Stephen at our booths at CJU Expo

Last week I went to CJU in Santa Barbara with our owner and CEO Jamie Birch. This was my first trip to CJU and the event certainly lived up to all of the hype.  This was an exciting conference since it was my first since accepting a full time position with JEBCommerce.

If you were there, you may have noticed that we take a different approach to these conferences by inviting our clients to join us.  We do this for a couple of reasons; it allows us to spend more time with them and they are also able to meet the publishers that promote their products and services.  This increased level of transparency has paid off for us in strengthening our partnerships.

Jamie and I went to CJU with several goals:

• Meet new publishers and potential partners
• Meet with our current partners to continue to grow these relationships
• Spend more time with merchants that joined us at the event and introduce them to our affiliate partners
• Look for new potential merchants

In addition to a full slate of meetings, we also hosted four of our merchants, Ned from 6pm, Brandon from Doba, Sumit from Luggagepoint.com and Steve from drop.io. We found that our affiliates really enjoy meeting our merchants and we really enjoy hanging out with them.

Brandon from Doba talking with mycoupons

Tuesday afternoon Sumit hosted his table for Luggagepoint.com and Brandon hosted Doba’s table at the CJU Expo. This was a great networking event and we even gave away some luggage courtesy of Luggagepoint. We were excited to see some of our current publishers as well as meet some new ones that have a lot of potential to do well for us.

After the CJU Expo, we hopped on buses and headed over to the Dell Welcome reception where we enjoyed some delicious appetizers and drinks while continuing to network. Pictured below on the right is Steve from drop.io giving a brief demonstration on the stop to TrialPay. Who needs wifi when you have an iPhone and a Mac?

Steve from drop.io walking Trial Pay through a drop.io presentation

Wednesday started interestingly enough when  Jamie woke up and realized he had no voice.  No matter how many times I told him to stop talking, he just kept on talking.  He was a real trooper.  Too bad Jamie doesn’t have an iPhone or he could’ve just used the “bump” app to network.  (A special thanks to Sumit from Luggagepoint for showing off this really cool app).  In fact, I suggested a 5 minute Bump networking session for CJU 2010.

We had a busy day full of sessions and meetings. Sumit, Brandon and I split up and covered some ground at CJU Connect, this was a unique networking opportunity where the publishers had tables and we came to them. I think Brandon and Sumit would agree that we had some very fruitful meetings during this event. The CJYou Awards Dinner was a classy event, great food and excellent conversations.  After dinner it was time to relax at the Cocktail Party at Tonic in downtown Santa Barbara.

With a full agenda of goals for this event, we wanted to be as efficient as possible. Therefore we created a special drop using one of our merchants, drop.io, to help us stay organized for this event. This drop allowed us to access our list of potential targets at anytime during the event. We also utilized the voice mail feature to leave voice notes after every meeting we had to make sure we didn’t forgot any action/follow up items. This proved to be a vital asset to the success of this event for us.

Sumit from Luggagepoint and I meeting with Marie from CJ

Thursday we wrapped up the event with a few meetings and lunch with our great team at Commission Junction. Thanks to Marie and Laura for treating us to lunch. This event wouldn’t have been as successful if it weren’t for the hard work of Marie and Laura who spent their days tracking down affiliates on our target list and introducing them to us. We are fortunate to have such a great account team at Commission Junction.

I came away very impressed from the event and anxious to follow up with many new publishers and old friends I met at the event.  This year’s event was a great success for us and we are definitely looking forward to CJU 2o10.

Are you attending the Commission Junction University next week in beautiful Santa Barbara California?  WE ARE!  Stephen, our Director of Affiliate Management and Jamie, our President and CEO, will be there along with several of our clients.  And we would love to meet you!

We will also be accompanied by Ned Farra of 6pm.com and Zappos, Steven Greenwood of drop.io, Brandon Delgrosso of Doba.com and Sumit Bhanote of Luggagepoint.com.  So let us know when you are available to meet with any or all of us and we’ll be sure to accomodate your schedule and even buy you a cup of coffee at the Fess Parker!

Jamie and Stephen will be available on the 15th, 16th and the morning of the 15th to discuss the following programs:

• 6pm.com
• drop.io
• Doba.com
• LuggagePoint.com
• QualitySmith.com

“This year’s CJU promises a fresh take on the entire event: we’ve created new ways to make it easier than ever to create the business connections you need and new ways to get social and have some fun. As “The Place to Affiliate,” CJU 2009 will provide unparalleled networking opportunities for advertisers and publishers, the chance to learn from thought leaders in online marketing and an insiders-only occasion to swap tips and strategies with the best affiliate marketers in the industry.”  -CJ.com

We hope to see you there.  LuggagePoint.com and Doba.com will both have booths at the Expo on the 15th from 1-5pm.  Make sure you swing by to arrange an appointment or email us at jamie@jebcommerce.com or stephen@jebcommerce.com.

Look forward to seeing you all there!

It is that time again. The March Madness NCAA tournemant is one of the most highly watched sporting events of the year. It’s also one of the top bonus programs for Doba affiliates and we are making it bigger than ever this year!

Our Grand Prize is a cruise for two, provided by Travel Management Incorporated, details of the cruise are dependent on time of year and availability. We are also giving away a $500 Amazon gift card, Flip Mini HD Camcorder and 3 Iomega 500 GB External Hard Drives! Thousands of dollars in prizes are available to win, but you have to register before March 15th. To reserve your spot in this promotion email us today.

Here is how it works. Once you register via email by March 15th, we slot you into one of the 64 open slots according to the leads you produce from March 1st - March 15th. Then you compete against others for number of leads generated during each round of the March Madness Tournament and advance if you have more leads than the affiliate you are matched against. This goes on and on until there are only two left. Register today and get your plans in place to generate as many leads as possible in March!

Prizes:

Grand Prize: 5 Night Cruise For Two, provide by Travel Management Incorporated.  This prize package is worth $1,500.  The winner may choose to take the cash value.  The cruise details are based on packages available at time of booking and the options and opportunities available at that time.  We will be posting more about the cruise options as we have found some incredible and unique options available.

Second Place: $500 Amazon Gift Card

3rd Place:  Flip Mini HD Camcorder

Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Places: 500 GB Iomega External Hard Drive
Details:
- Selection is based on the top 64 lead-generators that register by March 15,  based on amount of leads generated between March 1 and March 15 in both our in house program and our Commission Junction program.
- The bracket will be updated and sent to our affiliates the day after each round.
- Placement is based on a round robin in 16 brackets from a ‘seed’ point of view, eg. 1st v. 5th, 2nd v. 6th, 3rd v. 7th, and 4th v. 8th, etc. all in 4 separate brackets
- At each round date, leads will be calculated from the period previous to the round to determine the winners of each round
- The championship will be based on total leads between March 1 and April 6

Dates correlate as closely as possible with actual March Madness tournament dates
Selection: March 15
Round 1: March 22 (winners determined by leads referred from March 15 – 22)
Round 2: March 23 (leads from March 15 – 18)
Round 3: March 30 (leads from March 19 - 29)
Round 4: April 4 (final 4 – leads from March 30 - April 4)
Round 5: April 6 (championship – leads from March 1 – April 6

JEBCommerce is excited and proud to announce that starting today, we are now managing the Doba Affiliate Program!  “Doba simplifies and streamlines product sourcing for the emerging market of millions of web-based entrepreneurs delving into the fray of starting and/or growing a retail business.”  They are the premier drop shipping and product sourcing company on the web.

JEBCommerce has a long history with Doba.  We launched their first affiliate program back in 2004/2005 and are excited to be working with Brandon Delgroso and the rest of the Doba team to grow their program.

Let me tell you a little more about Doba directly from them:  “Doba is what people in the retail industry refer to as a product sourcing marketplace or drop-ship aggregator. Our members are online retail merchants and entrepreneurs who buy products at wholesale prices and sell them at retail prices without having to deal with the hassle and expense of storing products, managing inventory, packing and shipping products, and handling returns. Doba members can find wholesale priced products on our website, market and sell those products to their customers, collect payments, and then place an order on our site to have those products shipped directly to their customers. Doba’s single interface puts retailers in touch with hundreds of wholesale suppliers featuring a combined product line of over 1,200,000 quality products.”

Doba currently has two programs:

• Commission Junction
• In-house program

Both programs have two commission options:  $10 per free trial lead or $30 per sale and offer 45 return days.  The in-house program is able to offer many more creative and distribution tools with much more flexibility.  If you’d like to get involved, just let me know!

Welcome Doba to the JEBCommerce family of managed programs!