Consider that ubiquitous black liquid that you rely on every morning as your sole source of energy. Not oil… COFFEE.
Coffee can be dated back as far as Homer, and many Arabian legends, that tell the story of a mysterious black and bitter beverage with powers of stimulation. More recently though, for us Westerners, coffee found its way to the Americas by means of a French infantry captain who nurtured one small plant on its long journey across the Atlantic. The grafting of this ONE plant became the predecessor of over 19 MILLION trees within 50 years.
Parallel the humble beginnings of that one coffee plant that spawned a multi billion dollar industry to those few companies giving away DVDs just four years ago, propelling our current version of affiliate marketing as we know it. Those few “rogue” incentivized marketing companies quickly became the leading driver behind affiliate networks pushing credit card and subscription based leads, and online publishers seeking high yielding offers to monetize. The Internet had all of a sudden become profitable.
Just as the grafting of just one tree led to millions of coffee trees throughout South and Central America, the success of certain affiliate marketing companies have led to a whole slew of new entrants into the space. Think of the talent, ideas, and processes these companies churn out as all grafting of the online customer acquisition/lead generation tree. The propagation of incentivized sites began with the successes of Netblue and Metareward, driving volume for clients of affiliate networks such as Adteractive, and feeding hungry banner networks like Fastclick with advertising spend dollars. The synergies of all these companies working together in healthy, progressive competition, have led to a revitalization of faith in online marketing: Netblue raised $20mm last year, Azoogleads raised an undisclosed sum a few months ago, and Fastclick just went IPO to raise almost $70mm, to name a few.
Props to those early innovative risk takers that have truly changed the way we acquire customers online. Today, coffee is a giant global industry employing more than 20 million people. With over 400 billion cups consumed every year, coffee is the world’s most popular beverage. The companies being created in the affiliate space and the products they develop will soon be on their way. To those just getting into the game, take a lesson from history– this is not a zero sum game– even in the coffee industry, the cultivation and export of coffee is the main economic driver for many third world countries. So despite what stage your company is in, don’t forget to ask yourself what flavor you can add to the world.
And remember that when coffee first arrived on the European continent by means of Venetian trade merchants, this new beverage fell under harsh criticism. Calling it the devil’s drink, many felt that the pope should ban coffee. To their surprise, Pope Vincent III, already a coffee drinker, blessed coffee declaring it a truly Christian beverage. So the next time your friends or family scoff at what you do for a living– “you don’t really give away any iPod’s,” “so you’re a spammer,” “oh gosh, I hate pops”– tell them to go to hell. Just kidding. Tell them to try what name brand companies like Columbia House, Blockbuster, and Discover have recently tasted, a piece of the billion dollar affiliate pie.
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