Welcome to the Performance Marketing Association Industry Report, a podcast dedicated to the most pressing issues impacting advertisers, publishers, networks and agencies.

Nick Loper joined host Lisa Picarille.

Nick is the founder ShoeSniper.com, a shoe comparison site. He’s been an affiliate since 2004. Nick has been very active in fighting the affiliate nexus tax in California.

We talked about how the enactment of the California Nexus Tax laws impacted his business; forced him to move out of state; his return to California while the law is currently on hold; business lessons he’s learned and more.

Get more information about the Performance Marketing Association.

Welcome to the Performance Marketing Association Industry Report, a podcast dedicated to the most pressing issues impacting advertisers, publishers, networks and agencies.

Brook Schaaf and Peter Bordes joined host Lisa Picarille.

Brook is the Founder and CEO of Schaaf-PartnerCentric, an outsourced program management agency. Brook has been in the performance marketing industry since 2000. He has been the Affiliate Program Manager for multi-million dollar programs at Zappos.com, Shoes.com, and Edmunds.com, growing one from $25,000 to over $1million in monthly sales in less than two years.

Brook has spoken at nearly every online marketing conference over the years and in 2003 he was recognized with the Commission Junction Horizon Award for Communications. He is the past president of the board of the Performance Marketing Association and a current member of Entrepreneur’s Organization.

Peter is Founder and Chairman of the Board of MediaTrust. Previously, he spent much of his career in banking and venture capital and was a founder of Mason Cabot investment bank, which specialized in early stage media and technology financing. He was also a founder and chairman of the board of Empire Media, a publishing, marketing, and technology enterprise.

Currently, Peter is an investor, serves on the boards of, or is an adviser to a number of traditional, new media, and technology companies, such as: Internet Media Labs, PeekYou.com, Twylah.com, MRQE.com/FlickTweets, AdventureUS.com, Roomlinx Inc. jiwire, and Greater Media.

Peter is also a Founding Charter Member and on the Board of Directors of the Performance Marketing Association (PMA) and currently serves at its President.

We began the discussion talking about the role of the president of the board for the PMA and the role of the board in general. We then moved on to what the PMA has accomplished thus far; future goals; the challenges of moving forward; how to includes all the performance marketing constituencies; the importance of the Affiliate nexus Tax issue; the PMA Sales Tax & the Internet symposium; other issues the PMA is tackling and more.

Get more information about the Performance Marketing Association.

Welcome to the Performance Marketing Association Industry Report, a podcast dedicated to the most pressing issues impacting advertisers, publishers, networks and agencies.

Rebecca Madigan joined host Lisa Picarille.

Rebecca is the executive director of the PMA, which she co-founded in 2008. Rebecca was formerly director of product management at Commission Junction, Impact Radius, and at Lurn, Inc., She has over 25 years of leadership experience in product management and marketing.

Rebecca gave an update of the Affiliate Nexus Tax situation in California; Amazon’s recent moves and what that means to affiliates and other merchants; details on the PMA’s Sales Tax & the Internet conference in October; a peek at the new PMA board of directors and more.

For more information check out the Performance Marketing Association.

Welcome to the Performance Marketing Association Industry Report, a podcast dedicated to the most pressing issues impacting advertisers, publishers, networks and agencies.

Eric Heller and Karen Garcia joined host Lisa Picarille.

Eric is the Founder of a new start up, Marketplace Ignition, focused on helping online retailers succeed at Operational (Feed-Based) Marketing. He has been working in online retail for more than 12 years. He started at Amazon.com in 1999 and managed a variety of initiatives before spending a year as the Director of Marketing for a real estate start-up and two-years as the Director of Marketing for Expedia Corporate Travel. He recently left his role as Director of Internet Marketing for FootSmart.

Karen is the CEO and co-founder of GTO Management, an outsourced affiliate program management company. She has ten years of experience in e-commerce and marketing. Beginning in 1999, Karen successfully developed and managed the affiliate program for Shari’s Berries. Karen has consulted on and profitably managed dozens of affiliate programs on many different network platforms ranging from large national brands such as National Geographic and MediFast to niche merchants like BowlingShirt.com and MakeBeer.net. In 2009, she was nominated for an Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Award for Affiliate Marketing Advocate and the GTO-managed BowlingShirt.com program was nominated for Exceptional Merchant against industry heavyweights Amazon and eBay. She was awarded the 2009 ShareASale “Pay It Forward” Award for Industry Advocate for her work on the Affiliate Nexus Tax issue.

Both Eric and Karen are on the current board of directors for the Performance Marketing Association. We began the discussion talking about when the PMA board elections for this year are taking place and the nuts and bolts of who is eligible to run for the board. We then got into the time commitment needed to participate; what type of people are suited to be on the board; what issues are being tackled; how the board can make a difference; the what Karen and Eric each got out of their tenure; challenges and more.

Get more information about the Performance Marketing Association.

Welcome to the Performance Marketing Association Industry Report, a podcast dedicated to the most pressing issues impacting advertisers, publishers, networks and agencies.

Shelly Sullivan joined host Lisa Picarille

Shelly is an award-winning public relations professional and a Sacramento political insider. She has more than twenty years of public relations and public affairs experience. She has worked on a variety of earned media projects and public policy issues that have attracted local, statewide, national and international media attention.

Prior to establishing her own communications consulting firm, she was the Director of Media Relations for the public relations/governmental affairs firm of Goddard Claussen Porter Novelli. She also served as Director of Communications and Press Secretary for Assembly Speaker Antonio R. Villaraigosa.

We discussed the situation in California regarding affiliate nexus tax. We also looked at how Amazon is behind gathering signatures to get a referendum on the June 2012 ballot in California to repeal ABX 128; how affiliates can help with the referendum; the impact of the bills on affiliate marketers; the goals of websites such as 25000JobsAtRisk.com and GetBackInBusiness.org and more.

Get more information about the Performance Marketing Association.

Welcome to the Performance Marketing Association Industry Report, a podcast dedicated to the most pressing issues impacting advertisers, publishers, networks and agencies.

Durk Price joined host Lisa Picarille

Durk is the CEO of eAccountableOPM, an outsourced program management firm, he founded nine years ago. Durk has 10 years in the affiliate industry as both a Merchant and as Program Manager. eAccountableOPM currently manages affiliate programs for more than 70 merchants including: eFaucets, CanvasOnDemand, Junonia, Jim Cramer and TheStreet.com, and more. Durk is a frequent speaker at industry events.

We began our discussion talking about the current state of the online coupon and deal space. We then talked about the growth of larger coupon firm and what that means for smaller couponers; how to increase lifetime value of users through member communities and niche sites; what is appealing about local and daily deals; the advertiser conundrum; how things will shake out in 2011 and much, much more.

Get more information about the Performance Marketing Association.

Welcome to the Performance Marketing Association Industry Report, a podcast dedicated to the most pressing issues impacting advertisers, publishers, networks and agencies.

Angie Seaman joined host Lisa Picarille.

Angie is the Member Advocate for the PMA. She started her affiliate career at Kowabunga, managing affiliate programs ranging from local retailers and startups to Fortune 500 companies. As Client Services Director, she helped shape strategy, ensure programs served both clients and affiliates, and guided technical implementation for hundreds of affiliate programs.

At Lurn Inc., as product manager and VP of Marketing, she managed affiliate education product development, brand identity and social media. Angie has a 20 year background in retail management and her specialty is finding unique solutions and applying creativity to issues and processes.

We began talking about Angie’s role as member advocate for the PMA and then moved onto to new projects including the job board; additional working groups; the benefits of being a member; recruiting members; future events and more.

Get more information about the Performance Marketing Association.

Welcome to the Performance Marketing Association Industry Report, a podcast dedicated to the most pressing issues impacting advertisers, publishers, networks and agencies.

Nate Meyer joined host Lisa Picarille.

Nate has been the lead developer for FlamingoWorld.com for the past 10
years as well as ForMeToCoupon.com for the past three years. He has more than 8 years of developing affiliate websites and services from merchant datafeeds and network APIs

We began talking about if coupons sites present any specific challenges technically; how standardization of datafeeds might help coupon sites; whether or not the abundance of new technologies ease development or complicate things; how techie you need to be to implement datafeeds; how to hire and wok well with a developer; why mobile technology is making work exciting and more.

Get more information about the Performance Marketing Association.

Welcome to the Performance Marketing Association Industry Report, a podcast dedicated to the most pressing issues impacting advertisers, publishers, networks and agencies.

Jim Kukral and Scott Jangro joined host Lisa Picarille.

Jim manages a Web business consulting firm, the Biz Web Coach, where he helps businesses find ways to skyrocket their sales, leads and publicity through the power of online marketing. For almost 15-years, Jim has helped small businesses and large companies like Fedex, Sherwin Williams, Ernst & Young and Progressive Auto Insurance understand how to build successful new online businesses or energize and refresh existing ones. Jim currently serves as a Certified Adjunct Professor for The University of San Francisco online where he teaches thousands of students how to harness the power of online marketing. Jim is also the author of “Attention! This Book Will Make You Money”, which was published in August 2010.

Scott is the president and co-founder of MechMedia, Inc., a firm specializing in performance and search engine marketing since 2004. MechMedia focuses primarily on niche, retail, community websites, leveraging technology and new media to provide a valuable experience to website visitors.

Prior to MechMedia, Scott served as a Director of Product Management at Be Free, Inc. and later Commission Junction, both divisions of ValueClick, Inc. from 1999 to 2004. Scott is active and vocal member of the affiliate marketing community through his blogging, writing and advocacy efforts. He also sits of the board of the Performance Marketing Association. He is also the creator a new curation platform called Shareist.

We began our discussion talking about the role of content in online marketing. We than explored why content is important for affiliates; how content be used for branding purposes; why people seem to be frightened of creating content; how curation can help; what the Shareist platform is all about; who should be using Shareist; what’s wrong with traditional publish models, how content relates to search and more.

Get more information about the Performance Marketing Association.

Welcome to the Performance Marketing Association Industry Report, a podcast dedicated to the most pressing issues impacting advertisers, publishers, networks and agencies.

Rebecca Madigan joined host Lisa Picarille.

Rebecca is the Executive Director of the Performance Marketing Association. She was formerly director of product management at Commission Junction, Impact Radius, and at Lurn, Inc., where, with Anik Singal, they launched the formation of the PMA in April 2008. She has collected 25 years of leadership experience in product management and marketing. Rebecca has been a member of technology standards and professional organizations such as WAP Forum, Bluetooth and Wireless LAN Special Interest Groups, the Mobile Advisory Council, and more.

We began talking about the PMA’s policy plans and what PMA is currently engaged in. We then moved issues facing the industry, such as fraud and promoting the performance marketing channel; the Affiliate Nexus Tax bills and legislation in multiple states; the PMA’s member efforts and more.

Get more information about the Performance Marketing Association.