Scott Stratten the President of UnMarketing is ranked as one of the top influencers in the world on Twitter, and an expert in Viral, Social and Authentic marketing which he calls UN-Marketing. Scott’s philosophy is simple: Stop marketing. Start engaging. It’s a simple credo, yet so many businesses don’t get it.

It’s all about positioning yourself as a trusted expert in front of target market, so when they have the need, they choose you, That’s UN-Marketing.

Scott talks about how businesses should be built on relationships and listening to customers, instead of trying to constantly sell.

Scott Stratten Resource Links : Blog : Twitter : Facebook

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We know it’s a Monday morning and you’ve tons to knock off the to-do list today, but if you could take a minute (literally a single minute) and take a quick a survey, we’d appreciate it.

The survey is from mThink’s Revenue Performance Magazine. You may remember that we were named #1 Performance Marketing Network in 2009  in RPM’s Blue Book. We’d love to try and repeat that success, but we need your help. Just take a minute to complete this survey and help us toward our goal!

In the spirit of innovation here at MediaTrust, we’re announcing some cool new features around landing page stats and optimization.

First, we’ve developed a new landing page report which allows users to view statistics for each landing page on a given campaign. After sending traffic to multiple landing pages, users can view and compare conversion rates on each and determine which one is performing the best. Using the highest performing landing page will increase commission without the need for any new distribution.

Second, for those users that segment their traffic source with a sub ID, a landing page filter has also been added to the Sub ID Report. As conversion rates can vary for each segment, this feature allows even more in-depth and accurate reporting to help increase commission.

In addition, lead adjustments are now displayed in a new summary at the top of the Sub ID Report. This allows publishers to see things like bonuses, as well as items like chargebacks or items scrubbed for fraud. This is in alignment with our goal of increased transparency.

Finally, all of our reports are now running off a brand new data warehouse, so they should all load statistics noticeably faster.

Hopefully these improvements continue to make your experience a a MediaTrust Publisher smoother and more profitable. Do not hesitate to contact your publisher manager if you have any questions. Still not a publisher? Sign up now!

How to Split Test Offers or Landing Pages

As an affiliate, a crucial part of your arsenal is the ability to split test your own landing pages or offers on the same or different networks.

Why would you need to split test?

To use a simple example, say we have two offers in the same niche that you want to run. The payouts are similar, but you need to know which converts best and gives you the highest EPC (hint: It’s not always the offer with the highest payout that performs best!).

Another example would be that you want to test the same offer across different networks to see which gives you the best conversion rate or to check for scrubbing.

How can you split test pages or offers easily?

To split test and find the best performing offer, you need to rotate your landing page or affiliate link if you’re sending traffic direct, until you have built up enough data to make a judgement.

The easiest way to do this is with a simple php script that will rotate the links you give it seamlessly to your traffic. This can be done in the same way whether you’re split testing your own landing page versions, or direct-linked affiliate offers, or the two methods combined.

All you need to do is create an index.php file with a php url rotator in it – nothing else, just the php script below. You can easily create this in notepad and simply save it as index.php – then simply upload to the domain or folder where your ad is pointing. (The example below shows a split test of 4 links, but you can add/remove them as needed).

For example, say you run a Facebook ad campaign and your ad points to http://yourdomain.com/dating-landing-page/ you would upload index.php to the /dating-landing-page/ folder, making sure to delete or rename any exisiting index page so your new file is read first. In the example above, we are rotating two of our own landing pages and also two direct-linked offers.

You can now very easily split test either versions of your own landing pages, even alongside direct linking to different offers and see which performs best for you – a quick and easy way of determining which method or offer gets you the highest EPC and/or the biggest ROI.

At long last, we have a winner in our Amazon Kindle Contest. We had hundreds of people enter the contest and we have chosen our winner. Anthony Kirlew is from Phoenix and he entered our contest on January 5th.

How did we choose the winner? We tried to make it as fair and simple as possible. First, we compiled the number of entries in list form. Then we used a random number generator to pick a number between the parameters set. We then counted down the list until we hit that entrant. We checked to make sure that he was following us and that he had tweeted the appropriate phrase. Anthony had met both of those criteria.

Anthony, please send an email to sparent AT mediatrust DOT com and provide your mailing address so we can ship your prize. Over the next week or so we’ll be purchasing the Kindle and loading it up with our picks for the Top 10 Marketing Books of 2009!

Congrats on winning and thank you to all those that entered!

This year’s Search Engine Strategies (SES) will have a free affiliate track. The link to the agenda is here.

The folks that run the event (same guys that publish ClickZ) tell us that they are stepping up their coverage of the affiliate performance channel to make sure that the channel is better understood and more deeply covered by the press.

This is great news for the industry as it means that more tier 2 and tier 1 advertisers will be exposed to the efficacy of the performance channel and learn how to properly leverage pay-for-results marketing.

To register for the event, head on over to the site

We look forward to seeing you at the show!

Today we released a mobile version of our blog for populat phones like the iPhone and Blackberry. That means that you can check out our great content while you’re on the go or maybe at a conference. The mobile version formats the blog in an easy to read and easy to browse format for most popular mobile devices.

We know that this isn’t earth-shattering in terms of technological advances, but it’s another way for us to create a better user experience while you interact with MediaTrust and our content.

Because we just released it, it should be considered Beta and there may be some kinks we’ve yet to find. If you notice any funkiness on your mobile device, please let us know in the comments.

Have a great weekend!

Just a quick update on some new content you’ll now see on the site. As you now know, we acquired Kenzei recently and now feature those solutions under the MediaTrust Conversion Solutions moniker. All the updated content can be found here.  We encourage you to read through the section and check out the animation for further details.

As always, should you have any questions, feel free to reach out to our sales team with any questions. With our new capabilities we can make sure advertisers get the most out of their traffic!

Today we have a quick update from our friends at the Performance Marketing Association. If you are a publisher from Colorado, please take note (and action as needed!):

1. We have learned an advertising tax will be proposed in Colorado the week of January 25th (House Bill HB-1193). If this tax passes, we predict over 100 advertisers will terminate their affiliate programs with Colorado publishers.

2. Our effectiveness in fighting legislation that directly harms the income of affiliates will depend on your support. The PMA will be coordinating a targeted grassroots campaign, and we need help from all Colorado affiliate marketers. Please take a few minutes to register your support on the PMA website.

3. We will soon follow up with an email template and names of key decision makers. Please add a few words about why you are an affiliate marketer; it is the most important message for legislators to hear.

You can register your support HERE:

Our strength is in our numbers!

MediaTrust’s Jivan Manhs will be heading to San Francisco next week to speak at the OMMA Performance event. He’ll be speaking on a panel called “Affiliate – Competition or Co-opetition.”

Here are the details:

As affiliate marketing continues to grow in importance for performance marketers, issues of clutter and competition arise, driving up costs for search and creating confusion in the marketplace for publishers. A good affiliate program takes into account how to work with the affiliates in a mutually beneficial manner and our panel will dive into the ways to organize and manage your affiliate program in the right way. Best practices and examples of what can go wrong, as well as how to avoid these pitfalls, will be the primary content of this session; a must for anyone managing an affiliate effort.

The full panel is:

Moderator:

Matt Quirie, Founder & President, ROI Marketing Inc.

Panelists:

Alan Chapell, President, Chapell & Associates
Brett Lofgren, SVP Sales, Epic Advertising
Rebecca Madigan, Executive Director, Performance Marketing Association
Jivan Manhas, Head of Sales, MediaTrust

We asked Jivan why a panel like this is important and who should attend. Here is what he had to say:

“With the growth of performance marketing and the concerns many publishers and advertisers have about each other, the panel on Affiliate – Competition or Co-opetition, could not be more timely. It is vitally important that both advertisers and affiliates work together to make any affiliate program a success and this panel has the knowledge and experience to steer an affiliate effort in the right direction.”