It has been a week of fascinating insights on the PerformanceIN news feed as several industry heavyweights offered to share wisdom with those searching for inspiration.
The experts’ view
Our INside the Boardroom feature saw a contribution from man of the moment Tony Zito, president at Rakuten Marketing, who recently addressed speculation regarding inter-department crossovers after his employer completed a $1 billion purchase of US cashback site Ebates. His post takes a slightly different tone by stressing the need for companies to bolster their omni-channel experiences.
The US version of our boardroom feature placed the spotlight firmly on CMO Council executive director Donovan Neale-May and his tips on strengthening business alliances. The Exchange Lab executive chairman Chris Dobson chipped in with his views on what makes a good programmatic ad marketplace, while Fashionchick’s Catharina Zientz offered publisher-based pointers on conquering the German market – the company’s second in a five-part series on international expansion.
Affiliate in the spotlight
Performance Horizon Group is currently riding high on a wave of confidence. The early success of its affiliate marketing software has attracted much attention worldwide and news of a $10 million cash injection from Mithril Capital, DN Capital and Greycroft Partners has confirmed what investors make of its prospects.
Another affiliate marketing software provider hitting the headlines this week is Cake, which has remained light-tipped over the departure of president Jeff McCollum at the request of its owners, Accelerize New Media.
In other affiliate news we learnt of Birdback’s completed expansion into the US and Brazil. It is believed that 100% of customers in both countries are now able to utilise the company’s card-linked cashback apps.
Polar’s Tony Vlismas shed light on advancements in the publisher space by offering his thoughts on the take-up of native and mobile advertising, while global affiliate network Tradedoubler spoke about plans to enhance its performance marketing offering with “immediate” technical enhancements. The announcement follows news of a 16% drop in net sales over Q1 compared to 2013.
The future is…
We also picked up plenty of hints about the future of certain marketing areas. Yahoo, for example, has been tipped to change the way brands purchase mobile ad space with its own acquisition of analytics firm Flurry.
Developers behind new retail platform ShopKonnect claimed that offline stores are also set to place more emphasis on mobile in an effort to serve their tech-savvy consumers. And finally, BrightEdge founder and CEO Jim Yu spoke at length about the future of content marketing and the importance of measuring articles on performance.
Any exciting news of your own to break? Feel free to message content@performancein.com with further details.