The New Face of CJ
By: Maria Sample
Commission Junction's Lisa Riolo steps into a new role with some familiar responsibilities.
As Commission Junction's senior vice president of business development, Lisa Riolo is responsible for driving revenue for the sales and business development teams. While she's not technically filling Todd Crawford's shoes, Riolo will be the new face of the affiliate network, taking on many of the same challenges as the former vice president of sales, who left in February.
Owned by ValueClick, CJ is based in Santa Barbara, Calif., and has tens of thousands of publishers in its global network. In the six years that Riolo has worked there, she has led the sales, client development, search and product management teams. In her new position, she manages the 25 people who make up the sales and performance optimization departments. Revenue Senior Editor Maria Sample recently interviewed Riolo about her company's practices and plans for the future, as well as the affiliate marketing industry and the importance of understanding people.
Maria Sample Your predecessor was very active in the affiliate community (i.e., forums, message boards, etc.). Do you plan on continuing to be Commission Junction's face in those arenas?
Lisa Riolo Actually, the organizational structure introduced by our general manager, Tom Vadnais, positions me in a role that hadn't previously existed. So, fortunately, I'm not faced with the challenge of having to fill someone else's shoes. I do recognize that, since its earliest days, Commission Junction has relied upon one or two individuals to convey most of its messages. In the future, I think the affiliate community will hear and see us take more of a team approach.
MS Todd Crawford (the former vice president of sales) was considered the public face of Commission Junction. The downside of that is that he often took the heat from angry and upset affiliates. Are you prepared for that? And how will you handle those sorts of public (and sometimes personal) attacks?
LR I believe passionately that Commission Junction achieved greatness because of the publishers. I'm very open and prepared to listen to them. It's been part of my role for the past six years.
If I end up the target of discussion, that's OK. I've found that frustrations expressed reveal great opportunities to learn and improve. I tend to worry more about silence than I do about rants.
MS Part of your responsibilities include increasing Commission Junction's market share. What plans do you have to increase market share over the next 12 to 18 months?
LR Our vision has consistently included a global perspective, and in the last 18 months, we've expanded our European presence from the U.K. to Germany and France. In 2006, we plan to launch offices in more countries in Europe, and continue to leverage opportunities we have in Asia.
We're also committed to improving our clients' experience in the CJ Marketplace. As we make it easier for them to extract information and interact with our product offering, we'll attract new participants to our business.
MS What about plans for driving new revenue?
LR Our current plans fall into three categories. Last year, we expanded our service offering to better meet the needs of our advertisers, especially those selecting the CJ Access service level. We see additional opportunities for services that benefit other segments with our client base. Next, we're exploring opportunities for leveraging new distribution channels created by technology innovation. And finally, we've reaped great benefits by collaborating with other teams in the ValueClick family of brands and plan to continue to do so.
When you look at the ValueClick products and expertise, you'll see we have a compelling story. When you look at the metrics from just a couple of our cross-divisional efforts, you see the type of incremental lift that generates real excitement on our part.
MS What threats, if any, does the sudden proliferation of ad networks present to Commission Junction?
LR Ad networks have existed for years, some of which we've had relationships with for a long time. We don't see ad networks as a threat, per se. They offer value that complements what we do at Commission Junction. We see that from our collaboration with our teammates at ValueClick Media, who run the largest independent display ad network in the U.S. The more monetization opportunities we can offer our publishers, the happier they are and the more they want to work with us.
The fact is, as heard from several outstanding publishers, they go where they get the best return on investment [ROI]. Commission Junction must understand and optimize every component of the ROI equation, from payout to time spent in our member area.
MS Can you outline the risks and benefits of sub-affiliate networks?
LR From an advertiser's perspective, the benefits are a) you've potentially improved your efficiency because you've outsourced part of your relationship management responsibilities, and b) the sub-affiliate network may generate significant volume and extend your reach. The two primary risks of working with subaffiliate networks are a) you're typically paying a premium for "aggregated" transactions, and b) you often do not have good visibility into the promotional methods used by the "subaffiliates" which, in all likelihood, will challenge quality standards.
From a publisher's perspective, the benefits offered include higher commissions and often, faster payouts. The downside is productive publishers that don't have direct relationships limit their ability to demonstrate their value. Hence, negotiating exclusive offers or higher payouts is difficult. The other risk for publishers is that, often, the sub-affiliate networks are not only outsourcing to other affiliates, but also competing with them. How often does a subaffiliate's transaction get attributed to the network or super-affiliate?
MS Andrew Jacob, Leadpile's CEO, seems to think his company's Centralized Online Lead Marketplace could take the place of Commission Junction. Recently, he referred to his offering as an alternative to "traditional, old-fashioned affiliate marketing programs like Commission Junction."
LR Isn't it fantastic to operate in an industry where someone references a company that hasn't celebrated its 10th anniversary yet as "old-fashioned?" Anyway, my response in these situations is usually the same: I pay attention. I never dismiss the potential importance of a future or existing player in the space. If you're still in business, the game never ends. You're always competing and you always have to scout and monitor what else is out there - and why. You won't catch me not paying attention.
I do look for potential issues with other networks. For example (and acknowledging that it's still early on), Jacob hasn't illustrated how he plans to manage quality and scalability from the advertiser perspective. If you can't drive and manage large-scale results on a reliable basis, you can't drive value for your network participants. And a bid-based pricing system alone doesn't really resolve all of the issues around quality. Nor can he simply assert, "Our sellers provide high-quality leads" with no basis. Even if the prospective customers Leadpile provided to its past advertisers were of acceptable quality, it's a completely different thing to build a quality network.
So, it's about quality, efficiency and scale, and no one in the affiliate marketing industry has driven all three of these as well as Commission Junction.
MS What does Commission Junction have that the competition does not?
LR The first thing we have is market-leading scale. Continued on Page 2...
Tags:
business development teams, vice president, valueclick, fortunately, technically, todd crawford, affiliate community, affiliate marketing, maria, shoes, public face, marketing industry, performance optimization, development search, forums message, commission junction, affiliate network, Lisa Riolo,
More From Q And A
See What Else is in This Issue |
Print
Email
Digg This
