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.