Today Inc. Magazine released its annual list of the 5000 fastest growing private companies in the United States. We are very proud that NETexponent made the list for the second year in a row. In 2009 we applied for the first time and achieved a rank of 1,216 out of 5,000. Our team has continued to work very hard sincethen and we jumped up to a rank of 707 out of 5,000 in the 2010 list.

The rankings are based on company growth rates for a trailing 3 year period. NETexponent grew an impressive 431% from 2006 – 2009 and that is what earned us the honor of being ranked #707 on the 2010 list. This tremendous growth rate is something that we can celebrate with our clients because most of our revenue is performance based. Our ability to earn more agency revenue is directly related to our ability to drive more sales for our clients.

We share this honor with our amazing clients, wonderful partners, and dedicated staff. Thank you all for helping us to earn this award.

In 2010 we have continued our growth trend by increasing our clients’ revenue year-over-year and adding great new clients like Dick’s Sporting Goods. We are looking forward to the 2011 Inc. 5000 report…lets see how far we can jump up in the rankings next year!

Reason #10 to fill out the AffiliateBenchmarks survey = The online marketing industry values your opinion. Last year thousands of people used this research data to better understand the affiliate world. Affiliate, Advertisers, consultants, etc all downloaded the report and used the information to build stronger affiliate marketing strategies. Commission Junction, Pubcon, search engine strategies, and other events even featured the research in their annual conferences. Please participate today and share your thoughts with the industry.

Reason #9 to complete the AffiliateBenchmarks research survey = Be a part of the affiliate industry’s largest research project. Last years study made affiliate marketing history when it became the largest panel based research study ever conducted with over 3,500 participants who have completed the survey. This years study is breaking our own record and already has over way more participants than last year !!! Please take a few minutes and add your thoughts to this project and be a part of affiliate marketing history.

Reason #8 to complete the AffiliateBenchmarks survey = filling out the survey only takes 5 minutes just once a year and is a way better use of your time than the following:

- 5 minutes of commercials
- 5 minutes of spam emails
- 5 minutes of pointless conversations
- 5 minutes trying to figure out what happened to your team in the world cup
- 5 minutes walking your dog or walking your kids (whichever you walk most…just please don’t put your kids on a leash)

Reason #7 to answer the 2010 affiliatebenchmarks survey = Our survey is supported by almost every major affiliate marketing network including:

- Commission Junction
- LinkShare
- Google Affiliate Network
- ClickBank
- Pepperjam
- Share A Sale

We are grateful for the support of these great networks and hope you will join the effort too by filling out our survey.

Reason #6 to participate in our AffiliateBenchmarks survey.

This survey effort is supported by great advertisers (and NETexponent clients) such as:

- Audible.com
- Dick’s Sporting Goods
- Total Gym Direct
- Nick Jr Boost
- Shockwave Games
- Automotive Concepts
- CengageBrain
- Hot Topic
- Torrid
- Shockhound
- Yola

These advertisers and more use our valuable survey data to help guide their affiliate marketing strategies. Your opinion matters and will surely help these folks be stronger affiliate marketers.

Reason #5 to participate in the 2010 AffiliateBenchmarks research survey =. Use this as a chance to reflect on your business growth. Our survey is designed to ask insightful questions about your business. Every year we get feedback from participants telling us they found it helpful to think about their business while answering these short questions. We all work hard but sometimes we forget to step back and examine our efforts in different ways. Take the survey and see what happens.

Reason #4 to complete our AffiliateBenchmarks survey = overwhelming industry support. We are proud to have started an affiliate marketing research effort that caters to affiliate publishers, advertisers, agencies, and consultants. Over the last 3 years our survey has been supported by some of the biggest affiliate companies in the industry such as:

- Revenews
- Performance Marketing Association (PMA)
- Shopping-Bargains.com
- AffiliateTip.com
- JEBCommerce
- CouponWinner
- AffiliateMarketersGiveBack.com
- AffSpot
- 5StarAffiliatePrograms

and many more. We are grateful for the support of these great companies and we hope you will join us by completing the survey before it closes (today at 5pm EST).

Reason #3

Because we asked nicely?

Reason #2

The second biggest reason to complete the 2010 AffiliateBenchmarks survey = you get a free copy of the report.

We know your time is valuable. In fact we know your time is worth at least $199 and that is why we plan to give you a free copy of our research study if you complete the survey. On average it takes folks no more than 5 minutes to complete the survey…that means we think an hour of your time is worth $2,388!!!!

That’s right, folks who complete every question in the survey will be emailed a completed research report at no charge ($199 value) and folks who answer just the required questions will receive a free executive summary ($99 value).

Reason #1

The #1 reason to complete the 2010 AffiliateBenchmarks survey = no regrets.

Today is the last day to complete our survey. The link provided below will cease to work at 5pm EST tonight.

If you pass up this opportunity to answer our survey and get a free copy of the data you wont get another. Of course you can always buy a copy of the report once it is ready for sale but that will cost you $199. Why not take a few minutes and answer the survey…then put that $199 to use in better ways.

Click on the link below and complete the survey before 5pm EST tonight and you wont regret it.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/netxblog

To kick off the event, several members of the LinkShare team (including CEO Yaz Iida) welcomed and thanked all of the attendees. They introduced us to some of the great developments that LinkShare has been working on:

• Deep Linking Controls (For advertisers that do not allow linking to certain pages, but would like to allow deep linking on all other pages)
• WordPress Deal Feed Plug-In (LinkShare would like to make it easier for publishers of all sizes – including bloggers – to plug & play. They’ve seen over 5,000 installations thus far!)

And…the most exciting development (in my opinion) is the ALL NEW Advertiser Dashboard! The new advertiser interface is a lot cleaner and simpler, making it easy to find everything you’re searching for:

• New Trend Chart with Year over Year Trending Reports
• It is now easier to enter dates when pulling a report
• Link Section enables you to see just how well your creative is performing
• Publishers are a lot easier to locate

After we learned about all these new developments, Sucharita Mulpuru (Vice President of Forrester Research and Symposium 2010 Keynote Speaker) talked to us about how eCommerce can succeed in every economic condition. Some key notes (ha.. no pun intended):

• Consumers shop online because it’s convenient (#1 reason: it saves time and #2 reason: deals & coupons -> Remember this important stat, advertisers!)
• Successful brands compete up or across! Instead of fighting over whose value/dollar menu was the best, McDonald’s challenged Starbucks by highlighting a new product: McCafe.
• React to people power: Get your customers involved! Social web activity is a global phenomenon. EventBrite allows customers to share information about their tickets via social media.
• Expand your IT team – new technological developments & innovation breed success.
• Multi-Channel: Many buyers are now on more than 1 device – embrace the mobility revolution.

Next up: Panel Discussion! This year’s panel included: Siva V. Kumar (TheFind.com), Diana Gee (The North Face), Jeff Nobbs (ExtraBux), David Lonczak (Drugstore.com) and Kenneth Dayley III (crocs). This discussion was interesting because it allowed us to get perspectives from both advertisers and affiliates! It was great to hear their thoughts on these topics:

• Conversion Rates: Some affiliates (including ExtraBux) are going to have dynamic featured ads that will change to fit the customer. It’s also important to make sure there are clear Call to Actions. Additionally, don’t include too much info! We wouldn’t want to overwhelm visitors.
• Data Feeds: What’s missing? Unique identifiers: Sku #s, Bar Codes, Brand & Model #. Tax and Shipping information is also a plus for TheFind.com!
• Coupons & Discounts: crocs found that product-specific coupons performed much better! Siva from TheFind pointed out that virtual discounts (e.g. Facebook Credits) are great for those advertisers who are brand sensitive and prefer not to offer coupons.
• Mobile Commerce: TheFind also found that their peak mobile day was Black Friday due to customers comparing online deals to in-store.
• Global Plans: Try to develop sites that are accessible to those around the world.
• Getting Ready for Q4: Prepare ahead of time and make sure you keep your affiliates posted on your deals. Ideally, letting affiliates know when a product is out of stock would be great too (especially to help conversion rates)!

After all this great learning, it was lunch & Golden Link Award time! The Golden Link Awards were hosted by the Upright Citizens Brigade who certainly kept things fun.  I especially liked their piece on the creator of the Pop-Up Ad – “Mr. Popup.” The Golden Link Awards were really nice because they rewarded all of the innovative and successful players in the affiliate marketing space. Congrats everyone!

Next came “DealMaker,” a place for affiliates and advertisers to walk around and chat. Some had booths with great giveaways (Erica won a hat from KarmaLoop.com) and some just had great information.  This was one of the most successful parts of the Symposium because I was able to meet a lot of our clients’ awesome partners in person!

Lastly, the after party at the Biergarten at the Standard Hotel – who doesn’t love free beer & pretzels? The photobooth also made things really interesting.

This concludes my successful trip to LinkShare Symposium. I learned a lot, and got to connect with all kinds of people – merchants, agencies and affiliates alike! Thanks everyone for this great experience.

Valerie Russo

Media Coordinator – Affiliate

The NETexponent and AffiliateBenchmarks teams are so excited to announce the official launch of the AffiliateBenchmarks Survey 2010!

Last year, 3500 experts and insiders took part in the largest research effort this industry has ever seen. We plan on making this year even bigger!

Whats new for the 2010 AffiliateBenchmarks Study?

• Our affiliate/publisher study is now simpler. We removed some questions and streamlined others to ease the burden on busy affiliates/publishers.
• We added a short survey for advertisers/merchants to collect some information on their challenges and views of affiliate marketing.
• We added a short survey for agencies/OPMs/consultants to collect information on their view of the industry.
• We have even more partners who have agreed to distribute the survey and ensure that 2010 will be the largest affiliate research study ever produced. (a title currently held by our 2009 report)
• We are prepared to provide even more data analysis when we issue the 2010 report.

Special note: Participant who answers every question (not just the required ones) will receive a free copy of the the full survey results. Participants who answer all of the required questions will receive a copy of the Executive summary.

The survey is open from now until 5pm EST on July 16, 2010. Go now! http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/netxblog

“Your phone should be a personal assistant. That’s clearly where we’re going,” says Chris Cox of Facebook. ‘Ambient awareness’ was used multiple times to describe device relationships (rather, the necessity thereof) in our near future. But when quizzed on specifics for what phones of the future will look like and how consumer interaction will differ in the coming years of innovation, Cox had this to say:

“People overestimate what’s possible in a year, and underestimate [what's possible in ] 5 years. These devices are going to be magical in 5 years.”

Some even speculate that ‘mobile’ will be come a meaningless word soon because we are inherently always connected. “The real frontier is what’s local,” speculates one commentator, citing the popularity of groundbreaking platforms like FourSquare. “I think Foursquare has done some amazing work with check-ins, but it’s early,” says Gundotra when asked if there is a clear winner in the location game.

“I think we’re building great stuff — there is no winner,” pipes FourSquare’s Crowley. “Think of where we are now to where we were 2 years ago. We’ve made the space more interesting. We’ve pushed things in a different direction. It’s experimenting in the space.”

Speaking of experimentation, Gundotra was asked what he thought Google TV will do what for mobile apps and his answer reads a bit like an upsell, stating that “the most exciting thing about it is that the same Android apps you use will work on the TV. Like Pandora, play it on the TV.”

Facebook’s Chris Cox got a little heat regarding the ever changing privacy controls pleging the platform. He was happy to report, though, that this week, Facebook will be rolling out “drastically simplified” privacy controls in an attempt to remedy what Facebook CEO Zuckerman has publicly called “missed marks.” Facebooks next challenge? “It’s hard to know what to invest in — a better Android app or Facebook Zero.” Facebook Zero is their new, “fast, free, global and mobile” data service.

Eileen Ciravolo, Audible’s audacious Traffic Coordinator, is the winner of our First Annual NCAA Tournament Client Pool! Moving ahead of 28 other hopefuls, we recently presented Eileen with a silver plated basketball trophy to share with her office, friends, and family. She also got to take home a little something extra – a brand new iPad! What’s the first thing she’ll be doing with her new gadget? “There’s a the Kindle app, so I’ll definitely be using that. And, of course, the Twitter app, too!”

When asked how she came up with her winning round up, blind luck was attributed. “It took me about two second to pick my teams,” she claims. “I think Duke is good.’ So I picked them. ‘I think Texas is good.’ So, I’ll pick them! That was it. I got very lucky.”

Eileen shares a little more about herself with us:

Audible's Eileen Ciravolo Wins!

Audible has been a part of the NETexponent crew for just over 5 years and we hear it’s a great place to be. Tell us more about your life over there: “I’ve been here for almost 2 years and it truly is a great place to work. I’m the traffic coordinator for the creative department. I’m in charge of making sure all the projects that need copy and design work are scheduled with designers and track the progress from kick-off through to completion. My day to day can be a bit hectic since I’m usually chasing someone down for more information or giving them status updates on things. I’m a very organized planner, so I’m able to stay on top of all the moving parts of various projects while keeping things on track.”

We’ve witnessed your basketball prowess. Are you a big into sports? “I’m a hardcore baseball fan – the Mets are my team. I even play fantasy baseball! The MLB app is one that I’ll surely be using on my new iPad to keep track of the Mets and my fantasy players!”

We can’t help but think that being a part of Audible.com would be a dream for any book lover. “Sure is!”

Give us your top 3 Aubible audio books recommendations: “There are so many great books it’s hard to choose just 3! My first listen was President Obama’s Dreams of My Father, which he narrated himself.  Dave Cullen’s Columbine was a harrowing look into the Columbine Massacre. It was a scary but interesting listen.  And to be a bit lighthearted, Waiter Rant by The Waiter was very funny – you’ll learn the secrets of what really goes on in the kitchen and what your waiters really think of you when you’re out to eat!”

Eileen talks about discovering her big win!

NETexponent would also like to send a shout out of Honorable Mention to Joe Crowley of Total Gym. It was close!

My parents always taught me to try and understand both sides of a discussion before forming an opinion (that has helped me numerous times in building,NETexponent, a client service focused agency). In order to do that I reached out to VigLink to hear their thoughts.

VigLink CEO Oliver Roup quickly jumped on a call to explain his perspective on this important issue. He admitted that they were a bit aggressive in their prior stance on this issue and were glad it was brought to their attention so they could amend their position. Oliver assured me that they do not want to do anything that would go against the wishes of the merchants they work with. He assures me that if a merchant wants to stop working with an affiliate in a certain state that VigLink will remove those affiliates. At the time of our talk (last week) they had not collected information on the states where affiliates reside but planned to gather that info. (critical info if they plan to help advertisers avoid tax nexus. VigLink is not going to proactively seek out information about advertisers who remove affiliates in certain states but if an advertiser does contact them and ask them to remove affiliates in certain states they will comply.

So if you are an advertiser working with VigLink and you have removed affiliates due to tax nexus concerns you should definitely reach out to them today and make sure they comply with your policy.

Okay, so it looks like the folks at VigLinks have moved to help protect their merchants. (Kudos*) What about the similar companies like SkimLinks and other CPA ad networks out there?

* yes, I do love my old time sayings

As the 40th anniversary of Earth Day comes to a close, we here at NETexponent would like to formally announce our commitment to being a green company. We’re proud of  the easy and effective ways in which we already walk the walk:

• Omitting use of small water bottles and water cooler bottles by installing a filtered water dispenser
• We recycle paper, plastic, cans,  ink cartridges, batteries and old computer parts
• Purchasing low energy PC’s
• Use digital copies of documents whenever possible
• Everyone uses coffee mugs for beverages instead of disposable cups
• Support green clients like Audible and Cengagebrain
• Officewide use of Compact Florescent Lights
• NETexponent offers TransitChek as a benefit to support use of public transportation. No one drives to work!

And in 2010, we’re taking it a step further by

1. Remembering to keep the windows closed when running the air conditioner
2. Turning off the printed delivery confirmation on fax machines
3. Being more conscious of proper recycling separation

Search Coordinator, Alex L., repurposes his coffee mug!

Because we are always looking for ways to raise the bar, here’s a sampling of personal Earth Day pledges from NETexponent team members!

“My resolution is to bring lunch every day so I don’t have to throw away to-go containers and wrappers.  And to get a plant for my desk!” – Erin

“Instead of throwing out my personal trash can each day, I am going to utilize the kitchen trash can instead!” – Erica

“My Earth Day resolution is to use less napkins!” - Valerie

“Mine is to do the recycling thing at home as well especially saving napkins and categorizing trash,  it is more difficult to be self-disciplined at home than in the office!” - Wei

We’d love to hear how you and your company contributes to keeping a healthy Mother Earth. Leave us a comment!

Lindsey from the Marketing team puts paper products their place.

• www.couponshouse.com
• www.fabuloussavings.com
• www.alexscoupons.com
• www.redplum.com
• www.flamingoworld.com-
• www.couponcabin.com
• www.couponmom.com
• www.couponmountain.com
• www.thecouponclippers.com
• www.savingsmania.com
• www.retailmenot.com
• www.couponchief.com
• www.dealcatcher.com
• www.swapbabygoods.com
• www.momsview.com
• www.clevermoms.com
• www.freeshipping.org

Congrats to all that made the list from your friends here at NETexponent. To see the full list check out Parenting.com.