A New Year A New TradeDoubler

Hot on the heals of the buy.at rebrand which took place last week, TradeDoubler this morning revealed their new look for 2007, a design created by creative agency RedSnapper.net. As with any high profile company a change like this is often means much more than a “fresh lick of paint”.

First impression suggests that the objectives behind the new look TradeDoubler were clearly set to redefine the core TradeDoubler product offerings and to formally introduce some of those that have been lurking behind the scene for some time. As a way to unify the complete package all products now appear to be prefixed with the lowercase initials td, i.e. td Talk, td Push, td Reach and I have to admit they roll off your tongue quite easily.

From this mornings press release…

The revamped product range represents an expanded portfolio for TradeDoubler which has grown from an affiliate marketing specialist to a digital marketing services company delivering brand marketing and direct response campaigns online.

Their complete offering now shapes up like this…

•td Pull (Affiliate network)
Long-term partnerships between advertisers and publishers. Publishers are paid a commission by an advertiser when advertising on their website results in an actual sale or registration for the advertiser.

•td Push (Campaign network)
Short-term activity with pre-defined deliverables. TradeDoubler will create a bespoke network of targeted publisher sites to meet the advertiser’s specific objectives.

•td Reach (Ad network)
A plug and play network with extensive reach. An advertiser ‘plugs’ into the existing network of publisher sites and ads are rotated across the network reaching a wide target audience.

•td Talk (Pay-per call network)
Advertisers can use the reach of the internet to drive sales and registrations over the phone. td Talk allows publishers to easily promote more complex products and services on their website and receive a commission for phone calls generated.

•td Toolbox (Marketing interface)
A tracking and ad serving interface. Advertisers and publishers can track, analyse and optimise the performance of all online marketing activity (advertisers) or advertising carried on their website (publishers).

Looking at the above it’s good to see td Talk (pay per call) make a firm entrance. Pay per call is nothing new these days and has been touted by several of the larger networks for some time, however it feels like the networks have done so without any real conviction. As it’s a relatively expensive model for most markets the take up appears to have been relatively poor which might explain a few things. Like others TD are now offering this as part of their stable and it looks like the above situation could change during 2007.

My only gripe with the above product range would be td Push and td Reach. Is there a real need to classify these two as different products? Essentially they allow advertisers to target the same base of publishers, the only difference being that one is run of network and the other is selective in the same way you might target a vertical or demographic.

One more minor grumble, the flash navigation. It’s looks great, but operates about as fast as a snail. Surely it’s technically possibly to say “hey, this visitor has seen the animation once so there’s no need to repeat it again and again slowing down their user experience?” As it is you have to wait some time whilst it goes though it’s cycle before you can finally navigate to the next product.

Continuing with all things new, take a look at the funky new logo and strap line below. You have to admit that “Market like you mean it” sounds a hell of a lot more vibrant and exciting than the previous regimental sounding “The European Affiliate Network”. Zzzzzzzz.

For further reading take a look at the following:

Official press release
http://www.tradedoubler.com/pan/cms/press/uk_rebrand_30_01_07

A4U Forum Thread
http://www.a4uforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=54711