Bridgevine Blog Feed

Our Dear Old Friend, the Inc. 5000

Andrew Goldberg — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:36:09 GMT

Not to get overly comfortable with this, but we've done it again.� For the fourth consecutive year, we've placed on the Inc. 5000 list (2 of the 4 were within the top 500).� This year, we've come in at #2,594.� Our placement reflects our continuous, strong growth, driven by our expanded advertiser and affiliate relationships, our savvy marketing investments, our industry-leading technology platform, and last but not least, our rock star employees who make it happen each and every day.� 'Congrats and thank you' to all!

When 90% Isn't Good Enough

Andrew Goldberg — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:05:58 GMT

We recently conducted a survey of our affiliates (aka merchandising or channel partners) to find out what drives their satisfaction, and how we rate against their criteria.� If you were one of the respondents, I want to thank you for participating.� Your inputs, both formal and informal, help us to ensure that we are offering the best affiliate program possible, and to identify ways we can serve our partners even better.� With that in mind, I thought you may be interested in hearing about some of the research findings, and the actions we're taking to address many of them:

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�� Our affiliates are largely happy with us as a partner . 90% Definitely/Probably would recommend us to others.� This is a strong measure, for sure, but it's not good enough.� 100% satisfaction is a theoretical concept - perfection is a pursuit, not a destination.� But it will always be our intention to serve our partners as well as we can, and ideally, better than do our competitors.

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�� Our partners recognize Bridgevine to be stronger than competitors in key partnership areas such as: Commission and Payment Terms, Brands Offered, Account Support, and Data Protection/Privacy.� But we seek continuous improvement, so don't expect us to rest on our laurels . watch for enhancements in these areas, as well as to our Reporting, Buy Flows and Marketing support.

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�� And while our partners rated us highly on Platform Performance and Integration options, we are not resting there, either.� We recognize that the more options we have for integrating with our affiliates, the more effective we can be together.� And whether the environment is online, retail, call center, phone transfer, or others, we want to provide the best solutions available on the market.� Expect some announcements in this area, and in the meantime, if you have specific needs or requests, please don't hesitate to let us know.� And if you're a current partner, would a Bridgevine consultative audit of your current merchandising and integration approach reveal some growth opportunities?

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The satisfaction survey confirmed that we deliver a high level of service to our partners, but more importantly, it revealed areas where we can continue to make improvements.� At the end of the day, it's continuous improvement that will make Bridgevine the partner of choice for our affiliates and advertisers, and we always welcome the opportunity to hear from you about how we can better meet your needs.

I wonder how much money Marc Andreesen would save if he shopped at Bridgevine?

Andrew Goldberg — Thu, 13 May 2010 10:28:19 GMT

I just read that Marc Andreesen spends $4K per month on his home internet connection!� He's either got out-of-this-world speed (turns out it's a commercial grade connection at 100Mbps), or he didn't shop around, or both.� I wonder how much money he would save if he bought his connection from BridgevineBusiness?

Orders sound great, but activations are so money!

Andrew Goldberg — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:14:39 GMT

I write this as one of our top�service providers is visiting our Florida office for a QBR and a celebration - to acknowledge the fact that we were their first affiliate to beat a very aggressive order activation target, which we did after several months of sequential gains.� What do I mean by "order activation", you say?� Well, to answer that, let's take a brief step backward.� On the spectrum of performance-marketing, you have Lead-Gen companies and Order-Gen companies (a distinction that will no doubt be the subject of future blog posts).� Order-Gen companies, like Bridgevine, are purists on the performance-marketing scale, in a sense, because they typically get paid not for sending an interested customer over the wall for handling, but for sending a fully completed order - an activated customer relationship.� Now, sometimes the advertisers need to take some additional steps before the order becomes a billing relationship, but the level of accountability is the same . no paying customer, no service commission (i.e., no money).

The importance of order quality to Order-Gen companies, then, is paramount.� And it is with great pride that we join in today's celebration.� Not coincidentally, Bridgevine is the #1 partner on the order activations scale across many of its partnerships, a distinction that not only benefits Bridgevine financially, but also our advertisers and affiliates.� As I blogged about previously, rev-share isn't the only factor in determining an affiliate's payout, and in fact, it may not even be the most important thing.� Bridgevine is typically very competitive on the rev-share front, but throw in superior activation rates, and you have a model that can't be beat.� You might even say, 'it's so money!'

Is Your Credit Card Data Secure? Ours Is.

Andrew Goldberg — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:56:33 GMT

PCI DSS is the payment card industry's security standard for enterprises that process, store or transmit cardholder data, and today we achieved PCI DDS certification as a PCI Level I Service Provider.� The Level I standard, granted by the PCI Security Standards Council, assures our consumers, advertisers, affiliates, and business partners that we cut no corners when it comes to the protection of credit card data that passes over our platform or through our call centers.�� These days, with rampant occurrences of credit card fraud and identity theft, we can't be too careful.

The Level I designation is a rare feat, requiring countless hours of effort and a significant financial investment, and puts Bridgevine in a class of only about 600 other companies in the U.S.� You can count the number of companies in our specific field on one hand (make that a fraction of one hand, as strange as that visual may be).� Others may claim to be PCI "compliant", determined through self-assessment, but only Level I Service Provides are certified by independent, accredited auditors.

We made the significant investment to minimize our business risk, and that of our advertisers and affiliate partners, and to further differentiate the benefits of the Bridgevine platform.� With our technology-forward offering, broad services catalog, and independently certified security standards, we deliver high impact, low risk results that are second to none.

3D-TV to Fuel New Wave of Opportunity for Subscription Services, Electronics Manufacturers, and Their Affiliates

Andrew Goldberg — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:52:12 GMT

I'm certainly not the first person to blog about the coming of 3DTV to consumers' homes, but having experienced the technology first-hand at�CES�last month, I will go out on a limb and make the prediction that 3DTV will be just as important to our industry as has been HDTV.

HDTV, itself, has been a boon to TV manufacturers, the etailers and retailers who sell them, and to the subscription services that distribute 3D programming.� While there is still tremendous upside in the category, the HDTV�adoption curve�has risen sharply, especially since TV prices started to fall, back in 2007.

The parallels for 3DTV are uncanny, but not entirely coincidental.� Like HD was, relative to standard-definition, the 3D experience isn't just incremental; it's a step-function improvement. �And it won't be the gratuitous 3D-programming you've come to know from Disney theme parks in years past (at least not after the initial novelty wears off).� It's no less than watching TV in the way it was intended - this will be a must-have product, I assure you.� While watching a segment of pro football, I almost felt like I was in the owner's box looking down on the field.� Speaking of sports, ESPN was quick to announce, along with Discovery Networks, that it would be the first network to launch a dedicated 3D channel.� You may recall they led the way into HD as well.

The�naysayers are quick to point out that the mandatory 3D goggles, which are expensive (likely $50 or more) and not entirely comfortable, will be a barrier.� But like HD TV's before them, 3D TVs and the goggles that come with them will come down in price after the early adopter market matures and competitive forces take hold.� And why shouldn't we expect that the next generation won't even require goggles?� In any case, early adopters will clamor to be the first to own 3D TVs, goggles and all, even if they're only available for "appointment viewing", until content becomes available 24/7 (Discovery expects to be there in 2011).

In many ways, I think 3D resets the clock for TV subscription services.� Pricing models and tiers are still being developed, but there's no reason to think that they won't command a premium price, like HD does, and that the opportunity to sell the service won't create tremendous new opportunities for the service providers and the marketing partners, like Bridgevine, who support them.

Another Bridgevine First - Qwest's New Content API

Andrew Goldberg — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:13:39 GMT

We recently announced that Bridgevine was first-to-market with AT&T's�latest technology platform for serviceability, product presentment, order submission, and order management.� Well, we've done it again for a telco partner . this time with Qwest Communications.

Bridgevine has been integrated with Qwest's latest platform for over a year now, but we're proud to have been selected to launch their new content API ahead of schedule.� The content API will automate the display of certain product attributes and we welcome both the efficiencies and the assurance that when we display product information, it's as accurate as can be.� But perhaps even more interesting is that the data will allow us to be smarter about which Qwest products we offer the 11 million homes in Qwest's footprint.� For example, rather than displaying all Qwest services at a particular address, we will be able to display only those that are incremental to what an existing Qwest customer has already purchased.� On top of the gains in efficiency and accuracy, this advancement will produce new revenue opportunities through customer-centric upsells and cross-sells, and since we are first-to-market, is a powerful differentiator for both Bridgevine and our affiliate network.

All Qwest affiliates will be required to adopt this new standard by October of this year, but by then we will have been on board for 9 months.�� We're proud to be among Qwest's most successful producers and are excited to be leading the way with their latest capabilities.

The Network Effect (Bridgevine's that is)

Andrew Goldberg — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:54:11 GMT

A "network effect" is a positive outcome that occurs when the value to a program's participants is directly proportional to the number of participants.� Traditional phone service is a good example.� Alexander Graham Bell's original discovery was revolutionary, but with only�2 phones in existence, of not much use!� How about the apps store in iTunes?� Apple launched it after iTunes itself had reached critical mass, providing app developers with a large market ready to use and buy.� The apps store, itself, has been called the iPhone's single greatest competitive advantage for its sheer breadth and uniqueness of apps (100K and growing), thereby attracting more iPhone users, which in turn attracts more apps developers, and so on .

Bridgevine has also embraced the concept of network effects.� While our focus remains on consumer and commercial services, our catalog is filled with over 140 unique brands, and thousands of service SKUs, enabling us to offer buyers the solutions they need and want, and through a variety of tailored shopping experiences, such as single-brand, comparison shopping, market segment oriented, and others.� Put another way, our brand and service breadth creates value for our buyers, as well as for the vast web of third party affiliates (including leading names in etail, retail, electronics, and call center) who rely on Bridgevine solutions to offer services to their own customers.� At the same time, the sales volume generated by our direct and indirect buyers creates tremendous value for our service providers, which we continue to add as quickly as we can.

Bridgevine's purpose, really, is to connect consumers with brands, and we do that by creating and managing a network that generates value for all participants.� And we like to think that we do this better than just about anyone else in our category.� To learn more about the Bridgevine Network, and about how Bridgevine can help you achieve your performance goals, contact us at BusinessDevelopment@Bridgevine.com.

Many sites/one platform, creates value for Advertisers and Affiliates

Andrew Goldberg — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 12:50:52 GMT

Amazon runs Amazon.com, and Staples runs Staples.com, but what does Bridgevine run?� What you may not realize is that Bridgevine runs literally hundreds of Web sites to generate order volume for its service providers.� Depending on the partner, these may include dedicated SEM landing pages and micro-sites, sites optimized for SEO, vertically targeted sites, sites to appeal to specific market segments and niches, or any combination of these.� You can get a glimpse of some of them at: http://bridgevine.com/index/our_brands.aspx. �By catering to multiple market niches this way, and by not limiting ourselves to any particular sources of demand, we can generate significant order volume for our top advertisers/providers.� You might think of this approach as Bridgevine's "longtail" strategy.�

While each site has its own, distinct personality and purpose, what they have in common is that they connect to a single, unified platform (AMP^TM), components of which may include our services catalog, our merchandising module, our reporting module, and other elements.� This allows us to achieve scale and efficiency.� It also permits us to extend the reach of our catalog, when appropriate, by enabling affiliates.� Some of our programs have thousands of participating affiliates.� If you'd like to learn more about how Bridgevine's AMP^TM platform, its house brands, or extended network of sites can provide opportunities for your Brand or site, please contact us at: BusinessDevelopment@Bridgevine.com.

Bridgevine First to Market with AT&T's New API

Andrew Goldberg — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:47:33 GMT

I'd like to personally thank our dealer account team at AT&T for their support over the last several weeks and months, as we've labored together to articulate the requirements for an entirely new�API to support the channel, to establish an implementation team that clearly represents some of the best and brightest from both companies, to build and launch the modules that have already made a dramatic impact on the business that we are able to generate together, and to work hand-in-hand to continuously improve what we've already accomplished (such is the nature of being first to market). �What our respective teams have already delivered is only just the beginning.

Following a landmark meeting back in January of this year, we all emerged with new clarity on what the AT&T API must deliver (and what must be done in general) in order to best support the wireline dealer channel, and Bridgevine specifically.� Energized by this mutual commitment, Bridgevine announced that it wanted to be first to market with AT&T's new technology, knowing full well that along with the benefits of first, come the pitfalls and perils of trial and error.

Well, several months in, I'd say we're now about 2/3 to 3/4 down the road, and already light years ahead of where we were with the old technology.� Today, no "aggregator" has a more advanced AT&T wireline solution, and no one can surpass Bridgevine's delivery of AT&T's services in terms of serviceability (accuracy), availability (catalog breadth), user experience, or post-sale handling.� We're proud to be serving as AT&T's strategic partner on this initiative, and look forward to continued gains together.

A Strong 2H'09 Trumps a Challenging First Half

Andrew Goldberg — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:44:55 GMT

Remember Sequoia Capital's "RIP Good Times" presentation?� Like just about everybody else, we faced a tough environment this year, and ended up taking a sound beating in the first half.� Fortunately, we heeded Sequoia's sage advice (which was echoed by our own investors), and were ready to weather the storm as it descended upon us.� Not only did we do what was necessary to adjust our cost base, but also made some targeted investments in our technology and infrastructure that significantly improved our offering to consumers and partners, ultimately generating big gains in our conversion rates, orders and revenue.� The "new and improved" Bridgevine delivered a stellar second half, and is on track - even with the baggage from Q1-Q2 - to turn in a record year.

You don't get to this point without sacrifice, and we owe a debt of 'thanks' to our current and former employees, partners, suppliers, and investors, who delivered the extra effort when we most needed it.� Thank you, all, for your passion, intensity, focus and hard work.� Here's looking to a tremendous 2010!

The Bridgevine Mission - To Make the Experience of Buying Services Simple and Rewarding

Andrew Goldberg — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:42:50 GMT

Earlier this year, as part of our strategic planning process, we set out to reestablish our Mission, and in doing so, to clarify our higher purpose.� We want to earn a profit, sure.� We want to treat our employees well, of course.� But our Mission rises even higher than those goals, and addresses that significant contribution we want to make as a company, and serves as an important underpinning to our value system.� If done well, and adhered to, we expect our Mission to be a source of pride, motivation, and guidance.

After a fairly comprehensive effort comprised of offsite sessions (what Mission development process wouldn't have offsites?!), employee surveys, and many brainstorming sessions, we emerged with our new Mission . To Make the Experience of Buying Services Simple and Rewarding.�� So what does this mean?

To Make . Bridgevine's mission is active, not passive.� We will be successful not because good things will come to us, but because we will make them happen.

The Experience . We recognize that shopping for services online does not have to be one-dimensional nor purely transactional - we must consider the holistic experience, and continuously ask ourselves, 'how can we make this experience better serve our customers'?

Of Buying . While we set a high bar for the quality of our content, we do so with the purpose of facilitating sales transactions.

Services . Bridgevine is among a unique set of companies with a focus on services.� We may sell products from time to time, but typically with the intent of creating a sales opportunity for our services catalog.

Simple and Rewarding . We strive to add real value.� Simplicity is a Bridgevine virtue, as it ensures our customers find what they're looking for and understand what they're buying.� We also seek to reward our customers, often times in the form of unique discounts or cash back, but also in the form of a superior, even pleasurable, shopping experience.

For those of you who do business with us, including our end users, we hope you will agree that we strive to live up to our Mission every day.� It will be an ongoing journey, for sure, but one which we feel is well worth the effort

Co-Opetition and the Argument for Branded SEM

Andrew Goldberg — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:40:18 GMT

Back in 1996, Adam Brandenburger, a Stern School of Business professor, along with Barry Nalebuff, published an important book on business strategy, called Co-opetition.� The authors take on an increasingly relevant topic in our now hyper-connected world: how should you think about whether and how to enter into business partnerships with companies who are also your competitors?� Example - two electronics manufacturers entering into a strategic sourcing deal to get better terms from the common supplier of a key component.� Another - two makers of consumer goods sharing cargo space to maximize shipping efficiencies.

The subject of co-opetition also addresses an all too common question facing the business of affiliate marketing: As an advertiser/service provider, should I enable my affiliates to buy branded search terms so that their Google (or Bing or Yahoo! or AOL) results are displayed right along side mine?� Won't I be paying commissions unnecessarily if I do?�� It's a great question.� You may be unsurprised to know that we have a strong pro-affiliate opinion, but it's absolutely conditional.� That is, we wouldn't blame advertisers for holding back branded terms from MOST affiliates.� But here's the rationale for sharing brand rights selectively .

Use "friendlies" to block the leeches - back in 2008, Google updated its policies to allow firms to bid on rivals' brand names.� A move certain to grow the pie for Google, but which makes it exponentially more difficult for brands to protect their own turf.� One solution - surround yourself with "friendies" or allied affiliates who, collectively, can push your competitors off the results page.� We work with service providers who support affiliates using branded SEM, as well as with those who don't, and the implications of this decision are clear.�� If you are an advertiser who doesn't currently allow affiliates to participate, you can test this very easily by observing the number of competitive "leeches" who appear when you run a search for your brand.
Incremental volume - the debate often comes down to this point, i.e., whether you believe that affiliates will cannibalize your internal channels or generate incremental volume.� If you've got empirical evidence (either way), we invite you to post it.� But in the meantime, consider that the tides of Web 2.0 and 3.0 are clearly in favor of networks, not walled-gardens.� And for those of you who need more tangible evidence, take note of an experiment conducted by one of our major service providers back in December of 2008.� After announcing that they would suspend all affiliate orders for the 4-week period, following a precipitous decline in total order volume, they cut their test short and brought their affiliates back online.� It was a wise decision, but it hurt the affiliate channel so fundamentally, that volume has yet to regain its former levels.
A decent tradeoff - Admittedly, some overlap between the internal and affiliate channels will occur.� But while internal channels are supported by relatively high fixed and variable costs, the affiliate channel is performance based, and delivers orders at a perfectly consistent CPO (Cost Per Order).� Not a bad tradeoff.
Order quality - For sure, quality is one where not all affiliates are created equal.� As for Bridgevine, a recent independent study by one of our top service provider partners showed that our orders produced longer lasting subscribers than did their internal channels.� So even if you could defend that allowing branded SEM just results in competitive search results, that could well be worth it if your affiliates are generating more value with every order.� Look at it this way: let's say your service generated $25 in monthly contribution margin per sub, and you pay your affiliates a $50 commission . it would only take 2 additional months of customer loyalty to fully pay for the commission, and that's assuming 100% overlap between internal and external channels.��
Rules of engagement - lastly, if all other arguments fail, there's always affiliate management to fall back on.� By that, we mean, you can create a harmonious existence by structuring affiliate bidding rules that allow your affiliates to participate in branded search, while protecting your internal interests.� One way you can do this is by restricting branded search to only your trusted affiliates - the 5 or 10 who you've done business with for a while, who have gold-standard reputations, and/or who have reached the top tier on a performance basis.� Another is to require that your affiliates do not take SEM positions ahead of, or on top of, your own.� This requires your affiliates to continuously monitor their results, but if branded SEM is important to them, they will gladly comply.� A third approach is to employ bid-capping, whereby you set a ceiling for how high they can bid,� thereby keeping your own bid costs in check (theoretically, anyway).� We tend to advise against this last option because it artificially caps bids at a fixed amount -- while the market is much more dynamic than that - and doesn't equip your affiliates with the flexibility needed to help block out the competitive leeches (see the first point above).� In any case, you have options.

Feel free to contact us at BusinessDevelopment@Bridgevine.com to discuss ways in which your brand and Bridgevine's�affiliate marketing programs can not only peacefully co-exist, but also work together to help achieve your performance goals.

The Incrementality Conundrum

Andrew Goldberg — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:37:03 GMT

'To affiliate or not to affiliate?' . that is the question that so many acquisition marketing execs and advertisers face as they consider whether to open the affiliate channel to their brands.� The skeptical camp accuses the affiliate channel of generating orders that they would have collected anyway, and of lessening the advertiser's ability to control brand messaging.� The supportive camp insists that an order is an order - as long as the average cost per acquisition (CPA) is within limits - and that with modern technology and proper management, the brand is not only under control, but also extended deeply into the nooks and crannies of the Net where the internal brand team never thinks to go.� So who's right?

Well, neither is wrong, of course.� And experience tells us that if you belong to one of these extreme camps, no amount of convincing, cajoling or even empirical evidence is going to change your dogma.� But the middle ground that we think most can agree on is that not all affiliates are created equal, and therefore, while it might make sense to restrict your brand from some affiliates, it can make equal sense to wholeheartedly engage others.� Allow me to build the case for Bridgevine:

Big volume potential - Bridgevine's performance earns it a spot with the elite group of affiliate marketers who are capable of generating 10s of thousands of orders for select advertisers on a monthly basis.�� Add to that the now accepted knowledge that the affiliate channel, and online in particular, is growing faster than internal channels, and it's the rare acquisition marketing exec or brand manager who doesn't at least acknowledge the potential of the affiliate channel.
High quality - A lead is only half as good as an order; or maybe 1/3 as good; or is it 75% as good?� It all comes down to what percent of your leads convert to activated orders.� We're willing to put our compensation on the line to ensure we're aligned with our advertisers' objectives, and we've become so good at delivering activated orders that we're often ranked #1 by our advertising partners.
Lifetime Value (LTV) - A recent independent study by one of our advertisers showed that the orders generated by Bridgevine resulted in longer lasting, more loyal customers.� If you run a subscription or membership business, longevity is critical to your business model, and the extra months of subscription fees can really add up.
Incrementality - A tough one to prove, we concede, but at least one recent study showed that Bridgevine delivers a higher proportion of New customer relationships to Upgrades than internal channels.� And not surprisingly, we subscribe (no pun intended) to the side of the philosophical debate that ALL orders have a cost associated with them, so whether the advertiser is paying an affiliate commission or an internal channel cost, an order generated within an allowable CPO is a good thing.
Brand management - We're not going to tell you that affiliates, or even Bridgevine, will be 100% on target 100% of the time.� Brand rules are constantly changing, and messaging and promos are continuously updated.� But consider this . the challenge to keep pace is just as great among the internal marketers!� Bridgevine's deep data integrations, platform automation, and dedicated account teams ensure that no one has more resources deployed to ensure advertiser brand rules are followed, and that when changes are necessary, the turn-around is nearly immediate.

Bridgevine is an acknowledged leader in the affiliate marketing space, and is fully dedicated to generating value for advertisers, service providers and customers.� For more information on our affiliate marketing solutions, and how we can help generate leads or orders for your brand, contact us at BusinessDevelopment@Bridgevine.com.

Account "Disservice"

Andrew Goldberg — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:29:51 GMT

There's something I don't get.� Many of us in this field operate performance-based models, so you'd think that there would be a high premium on partnership support to help drive success.� If we don't partner together effectively -- for example, to share ideas, plan for successful roll-outs, consult on opportunities for improvement, and so on - then the results are likely to reflect that passivity and apathy (the proverbial, 'it's not worth the paper it's written on').� So it never ceases to surprise me when I get approached by "partners" of our competitors with the equivalent of an SOS distress call: "Can we partner on this?� We're not getting the support we need from our current services aggregator, and there's way too much upside here to let it lie".

It appears as though some in our industry claim victory when the contract is signed, rather than when the new alliance is delivering the results that everyone touted to win the deal in the first place.� Well, plug that champagne cork back in, because there's a ton of work to do to make a performance-based deal perform, and it starts with proper support.� At Bridgevine, we attempt to live up to a few, basic tenets:

* Operate with the utmost integrity
* Respond with urgency
* Maintain focus on the potential of the relationship
* Know our partners deeply
* Add value
* Be proactive
* Be a source of information
* Be a good steward of our, and our partners', resources

If these values are missing from your current relationships, and would like to hear more about how Bridgevine supports its partners, contact us at BusinessDevelopment@Bridgevine.com.