Notes from Ad-Tech Fall 2003

• Nov. 6, 2003

Online is back and stronger than ever! Over 3000 attendees at New York's annual fall Ad-Tech show enthusiastically sang the praises of online to whomever would listen. The hot topics at the show included search (of course), affiliate marketing, online branding, email and email spam, metrics and contextual advertising.

The exhibit hall was the show's largest ever, with over 120 exhibitors, including over 30 search marketing firms. In our row alone, there were 6 firms pushing search engine marketing, not including the Yahoo and Google booths. It seems that search marketing was even hotter than the unseasonably warm weather that graced the show (Monday got up to 75 degrees!).

Unfortunately, I didn't get to as many sessions as I would have liked, between pacing the exhibit hall and meeting with some new industry friends (hi again to Anne Holland from MarketingSherpa and the one and only WebMamma, Barbara Coll). One I did attend was a session on Performance based marketing, moderated by Jupiter Media's Gary Stein and featuring panelists from Commission Junction, KinderCare, Brook's Brothers and MBL.

There was a few comments made that caused some concern. The majority of time was spent with building and maintaining strong affiliate networks. Each of the panelists liked this because it allowed them to market and build brand with little or no risk. They only had to pay for visitors redirected to their sites. One panelist commented that "we have to let our affiliate partners do what they do best, push the envelope".

I read that as an implicit okay to go spam search engines, which is exactly what affiliates do. If you read this week's NetProfit, it's affiliate sites that are choking up the Google results (now known as a Google Gaggle) and preventing the branded sites from being at the top. Google is actively trying to crack down on this activity, and here we have top marketers saying they condone the behavior, as long as they get the consumer in the end. Unfortunately, it seems to be the search engine user that's getting it in the end.

The panelist from MBL.com even went so far as to say that funneling buyers through knock off affiliate sites adds to the "user experience" while the other panelists sagely nodded their heads. Hogwash! Here's my message to major online advertisers. Don't ignore organic search and let your affiliate networks do your dirty work for you. Believe me, it's doing nothing to enhance your brand experience. Clean up your act and help Google and the other engines clean up their results.

Google, crack down on the affiliates and don't use the excuse that the big guys can always pay for their visibility to get above the dozens of garbage affiliate results. By taking this attitude, you're ignoring the majority of users that come to your engine for your free results.

Okay, with that off my chest, I'll go cool down in the New York drizzle. By the way, seeing Letterman live is great!

Gord Hotchkiss