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Yazing Reaches 50k Members!

Yazing, the influencer monetization and cashback shopping platform, launched by Adam Viener in 2015, recently announced that they have reached 50k members after a record breaking year in 2020.  Yazing now has over 3,600 brands on that platform that any member can instantly start promoting and earning cash rewards for generating sales.  Members have generated nearly $4 million dollars in commissions on the platform.

“Companies have long offered affiliate programs, but these deals can be difficult to navigate and out of reach for the average individual, influencer or blogger.” said Adam Viener, Founder of Yazing. “I believe that EVERYONE has influence and deserves to be compensated for the sales they help generate. I launched Yazing in 2015 with the goal of making these often elusive opportunities accessible to anyone looking to earn some extra money from home promoting and supporting the brands they love.”

Anyone with an email address and the ability to receive payments via PayPal is welcome to join Yazing for free and start earning money.

Affiliate Tax Propaganda - Affiliates Continue to be the Human Shields

Well this tax issues continues to made news and most of the time it is misinformation and/or partial truths. 

Sadly this issue has continued to be branded as the Amazon Tax and as such has been positioned as a David and Goliath issue:  The Big Bad Online Only Retailer v. Mom and Pop America 

The problem is, this has nothing to do with Mom and Pop.   

In a recent issue of The Directors Letter, the following was written:

Goose and Gander  We recently wrote about Amazon's aggressive battle with various states to avoid collecting and paying sales tax. Amazon's technique is to eliminate relationships with local affiliates so that it can declare no presence in a specific state. In the latest development, competitors including Wal-Mart, Target and other large retailers have joined up to form the Alliance for Main Street Fairness. The Alliance is lobbying for legislative changes that would require Amazon to pay state sales tax.

Let’s analyze this a bit….

First this part:  “Amazon's technique is to eliminate relationships with local affiliates so that it can declare no presence in a specific state”

This isn’t just Amazon’s tactic.  Several online retailers have chosen this path.  What needs to be nailed down is that this isn’t just a tactic……doing this total absolves then from having to collect the sales tax that was the intent of these Bills.    

Here is how it works everywhere it has passed (except NY solely because of pending legislation)

1) Bill Passes

2) Nexus is created for Online Merchant

3) Affiliates Get Fired --- In many cases #3 actually precedes #1!

4) Online Retailer no longer has Nexus since it no longer has affiliates 

5) Online Retailer Collects $0 sales tax - no Nexus, no Sales Tax

6) Affiliate Loses Revenue

7) State collects less income tax from small business that have been financially hurt or put out business by passage of the Bill

This is pretty black and white….

Use Affilates to Create Nexus, Affilaites Fired, No Nexus created, Bill is useless............please tell me what I’m missing????

Second: “In the latest development, competitors including Wal-Mart, Target and other large retailers have joined up to form the Alliance for Main Street Fairness.”

So let me get this straight….The Big Box retailers that KILLED the Mom and Pop stores all across the country in the first place have now joined forces to create the Alliance for Main Street Fairness?   There is nothing Main Street about this fight.  A look at their website, which I will not link to, or course says nothing about Big Box Stores….it trots out a bunch of local business that have supposedly been hurt by the online retailers. 

For the record, I understand that sales tax issue.  It won’t be easy to solve, hopefully legislators will see it for what it is. 

It’s clear what this is.  It’s a fight between behemoths….Online Only versus The Click and Mortar.......

In the meantime,  it’s a shame that Affiliates continue to be the Human Shields in the war between Online Only Retailers and Big Box Retailers.

Affiliate Tax / Amazon Tax / Nexus Tax.... Be Proactive.

Today I met with my representative to the Pennsylvania State Legislature.  The purpose of the meeting?  To discuss the Amazon Tax and its implication to Imwave’s business.

Pennsylvania is not currently discussing this (at least not that we are aware of), but in light of recent events in Illinois it has become clear that these issues can rise up and catch us off guard very quickly.

I know what many of you are thinking….I’m not going to bring it up….I don’t want to give them any ideas.

Well believe me….THEY ALREADY KNOW!  You are not going to give them an idea they don’t have already.  

With state budget deficits what they are, Legislatures are all looking at way to fill the budget gap.  They are looking at other states and they know that they are losing sales tax revenue to online sellers.    

The questions are: 

Are you going to educate them on the impact to your business before the legislation hits the Floor of the Chamber? 

Are you going to tell them that depending on the way they redefine nexus they:

• will probably NOT gain not new sales tax? 
• could kill your business? 
• will reduce your revenue and in turn the amount you pay to them in income tax?

Why not present your case in advance?  Why not give them the ammunition to have the conversation early in the fight?

Don’t be worried if you’ve never met your Representative!

Don’t be worried if you’ve never talked to a Representative before. 

I’ve done neither before today!!

My Representative was very gracious when we met.  He gave me an hour of his time.  We talked, we built up some report.  I asked him if he was aware of the nexus issue.

He was!  He was fully in FAVOR of increasing the nexus to capture lost sales tax revenue.

I LISTENED!!!  I did not talk. I did not plead my case (at first).  I needed to understand what his thinking was; what his position was. 

When he was finished I explained New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Illinois.  I didn’t lecture, I educated.  I informed him about the loophole that would allow merchants to remove affiliates as means to get around nexus and what that would mean for Imwave.  I also, with the help of the PMA, was able to let him know that there were thousands of affiliates in PA that would be affected…not just Imwave.

He listened, he took notes. 

Now, he understands the loophole of removing us from the program and what that would do to both our business and the sales tax.  He can educate his colleagues in advance.

I asked him to keep his ear to the ground and let us know if this issue heats up. 

Which he said he was more than happy to do. 

We now have front line warning and an ally.

Also, he asked for me to gather some data on how this law has failed in other states...more ammunition should this issue heat up.  I will be engaging the PMA to help with this and will send him whatever I can. 

I plan to be his resource for info on this matter, his expert….oh and by the way, one of his constituents as well.

Bottom line, we need to get out in front of these issues, we need to educate and inform.  We need Legislatures to understand the unintended consequences of these bills and how they can kill small business.

Get out in front now, before there is too much momentum.

What’s Holding the Affiliate/Performance Marketing Industry Back?

The PMA (Performcance Marketing Association) has a great section on their website called "Ask the Expert."

Recently Rebecca Madigan asked me what I thougth was holding our industry back from greatness.   I thought about this for a while and sent her the following answer which they posted under the Ask the Expert section. 

What are your thoughts?

 

What’s Holding the Industry Back?

That question was posed last week.  A hundred answers ran through my mind when I read this.  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there are many symptoms, but only few root causes.

1)     Lack of Understanding

2)     Continual Focus on the Negative

3)     No unified industry voice

First, let’s talk about the Lack of Understanding.  For whatever reason, all things Internet related often seem to be relegated to the world of “technology.”  This has been going on since the beginning and seems to be getting better, but still exists.  The online channel is usually not the largest sales channel an organization has.  Couple that with its inherent black sheep aspect of being online and many companies just do not give it the focus it deserves.

Imagine walking into a CFO’s office and explaining Affiliate Marketing, not in Internet terms, not in Marketing Terms, but in the language of the CFO…..NUMBERS.  I imagine the CFO’s answer goes something like this:

“So, let me get this straight….you are selling our product (or service) on our behalf, but I only have to PAY you IF and WHEN we actually sell something….AND I only pay you at a predetermined percentage of the sale that I get to set at the beginning of the relationship.

Isn’t that really a no-brainer?  Imagine elevating the conversation above the internal politics and looking at the real numbers.

Second, is the continual focus on the Negative side of our industry.  I’ve never seen an industry that was so vocal about its own negatives that the noise actually drowns out the good things that we can do.  How many blog posts do we need about affiliate fraud, TM bidding, etc?  Between the Work At Home, Get Rich Quick messages and the fractured message of a vocal minority who insist on shinning a light on the few unscrupulous people in the industry, it creates a “Guilty until Proven Innocent” mentality, which we have to overcome on an almost daily basis.  The message of the hard working and ethical affiliate is lost.   You can’t have the conversation necessary to solve the issue in number 1 above until we can change the message of our industry.

Third, there is no Unifying Voice.  This is a direct effort to address Number 2.  There are a lot of people talking, but what they are saying is so chaotic that there is no message.  As marketers, we should be able to create a powerful marketing effort that educates companies on the value that the industry brings to the table.    Many industry groups have tried to form and I salute the PMA for getting farther than any of the others.  Let’s try to get out of the hamster wheel of fighting about “cookie stuffing” and start talking about all of the good things that we as an industry can bring to the table.

We have an industry filled with great people and great companies.  We just need to tell the world!

 

 

Amazon Tax (Affiliate Tax) Revenue Generator or Small Business Killer?

I've been watching the issue of the "Amazon Tax" ever since it snowballed through New York.  In some cases, it has passed and in other cases (either publically or privately) it has been defeated.

For those of you who may not know what I mean here's a recap: 

Online businesses are ONLY required to collect sales tax in states where they have a physical presence, called a Nexus.  Recently New York, in its infinite wisdom has stated it is losing hundreds of millions of dollars because of sales to online businesses like Amazon.

As such, the state legislature has redefined nexus to not only include brick & mortar stores, but also to affiliates.  Affiliates are in essence commission only sales reps...they are small business run by entrepreneurs trying to make a living.  And guess what they pay TAX to the state on their income.

When NY enacted this tax, Amazon, instead of figuring out how to collect sales tax, simply discontinued working with all of its New York affiliates.  The same has happened in other states as well. 

Result?? 

1) States see $0 - THAT'S ZERO - new tax revenue from the people it went after like Amazon, Overstock etc.

2) Small Business is hurt badly since they can no longer market for companies like Amazon and Overstock which results on lost revenue.

3) States sees LOWER actual business revenue from these Affiliate Businesses who would pay taxes on business income.

There are a couple of thoughts and realizations I have come to:

1) Politicians tend to operate in sound bites and press releases.  What do I mean by this?  Well it's easy to propose a *new* tax when you are crying foul against a large retailer like Amazon and holding up a sign with a Giant Number like $220 Million.  The reality is that once these taxes pass, Politicos are not accountable to what the end result it.  Did it work, Did it hurt small business?  We don't know.  They don't go back and look at results.

2) Taxes are VERY RARELY repealed once passed.

From the Providence Business News:‘Amazon tax’ has not generated revenue

The Performance Marketing Association has done a good job of fighting these issues when they pop up, but one begins to wonder......should we be fighting this one state at a time?   The current administration has put focus on small innovative businesses perhaps there is a course of action there?

Excerpt from state of the Union 2010

 ....is there a way to take this fight to the federal level and oppose it ONCE rather than 50 times?  Perhaps our industry needs to engage some policy experts.  One thing is certain, with almost all 50 states facing huge budget deficits, this issue is sure to raise its ugly head everywhere this year. 

Bottom line:  This tax hurts (and is some cases Kills) small business. 

Google Forgiveness... hard to achieve?

A few weeks ago I received an email from Google suggesting that 1 or more of the ads in an AdWords account were disapproved.  In looking at that account, I discovered that they were showing disapprovals for ads that had been deleted.

As anyone who works with Google knows, their notices can be somewhat ominous and sometimes suggest that upon any further disapproval that your account will be suspended.

Obviously concerned, I contacted them and was told that this notice was sent regarding ads that were disapproved in 2007.  

Now, I'm no rocket scientist, but I think it's now 2009…almost 2010?  Why in the world would I be getting this email for ads that had been disapproved 2 + years ago?

I dig further......

So these ads were in fact disapproved in 2007, and paused, where they sat until May 2009.  In May 2009, they were deleted (well at least the best delete you can do in AdWords).

So here it is 5 months later and the ads were: paused 2 years ago, DELETED 5 months ago....why in the world would the policy team even be looking at these in a review process?  They are gone, deleted, not active.  Well here is the response I got:

…Thank you for your email. I understand that you are concerned about deleted ads resulting in a policy warning. Please be assured that our policy team and I understand completely that the ads from 2007 that violated policies were later deleted.

Our policy team reviews accounts based on past disapprovals: the fact that you paused and deleted the ads from 2007 does not erase the fact that the ads were submitted and violated policies in 2007.

If our policy team did not look at all disapprovals, and only looked at undeleted disapproved ads, then it would create a situation where advertisers could violate policies and effectively delete the fact that they violated any policies.

Our policy team will look at the full history of an account when issuing suspension warnings as well. The fact that two years have elapsed since the violation does not remove the policy violation from our policy team's consideration….

Never mind, that this was 2 years ago,

Never mind that the ads have since been deleted

Never mind that there have not been not other since then

Apparently any disapproval you may received, just sits out there…forever and at any time, paused, deleted or not, you can be forced to pay for past sins. 

Google Adwords Chat Support

Getting support from Google can be a little tricky, here is a link to their online chat support for Adwords:

Google Adwords Chat Support

Good Luck!

E-Commerce Still Growing, but a Bit Slower

comScore reports that Year over Year increases in e-commerce spending is still growing but the high growth rates of from last year have slowed a bit.  Here is the data:

Month             Y/Y Percent Change
Apr-07                 18%
May-07                 25%
Jun-07                 25%
Jul-07                 22%
Aug-07                 28%
Sep-07                 19%
Oct-07                 19%
Nov-07                 20%
Dec-07                 18%
Jan-08                 12%
Feb-08                 14%
Mar-08                  9%
Apr-08                 15%

April's e-commerce growth rate was only off 3% from the prior year, and I think this indicates that online spending will be where people go to look for deals as the economy falters.

The Google Numbers Story

Google reported better than expected earnings and their stock price jumped 20%, then the analysts started pointing fingers at comScore saying that their numbers predicted lower than expected earnings based on comScore's PPC trends research that showed a slowing in paid clicks.

Today, comScore released the following press release defending their numbers and pointing out that the analysts used comScore's numbers wrong which showed domestic Paid clicks slowing to draw conclusions about Google's worldwide growth.

Here is the release, it's an interesting read:

When Google announced strong Q1 earnings last week, some financial and media analysts wrote that comScore’s reports of slowing growth in Google’s paid clicks missed the mark. That conclusion is patently false.

Unfortunately, many pundits attempted to draw conclusions about Google’s worldwide revenue performance based on comScore’s domestic paid click data, resulting in an apples-to-oranges comparison. Had they used comScore's domestic paid click data to better understand Google's domestic revenue trends, they wouldn't have missed an important U.S. story and they also likely would have avoided making the wrong call on Google’s worldwide business.

Following several historical quarters of strong sequential domestic revenue growth (including the seasonally equivalent Q1 2007), Google’s Q1 2008 revenue growth was essentially flat, which represented a significant change for Google’s domestic business. Such an important trend was also evident in comScore’s paid click data.

The chart below shows the directional association between comScore’s domestic paid click trends, as compared to Google’s domestic revenue trends.

Of course, this is not a perfect correlation because the comScore data do not include the impact of changes in Google’s price per click and do not include paid clicks from partner sites like AOL, Ask, Washington Post, etc. nor paid clicks from the AdSense network. But the strong relationship of the two trends is undeniable.

There is of course a lesson to be learned here. To extrapolate a single data point across all aspects of a company's business can lead to wildly inaccurate conclusions. 

Finally, to confirm the accuracy of the comScore paid click data, we previously published an apples-to-apples reconciliation on this blog. This analysis reconciles the comScore data with metrics shown in Google’s Q1, 2008 financial report. In short, comScore got it right – both quantitatively and qualitatively. What was wrong were the conclusions that some people drew based on inherently flawed comparisons.

Dr. Magid Abraham

President and CEO

comScore, Inc

Happy 9th Birthday Google!

Wow, Google is 9 years old already!  With a market cap today of $177 Billion that's just $19 Billion a year!  Not to shabby! 

Happy Birthday GOOG!