It’s been an interesting year in performance marketing. The slowdown in the economy has shifted the dynamics in the space, the Amazon Tax was all the rage, and Google plunged head-first into the affiliate world.
What will 2009 hold? How will the economy continue to shape the performance marketing business? How will social networking impact what we do? What company will emerge as a market leader? We rounded up some of our best and brightest partners in the business of Performance Marketing to ask them about their thoughts on 2009. Here’s what they had to say:
Angel Djambazov - Managing Editor, Revenews
1. ValueClick will either be bought or drastically change their portfolio so as not to be damaged by the CPM down turn.
2. Remnant media buys will increase as people take advantage of CPM/CPA hybrids
3. Microsoft will take steps to fix its LiveSearch Black Friday fiasco
4. Zune will launch an affiliate program to go with its new phone
5. More “green” focused merchants will enter the space
Hamlet Batista - President and CEO/Nemedia S.A.
1. PPC costs will keep rising creating a greater interest in SEO
2. Quality links will become far more valuable and harder to get as SEO goes mainstream
3. Website publishers will become more reluctant to link out unless there is something in it for them.
4. Google will start placing more weight on other “branding” signals besides just plain links in an attempt to diminish the value of purchased links.
6. Black Hat SEOs will have to begin using more sophisticated methods such as generating fake traffic to websites and to tricking social media users into visiting sites.
7. The number of fake social media profiles and automated posting robots will increase drastically.
8. On the brigther side, more people will become aware of how to optimize their sites, choose the best keywords, etc. and there will be more organic competition in the SERPs (serarch engine result pages).
9. In search of new opportunities, forward-looking SEOs will explore the mobile space.
10. A new stealth search engine startup will challenge Google and dominate the market. 
Jeff Molander - CEO, Molander & Associates Inc.
Due to the global consumer spending slowdown, 2009 will be the year when chief marketers finally understand what it takes to achieve success: The marriage of Web analytics with BUSINESS analytics. Success is now driven by a company’s ability to listen to its market and immediately ACT based on it’s “demand pulse” — participate authentically in the enrichment of its customers lives in real time, beyond krass sales pitches, to drive sales and leads. Success will be defined in terms of a company’s ability to listen, learn and act — optimize in real time. Watch for the leaders to only hire people who are passionate about getting there — people with “analtyics DNA” in their blood.
Jessica Luthi - AffiliateProgramAdvice.com
Credit crunch will kick in and a few companies will fall by the way side the mom and pop stores. We may see larger companies merge in order to protect their businesses. Im already seeing this in terms of the retail sectors at supplier level and also from the feedback I got at Magic (Vegas 2008) The banks are calling loans in.
Upside, affiliate marketing can only increase and Im already seeing this happening with APA, but taking on new clients comes with a new set of problems, are they looking for a last ditch quick fix. So due diligence needs to be stepped up for all of us. Here in the UK, this raised an eyebrow for me.
Andrew O’Halloran - Privacy Officer, Cypra Media
1. 2009 will be a record year for hard bounces from B2B email campaigns. Because of the economic crisis causing millions to lose their jobs and corporate email addresses, 2009 will be the year where a record number of hard bounces will be recorded from B2B email campaigns.
2. Canada will (finally) pass its own anti-spam bill. Canada gained worldwide notoriety and embarrassment in November 2008 after the Montreal based spammer Adam Guerbuez was prosecuted and fined over $873 million by American courts under the US CAN-SPAM act. The main legal structure presently used to resolve anti-spam complaints is Canada’s “Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act” (PIPEDA). While the PIPEDA legal framework and jurisprudence provides a legal guide, both clarity and force will be improved by passing a law specific for unsolicited commercial electronic messages. Similar to the US CAN-SPAM Act, the proposed new Canadian anti-spam law should have teeth with
3. Data will be more tightly controlled, better analyzed, and better managed. Or else. Businesses will increasingly consider how their email marketing strategy affects not only the bottom line in the next quarter, but also what costs an overly aggressive monetizing strategy may have on long-term profitability and brand reputation. Research preceding the actual email marketing campaign will be given more focus as businesses recognize the value of investing time and resources to understand their consumers’ mailing frequency preferences, interests, demographics, pet peeves, and concerns, etc… List size will become less important than list quality. By contrast, those businesses who either do not want to make the investment in understanding their consumer base or have not put in places resources to do so will find it increasingly difficult to monetize data and risk damage to their company and brand reputation.
Robert Bergquist - President & CEO, Widemile
The focus of all marketers in 2009 must be on ROMI – return on marketing investment. It’s not about brand building. In 2009 it’s about generating a measurable return from each marketing dollar spent. Since it’s much easier to track the returns generated by digital marketing tactics, especially paid search and affiliate marketing, those budgets will remain intact and likely grow, while other forms of advertising will suffer.
To succeed in this recessionary economy, marketers must think like a CFO and aggressively track each dollar spent against profitable revenue generated. You must demand accountability and better performance from each link in your sales funnel, from customer acquisition to conversion and retention. Your job depends upon it.
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There you have it - predictions from several disciplines across the performance marketing space. It will be interesting to watch as 2009 unfolds to see how many of these turn out to be true. One things for sure, 2009 is poised to be an exciting year in the space.
MediaTrust will be kickin’ it in Las Vegas at Affiliate Summit West from January 10th - 13th at the Rio. We’d love it if you’d spend some time with us. If you’re a publisher or advertiser that already works with us, make sure you say hello and catch up. If you’re thinking about working with us and Advaliant, our performance marketing platform, we’d love to tell about how we can increase your advertising ROI. We’ll be at the Meet Market at table #93 from noon-6 pm on Sunday, January 11th.
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