The Oprah Winfrey Litigation:What Affiliate Marketers Must

Know

SES Chicago 12/9/09Peter Bordes, CEO, MediaTrust

Ours is the Network Perspective...

The Issue: Environmental Factors

• Affiliate Performance Marketing is the least understood segment of the online marketing industry

• With the migration from CPM to CPC to CPL and CPA, the popularity of performance marketing has accelerated the industry segments growth.

• The GLOBAL affiliate universe is exploding as our world becomes digitally flatter. Accelerated by the economy & better tools and technology

Traffic Creation

Lead Generation Online Sale

Click Form Fill Transaction

Marketing Activity

Offering

Cost Per Click,(CPC)

Cost Per Lead(CPL)

Cost Per Sale or Cost Per Action

(CPS, CPA)

Brand Awareness

Impression

Cost Per Thousand(CPM)

Banner Ads

Video Ads

Text Ads

email

Search Ads

Contextual Ads

Social Media

Call Center

To accommodate our newfound popularity, we need to overcome our

legacy• The industry has a legacy of being “black-boxed” --

therefore has little in terms of standardization, best practices,  and technological innovation.

• Publishers and advertisers in the space are exploiting the industry’s lack of standards, best practices and regulation.

• Publisher Fraud: improper testimonials, fraud rings,lead “stuffing”

• Advertiser Fraud: Consumer abuse,improper display of T&Cs, credit card abuse,data misuse

The Issue: History

• We need to evolve: The industry as a whole needs to be more proactive VS. reactive in establishing standards and regulation:

• Performance Marketing Association (PMA)

• Privately driven standardization

• Advertisers and publishers are both asking:"How do I know the other side is compliant?"

• Its up to the networks to provide a trusted environment where business can be conducted without risk

The Issue: Where the industry is going

• We believe the network shoulder the responsibility of taking the lead on:

• Creating strong partnerships between publishers and advertisers

• Enforcing compliance standards from FTC and state attorneys general

• Being transparent with advertisers, publishers & industry

• With our partners we focus on quality vs. quantity and increasing consumer lifetime value. Dynamic pricing that rewards quality

• Built in-house technology to monitor fraud & compliance

• Created real-time transparency reporting by drilling to publisher sub ID level with creative screen shots

• We have created our own self-enforced vetting standards:

• "trusted criteria"for advertisers & publishers 

• Accordingly, we have removed 1000+publishers that did not meet our criteria

What MediaTrust is doing toimprove our network’s

accountability

• We have created and open-to-all industry compliance center with compliance policies and information

• Contributed financial and human resources to form the first association for performance marketing industry (PMA)

• Established thought-leadership via blogging, podcasting and openly discussing issues facing the industry

• PMA was built to:

• Form the Industry framework and standards• Help to lawmakers understand our industry

What MediaTrust is doing to improve Industry accountability