Nuffnang Singapore

I met Ming of Nuffnang on Tuesday to learn about the company, and understand the mechanics behind its affiliate program and their experience with Singapore advertisers. My intention was to verify my assumptions about the company and to see if they are worthy of recommending to my own clients. I came away pleased.

While there have been many naysayers with even more reasons given on why Nuffnang will fail, I guess I will be the first to show you why they will not. And this is not from blind assumptions or by reading what others had written, but by directly talking to Ming. Safe for some really sensitive information, Ming was open and even shared some proprietary information …which of course I can’t disclose lar! ;)

Anyway, here are 5 reasons why Nuffnang will not fail:

1) Celebrity Bloggers
Nuffnang has celebrity bloggers on their side, e.g. Xiaxue and Dawn Yang in Singapore, and Kenny Sia and Jeff Ooi in Malaysia. Why is that a big deal? Any advertiser who has the budget will want these blogs in their campaign - no question about it. So if I wanted an ad on Xiaxue’s blog, I’d have to give Advertlet’s a miss no matter how nice Josh treats me.

2) No Slack
Nuffnang’s operation is as lean as it gets, meaning good efficiency and capital preservation. I visited the office and lets just say that most of us won’t be enthusiastic about the place. Even the employees are based in Malaysia to save costs. Seeing all these probably helps me appreciate their efforts in holding events still, and to understand why the $1 fee is necessary.

3) Good System
Nuffnang has developed a good set of systems for managing both bloggers and advertisers. It’s easy to see that the compensation had to be is designed to benefit bloggers because they don’t want you leaving the network or for advertisers to approach you directly. Conversely, the model for advertisers is equally attractive (though rare) and their targetting seems to work well, which would explain their above-average CTR.

4) Ardent Supporters
Nuffnang seems to have managed to garner strong support from at least most bloggers and advertisers alike. Despite the shortage of resources, they have made conscious efforts to engage bloggers by holding events. What’s interesting though is how similar efforts were hurled at advertisers too, e.g. Ming invited advertisers/marketers to his home and cooked for them!

5) Strong Management Team
Although only 24 years old, Ming is confident with what he’s doing - something that can be easily mistaken for arrogance. He is very focused on blog advertising, and it’s not some money-making “attempt” to expand a business into unfamiliar territory.

The only problem I foresee is Nuffnang’s network growing too quickly. While having 10,000 bloggers is a great value proposition, it also presents a problem - you must sell more ads or risk bloggers complaining about running only Nuffnang ads. This is a bigger problem in Singapore, where advertisers are only starting to warm up to the Internet.

Of course, there are some temporary workarounds that can be implemented while waiting for demand to catch up and I have suggested this to Ming, along with some other suggestions. Let’s see what he does with them.

If you still have doubts, my advice is to look for where the big fishes are advertising because they give an indication of who commands a bigger premium. I’m not sure about Advertlets but Nuffnang seems to have some pretty big name clients like Nike, Honda and Citibank.