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NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Affiliate Tracking, Banner Mgt & Stats
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Affiliate Tracking, Banner Mgt & Stats
Tom Gerace (tgerace_at_befree.com)
Tue, 07 Apr 1998 09:38:11 -0400
Keith Pieper wrote:
> You're right on track - almost all major "infrastructure
> tools" allow for multiple enabling applications after some
> minor tweaking. And many of them are merely marketed for one
> purpose now. The functionality of NetGravity, Accipiter,
> Vignette, BeFree, DoubleClick are all the same - they serve
> data, track users and monitor various transactions - whether
> it be impression, lead or sale. So the next logical vision
> on the horizon is a convergence of these tools into a
> comprehensive marketing suite.
While I am grateful that Keith Pieper (MatchLogic) mentioned our
products among strong ad serving tools (Net Gravity, Accipiter,
MatchLogic), our Be Free Affiliate Serving Technology (BFAST) is
decidedly not an ad server. To illustrate, let me identify the
bottlenecks encountered by a typical retailer when creating an affiliate
network:
- Affiliate site registration
- Affiliate review and approval (with multiple commission tiers per
site, per product type and guaranteed minimums tracked)
- Affiliate product/promotion selection (from entire retailer catalog,
changing immediately as goods/prices change)
- Affiliate tag generation
- Merchandise Impression and Click-through tracking
- Tracking of orders, cancellations, shipments and returns (as separate
events)
- On demand reporting and decision support that include impressions,
clicks, sales, orders, cancellations, shipments, returns, backlogs,
bestsellers, worst sellers, link efficiency reports, etc. (tools to help
affiliates sell better)
- Commission calculation
- Voucher payments to affiliates (000s of payments)
- Cutting of checks (000s of checks)
While an ad engine (MatchLogic, Net Gravity, etc) might be modified to
do a tiny part of this task (merchandise impression and click-through
tracking), the remaining elements require tight integration with a
sellers catalog, commerce, and fulfillment servers. Moreover, they
require software that matches and automates the work-flow of managing an
affiliate network. With due respect to Mr. Pieper's ad engine, that's
not a short hop from ad serving.
Consider the case of our newest client, RR Donnelley. Donnelley is (see
Internet Week, most recent issue) now offering a transactional location
to their 450 catalog clients. Be Free is extending the reach of these
clients by partnering with Donnelley to build an affiliate network that
includes all their catalog partners. Each time Donnelley brings a new
catalog on-line, our system must, instantly, match the new product
offerings. That means we must allow sites to generate tags for those
products, link to a new point on Donnelley's transactions engine, and
create a new commissioning structure for sites. With BFAST, this
happens automatically, as soon as RRD has added a new catalog to their
system.
In short, while we're thrilled to be mentioned in such great ad serving
company, an affiliate serving technology is not an ad server (we know,
we've got a good one of those, too!). In fact, they hardly overlap.
Sell on!
Tom Gerace, president
Be Free, Inc.
http://www.befree.com
tgerace_at_befree.com
617.497.5630
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