Q: What is sponsored content?

A: Sponsored content refers to the Featured Affiliate and Hosted iKnow Search portions of the ISSSP home page. These are the 2 largest portions of real estate on the ISSSP home page and therefore are prime locations for promoting an Affiliate Member's products and services. Each sponsor spot is available for a period of 1 month. This content is also included in the "What's Happening" monthly member snapshot that is distributed via direct email.

As the iKnow sponsor, your company is guaranteed to be returned in the iKnow search results when key words match your profile.

Q: In sponsored content, can we re-create the look and feel of our Web site or our magazine ads?

A: No. In spnsored Content, we're posting the client's content on our home page. to maintain consistency on our home page, we follow a set of standard ISSSP formatting guidelines. unlike the direct Email product, we can't re-create each client's look and feel on the home page.

Q: What HTML formatting options are allowed or not allowed in sponsored content?

A: Ceratain types of code will cause errors. These include:

CSS (Cascading style sheets)
XML
Non-ASCII characters
Java script
Active X
Movies
HTML forms
Flash

Q: What type of message should I consider when writing Sponsored Content?

A: Although the goal is to promote your company's products and services, spots that are a list of products perform worse that spots that teach or instruct. Each Featured Affiliate spot should offer an amount of instruction - knowledge, wisdom, or trivia - that's applicable to everyone, not just those specifically interested in one product. By offering instruction rather than a product list, affiliate generate more views, more click-throughs and better exposure for their company.

ISSSP requires that content benefits our readers. We suggest you avoid blatant sales pitches and instead address bigger issues. Always keep in mind, "How will the readers benfit from this feature?"

Each spot should link to items promoted within the affiliate portfolio section of ISSSP (case studies, white papers, articles, upcoming Focused Sessions, Educational Programs, etc.). The more links to this content available, the greater the opportunity for the ISSSP professional to engage with the sponsor.

Q: What messages are prohibited?

A: Sponsored content should not contain:

Statements of comparison between your company, product or service and other companies' products. This includes terms like "better," "best," and "industry standard."
Personal or professional attacks of any kind.
False or misleading claims.
Job postings.
Animated GIF or Flash objects.
Embedded sound or video files.

Since sponsored content is a feature on our home page, we prefer to link to items that have been entered into our site (onto the affiliate portfolio page, into iKnow). However, we will allow, on occasion and by a case by case basis, linkage outside of our site under these features however, certain guidelines must exist. If you link to a download page on your site, you must create a seamless link (unless a member were to look at the URL in the address bar). After the download there needs to be a button that says "return to ISSSP.com. The ISSSP Affiliate Member logo must appear on the page we direct to that is not within our own website.

Q: Should sponsored content be written in the third person?

A: Yes. All sponsored content should be written in the third person. On isssp.com, the first person (we, us) refers to ISSSP, not an affiliate company. Avoid writing in the second person (you, your) altogether.

Q: What are the requirements for posting an image.

A: Follow these guidelines:

Maximum width is 490px.
Save it as a .jpg.
Remove spaces from file names.
Refer to the technical issues section of the Direct Email FAQ.

Q: How long can it be?

A: In our experience, shorter pieces receive better responses than lengthier pieces. The absolute maximum length is one full screen, inclusive of all images and links. However, we encourage our affiliates to keep it much shorter than that whenever possible.