Thought Leaders in Big Data: Damon Ragusa, CEO of ThinkVine (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: One of my observations which pertains primarily to electronic commerce is that the more we can attribute, the more we can tie the marketing and advertising and customer acquisition to actual purchases. As you know, one of the most effective ways of marketing e-commerce is through affiliate programs. It’s 100% performance-based. There are lots of sites and apps that have accumulated huge numbers of eyeballs that they’re not able to monetize today. If more and more of this gap that exists today between traffic, lead generation, and conversion into actual transactions could be bridged, that would really relieve a lot of the friction that exists today between advertising and commerce. Can you comment on that?

Damon Ragusa: You’re absolutely correct on that but there are a few challenges. Part of it is based on the realities of digital marketing. You hit on one point. You talked about affiliate marketing as a good example that can be 100% performance-based, but because it is 100% >>>

1Mby1M Deal Radar 2014: Clickable, San Francisco, CA

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Some technology startup veterans will tell you that when the markets are crashing, it could be a good time to pick up great technologies at rock-bottom prices. SuccessFactors was such a company. It was born out of the dot-com crisis of 2001 when Lars Dalgaard bought some well-funded technology companies that had gone bust and resurrected them with his vision.

After the dot-com crisis, the economic crisis provided another such window of opportunity to Mike Onghai. Inspired by the success story of SuccessFactors, he bought the assets of Clickable in 2013. >>>

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Jacob Cooke, CEO of Web Presence in China (Part 1)

The dynamics of e-commerce in China are very different from the US. Let’s dig in!

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to your company and yourself. Tell us what you do and your background. We’ll take it from there.

>>>

The 10 Trends In Content Marketing

We’re not too far from a world where Content represents the Brand.

Brands, therefore, are trying to develop good content, and engage audiences by getting them to read/view their branded content.

Here are 10 trends in content marketing that marketers should keep track of:

1. Quality: The online universe is full of crap. Producing quality content isn’t easy, and it isn’t cheap to do so. If you can invest in a high-end content strategy and engage people with it, you have a differentiated advantage. But it is extremely difficult to do. Imagine, you are running a mini New York Times. You have to churn out quality content that is relevant for your audience everyday. If you are a toothbrush brand, that may not be all that easy to do!
>>>

Trying to Turn Carriers and Retailers Into Google: Azzimov CEO Benoît l’Archevêque (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: What you have today is a product and a business model that is just starting to come into the market? This business model is not generating $5 million in revenue?

Benoît l’Archevêque: If you only consider Azzimov, no. But if you consider the whole entity, yes.

Sramana Mitra: You’re basically trying to turn people with major traffic to a Google-kind of business model. It would be interesting to see if they can execute on their side on these ad sales and generating affiliate networks. You’re leaving the execution in their hands. They’re not set up to execute on these kinds of principles. >>>

Trying to Turn Carriers and Retailers Into Google: Azzimov CEO Benoît l’Archevêque (Part 6)

Benoît l’Archevêque: It’s like the 411 service in North America where people call to get services. In China, they have salesmen receiving the call. People call and say, “I’m looking for this.” The person receiving the call will not only give the information but also go and complete the sale. Azzimov is included in that. They have the affiliate program already in place.

Sramana Mitra: I understand the advertising and lead generation, but how does the affiliate program work?

>>>

Trying to Turn Carriers and Retailers Into Google: Azzimov CEO Benoît l’Archevêque (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: In the case of Google, they have web self-service advertisement capabilities like Google CPC. If I, as a small business, want to advertise on Google, I can go to Google’s website and set it up to do that advertising. Do you have that in place as well?

Benoît l’Archevêque: Yes. We call that ad boosting. We can do product placement in site. We can actually increase or not, depending on the context of the search. Also, we do product re-targeting. For example, you have a blog. You would like to have contextual products offered in the article you were doing. We can actually place products beside the articles. We call that product re-targeting. >>>

Trying to Turn Carriers and Retailers Into Google: Azzimov CEO Benoît l’Archevêque (Part 4)

Benoît l’Archevêque: There are three revenue models in Azzimov: advertising when you search, the lead generation system that I just explained, and the affiliate model. When someone buys, there’s a percentage take off that. Put that aside. Take that business model, but apply it to mobile. >>>