We’re proud to say that 2009 was an exceptional year for NETexponent. We grew as a team and also in our list of clients. Not to mention, NETexponent was recognized with a few awards and several write-ups on notable industry blogs and online forums. This year, we even expanded the list of services that we offer in order to better serve the needs of our new clients.
New Clients
To start, we’ve signed quite a few new clients this year, and some of these relationships grew even further after their initial inception. Early this year, we began working with Total Gym Direct by managing their relatively mature affiliate program. After several successful months, we extended our partnership into managing their search engine marketing efforts, as well.
Shortly after beginning our relationship with Total Gym Direct, we began working with Pingo, a pre-paid calling card service of iBasis, which is a leading carrier of international and long distance phone calls. With this new partnership, NETexponent was able to improve Pingo’s SEM program and enhance their online sales presence. Also early in 2009, we began managing SMX’s affiliate program; having attended the bi-annual search conference in the past, our team had a comfortable understanding of the events and the improvements we could make to the program.
In the fall, we greatly increased the size and diversity of our list of clients, and subsequently our team grew as well! Simultaneously, our affiliate program management grew to include Hot Topic and its subsidiaries Torrid and Shockhound. NETexponent took on managing Automotive Concepts’ (an online auto parts retailer) and Yola’s (website building tools) affiliate programs, too.
SEO Service
Recently, after bringing an industry executive onto our team, we launched our SEO services. These are quickly gaining prominence in our portfolio of search marketing services alongside our long-established paid search programs. We are implementing these services for one of our newest clients, American Listed, a free online classified listings website.
New team members
As mentioned, with the growth of our client roster, we have been excited to expand our team with a number of new positions filled by professionals with impressive, diverse backgrounds. We welcomed the following individuals to the team during 2009:
Wei Zhang- IT Analyst Valerie Russo – Affiliate Media Coordinator
Alex Watson- Marketing Coordinator
Estefanie Duque- Office Manager Nir Shemesh- Senior Search Media Manager Lindsey Murphy- Search Media Coordinator
Noelle Huter- Affiliate Media Manager Julianne Bohl- Search Media Manager Jessica Baier- Account Coordinator
Under the tutelage of our experienced staff, these folks hit the ground running and have become integral parts of our award-winning team.
Awards
Topseos publishes monthly rankings of the top companies in various online marketing fields. In October, topseos ranked NETexponent the 5th best Affiliate Marketing Agency, and we have since stayed in the top five. To see the most recently published list, visit topseos.
In early September, NETexponent was featured on Inc. Magazine’s 500│5000 list of the 5000 fastest growing independent companies. We are extremely proud of our fast-paced growth and for the recognition by Inc. Magazine. Because our revenue is primarily performance-based, we issued a press release heralding this acknowledgment as a recognition of our clients’ success over the past four years.
Speaking engagements
This year, many NETexponent team members demonstrated our industry expertise by speaking at a number of leading conferences in search and affiliate marketing.
First, at the Search Engine Strategies Conference and Exposition, Peter Figueredo joined a panel of industry experts for a session called ‘Dealing With Affiliates: A Roadmap to Success.’ Here, Peter shared with the audience the ‘Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’ of affiliate marketing. He described some of the ways affiliate marketing can be successfully married with search engine marketing practices for a synergistic effect on sales for the client. However, Peter also outlined some of the negative ways that affiliate marketers can abuse SEM and create added competition for advertiser’s search campaigns.
In August, Senior Affiliate Media Manager Sal Conca spoke at Affiliate Summit East during a session discussing affiliate websites’ dynamic shopping features. This panel covered all subjects including website creative, optimization, merchant relationships and analytics/reporting.
At Commission Junction University (CJU), during the “Affiliate Marketing: The Whole Truth” workshop, Peter presented some results from the AffiliateBenchmarks report. These teaser facts gave a broad overview of some of the recently analyzed data points to spark interest in the report that was due to be completed and released shortly after.
On November 10th, at PubCon Las Vegas, Chris Kramer presented data from the newly completed 2009 AffiliateBenchmarks report. This data supported the theme of the session which addressed the varying quality of available market research. Chris cited research applicable to both search and affiliate marketing, and the whole event was promoted in a press release sent out a week before the session.
2009 AffiliateBenchmarks Report
In November, we began a hard release process of the 2009 AffiliateBenchmarks report, following a soft release period in which we sent out the completed report to everyone who filled out the survey in its entirety back in July. Each wave of promotion garnered attention from industry publications and leaders, which we expedited by working with an external agency to assist in the promotion.
In the end, the report and slices of its data were featured on EasyAffiliateMarketing.biz, TJantunen.com, the Performance Marketing Alliance, Website Magazine, digiday: DAILY, Internet Vibes, Visibility Magazine, Biz Report, Marketing Charts, Marketing Vox, Market Scan, MediaTrust. These forums, organizations and blogs all took interest in the report because of its previously unheard of sample size of 3,500 respondent and the depth of its analysis.
.JPG "etail rising stars")
