While in San Francisco for ad:tech, LinkTrust president Bret Grow got to meet with LinkTrust customers, a few potential customers and share his thoughts on the future of publishing.

VigLink has created a web series about the future of publishing. For a special episode focused on affiliate networks, tracking and optimization they hosted a panel interview with Bret Grow from LinkTrust, Gary Warnes from LinkShare and Phillip Kidwell from eHealth.

The interview asks a variety of questions about where the affiliate marketing industry is going, what networks are looking for in potential publishers and how to know if the network you are working with is trustworthy.

Part 3 of the interview talks about how to handle affiliate fraud. They each make great points about how you can have a variety of automated tools to help reduce fraud (LinkTrust has several fraud features available to all customers) but what it really comes down to is having good relationships with your publishers and advertisers. You can find Bret’s answer at about 3:23 in Part 3 of The Future of Publishing.

Check out the entire interview in the three parts below. Where do you think the publishing industry is heading?

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3