Just got back from the Revenue Seminar 2010 in Tel Aviv – and boy, what an experience!  Some 600 people came to learn more about how to make money online through Internet marketing. In marked contrast to many events we attend in the United States, the presentations are phenomenally well-attended, with a high level of engagement and more discussion and questioning than most of us could begin to expect.

Plimus presented on the concept of ‘closing the last mile’ – actually closing the deal once the prospect reaches the purchase page. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and we were once again struck by how, for many people, really focusing on the actual checkout process to ensure superior conversion ratios (and therefore income!) seemed like a new concept. Research shows quite incontrovertibly that conversion is artificially limited when customers don’t see their preferred languages, currencies and payment methods, as well as when the user experience changes from one site’s look-and-feel to a generic ‘payment box’. Yet, time and again, we find that the majority of online marketers dedicate the least amount of effort to fine-tuning this element of their business.  This is one of the key reasons savvy Internet marketers turn to Plimus, as we deliver these elements right ‘out of the box,’ delivering higher conversion rates than many of the alternatives that are still popular out there.

The good news is that lots of the attendees took the time to come and learn more, which we interpret as a really good sign! The industry has become very sophisticated in traffic generation and qualification, and we look forward to the day that final cash conversion reaches a similar level of success.

The message coming from the other speakers really boiled down to this: successful Internet marketers don’t just promote others’ goods, they also source and market their own products. The highest echelon of the players in this market work hand-in-glove with a small number of business partners, each supporting and promoting the others’ releases. This allows them to leverage their hard-won customer lists with new and exciting offers many times per year, sometimes for their own products, and often for their partners’.

In the hard-fought Internet marketing space, it’s all about partnering and cross-promotion: the lone wolf will always find it difficult to break through to a high level of performance. This was music to our ears, of course, as it validates our decision to develop complex network cross-selling capabilities, and to enable team selling across our seller community!


The last few presentations we saw were from ‘super-affiliates’ who were marketing their own solutions for new affiliates.  The right phrase for these offerings would be caveat emptor – or buyer beware.  Insofar as the ingredients for success appear to be a solid network of partners, buying into the system of a super-affiliate on an anonymous, pay-to-play, basis seems like a risky and expensive decision. It is far better to focus one’s initial investment on licensing solid product, marketing it well and starting to build a network that is directly-sourced.

In Internet marketing, as in all businesses, there is no free lunch.

Simon Jones,

VP of Strategic Solutions