately, some of the affiliate companies are not controlling their affiliates and allow them free reign as to how they can bring traffic.

The down side of this for the client is that the affiliates are using PPC and bidding on the brand terms AGAINST the client. They are therefor pushing each others bid prices up.

A practical example of this is if a online retailer offers R 50 for every sale their affiliates bring to the site, the affiliate will go and buy the brand terms for this online retailer for R 2 per click on PPC. As the retailer was only paying R 1, he now has to outbid his affiliates for his own name. The affiliate then moves to position 1, send the traffic across to the retailer and invoices him R 50 for this sale , THAT THE RETAILER SHOULD HAVE MADE ANYWAY.

The UK affiliate companies like affiliate window, CJ and Tradedoubler went through the exact same problem about 2 years ago, they then starting losing big advertisers. They simply rectified the problem by implementing a affiliate policy stating the rules of becoming an affiliate.

I am in no way saying that PPC should not be used as a means to drive affiliate traffic, but rather a policy stating that if the client is using PPC, then the affiliate cannot bid on the brand terms.

Its crazy, i know, but i feel that this should be done very soon. I personally know of a few large SA advertisers that are thinking of pulling their affiliate program because of this.

I dont mean this to sound negative in any way, but i feel that we should all be talking about things like this.

Lets hear your thoughts.

Daniel

[Gavin Levin]

Its great to get others views on the South African market and other companies experiences.

To run any PPC campaign, the associated costs need to be factored into the bidding price. Therefore the merchant's may be paying R50 per sale to an affiliate ,whereas the costs of running the campaign, whether inhouse or outsourced, need to factored in. Therefore just looking at bidding price on its own is not a fair comparison.


So here are some of our learnings, especially with regards to South African merchants:

When we sign up a merchant they fall into 3 categories with regards to PPC rules and guidelines:

1) Merchants who are doing their own bidding, whether inhouse or outsourced, and do NOT allow any PPC on their campaign.

2) Merchants who do their own PPC but allow affiliates (including PPC companies) to bid under strict guidelines including keywords, adcopy and display URL's etc.

3) Merchants who do not do any PPC and are happy for affiliates to bring them traffic even on their brandname.

For both 2 and 3, many merchants seem to be happier to have 4 out of 5 ads displaying that link directly or indirectly back to their site, rather than say, an 1 in 5 chance of catching the sale from their competitors.

The brandname keywords are finite. All other keywords relating to the brand's industry can be used by competitors in the same vertical. Many PPC companies enjoy a flexible affiliate relationship with the merchant, which allows them to switch their campaign to a higher paying offer on the same keywords if the opportunity arises.

An added advantage of a network over a program is the affiliates can get the same level detail of tracking they could get if they had the direct relationship with the merchant as opposed to an affiliate program.

On the whole, it is up to the merchant to define their PPC rules and ensure the affiliates compliance rather than shy away from the extra exposure and sales.

[daniel]

Thanks Gavin

I am glad to see that you guys have adopted the rules, i feel its much better in the long run for all merchants and affiliates.. Its a interesting market, thanks for posting!!

Daniel

[Paz]

<snip>
When we sign up a merchant they fall into 3 categories with regards to PPC rules and guidelines:

.....

3) Merchants who do not do any PPC and are happy for affiliates to bring them traffic even on their brandname.

Wow.... sounds like easy money to me.

Very interesting discussion guys.