Re: The Fabulously Ethically Questionable World of Sponsored Posts

jamkie — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:27:52 -0000

Seme,

I spoke with an account manager this morning who said we would be more than happy to provide you with a credited Opportunity in SocialSpark along with detailed guidance from our team to ensure you get the type of results you were originally looking for. Please check for an email from crystal [at] izea.com from late last week (she's sending you a follow-up email today as well, so that may be in your inbox by the time you read this).

As a proud member of the IZEA team, I can say that we truly value all of our advertisers -- big and small alike -- and I am taking your experience into consideration as I plan for usability and educational improvements to SocialSpark.

Re: The Fabulously Ethically Questionable World of Sponsored Posts

jamkie — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:27:19 -0000

Hi seme,

Our CFO and Customer Love team contacted me to help clear up the confusion you seem to be experiencing over how SocialSpark works. I'm pleased to see that you seem to have really "gotten" how to write a good Sponsored Post Opportunity listing, encouraging bloggers to start a conversation rather than just write a blatant ad post. We like that! What's missing is a good understanding of how Opportunity targeting functions and what level of involvement our review team has, which I hope to be able to shed some light on here. I'll try to go in order of the concerns you outlined in your post.

1. The commission. What does it pay for? Why is it higher than more traditional advertising? Are SocialSpark's rates competitive?

Our commission of 50% covers the cost of manually reviewing each post that is submitted to your Opportunity to make sure it meets the requirements you set forth in the description and the standards of our marketplace (grammar, disclosure, that sort of thing). It also covers a portion of the overhead it takes to manually review blogs, respond to customer questions, and develop/host the application that powers SocialSpark's marketplace. This commission is indeed in line with the commission charged to advertisers by our competitors in the sponsored review space. Commission on more traditional advertising is lower because there is little to no overhead involved in serving up static ads like banners and links. Our flat $10 fee covers the cost of reviewing your Opportunity, which often includes manually updating the Opp (to include an avatar, clear instructions, segmentation that makes sense), and the ongoing support/communications that go along with the Opportunity until it ends and all of the Advertiser's questions are answered.

2. Why does the FAQ you read not match up with your experience?

The FAQ you were browsing is our Affiliate program FAQ. You can only get to this FAQ by clicking the "Create an Affiliate Program" link under the help menu and choosing the FAQ from the sidebar menu. We have specific "How To" sections for CPA and CPC, but not for any of the other Opportunity types. (For what it's worth, we are working on writing better educational materials at this time; we have not removed or modified any of these materials since early this year).

The targeting section of the Affiliate FAQ applies to both Opportunity types either way, though; "You have the ability to hand pick bloggers, use rules to create blog rolls or open your opportunity to all verified blogs. At a minimum a blog must be verified in order to take an Affiliate Opportunity." What this section doesn't outline is _how_ you can set up the rules, create blog rolls, or hand pick bloggers.

When you set up your Opportunity, you chose the "use rules to create blog rolls" route. Rules are sets of criteria that a blogger must meet at the time they view an Opportunity in order to make a post. These are dynamic lists that change when new bloggers sign up, blog traffic increases or decreases, or profile data is updated. Even if a blogger meets the basic criteria you set up in your dynamic list, it does not mean that their post will be "automatically approved." All posts submitted are reviewed manually to ensure that they meet the advertiser's requirements and contain proper grammar, disclosure, and required links.

From the Targeting page during Opp Creation: "By default, your Opportunity is available to All Verified Blogs that have been accepted into our Marketplace. If you wish to add any specific requirements for taking your opportunity, click the 'add requirement' button below." (It appears that you did click the Add Requirement button.) After that, the requirements setup looks a lot like an iTunes Smart Playlist. Instead of "Genre is Rock AND Release Date is between 1990 and 1999" you set requirements like (for example) "Blogger is Female AND Blog's RealRank is less than 2000." Any blogs that match the requirements you set can take your Opp.

If you want more control, we do allow Advertisers to hand-pick blogs or bloggers, which the Customer Love representative who contacted you alluded to. You can use any combination of these preset lists, dynamically changing requirements, and/or IZEA preset lists when targeting your Opportunity. No matter what type of targeting you choose, any matching bloggers will be eligible to take your Opportunity until it fills.

If a blogger does not meet the criteria you lay out, or the Opportunity slots fill up, they can request a slot. The emails you received were bloggers who were not qualified or who didn't reserve a slot before you ran out of posts. They were simply asking to participate in your Opportunity. If you do not approve those requsts, you have no obligation to pay for anything related to those bloggers. If you had chosen to approve the requests, you would have been charged for the extra posts (there is an alert letting you know you will be charged before accepting a request).

I hope that helps clear up how targeting works!

3. What's with the "how much does it cost to setup?" item in the FAQ? That doesn't seem right!

You're right, it's not. These terms don't apply to you. The excerpt you pulled is also from the CPA FAQs. We require a floating deposit for CPA Opportunities to cover $100 in conversions (sales or signups). None of that excerpt applies to Sponsored Posts, so your Opportunities were not affected.

4. Why don't the SocialSpark stats match Google Analytics?

We don't obtain our stats from Google Analytics. Each time a user clicks the link in a post, it redirects through SocialSpark and we track the click before forwarding them on to your site. If a user doesn't stay on your site long enough to allow Google Analytics' Javascript to load, Google won't track the click.

5. Why don't the demographics meet my requirements?

Demographics are recalculated daily; as long as the blog meets the requirements on the day they take the Opportunity, the blogger will be eligible to take the Opportunity.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to ask. Thank you for your business.

Jamie Kite
Product Manager
SocialSpark.com

Re: izea overheard

jamkie — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:37:35 -0000

Ummmm, context?

Re: izea overheard

jamkie — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:35:54 -0000

Awww you can come with me any time. I guess that means I'm filthy too. :)

Re: izea overheard

jamkie — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:34:02 -0000

Took that one straight out of "What not to say to a pregnant woman" eh?

Re: izea overheard

jamkie — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 11:29:07 -0000

I second Marty. This photo is very scary. And here's another hint: It's not me!

Re: izea overheard

jamkie — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:19:24 -0000

You just don't understand Tennessee culture. Sheesh.

Re: izea overheard

jamkie — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:32:49 -0000

this makes me smile so much

Re: izea overheard

jamkie — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 08:03:15 -0000

Thanks, now it's burned into mine too.

Re: izea overheard

jamkie — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 10:09:43 -0000

plz bring starbucks!

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