By Julie Baumgartner, Senior Director, Strategic Accounts

At Kontera, I’m usually out meeting with publishers, but when I’m in San Francisco, I donate my time to a non-profit called Shanti. I got involved when my friend, Maria, became the Director of Shanti’s LifeLines Breast Cancer Program. Maria was matched with a client, and I was moved to tears every time she told me about their weekly meetings, and how she was the only interaction her client had with anyone other than her doctors.

The client did not speak English, and her family lived out of state, so if it were not for Maria, this woman would have had no one to support her during her battle with breast cancer.

In February, I joined the Board of Directors of Shanti – right after a friend was diagnosed with Triple Negative Metastatic Breast Cancer at the age of 32.  Denise just moved to Hawaii to be with her family, as she goes through a second round of chemotherapy.  Gee Gee, another friend’s mother, was also diagnosed with breast cancer this Summer.  Gee Gee’s daughter relocated to Arizona almost immediately to be with her mom.  Whenever I reflect on what these women are going through, with friends and family rallying beside them, I cannot help but also think about Shanti’s clients, many of whom would be absolutely alone if it weren’t for LifeLines.  According to the statistics, 1 in 8 U.S. women (12.5%) will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime.  It’s gut-wrenching.

Shanti enhances the quality of life, health and well being of people living with life-threatening illnesses.  Each year, they work with over 2,000 men and women facing the challenges of breast cancer or HIV/AIDS.  In many cases, Shanti is the one compassionate, loving presence for their clients during their greatest time of need.  Shanti’s 35th anniversary is this year, so please visit our website (www.shanti.org) to learn more!

Plus, other Kontera employees are also working with local non-profits.  Bryan Everett, EVP Strategic Development, was a table host at a breakfast for The Arc, which helps people with developmental disabilities lead a self-sufficient lifestyle.  Leilani Sanchez is a Board Member of Streetside Stories, which is focused on literacy and arts programs for Bay Area schools.  As a company, Kontera sponsored a family for Christmas last year through Compass Community Services, and earlier this year, we volunteered at the San Francisco Food Bank.
As the world debates the merits of President Obama winning this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, I am reminded of someone who was nominated for the award five times, but never selected.  In the inspirational words of Gandhi, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Have you heard?  Kontera is giving away Amazon Kindles through our MVP Rewards Program!
We wanted to take an opportunity to re-introduce our latest promotion:

Entering is simple and only requires presenting some of your Kontera In Text Advertising successes in a post on your site, and then shooting us an e-mail with the link to the post. You can be rewarded with a great prize!  Find all the details here.

We look forward to reading your post and shipping out your new Kindle. 

Hurry up and enter this contest as the deadline is October 31st – increase your chances to get a special Halloween treat from Kontera!

We are nearing the end of the year, and the fall season is when we traditionally see very strong revenues and some great campaigns across our network.

We want both our large and small publishers to benefit and win as well.

Kontera “Triple Play” — Three new ways for publishers to gain extra revenues between now and the end of the year.

1. Optimize for Revenues – Take Advantage of the biggest ad spending quarter of the year. Increase your revenues by implementing our Tips and Tricks to optimize Kontera across your sites. We provide some proven techniques that will help you maximize your earnings during the end of the year and holiday season.

   Learn More ->

2. MVP Rewards – Tell Us Your Kontera Success, Win a Kindle

   We want to hear from you! We’re always interested to learn more about the publishers in our network, their experience with Kontera In Text ads, and how Kontera is helping them. Send us a link to your post or story about your successes with Kontera and you will be entered to win one of several Amazon Kindles and gift certificates that we are giving away for the best submissions. All Our MVP winners will also be featured in Kontera’s all-star gallery series of blog posts.

   Learn More ->

3. Heavy-Hitters’ Special – If you regularly receive Kontera earnings of more than $1500 per month, then we should talk! Kontera can significantly increase your In Text Advertising earnings for the October through December timeframe. There is no better way to get additional end- of- year revenues. Simply send us an email to support@kontera.com with “Heavy Hitters Bonus” in the subject line, and our team members will follow-up to get you into this exciting program.

WIN A KINDLE!

We’re always interested to learn more about the publishers in our network, their experience with Kontera, and how Kontera is helping them.

Send us a link to your post or story about your successes with Kontera and you will be entered to win one of several Amazon Kindles and gift certificates that we are giving away for the best submissions.

All Our MVP winners will also be featured in Kontera’s all-star gallery series of blog posts.

Here are a few questions to get you started:

• What inspired you to start your website, blog, or latest initiative?
• How did you come up with the idea?
• When did you start using Kontera?
• How has Kontera helped you to attain your goals?
• What words of wisdom do you have for other web publishers or bloggers?
• What do you see for the future of your site or blog?

Send a link to your post to support@kontera.com with the subject line: “Kontera MVP”.

Deadline for entry is October 31st. Winners will be drawn by November 3rd and will be contacted via email and featured in an upcoming Kontera blog post. For more information visit the T&Cs page

Enter Today!

The biggest ad spending quarter is here! Increase your revenues by implementing our Tips and Tricks to optimize Kontera across your sites.  Follow these tips and tricks which will help you maximize your earnings during the end of the year and holiday season.

• More Page Views Yield Greater Revenues: Add Kontera tags to all pages and as many sections of your site as possible, to earn maximum revenues.
• Seasonal Relevance Wins: Having interesting content that is relevant for through October-December advertising pay dividends. Keep in mind the type of advertisers that spend during this time of year. For example, a holiday season shopping guide or thoughtful opinions on the latest automotive models will probably yield greater results than planning for next summer’s vacation. Having seasonally relevant and fresh content will increase coverage, CPC, and CTRs resulting in record busting eCPMs.
• Consider Changing Link Color: New color usually makes In Text links more prominent to your users resulting in higher CTRs and greater revenues.
• Use Zone or Filter Tags: Keep our analysis and links targeted to your content and away from outlying areas like headers, sidebars, footers, etc.
• Keep it Clean: Avoid producing content with profanity or sensitive topics as quality brands avoid this type of content and our technology screens the content.
• Revisit Maximum Link Parameters: Limiting links to 1, 2, or 3 per page can hinder CTR and prevent you from monetizing to your sites’ full potential.
• More Sites: The easiest way to make more money is to add more sites to the Kontera program.   If you have more sites then let us know and we will get you additional tags.

At Kontera, we can relate to the frustration of forgotten passwords, constant resetting, and the struggle to track and remember the countless login details for all of our frequently visited web destinations.

Protection is tight and web technology today allows for an ultra-secure browsing environment; still, many people are guilty of: failing to change their passwords regularly or recycling the same password through all of their accounts.

When establishing passwords, experts recommend considering the following tips:

• Use numbers, letters, and symbols

• Don’t use shared passwords

• Mind case-sensitivity requirements

• Avoid obvious sequences/patterns (1234,abc)

• Never keep your default password

• Change passwords every 4-6 weeks

The Kontera team reminds you that you can easily change your login password in the Publisher Center by clicking the “My Account” tab.  If you are an advertiser, your Advertiser Center password can be changed upon request- just contact your account manager.

We consider this as not only a great way to enhance your personal security, but also a great exercise to improve memory.  Of course, our Support Team is always happy to help should your password escape you, simply click “forgot password”, or let us know and we’ll gladly muster up a replacement right away.