AffiliScore

Category: Interviews

  • Interview with Matt Lovett

    1. Name, Title, Location.
    Matt Lovett, Managing Director & founder of WOW Media, based in the UK.

    2. How long have you been in affiliate marketing and how did you get involved?
    I have been in affiliate marketing since the age of 13 (2005). I got started in affiliate marketing after joining a UK cashback website and decided to build my own with a friend. This took off very quickly and I have been involved in affiliate marketing ever since, focusing on it full time after finishing High School in 2007.

    3. Give us a little glimpse into what a typical day in your life looks like.
    Wake up around 8am, check my phone reply to emails that I can reply to quickly. Get up have breakfast get to work around 9.30am. Check emails quickly again for any new emails that I can reply to quickly. Then after this I will check Asana and work through any tasks I have set myself for today, the day before.

    4. What are your hobbies/interests/passions?
    My biggest passion is my company, WOW Media. This takes up most of my time, when I am not working I enjoy going out with friends. I also love traveling (even though I hate flying!).

    5. There are already so many affiliate networks out there. What makes Yours different?
    Quite a few things set WOW TRK apart from other networks. I think its massively about quality offers for affiliates, we have built systems to monitor all offer links to ensure they are still working and are actively working on a unique tracking system to identify when an offer may have stopped tracking or is tracking incorrectly. We also offer local bank transfers in over 30+ countries and we don’t charge any fees for any of our payments. We cover all our own bank fees for bank transfers/WIREs etc. Affiliates also have a lot of insight into top performing offers they can see offers by Top EPC, Top CR and also ‘Featured Offers’ which the team recommends. We also are also working on ‘Trending’ offers which will go live on the platform shortly. These are just a few points that make us different, the list is massive!

    6. Do you have any exclusive offers that other networks don’t have?
    Yes we do, unlike many networks that pretend they have exclusive offers or just class any direct offer as exclusive, our exclusive offers are truly exclusive. You can see all our exclusive offers before signing up here:

    Offer Engine

    7. Which offers are performing well on your network?
    In terms of verticals the offers doing well are Deals/Discounts, Gambling, Trials and Prize Draw offers.

    8. Which traffic sources prove to be the most effective for your top earning affiliates – E-mail, PPC, PPV, SEO, Facebook, Media Buying or any others?
    Email is the biggest source of traffic on our network followed by PPC/PPV, Media Buyers then Social. Content is fairly small.

    9. Do you offer online training for new affiliates?
    Right now, no. However it is something we are planning to do and the development of an online ‘WOW TRK Affiliate University’ is something we have already started. For online affiliate support/help we do have our knowledge base that has over 80 support articles to help affiliates.

    10. What affiliate network software (tracking system) are you using? If you built it on your own – what were the reasons for doing so? (instead of choosing HasOffers, LinkTrust, DirectTrack and HitPath, etc.)
    Our network is based on the HasOffers platform, we choose HasOffers for the tracking reliability they have offer. They have a good long standing history of reliable tracking. Over the years we have built on top of the affiliate interface adding many unique tools for affiliates and ways to find better and top performing offers. We have also built our own admin system based around HasOffers to be able to automate more tasks and offer an even more superior service than the basic HasOffers platform offers.

    11. What are the criteria for a marketer to be accepted to your network? How does your network prevent and handle fraud?
    We require all affiliates to verify their phone number when signing up to the network. We also require them to give us specific information about their traffic. We combat fraud with additional manual checks, in certain cases manual address verification (e.g. if a user is paid via PayPal), we have also built our own fraud detection platform – WOWDETECT that monitors a range of data points from conversions and activity to identify fraudulent behavior for review by our team.

    12. For those who are interested in working with you and your affiliate network – What’s the best way/time to reach you?
    You can reach out to the WOW TRK team via email, live chat and phone. You can find all the contact details here: http://www.wowtrk.com/contact-us/

    13. What are the keys to building successful relationships between Affiliates and Affiliate Networks?
    Being open is very important. As a network we try to be very open and upfront about how we run our network, our offers and what we can offer Affiliates. The more Affiliates can be open about what they are looking for, their traffic the more we can help and build a long term relationship with them.

    14. What do you think about where the industry is going? Where your company may be going? What advice would you give to affiliates to keep up the pace?
    The industry is obviously getting more and more competitive. We are constantly trying to innovate and this week we released a new ‘My List’ feature for Affiliates so you can keep track of offers you may wish to run and huge improvements to our Offer Directory so you can create a very specific search query in order to find the most relevant offers. The advice I would give to Affiliates is try to offer something new or something that really adds value to the consumer. If you offer a superior product that really gives value to the consumer, you will see huge organic growth.

  • Interview with Jody Walsh

    Interview with Jody Walsh

    Jody Walsh-2

    1. Name, Title, Location.
    My name is Jody Walsh. I’m the Head of Business Development at ExpertMobi, US.

    2. How long have you been in affiliate marketing and how did you get involved?
    I’ve been getting involved in affiliate marketing for more than 10 years. Our team is running several large projects (one of them is ExpertMobi), dealing with advertisers, publishers and media buyers. I don’t even remember how I’ve started it but I’m very happy that I’ve connected my life with affiliate marketing and I enjoy it. I like to meet new people, go to conferences, consult people on different questions, help affiliates to get profit.

    3. Give us a little glimpse into what a typical day in your life
    Our office working hours are from 9 a.m to 6 p.m. (local time). During this time our team manages to solve the pool of important questions. I’m constantly being caught between two fires! On the one hand I have an army of publishers who need my help in solution of the simplest issues: tracker’s setting, setting of postback, traffic sources approval, check of accounts. On the other hand there is a cooperation with advertisers, timely conversions check, payment questions, search for new advertisers. It’s necessary to solve all these points quickly and professionally in a short time.

    4. What are your hobbies/interests/passions?
    From childhood I like traveling. By the age 16 I’d visited with my parents more than 40 countries on the two continents. At present day I’ve visited more than 100 countries due to my weekly worldwide meetings. Also I go in for sports very actively and do exercises 5 times a week, alternating aerobic training with power load exercises. Moreover I’ve been doing yoga for about 5 years.

    5. There are already so many affiliate networks out there. What makes Yours different?
    At present we really have a huge number of affiliate networks and its number is always growing and it’s great! When I started working in that field, there was only about 50 CPI, CPA networks. With the rapid development of mobile market a revolution came in users minds, new platforms were launched, the market got a new level.
    ExpertMobi is not the only our project. Have been working in this marketing sphere for more than 10 years we aim at getting maximum profit for both sides. We provide publishers with individual terms, high rate offers, direct exclusive advertisers, absence of caps, weekly payments. Moreover our network accepts newbies and there is no need to wait for account’s approval for weeks here. The support team is happy to professionally answer any question. As for advertisers we are ready to deal with any budget.

    6. Which offers are performing well on your network?
    There are a few CPI mobile offers which are the most profitable on the market and have a high budget: 1. For example: Apus Launcher, 9apps APK, UC Browser, Ali Express etc. (they often make a profit up to several $k a day. ) and pin submit offers which for some GEO’s have rates up to 60$ for a target action.
    I’d like to point out the following pin submit flows: MO Flow, MO MSISDN Flow, MO Flow with Click2SMS, MT Flow MT MSISDNT Flow. You can read about all conversion flows in details in our facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/ExpertMobi-951720061564063/?fref=nf . As for pin submits the user needs to pay for a subscription to generate a conversion and the affiliate can predict the potential profit if he follows the offers’ conditions. In case of CPI offers the users’ RR fails to be predicted and the advertiser can reduce your profit if RR is lower than it’s required.

    7. Which traffic sources prove to be the most effective for your top earning affiliates – E-mail, PPC, PPV, SEO, Facebook, Media Buying or any others?
    In fact all traffic sources are the most effective if the formula “source-offer” is correctly adjusted. As they say while one affiliate gets a great profit with PPC, another gets nothing using the same sources. You can check with admobispy.com, https://whatrunwhere.com, http://adclarity.com what campaigns are top and for what offers the major pubs are buying traffic now. But that does not guarantee that even if you copy the strategy, your campaign will succeed and you’ll get profit. That’s why, in whole, according to the sources statistics in our system, we have much pop-under traffic, but conversion rate generated is not high. At the same time as the price for this traffic is quite low, the result for affiliates is impressive! The second group of sources is PPC, PPV, SEO, Facebook. Traffic volumes are not so great but it’s targeted and high quality traffic. Experienced publishers make thousands of dollars a day running only one pin submit offer in Facebook!

    8. Do you offer online training for new affiliates?
    We do not provide online training at the moment, but we plan to start it in the nearest future. We’ve collected a huge number of materials, manuals and hope to share this information with our affiliate newbies soon. Still you can contact me directly on Skype: supportexpertmobi, jody.support and I’ll be happy to help you start working!

    9. What platform do you use? If you built it on your own – what were the reasons for doing so?
    The affiliate network ExpertMobi is not the only our international project. We’ve been doing our best to create the platform, the main advantage of which is convenience, usability and unique tools. It’s easy to use ‘cause every publisher needs just to register to start working with us, there is no need in answering thousands of questions, waiting for accounts approval for weeks here. You just need to select the offers you are interested in and set up the postback pixel for tracking. The great advantage of our platform is that every affiliate can tell us his wishes, we take them into consideration and bring them to life, while it’s impossible with paid platforms.

    10. What are the criteria for a marketer to be accepted to your network? How does your network prevent and handle fraud?
    To start working with us you need to sign up with ExpertMobi, select the offer you are interested in, describe your traffic sources and submit them for approval. As for affiliates they need to know the main principles of traffic campaigns and follow our network rules, offers terms and conditions. You’ll start getting profit with us quicker than anywhere! We have our own anti-fraud system, it helps us to trace any dishonest game, fraud, so I recommend you running campaigns honestly.

    11. For those who are interested in working with you and your affiliate network – What’s the best way/time to reach you?
    You can contact me on Skype ID: supportexpertmobi, jody.support and email:
    [email protected]

    No question will be left without attention. I’ll be more than happy to help you!

    11. What are the keys to building successful relationships between Affiliates and Affiliate Networks?
    The main key for successful relationships is the affiliates honesty and their sincerity.
    My team and I are interested that publishers get the maximum profit! We build friendly relations with each publisher, increase caps, make advance payments)

    12. What do you think about where the industry is going? Where your company may be going? What advice would you give to affiliates to keep up the pace.
    At present online affiliate marketing is developing very quickly and we are doing much to take the decent place in CPA niche. It’s not enough to provide affiliates with a wide choice of offers, but to give high rates, look for the most convertible and popular offers and provide publishers with the flexible payment terms. That’s why our team works only with direct advertisers and does its best to add new offers every day. Affiliates can find various offers for different traffic sources in our offers list. A great target traffic volume and its quality are the main keys for affiliates success.

  • Interview with Todd Rambilas, Founder BlackFox Affiliate Network

    Interview with Todd Rambilas, Founder BlackFox Affiliate Network

    1. Name, Title, Location.
    Todd Rambilas, Founder of BlackFox Network, New York City.

    2. How long have you been in affiliate marketing and how did you get involved?
    Since 2008. Been involved in online based businesses since 2008. Owned and sold ecommerce stores, lead generation funnels and even apps. First money I ever made was through SEO to my ecommerce store. After I realized the full potential and how much MORE I could earn I sold the ecommerce business and jumped head into affiliate marketing. I also have other startups in different industries some VC backed and others bootstrapped. More than willing to make connections.

    3. Give us a little glimpse into what a typical day in your life looks like.
    I’m up by 4:30am every day. First thing I get done, is my morning prayer then off to reading. I spend at minimum 30 minutes to an hour a day educating myself and finding new ways of how I can make my business better. Then I head to work and begin discussions with my team to see where are downfalls are, where we can do better and to how we can create a more personalized relationship with our affiliates. Then I spend another hour launching and monitoring campaigns optimizing till I receive the highest ROI. I then attend to my email which takes about an hour over 1K+ per day. Usually I would leave work at 10pm and found dead asleep by 11pm. On a daily basis I deal with over 500 people through email, skype, meetings or conference calls.

    4. What are your hobbies/interests/passions?
    Since I was a child I always loved cars. Still do aside from helping people I like to educate.
    I find that through education you can change a person. It’s what literally separates the rich from the poor. Once you know the “know how” it’s all about execution.

    5. There are already so many affiliate marketer and bloggers out there. What makes You different?
    Simple, we help affiliates optimize campaigns. If we see your sending a bunch of clicks and no conversions we’ll reach out and help you milk your campaign dry. Unlike other networks its not all about the money. It’s about the relationships. Through my years running this business I find that the best affiliate marketers are those willing to make changes, willing to learn and most of all willing to take action we just guide you in the right direction. I remember The first affiliate network I ever signed up with never offered me support. When I asked for target demographics to optimize my campaign there response was “ You’re an affiliate marketer your suppose to know these things.”

    6. What kinds of traffic generation methods do you focus most of your on? (PPC, SEO, SMO). Do you use any tools that you can recommend?

    A lot. SEO I haven’t touched in a while. I personally just don’t like the fact that by a flip of a switch your earnings we’ll decrease to $0 overnight. Majority of the tools I use are in house and made by my developers.

    7. Are you currently looking to work with other marketers? if so what are the criteria for other marketers to be considered to work with you?
    Most definitely. For other marketers to work with us first thing we need is to verify if there real.
    W9 is needed for domestic applications for international applicants we’ll be reaching out to you via email/skype or phone call. We do not work with any marketers who send fraudulent traffic in the form of fake CC info, proxies or duplicate entries. Try to game the system and we’ll issue a permanent ban.

    8. For those who are interested in working with you – What’s the best way/time to reach you?
    Best way to get to me is [email protected]. For an immediate response reach out to my affiliate manager [email protected]

    9. What are the keys to building successful relationships between Affiliates?
    The key in my opinion is to give them winning campaigns so they can profit right off the bat.
    Too many times I have seen affiliate networks give affiliates offers to push just because they need traffic. We do not practice that at all. If we have something that works we give it to you and help you capitalize on it. Blackfox Performance Network is more than just an ordinary network. We are a family here and that’s how we treat you. We don’t shave leads, give you BS excuses on late payments or make up stories about traffic quality.

    10. What do you think about where the industry is going? Where you and your company may be going? What advice would you give to affiliates to keep up the pace.

    This is the million dollar question. The key to understand here is that in the affiliate marketing industry it heads wherever you have buyers. Everyone we’ll tell you it’s going mobile which is true. But why? The reason why is because of convenience. Mobile utilities and games will always be booming because of the various angles that can be taken. Other evergreen industries include weight loss, biz opp, and dating.
    For advertisers to survive they need to program their websites to adapt to users browsers/phone dimensions. Customers are moving away from desktops and purchasing through tablets and smartphones. You’d be surprise at how much sales is lost just because an advertiser chose not to have his site responsive.

  • Interview with Abhik Biswas

    Interview with Abhik Biswas

    1. Name, Title, Location. Abhik Biswas, Kolkata, India 2. How long have you been in affiliate marketing and how did you get involved? Well, it’s merely 2 years I am in IM industry. Before that, I used to use Adsense and other contextual ad networks to monetize the traffic to my websites. The thing that made me try affiliate offers is the CTR on my ad units. I casually replaced the contextual units with affiliate banners and found it working much better than Adsense. But, I am still using contextual ads on several websites where affiliate offers aren’t converting. 3. Give us a little glimpse into what a typical day in your life looks like. You won’t be impressed. It’s full of research and writing. You know, you ought to research in order to write a good article. It is no fun at all. Besides that, I spend time with my family and friends whenever I can. 4. What are your hobbies/interests/passions? My passion is my blog, ItsAbhik, and I work every day on creating a better user experience for my visitors. My hobby or interest is Photography. Whenever I get some free time, I go out on quick outings with my photography gears. 5. There are already so many affiliate marketer and bloggers out there. What makes You different? Well, I am no different than others. Like all other marketers out there, I try, I fail and then I conquer. I am Abhik, and that’s the only difference.

    6. What kinds of traffic generation methods do you focus most of your on? (PPC, SEO, SMO). Do you use any tools that you can recommend?

    My main source of traffic is search engines. I always prefer SEO over other methods as search engine traffic is organic and highly targeted. I also use PPC, CPV/PPV and Email Newsletter to drive traffic to the offers I am promoting; however, those methods aren’t as cool as SEO.

    I use Google Keyword Tool for all my Keyword Researches. I know there are many paid tools available that provides more in-depth results (I have few of them), but Google’s tool is free and does almost everything I need. I’d also like to recommend Aweber and Marketer Plugin for email marketers. Those two are my main tool for capturing leads.

    7. Are you currently looking to work with other marketers? If so what are the criteria for other marketers to be considered to work with you?

    No, I like to work on my own. However, I am open to consider JV offers. I might team up with other marketer if situation calls for it.

    8. For those who are interested in working with you – What’s the best way/time to reach you?

    I am available 24×7 on email. The best way to contact me through the Contact Us page on my blog. People can contact me via Twitter and Facebook.

    9. What are the keys to building successful relationships between Affiliates?

    Relationship is built with trust, and trust comes with communication. You need to keep communicate with your affiliates and provide them reasons to promote your products.

    10. What do you think about where the industry is going? Where you and your company may be going? What advice would you give to affiliates to keep up the pace? The industry is growing with hundreds, if not thousands, of new affiliates and vendors entering the industry every day. That is also increasing the competition among the affiliates and vendors. Only the fittest will survive. My companies will keep kicking even if there are recessions or take downs. My advices are simple; work hard and do not hold you back from trying new things.

  • Interview with Zac Johnson

    Interview with Zac Johnson

    Name, Title, Location.

    Zac Johnson, CEO of MoneyReign, Inc… but better known for blogging at ZacJohnson.com.

    How long have you been in affiliate marketing and how did you get involved?

    I’ve been making money online for over 15 years now. It’s been crazy exciting and fun to watch the changes over the years, and more importantly, working for myself.

    Give us a little glimpse into what a typical day in your life looks like.

    For the first part of the I’ll go through my emails and check out the latest blog posts and forums going on in the affiliate space. The rest of the day will be spent on various other tasks such as building ad campaigns, emailing back and forth with partners on new projects/campaigns, and coming up with ideas for blog posts. The great thing about affiliate marketing and working online, is that you never know where the day will take you. It’s always something different.

    What are your hobbies/interests/passions?

    I love playing basketball. Thanks for the power of the internet, I’m able to play around 15-20 hours a week! I also love dogs, which has lead to me to working on a new pet related web site that I’m quite excited about it. Working on stuff that you are interested in and passionate about makes all the difference in “working”.

    There are already so many affiliate marketer and bloggers out there. What makes You different?

    There definitely are a ton of affiliates and bloggers out there. I would like to think that I offer a different perspective than others at my blog. As mentioned, I’ve been in the industry for over 15 years, so I’ve seen a lot. In the beginning I talked a lot about ad campaigns and things I’ve done in the past, but lately I have been focusing more on tips, trends and how to improve your online business. The “Zac toon” and unique design for the blog has also done a great deal of branding and promotion for the site as well.

    What kinds of traffic generation methods do you focus most of your on? (PPC, SEO, SMO). Do you use any tools that you can recommend?

    I’m all over the place when it comes to marketing. I really enjoy building web sites and blogs, and making them into big authority sites, but that takes a lot of time and waiting. In the meantime I’ll always be keeping busy with my own ad campaigns. Social networks have been great for creating ad campaigns because you don’t have to deal with quality scores and keywords, but can go right to the source (full demographics and interests), and bring in literally thousands of clicks within the first couple hours of testing a campaign.

    Are you currently looking to work with other marketers? if so what are the criteria for other marketers to be considered to work with you?

    I’ve always been more of a “do it myself” kind of guy. There are a couple projects that I will actually team up with someone, but they are rare. If I get to know someone really well, there is always potential for a future partnership.

    For those who are interested in working with you – What’s the best way/time to reach you?

    I get a ton of emails every day, but the best way to reach me is through my contact form at http://www.zacjohnson.com/contact

    What are the keys to building successful relationships between Affiliates?

    In short, to truly know what you are doing, and being the best at it. Everyone wants to partner up with people, but they usually want the other person to do all of the work.

    What do you think about where the industry is going? Where you and your company may be going? What advice would you give to affiliates to keep up the pace.

    The affiliate industry will just keep on growing, and many will change and adapt to the coming changes in the market place, whether that be a new business model or further FTC regulations. The most successful people will always be changing and ahead of the curve, and that’s what makes internet marketing so special and unique. Where else could a kid in a basement create a six figure a month business from scratch!

  • Interview with Martin Osborn aka “Finch Sells”

    Interview with Martin Osborn aka “Finch Sells”

    Name, Title, Location.

    My name is Martin Osborn, better known in the affiliasphere as Finch. I’m 23 years old from London, England. I write regularly at FinchSells.com and FinchBlogs.com, and I run my own business from home in the comforts of miserable Greater London suburbia.

    How long have you been in affiliate marketing and how did you get involved?

    I guess my affiliate marketing career is the love child born from my enjoyment of spending time online, and a fondness of making money. Looking back, you could call it the natural progression of an Internet addiction. I started posting on forums when I was about 12, had my own forum by 14, and learnt to monetize it when I was 16. My hobbies slowly escalated in to believing that there was money to be made online. As soon as you develop that appetite, it doesn’t take long to stumble unwittingly in to affiliate marketing. My first taste was with Clickbank selling shoddy language learning kits and making next to nothing. I spent a lot of energy doing very little but wasting my time, which is how I like to think any affiliate should pay his dues. It keeps your expectations reasonable! In the space of about 6 weeks, I discovered CPA marketing and suddenly my monthly earnings shot up from £1500 to £10000. Literally in the space of the two hours it took me to set up that first lucrative campaign on Adwords. I don’t think I looked back from there.

    Give us a little glimpse into what a typical day in your life looks like.

    For the last year, it’s been kinda strange. I’ve been using the job to travel around Asia with my girlfriend. We’d spend half our time in home offices at either end of our apartment, and the rest of the time drinking smoothies on beaches. It was an awesome 8 months. Now that I’m back in London, work life is a little more settled. I fight with myself like any true affiliate marketer. It takes a lot of discipline to stay motivated and keep churning out good work, especially during those times where your campaigns are steady and banking money. I once got so pissed off at my own lethargy that I literally deleted every single campaign in my portfolio and started from scratch. Sometimes you need to slap yourself as a reminder that what you have is very temporary.

    What are your hobbies/interests/passions?

    Traveling Asia gave me a real taste for becoming more of a worldly person. I love my work and the freedom it brings. So I’ve set myself the target of visiting every continent in the next 2 years. That should keep things fresh in my mind and keep me feeling motivated to push my business to the next level. I don’t spend my money extravagantly or blow it on the type of vanity lifestyling that a lot of us Internet Marketing bloggers are associated with. I live a pretty ordinary life. It sounds sickly cliché but one of my passions is for helping other people who are on the same path as myself, and I use writing as my outlet for that. I love to write.

    There are already so many affiliate marketer and bloggers out there. What makes You different?

    I don’t know. Maybe the difference is you won’t find me at ASW Las Vegas with my face wedged between some titties in an Alpha Male display of ballin’ness? That’s not my style. I don’t really involve myself much with the affiliate marketing or blogging circles. I guess the biggest standout difference from my perspective is that I blog because I love to write, and not because I want to be an industry figure or leader or guru or whatever. It’s just a natural outlet.

    What kinds of traffic generation methods do you focus most of your on? (PPC, SEO, SMO). Do you use any tools that you can recommend?

    SEO sickens me. I routinely despise it. Just the thought of adapting an entire business model to whatever Google feels like rewarding is enough to turn me off. I’ve always run a mile from SEO, and I have much more of a brand-centric mindset. CPA campaigns are different, of course. I rely on paid traffic for those. It’s normally a combination of Facebook, Plentyoffish and the various PPV networks. Mochi Media has been good to me lately, although I’ll probably get slapped down for ‘outing a source’. I’ve also branched in to adult traffic sources but that’s all far too scandalous for anybody other than Ryan Eagle to be bragging about publicly, right? As for tools…eh, I don’t use many tools. FTP, notepad and some initiative are all you really need.

    Are you currently looking to work with other marketers? if so what are the criteria for other marketers to be considered to work with you?

    I usually work quite independently, and haven’t collaborated on any affiliate projects in the past. I often get emails from readers of my blog asking about joint ventures but it’s always a tough option to weigh up. Unless the brains and funding is truly 50/50, it’s often people asking for more than they’re willing to contribute themselves. Christ, it’s not rare for people to ask me if they can simply hand over the money and get a return on it after I’ve ‘done my affiliate thing’. We do get lumbered with an unfortunate reputation as some kind of mythical stay-at-home money launderers. But in reality, it’s never as simple as putting money in and getting more money out. A lot of the joint ventures that have been proposed to me were by marketers who didn’t really bother assessing the risks. Which is fine, if you’re blessed with eternal optimism (I’m not). I’m always open to great offers. I just haven’t received any that have captured my attention yet.

    For those who are interested in working with you – What’s the best way/time to reach you?

    Probably to send me a really long and tedious email that’s so never-ending I’d feel guilty if I didn’t reply. Nah, any time is good really. I’m not hard to find with my 7853 blogs scattered around the web.

    What are the keys to building successful relationships between Affiliates?

    On an affiliate-to-affiliate level? I think it goes back to being 50/50. Nobody is going to tell you shit about their most lucrative campaigns if you’re not willing to tell them something worth knowing in return. This is why I think it’s so important for new affiliates to actually take the plunge and get busy creating campaigns, or building sites, or doing just about anything that isn’t begging for scraps of advice on forums and blogs. Nobody will be willing to engage in ‘knowledge share’ mastermind sessions if you don’t bring some knowledge and experience to the table. Even if that’s your endless series of failures, hey, that’s better than simply waiting for somebody to hand-wrap a profitable campaign for you. You’re not going to get a chance to build those relationships if you don’t put in the hard yards to prove to other affiliates that you’re more than a knowledge-leeching bum. It’s the people who don’t take action that end up wasting their wallets on the many ‘one button profit systems’ that are designed to be so attractive for somebody who sits on his arse all day.

    What do you think about where the industry is going? Where you and your company may be going? What advice would you give to affiliates to keep up the pace?

    The industry is definitely changing and getting more competitive. It’s not possible to add a couple of zeros to your pay check overnight anymore. I think the affiliates who thrive moving forward will be those who understand how important the relationship is between affiliate, advertiser and customer. That relationship has become compromised through scammy offers, bad marketing practices and a whole bunch of renegade affiliates that only care about their bottom line. The industry will correct itself. It always does. And when it does, those affiliates will be the ones to suffer. I think the best way forward is the logical way forward, which has always been to deliver quality websites or to be the middleman who puts the right customers in touch with the right products. There’s little else to it, and that’s where I’m positioning my business to be.

  • Interview with Brian Evans

    Interview with Brian Evans

    Name, Title, Location.

    Brian Evans, Entrepreneur and Actor, Los Angeles, CA

    How long have you been in affiliate marketing and how did you get involved?

    I’ve been involved in affiliate marketing for over 6 years. My story started when I was managing high traffic SEO sites for a client. I started to realize that there must be a more efficient way to make money off of a website and web traffic than just getting paid per click (Adsense), so I decided to look into other options. I ran into the affiliate marketing industry and the rest is history!

    Give us a little glimpse into what a typical day in your life looks like.

    I believe in efficient working and not burning myself out.

    What are your hobbies/interests/passions?

    I love making movies. It’s one of my biggest passions in life. I also love acting. I believe that I was put here to be able to have a positive influence on people and I want to use that ability to help people.

    There are already so many affiliate marketer and bloggers out there. What makes You different?

    I don’t try to be different. I just do my thing. I read almost all the other top affiliates marketing and internet marketing blogs and I’m a big fan of all those guys. I don’t think of it as competition. Many of those guys are my friends, Mike Chiasson, Ian Fernando, it’s not about being different it’s just about being myself. All of us at the top of the heap have a unique style, so I don’t think that any of us have to worry about being different, we already are inherently different. To answer your question, I think I’m different as a blogger because I don’t pay attention to “trends” or blogger styles, I just do what I think I should do. I think people look similar when they try to match or copy someone else to become popular as a blogger.

    What kinds of traffic generation methods do you focus most of your on? (PPC, SEO, SMO). Do you use any tools that you can recommend?

    Campaigns that I run these days are almost entirely social media. I believe in the cave man ways of using the original tools, therefore I don’t typically use any “easy to use tools” because I find that it’s just another thing I have to learn. I already know how to use the ad managers for most platforms, so I don’t see much of a reason to learn something else to make it easier. I think they are already easy enough.

    Are you currently looking to work with other marketers? if so what are the criteria for other marketers to be considered to work with you?

    I do some consulting and coaching for affiliate networks, affiliate marketers, internet marketers, other consultants, small businesses, whomever. The problem is there are a lot of time wasters out there. People that aren’t serious, that are only partially committed to making serious money online I can’t work with. Therefore, I do carefully screen people that I work with. If you are serious about your business and are ready to have a passionate conversation with me about where your business is and where you NEED it to go, then [email protected] is my email.  Make me feel like you’re not going to quit and that you WILL be successful one way or another (and believe it yourself). Those are the types of people that I want to work with.

    8. For those who are interested in working with you  – What’s the best way/time to reach you?

    Shoot me an email at [email protected] keeping the above in mind!

    What are the keys to building successful relationships between Affiliates?

    Passion is most important. If you aren’t passionate , a lot of people aren’t going to want to work with you. It’s all about money, but let me tell you, the people at the top of the heap are passionate as heck. Mind you, they don’t all admit it but they had to be very passionate to get where they are. So my advice is to make sure you are passionate or re-dedicate yourself so that you are. I got this philosophy from the acting and movie business, because you WILL NOT make it if you aren’t relentlessly passionate. Be relentless passionate in everything you do and you will make it.

    What do you think about where the industry is going? Where you and your company may be going? What advice would you give to affiliates to keep up the pace.

    I don’t like to give predictions but I will give some advice. Here’s my advice if you are an affiliate or an affiliate network that’s trying to make it. The first thing is that a lot of affiliates and affiliate networks are out there ripping each-others ideas. News flash: just because you see a banner at a trade show or a landing page from a banner on Facebook, does not mean that it’s working! People lose THOUSANDS of dollars per day on stupid marketing.

    A couple of affiliate networks that I helped out a couple years ago, had the worst banners in the world, were copying everyone else and just were a total mess. They didn’t see it. I totally cleaned up their act and today they are some of the top networks in the space.

    The message is that you should do you, not someone else. Do your own thing, create a dynamic sales message that speaks to what you are doing. A big tip is to watch commercials on TV and learn what types of sales messages are out there, if you don’t have an actual sales plan in your banners/landing pages, like a product comparison, a competitor bash, or an image uplifting message, amongst others, then you have a very generic sales strategy that’s probably not going to work.

  • Interview with Jeremy Schoemaker aka “Shoemoney”

    Interview with Jeremy Schoemaker aka “Shoemoney”

    Name, Title, Location

    Jeremy Schoemaker, MFCEO, Lincoln Ne

    How long have you been in affiliate marketing and how did you get involved?

    I created a Mobile community in 2003, which had over 400,000 members by 2004. One day I got a call out of the blue from an affiliate network that suggested I try their ringtone affiliate program. I did. I then took the data I was getting in real time (keywords people were searching for) and started bidding on them in the search networks to send to affiliate offers. I have been an affiliate since February 2004.

    Give us a little glimpse into what a typical day in your life looks like.

    7:00 a.m – wake up get ready 7:30 a.m – take my kids to school 8:00 a.m – go to the office 8:00-9:00 a.m – answer emails and look at the schedule for the day. 9:00 a.m – staff meetings. 10:00 a.m -12:00 p.m- complete assigned tasks in order of priority’s. 12:00 p.m – 2:00 p.m- lunch 2:00 p.m – 3:00 p.m- finish up work for the day 3:00 p.m. – leave the office. We usually have an after hours event for team members.

    What are your hobbies/interests/passions?

    My family consumes most of my time, but I love Nebraska Football.

    There are already so many affiliate marketer and bloggers out there. What makes you different?

    On the blogging side – I don’t really care if people read my blog or not. I wrote an average of 1.3 posts a day in 2002 when nobody read it and if someday nobody reads it again I will still be there throwing down my thoughts and what I am learning. A lot of people don’t know this but I never accepted advertising on my site until almost 2008. Last year ShoeMoney.com generated just under 2 million dollars in revenue between direct ad sales and affiliate promotions. That moves the needle. I follow a strict protocol called gestalt. It’s where you only share experiences. So people know if I write on a subject its not going to be some crazy theory on how you can make money on the Internet. I am really transparent and show exactly what I do. On the affiliate side – I learned very quickly that affiliate marketing was not a real business and the real money… the long term revenue comes from having your own products and services. In 2007, I launched a company called AuctionAds, which was doing millions a month in revenue by the 3rd month. It was sold to a NYC Billion dollar VC firm 4 months after it launched. Since we have launched and sold more than 8 companies. We currently have 13 corporations in 3 countries.

    What kinds of traffic generation methods do you focus most of your on? (PPC, SEO, SMO). Do you use any tools that you can recommend?

    We do a lot of search engine pay per click. I don’t really care about SEO too much. It has always taken care of itself for me. Our team uses ShoeMoney tools – http://www.shoemoneytools.com

    Are you currently looking to work with other marketers? If so what are the criteria for other marketers to be considered to work with you?

    Cross promoting others products – We occasionally will promote like products to our readers/followers. We only operate on a CPC model and have a very strict set of criteria. We have it all lined out here: http://www.shoemoney.com/shoemoney-joint-venture-policy/

    To most people these prices seem ridiculous and that’s fine. It’s a great filter for us to determine who really would be a good fit. We know what we make from promoting other offers and we are not in business to lose money. People who want us to promote their stuff come to us… we have NEVER solicited anybody about promoting their product. They want us to promote their shit because an endorsement from us will drive a ton of people to their product. I wrote a whole post on this here: http://www.shoemoney.com/2010/07/20/getting-people-to-promote-your-stuff/

    For those who are interested in working with you – What’s the best way/time to reach you?

    On Shoemoney.com at the top is a contact us form.

    What are the keys to building successful relationships between Affiliates?

    Be honest….

    What do you think about where the industry is going? Where you and your company may be going? What advice would you give to affiliates to keep up the pace?

    Affiliates have been SO spoiled. This span in time is going to be studied and written about as one of the big gold rushes. But its reached its peak for affiliates to make the margins we are used to. Affiliate marketing, as we know it gets harder every day. More competition, more government regulation, bigger budget companies coming in, etc… If you look at affiliate marketer’s real income statements they are unheard of. No business operates on the margins that we do. I have had months where I had a 60% profit margin on hundreds of thousands of dollars. In 9 years of being in business I have never lost money and have operated on a pretty sick margin. But that brings up a bigger point and one I tried to make earlier. Affiliate marketing is not a business. It is fly by night. Yes you can profit a million dollars in a month… but then spend 12 months finding your next thing. Affiliate marketers need to evolve and recognize that instead of sending directly to offers, you need to capture users interested in these niches so you can monetize them in perpetuity. Not just go for the one time sale. Build real assets in the form of a giant database that you cannot only monetize but, possible sell some day. Like what we have done with our companies.

  • Interview with Brian McLevis Founder & CEO of Envyus Media

    Interview with Brian McLevis Founder & CEO of Envyus Media

    Tell me a bit about yourself. How old are you? Where are you from?

    Well, I was born and raised in Northern California in the Bay Area. At  age 23 I moved to the Midwest… good ole Kansas – yellow brick road and all. Early on and throughout my life I was very interested and drawn to computers. My first machine was an Apple II GS. My curiosity and need to understand and push the limits came with my first modem. Once the 1200 baud monster was unboxed and plugged in there was no stopping me in the online world.

    At 13, I was deep into Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) and started my own single line BBS using VBBS – at the time I was running a x86, single line modem, and multitasking using DESQview. I was into hacking, phreaking, couriering, and causing all types of havoc online – did you know there was an “internet” when nobody knew of the internet? Boy those days fun weren’t they?

    Fast forward to today… I’m 33, own and manage Envyus Media and have a beautiful Wife and three wonderful kids that definitely keep me motivated and driven to succeed. Not to mention on my toes (in a good way!). They’re truly what drives me to get up before dawn and work deep into the night.

    How long have you been working in affiliate marketing and what made you start?

    I actually got my first taste of affiliate marketing about 5 1/2 years ago…

    My Brother — who works at a well know adult dating site — turned me on to a bot that created accounts, sent messages, and did all the basic functions within MySpace, but was completely automated. MySpace was still a fledgling company and their code was very weak and very, very exploitable. In layman’s terms, this made them very ‘spammable’.

    I was a system/network admin in the professional world at the time and fortunately I possessed the technical knowledge to scale this scenario and take full advantage of it. Eventually before long I was running 12 servers 24/7/365 pushing 3000GB xfer/mo through the internet pipes generating 30k unique views a day to my landers. Baptism by fire my Wife calls it and as such, I was thrust into the wonderful online world of making money online that we all know and love!

    Tell us about Envyus Media and what you do there?

    Envyus Media is my creation and was built from the ground up. Day in and day out and into the wee hours, I can be found day and night pounding on the clickity clack keyboard answering emails, sifting through fraud analytics reports, communicating with publishers, and monitoring day to day operations. I don’t and won’t ever do “just one thing” at Envyus Media because if I didn’t have my hands in every aspect of the business I wouldn’t be able to sleep comfortably at night.

    I feel I need to be involved from all viewpoints and I take pride in being involved in all aspects of Envyus. I want to make sure affiliates are treated well, with their questions promptly answered with solid and knowledgeable responses. Likewise I want advertisers that are pleased with the quality of traffic generated from our network. I take pride in what I do, how I do it, and I have a strong passion for the business and for the success of Envyus Media. I want our affiliates to know they are not just “another affiliate” on a network – they are an intricate part of the Envyus Media family!

    What Traffic sources do you specialize in?

    Is this a trick question? We specialize in all sorts, of course! And that includes offline marketing traffic sources.

    Given that there are a lot of networks out there, what makes Envyus Media stand out and why should affiliates want to join with you?

    On one hand you can say that offers are offers and most affiliate networks do indeed have very similar offers. It’s common knowledge that some networks pay more than others and some networks have completely exclusive offers.

    It’s almost become like a rinse-and-rewash cycle in regards to what new affiliate networks say when they first hit the ground running. Everyone claims to treat their affiliates the best, everyone claims to possess the best offers and highest payouts and everyone claims that they hold customer service above all else in their network philosophy. Just spin those three statements up with new adjectives and a noun or two and you’ve got yourself the script for what will be said for years to come.

    Ultimately, we feel that the way we treat our affiliates and publishers will ultimately, somewhere down the line, have a direct reflection of said goodwill and kindness back upon us. You can go to the highest buildings in the most crowded cities around the world and spout off the most phonetically pleasing promises and claims as a network, but ultimately, all it’s going to get you is face time. While there are a lot of affiliate networks all throughout the industry, if you’re not getting face time just from existing as a network in this industry then you need to close up shop because you haven’t the first idea on how to market your company.

    On this same token, we feel that treating all of our affiliates and publishers to the best of our ability, with all of the kindness and compassion we would want to receive in their steed is the way to go. We know from experience that doing this is the fastest route to real, loyal affiliates who will not only continue to run with us for the remainder of their careers, but will also go out of their way to let people know that Envyus Media is the place that you need to go if you wanted to be treated with dignity; if you want to be treated with respect and kindness and zeal regardless of how many years you have logged doing the damn thing. A full-on, loyal testimonial from an affiliate is a truly beautiful thing indeed!

    Basically, when it’s all said and done, you need to review affiliate networks not by their words or overall affiliate list, but by their actions. By how they act and treat their affiliates when they don’t think that anyone is looking. This along with a network’s cadre of loyal affiliates, offer the truest representation of just how valued a particular network truly is.

    Which traffic sources prove to be the most effective for your top earning affiliates,  E-mail, PPC, PPV, Facebook, Media Buying or any others?

    It’s not really the traffic source in particular as much as it is how skilled and creative the affiliate in question is at running through their preferred traffic source. We have top-earning affiliates running all of these traffic sources — e-mail, PPC, PPV, Facebook, Media Buying and many more. We cater to any and all types of affiliates and pride ourselves on being knowledgeable in each and every traffic type imagineable.

    In your opinion, what are the best places for a new affiliate to learn affiliate marketing, and what advice would you give to them?

    A lot of new affiliates come to me asking questions like “How do I make money online?” or “Where do I start?” The absolute hands down best advice I can give anybody starting out in this business is… Read… Read… Read… and then read more. There are forums littered with priceless information. Sit down for a week, two weeks, or even a month, and do nothing but read and soak up the knowledge and continue to do so even when you think you’ve reached the end and have attained what you need. Find a niche and a traffic method that interests you because you need to put your heart and soul into what you are about to do – anything less will not yield your desired results. Take things one step at a time and don’t try to do 3 or 5 different things.

    Just concentrate on one traffic source/method and one niche until you are at a point where you are happy with your results. Now, keep in mind, if you’re not doing well in that niche or you continue to struggle with the traffic source/method, it’s definitely OK to stop what you are doing and try something else. That judgments call, I believe, comes with time and knowledge. Not every traffic source/method or niche is for everyone but you will find your groove and when you do … lookout! Run with it and run with it hard.

    Essentially, there’s a period where you need to sit and learn and a period where you need to learn by doing. And don’t be afraid of making mistakes because they can and will occur. No doubt about it. Just be sure to learn from these mistakes and patch up those holes for the future.

    Does Envyus Media offer any training for new affiliates?

    Our Affiliate Manager Josh runs the Affiliate University blog on our website where he makes all sorts of posts catering to the new affilaite marketer. It’s definitely an excellent resource. And for those that need even more guidance, Josh is just as willing to provide one-on-one coaching via instant messenger for those walking their first affiliate marketing baby steps.

    Does Envyus Media accept affiliates from outside of the USA?

    Of course! However, the process is a bit more stringent than with USA affiliates — mainly due to the lack of international verification information. While the process to be accepted if you’re an international affiliate is a bit more complicated, it’s only done as a preventive measure and we appreciate and love bringing board affiliates no matter where they live in the world!

    What qualities do you look for in prospective affiliates?

    A strong work ethic and being driven to succeed no matter the trials and tribulations on the path to get there are definite pluses. Basically, we just want affilaites who are just as passionate and ready to put whatever work is necessary in — just like us!

    For anyone that wants to work with Envyus Media, what is the best way and time to reach you?

    We’re all on practically all day — we just can’t help it! I’d say the quickest way to get in touch with us is to call us up directly at (800) 450-9507 or hit up the staff, Paul or Josh on AIM/Skype/MSN/YIM. Screen names are envyuspaul and envyusjosh for each IM service.

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