We are proud to announce the launch of Cartoon Network on Pepperjam Network - www.pepperjamnetwork.com.

About Cartoon Network:

“The Cartoon Network Shop affiliate program gives you the tools to sell gifts and merchandise from programs that air on Cartoon Network. It’s free and easy – you sign up for the program, place banners, product images, text links, and / or pepperjamADS on your site, and we do the rest.”

Commissions (Percentage of Sales): 7.00% and up!
Cookie Duration: 45 days

My Two Cents: The Cartoon Network represents the most popular television station dedicated exclusively to cartoons, including hits such as George of the Jungle, Ben 10, The Mr. Men Show, Chop Socky Chooks, Out of Jimmy’s Head, and many more! As an affiliate you have so may options here to make money promoting popular gifts, apparel, toys, games, and more from Cartoon Network television programming.

Many of you know that before and during the early days of Pepperjam I was a student for nine years post high school having achieved my B.A., (Penn State University), M.S. (Villanova University), and J.D. (Albany Law School). In short, I’ve always been sort of an academic; I really enjoy the process and challenges of learning and I’ve always dreamed one day that I would write a book.

However, I never thought that I would get an unsolicited offer to write a book this early in my career and I am very excited to announce that not only did I get an offer, but the book will be published in less than one month!

Well, early last summer I was approached by Wiley Publishing about writing a book on “search-engine optimization.” I was told that they were looking for an author with real world experience and they were familar with the Pepperjam name and came across Pepperjam since we were recognized as an Inc. 500 Company and as one of the top 10 SEO Firms in the United States (Promotion World, 2007). Also, they said in comparing different authors that Pepperjam fit the bill because of our impressive client base and my vast experience speaking on the issue at various conferences over the years, including Search-Engine Strategies (SES).

The book took about eight months to write. I built an internal support team at Pepperjam and I was given a small army of editors at Wiley Publishing.

Still the task was colossal. I spent many full days at Pepperjam and most weekends during last summer and winter writing and editing in order to meet aggressive deadlines set by Wiley.

I’ll mention that when I was first approached I really tried to make the argument that the book shouldn’t just be about SEO, but on the convergence of PPC and SEO, which I believe continues to occur. As a result of my argument the editors at Wiley allowed me to dedicate 5 full chapters to non-SEO dedicated material. For instance, I wrote chapters dedicated to Social Media Optimization, Monetizing Web Site traffic, Using Google Analytics, and two chapters on PPC (including one on Quality Scores).

Also, the book is part of Wiley’s “Visual Blueprint Series,” which focuses on visual learners. What this means is that outside of the introduction, which is just me ranting about SEO and SEM, the remainder of the book provides screen shots and visual images to help the reader understand the various tasks (i.e. buying links through pay per post networks) that I outline throughout the book.

The end result is a book written primarily for a moderate-level search-engine marketer. Definitely not an easy read (but certainly doable) for a newbie, but more appropriate for someone already with some familiarity with search, but wants a solid visual how-to approach to improving rankings.

The book was written based on the tools and strategies we use here at Pepperjam to provide SEO services to some of the largest brands in the world.

The book will be available in all major book stores beginning April 7, 2008.

You can pre-order the book on Amazon HERE or directly from the Wiley Publishing Web site HERE.

Here’s a sneak peak at what others have said about the book (these quotes and about 10 others are published in the book):

“Search-engine optimization (SEO) is an integral part of an effective online marketing strategy. With this book Kris offers a step-by-step guide to get your Web site ranked by the major search-engines. At 1-800-PetMeds we have worked with Kris and his team at Pepperjam for the last three years to implement a range of online marketing strategies that have worked very effectively. I highly recommend you read this book and implement the strategies contained within.”
Alex Irvin
Online Marketing Director,
1-800-PetMeds.com

““Search Engine Optimization has emerged as the flagship service in the growing Internet Marketing landscape, and Kristopher Jones is a leader in explaining the intricate details and subtle balances that make it all work.”
Bruce Clay
President,
Bruce Clay, Inc.

“Search engine optimization is, without question, one of the highest ROI activities a business can undertake. It’s also one of the most misunderstood. Fortunately, we’ve got people like Kris to act as our tour guide and translator. A solid strategy and attention to detail are essential to a successful SEO campaign and that’s exactly what Kris delivers.”
Rand Fishkin
Chief Blogger and CEO,
SEOmoz

“Kris Jones is a leading expert in marketing both affiliate-based and client sites. His expertise comes from a wide perspective you can’t get from most search engine marketers. When I listened to Kris speak at the Elite Retreat conference, I felt like I was a conference attendee rather than a fellow speaker.”
Aaron Wall
SEO Expert and Blogger,
SEObook.com

Here’s a sneak peak at all 15 chapter titles:

An Introduction to Search-Engine Optimization (includes some history, my feelings about Larry and Sergey, etc.)

1) Planning your Search-Engine Optimization Project
2) Keyword generation
3) Creating pages
4) Basic Website Structure
5) Advanced Web Site Structuring
6) Content Creation
7) Creating Communities
8) Building Links
9) Using Google Analytics
10) Social Media Optimization (SMO)
11) Creating PPC Campaigns
12) Optimizing PPC Campaigns through Quality Score Optimization (QSO)
13) Optimizing for Other Engines
14) Monetizing Web Site Traffic
15) Installing SEO Plugins

To say the least - writing a book was one of the most challenging yet rewarding things I’ve ever done in my life.

I feel unlimited gratitude to my family and friends.

In addition, the book would have never been started or completed without the incredible support and dedication of my internal Pepperjam team led my Pepperjam’s VP of Search Ken Mohn, Jr. You’ll see Ken and a few members of his team as a visual screenshot on the back of the book.

As I mention above - You can pre-order the book on Amazon HERE or directly from the Wiley Publishing Web site HERE.

There is no question that the launch of Pepperjam Network has created a lot of positive buzz within the affiliate marketing community. Thousands of affiliates and advertisers have contacted us and congratulated us on advancing the industry by offering an alternative affiliate network that addresses many or most of the shortcomings that have existed for years on the other major affiliate networks.

In fact, most networks have reached out to Pepperjam and want to work more closely and strategically with us, while others, such as Commission Junction, has decided to conclude that we are now competitors that pose serious potential harm to the Commission Junction business and decisive action must be taken against us.

Before I get into the facts of the recent vicious attacks calculated by Commission Junction against Pepperjam, let me start with some brief background information.

I founded Pepperjam in 1999 as an online gourmet food business. With a lot of hard work I was able to quickly realize the power and value of online marketing to grow my own business. In fact, we were so successful that the “Pepperjam” business started getting quite a bit of attention from the media, including an appearance on QVC, which led to other businesses approaching me about helping them grow their business with online marketing, including pay-per-click, search-engine optimization, and affiliate program management. In early 2000, while still in graduate school, I left the gourmet food business in favor of building an online marketing business.

Aside from finishing up a few college degrees along the way, that’s what I’ve been doing since 2000 - building Pepperjam as a full-service internet marketing agency. I remain the only investor in Pepperjam since inception. Early on and still to this day I dreamed of building a company that makes a difference. A company that sets the standard. A company that innovates. A company that inspires others to create companies.

I am proud to call myself an entrepreneur.

The focus of Pepperjam from 2000 through January 15th of this year (2008) has been on providing businesses with professional outsourced management services in the areas of search and affiliate marketing. Pepperjam has made some really great decisions and we have hired some exceptionally smart, talented people. As a result, Pepperjam has experienced solid growth and we now find our company on the radar of many companies that are much larger and better funded than we are. For example, Commission Junction.

I mention January 15, 2008 because on that day we launched Pepperjam Network, a next generation affiliate network. We launched Pepperjam Network because we felt that many of the other major affiliate networks, including Commission Junction, Linkshare, and Performics were failing to address the two most pressing issues effecting the affiliate marketing industry, namely (1) lack of affiliate transparency, and (2) poor communication tools. I will also mention that we launched Pepperjam Network with absolutely no outside funding - we built the product in-house and as part of the development process we creatively used the collective insight (i.e., do this, don’t do that) of over one hundred top advertisers and affiliates.

First, understand that Commission Junction is part of a publicly traded company called ValueClick (VCLK). As a publically traded company Commission Junction is required to follow the laws and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). As such, there are numerous federal securities laws in place, including the Sherman Antitrust Act, that protect businesses from the financial and decision making power of publically traded companies.

My question to you before I get started with the facts is whether or not Commission Junction is acting fairly, breaking the law, or simply overstepping its power by requiring existing Pepperjam clients who use Pepperjam affiliate program management services on Commission Junction to immediately terminate agreements with Pepperjam or get kicked off Commission Junction?

Let me start by saying that I’m not a licensed attorney and I’m only going to share with you the facts as they happened.

From Sunday through Wednesday of last week nine members of the Pepperjam Team, including four executives, attended Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas. On Tuesday (2/26/08), we were having a great time until members of my team started receiving calls, one after another, from our clients. Our clients told us that they were being aggressively contacted by Commission Junction employees and delivered an ultimatum - either stay with Commission Junction or terminate all agency business with Pepperjam.

Not surprisingly, Pepperjam clients were confused and most were incredibly angry.

To say that Pepperjam was blindsided and surprised by what I believe to be extremely unprofessional and potentially illegal actions on the part of Commission Junction is an understatement. We were personally outraged, especially considering for the last several years we have worked wth Commission Junction very closely and considered them one of our primary strategic partners. Prior to reaching out to each and every one of our affiliate program management clients Pepperjam was not contacted by Commission Junction. We were ambushed, most likely strategically, while my executive team was at a conference on the other side of the country from where we manage our business. By the way, from what we’ve been told by clients, Commission Junction told some of them that they had to consider terminating relations with us immediately, while others were told they had seven days to decide between Pepperjam and Commission Junction. Regardless, Commission Junction delivered ultimatums to advertisers that had existing contractual relationships with Pepperjam.

Commission Junction, with all their financial and decision making power, had single handedly stifled Pepperjam’s core affiliate program management service offering. At the same time, Commission Junction placed dozens of Pepperjam clients in a position where they either had to break an exisiting contractual relationship with Pepperjam or submit to their demands. How’s this for maintaining professional customer and client relations? Pepperjam has roughly 20 dedicated full-time employees that do nothing but manage affiliate programs on Commission Junction. What are we to do with all these incredibly talented, hard working employees if our clients decide to submit to Commission Junctions demands?

While stuck in Vegas at Affiliate Summit the severity of the above fact pattern started to set-in and my executive team and I started to consider our available options. To say the least, Commission Junction successfully scared the hell out of us. With us flying back to Pennsylvania the next day, which would require a full day of travel, how would we be able to set-up meetings with all the clients Commission Junction contacted?

Fortunately, we learned that the head of Commission Junction, Kerri Pollard, and one of her executive colleagues, David Osmond, were attending Affiliate Summit. Once Pepperjam’s COO, Michael C. Jones, and myself located Kerri Pollard and David Osmond we nervously asked what was going on. The response we got was twofold: (1) Sorry guys, it’s just business, and (2) Commission Junction wants “that” business. By “that” business I imagine Kerri was presumptively referring to Pepperjam’s business in the form of affiliate marketing technology (Pepperjam Network) and affiliate program management. I think this assumption on my part is accurate because as part of Commission Junction’s cold calling of Pepperjam’s client base it was found that they were actively seeking our management services, as well as aggressively discouraging clients from leaving their network in favor of Pepperjam Network.

I don’t know about you, but hearing that “it’s just business” and “we want that business” from the head of a company with the size and strength of Commission Junction is very unsettling. Commission Junction generates hundreds of millions of dollars per year in business - Commission Junction’s publicly traded parent company, ValueClick, is worth billions of dollars. Pepperjam has achieved nowhere near the level of success as Commission Junction, let alone ValueClick. As some might say, we are David and they are Goliath.

I will also mention that I asked Kerri Pollard point blank - Has Pepperjam done anything wrong that would necessitate Commission Junction taking action against Pepperjam. Kerri’ answer was clear - the answer was NO.

Another part of this story is that there appears no question that Pepperjam has been singled out. For instance, other companies, such as Forge Corporation, work as an outsourced affiliate program management company on Commission Junction, and also maintain an affiliate network. Keep in mind also that Pepperjam has done nothing wrong. As I mentioned, when we asked Kerri Pollard and David Osman what we did wrong they simply said, “nothing, it’s just business.”

Yes, I know what you’re thinking. How can this happen? Yep, that’s the same thing I thought and with my legal background I couldn’t help thinking shortly thereafter the legal implications of Commission Junction reaching out to all of Pepperjam’s clients and potentially interfering with the existing legal contracts we had in place with them. The contracts in question were between Pepperjam and each of our clients to provide affiliate program management services. To me this appeared to be basic contract law - in Pennsylvania we call it tortious interference with contracts.

My understanding of business like most people is that competition is fair game. In this respect, I guess Commission Junction can claim that all they were doing was attempting to compete with Pepperjam Network.

However, when you are a publicly traded company there are rules and I would assume a high level of professional courtesy. Not only professional courtesy to your strategic partners, but also to existing advertisers on your network. In this situation, Commission Junction paid absolutely no respect to Pepperjam (an existing strategic partner) and complete and utter disrespect to its existing advertisers (Pepperjam’s client’s).

For every affiliate marketer, advertiser, and business owner out there I have a question:

What would you do if a publically traded company used all their power and might to interfere with your exisiting business contracts?

What does Commission Junction’s actions mean for the future direction of the affiliate marketing industry?

I will conclude by expressing clearly that this post is not an attempt by Pepperjam to rekindle our relationship with Commission Junction. Nor is this post a formal legal action against Commission Junction. Instead, the purpose of this post is that I felt I had a duty as a respected member of the affiliate marketing and broader business community to share this story and express my opinion so that other similar innovative companies might be better protected in the future. I also hope that this situation allows all of us to carefully consider whether this is the type of corporate behavior that we are going to accept within our community.

I believe that Commission Junction’s actions ultimately work to minimize innovation within the affiliate marketing industry. To all of the outsourced affiliate program management companies out there that one day dreamed about launching your own network (just like we did at Pepperjam) keep in mind that you apparently can’t do so if you work with Commission Junction or other similar companies that intend to use their power to stifle you, especially if you are innovative and successful in the process.

Thanks for your time.

OK. Let me start by saying that I’m a fan of Performics. I’ve enjoyed working with Performics over the years and I’ve had the honor of speaking at numerous conferences with Chris Henger (Performics’ VP of Affiliate Marketing) who I consider an industry leader and friend.

Let me also say that I think that Performics has been more aggressive acquiring new advertisers over the last 6-12 months than any other major affiliate network. In fact, I think for the most part they’ve stayed low on the radar screen and have been watching merchant after merchant hop from Linkshare to Commission Junction and from Commission Junction to Linkshare and visa versa. At the same time, Performics has methodically and carefully grown the loyalty of their advertiser base.

Kudos to Performics for being smart and offering a full-service model that is quite impressive, while not getting involved in the CJ / Linkshare game of advertiser hopscotch.

The point of this post, however, isn’t so much to celebrate Performics…it’s to call out the Chief Blogger over at the Performics Blog - Larry Adams - for attempting to generate some buzz by using one of the slogans from the recent launch of Pepperjam Network.

As many of the readers of this blog know, Pepperjam recently launched Pepperjam Network.

Based on all accounts, including hundreds of reviews and unprecedented industry support, the launch of Pepperjam Network has shaken up the affiliate marketing industry.

Since launching Pepperjam Network one thing has become clear.

The major networks have taken notice.

Stay tuned.

In this case, I was notified by a Pepperjam Network affiliate and later by members of the Pepperjam Team that Performics put out a blog post with the title, “Publishers Spoke. We Listened.” The post was picked up by a couple of industry blogs, including Revenews.com. My guess is that the publishers they are referring to are Performics Publishers and the “We” refers to Performics. BTW - the blog post was about how Performics is starting to open up publisher contact info to advertisers, along with some other advances to the Performics UI.

Great. I’m super happy for Performics taking some initiative to open up lines of communication for affiliates and affiliate managers. Really, I’m pumped. This is long overdue and is not something that is done by Linkshare or Commission Junction.

My bone with Performics is the “Publishers Spoke. We Listened” slogan. This is confusingly similar to one of Pepperjam Network’s primary advertising campaigns: “Affiliates Have Spoken. Pepperjam Listened.”

We’ve generated hundreds of thousands of impressions as part of a banner campaign we’ve been running since January with that specific campaign.

Several of us were wearing t-shirts at Affiliate Summit last week with that very slogan.

Sounds petty - right?

Not really.

But I will admit, I am trying to have a bit of fun here since Performics opened the door. I mean Pepperjam is a little ole company here in Pennsylvania and Performics is a multi-hundred million dollar company in the process of being acquired by Google.

When I called out Performics for selecting the blog post title I got a tongue and cheek response from Larry Adams:

“I was at the Summit, although I can’t say that I remember any of your t-shirts; Vegas can be a distracting place. I’m not saying I never saw it but let’s just say that neither of us are going to get a trademark on the “[You] spoke, [we] listened” motto”

Here is a summary of the dialogue between Larry Adams from Performics and myself at the Revenews Blog and the Performics Blog.

In short, Larry sort of, kind of admits that he was simply making a play on our slogan. We both say nice things about each other and then he takes a stab at me on his blog that I took the liberty to respond back with a stab. No question - I won that pissing match and I think we both have had a bit of fun in the process.

It’s be fun watching these huge companies take notice of Pepperjam Network.

Join the Affiliate Revolution - www.pepperjamnetwork.com.

More to come.

Pepperjam is proud to announce that through a partnership with leading outsourced affiliate program management agency Partercentric, Electric Fireplaces Direct and Mantels Direct have launched affiliate programs on Pepperjam Network.

About Electric Fireplaces Direct:

“ElectricFireplacesDirect.com offers the most extensive selection of high quality electric fireplace mantel packages, wall mount and freestanding fireplaces and electric fireplace inserts you will find. We have a model for every space including products from Classic Flame, Dimplex (Electraflame and Optiflame), and Napoleon. All of our featured electric fireplaces offer terrific value and will look great in your home.”

Commission (Percentage of Sale): 8.00%
Cookie Duration: 45 days

About Mantels Direct:

MantelsDirect.com offers the most extensive selection of high quality fireplace mantels, fireplaces and fireplace accessories you will find. Our experienced team of customer service professionals is available to assist you with measurement, special situations and selection issues.

Commission (Percentage of Sales): 8.00%
Cookie Duration: 45 days

A special thanks goes to Linda Woods and her team at Partnercentric for launching the EFD and MD programs on Pepperjam Network!