Putting on Your Work Boots!

“If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.”

I came across this quote recently and I love it. Life is hard, so put on your helmet and read on.
How many times have you heard these questions: What’s hot? What’s working? …and then to go even further – what exactly is working? Check out any busy forum and you’ll see these questions or variations of them over and over again. The thirst for knowledge is ENORMOUS but unfortunately the value and reliability of information in thousands of discussion threads is limited. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good forum but mainly for networking and to be quite frank, for entertainment. Who doesn’t enjoy a good Jerry Springer style spat or an Acai Jell-O fighting video? Looking back, I’m glad I stood outside of the spray zone on that one.

While there’s a lot of quality affiliates ringside and in the forums, the reality is that a super affiliate is not going to divulge their secret sauce on a campaign. You can naturally buy their e-book or sign up to a monthly membership to get access to their tools and strategies but…I regress. The reality is that the answers to almost any important question you have about affiliate marketing is available – not in a thread but by putting on your work boots, doing your own research, forming your own opinions and strategies on how to be successful. Yes the work is hard and yes it is time-consuming – but the EPC competitive advantage and profitability is worth it.

To that point on doing research, I recently skipped Vegas (ouch) and I tried the Electronic Retailers Association show in New Orleans in February – where the Grand Marshall (beads and all) was the FTC. To avoid altering the message any, I listed links below that are very important in regards to understanding the critical changes that affiliate marketing is going through and what the FTC, Credit card companies and legislators are focused on. I hope that this information about the game changers sparks your interest to find out more….and to be more successful in your efforts within the Affiliate Marketing arena.

Video of FTC Presentation:

Please note that Affiliate portion starts at 17:00 and that transparency of CPA payout question is asked and answered at 53:26. I recommend advertisers and affiliates watch the whole presentation.

The spark that started the fire on Continuity based offers

The update on what changed

Mastercard Update and Data Passing Concern:

Free Trial Offers: Recommendations

FTC Advertising Guide on Dietary Supplements

Job Offer Scams

If you have additional links to share please do. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to add me as a Facebook friend at www.facebook.com/topoffers. That’s where I normally broadcast my research.

For someone who doesn’t eat Chinese Food I’ve always been fascinated by the Fortune Cookie. It has a mysterious power on everyone at the table and it either offers each patron a glimmer of hope, a poke of realism or utter confusion. Personally, I like – “Help I’m a prisoner in a Chinese Bakery!”

Looking at what I do for a living – hunting for great offers for Advaliant – I would like to offer you the opportunity to construct your own fortune cookie today. Read the Fortune Cookie messages below and post back the collective fortune advice that you would give to Affiliate publishers.

“Little and often makes much.”

“Many a false step is made by standing still.”

“Every excess becomes a vice.”

“Your skill will accomplish what the force of many cannot.”

I’m looking forward to seeing what you have. See you at ad:tech.

Most of you have indubitably played the field, some have found the perfect match, some have chewed their arm off. Finding the perfect match in life is hard because you don’t know if your choice is going to continue to be the beauty queen that everyone hypes her to be or she’s going to be the one that leaves creepy messages for you saying Call me, Call me. Affiliate Marketing is like that, sometimes it’s exciting, other times it’s Mrs. Chucky time.

In the Day to day world of an Affiliate publisher it’s very similar to being at closing time on a Saturday night – who should I commit all of my charm and resources to? Sometimes that choice becomes more difficult because your friends are giving you the nudge, nudge and hyping the beauty across the room. Trust me on this one, look past that one a little further before making your decision. Be a playa’, enjoy life a bit more.

If you’re going to run an Acai offer – you have to at least once in your life – find out what else is available and then date them all. A little speed dating action if you will. Shortly you will see which one is your Mrs. Chucky and which one will make you brag to your friends. Just the other day I saw a clear example where a publisher followed the hype, jumped in with both feet with an offer – while throwing little at a comparable offer. They made LESS by running the hyped offer. Don’t let this happen to you. Ask for the full roster in each offer category and then do a little speed dating. The one that performs the best in a head to head competition is the one that you should marry your traffic to.

Don’t be blinded by the highest payout, do a little speed dating, try different channels, check your head the head EPC’s and laugh all the way to the alter – and bank.

Red Bull overload, raspy voice, inspiring meetings, tons of oxygen, ding, ding, ding and a purple pimp sighting. That, in short, that was my experience at Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas from January 10-13^th.

All in all it was an outstanding experience to be there. In no other place have I ever met so many entrepreneurs, heard so many inspiring stories of success, made so many great connections and had chicken wings at a time that would normally be described as breakfast. The last part I could have done without – it just seemed like a good idea at the time.  

Now that I’m back from the show the energy is low but the motivation is high. While 2008 was a hugely successful year for Advaliant and its partners, it looks like this year will be even more successful – especially when you add in the new HUGE affiliates, the optimization of current campaigns and also the savvy conversion and epc focused advertising partnerships that will be in effect within days.

Anyway, for all of those great affiliates and advertising clients out there, thank you for your business, let’s make 2009 even better. We look forward to co-creating great offers together and generating revenue for all partners involved.  Let’s do some great work together moving forward.

Now who can tell me how to expense a pimp suit?

Imagine this:

The economy takes a dive, a leader nicknamed Bubba might be replaced by a guy with previous head surgeries, dogs and pigs are wearing lipstick and Tampa Bay is in the World Series. It’s a strange scenario to consider but you never know it could come true. Either way, it paints a picture that the world could be a strange place to live in. 

What is definitely true today loud and clear is that we are living in a challenging time – especially if you’re trying to make a buck. Consumers have tightened their belts, traditional businesses are failing and more and more advertisers and home based publishers are entering the affiliate pay-for-performance marketing field. That is why I want to help you be successful.  

To start, don’t fall into the trap of the classic success pitfall of Paralysis by Analysis. Being an affiliate in 2008 and 2009, you could literally spend all day logging in and out of networks, checking out campaigns and deciding what to spend your money on testing. Stop! Stop letting people waste your time. Stop wasting your own time. Instead, take stock and start talking! You wouldn’t get a job without highlighting your strengths to a potential employer and applying your energy and time to potential jobs that fit your unique skills. One that would stimulate you mentally and financially.  Right?

Right! So pick up the phone and talk with your favorite Affiliate Manager and tell them what you’re great at, what you’ve done in the past, what your specialty is, what you’re looking to run in 2008 and beyond and then they will highlight campaigns that you know that you could deliver quality conversions and volume on. Communication is the key to not getting paralyzed. At the end of the day, Advertisers want quality conversions, networks want affiliates that can deliver quality conversions and affiliates want, well…lots of money from running great offers. If we know what you can knock out of the park quality conversions and volume wise then we can get advertisers on board that have those offers.  Fewer offers, more money – it’s a noble concept that works.

 If you’re not the talkative type then ask your Affiliate Manager to email you our quick survey to get that information rolling. Be proactive, it pays well!

…Of course you do. Anybody who is anybody wants to take their affiliate marketing business to the next level. OK, so how do you do it? Tell me Mike, what’s the quickest way to strike it rich? Tell me, tell me, tell me NOW!!!

The first step in the creation of your “ladder to success” is, and this is coming straight from the advertiser’s mouth; “think like the client.” What helps them drive their business? Put yourself in their shoes and pretend you’re the VP of Marketing for a while. Be original and swim up-stream. The effort is worth it and besides, it’s not as crowded in that direction.

The reality of today’s online space (and kick me if I wrong) is that almost anybody can be an affiliate. Somewhere along the way you’ve become incredibly web-savvy, have a site or sites with ad space, have built an email database of opt-ins or you have the uncanny ability to create a search program while eating your Cheerios. With one or more of those skills and assets you’ve just earned your affiliate ID # and can now start promoting offers and cash-in on the CPL or CPA payout. Don’t get me wrong, there are some great affiliates out there, but there’s also no bar exam to pass, no affiliate designation to get. On top of that, unfortunately, that openness to join the affiliate fraternity allows a few rotten apples to ruin it for the bunch. What do you get when you build a pile of great apples and then surround them with a few rotten ones? – it’s not a pretty smell to advertisers. That smell means we have to self-regulate to clear the air.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come across a new affiliate running a campaign whose conversion rates have been out of this world. When you see 5 clicks and 5 conversions, jackpot bells don’t ring, fraud sirens do. Wow, how did that affiliate get that great conversion rate? – don’t bother answering, we already know. With that kind of activity does the affiliate believe that those leads will turn into customers for the client? Do they think that the client won’t notice your AFFID # as the source of poor leads and ban you from future campaigns? The reality is the Aff ID# will be red-flagged and not allowed to run other high quality private ad campaigns.

Let’s get real here. If you think like the client and focus on finding and acquiring quality leads and quality conversions then you will be building your “ladder to success” – not with toothpicks but solid high quality rungs. The client will identify (and us too) that you are a professional marketer, and that your leads and conversions can be trusted. With honesty, effort and professionalism comes opportunity. Straight from the client’s mouth: “quality is the number one focus.” If the quality is there then the vault will open and everyone will get rich.

Which way are you going to swim?

The Olympics just finished up and what a show it was! You saw amazing athletes strive to be the best they could be and some like Usain Bolt establish new levels of excellence.

Being a hyper-competitive person, I loved watching the athletic beauty and quiet controlled effort that was put in by the top performers. Was it just me or did most of the elite performers always look calm and controlled and everyone behind them looked frantic and their faces were turning red? When you’re that good, you can calmly look around for your mom in the stands when approaching the finish line.

After viewing the results coming in event after event I became even more interested in finding out more about each person’s dedication, how they approached their craft and how they got to such high levels of success. One quote that I picked out that stuck with me was Usain Bolt who stated the following after his Gold winning and record shattering accomplishments: “I came out here prepared,” he said. “I worked hard, that’s all I can say. … I worked hard to get here. It wasn’t easy at all. It may look easy, but it was hard.”

To someone that loves the online industry and is dedicated to making it the best it can be, those are beautiful worlds to hear – I came out here prepared, I worked hard, it wasn’t easy at all. It may look was but it was hard. Great things can be accomplished by embracing these words. To start, we can throw out the status quo, the “that’s the way we’ve always done things.” Sebastian Coe’s father wasn’t a track coach, but he turned his son into a track star by ignoring the status quo. Roger Bannister (broke the 4 minute mile barrier) didn’t measure his success against the impossible 4 minute mile barrier, he prepared himself so that he could run as fast as humanly possible.

Speaking about making ourselves the best that we can be, what are we doing in the online industry to not only embrace these words, but more importantly embrace the attitude that generates them?

We should start our own Olympics of sorts. Instead of being a society that hands out participant ribbons to people that show up, we should reward the individuals that clearly come prepared, act with integrity and out-perform the rest of the competition – the top 3. In my experience in the online space, I’m seeing advertisers slowly move away from the participant award winners (cookie cutter run-of-site/section CPM publishers) to the podium finishers (interaction tracking Rich Media providers like Eyeblaster and EyeWonder to performance based marketing networks like Advaliant). These types of companies are clearly trying to help advertisers combat the economic crunch and the screams for a better marketing ROI. Starting and finishing the race with Usain Bolt is no longer an accomplishment. Coming to the final stretch and being Usain Bolt is all that counts. If you’re an advertiser, start doing your homework. Find out who is coming out prepared, who is working hard on the right solution for your needs and who is ready to claim that Gold Medal. Participant ribbons are eating your budget, don’t let them.

The Avalanche is coming, The Avalanche is coming.

I fondly remember a conversation that I had with a Sr. VP of Sales at a leading newspaper roughly five years ago (where I was employed as an online specialist). It went something like this:

What do you think will happen moving forward with the newspaper, the magazine and the sites?

You see the publisher of the paper was trying to figure out how to rescue print and magazine advertising dollars while online advertising was taking off. For decades clients were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in those mediums and now they just weren’t getting the ROI that they wanted.

My response was “watch out because the Avalanche is coming”. What I was referring to was that with online audiences growing steadily and newspaper and magazine ad revenue (and readership) dropping like a stone, it was pretty clear that any stagnant media source would be wiped out. It wouldn’t happen overnight but it would definitely happen, magazine by magazine, paper by paper, city by city.

“Readers” weren’t readers anymore, they’re now people. They didn’t like yesterday’s news or to be told what was happening. They no longer bought the media, they controlled it, they made it. They had voices and they reached out to places where they could be heard. Traditional media used to think we were nuts when we talked about places like YouTube or we blogged. Now, it’s called User Generated Content and these dark dungeons are now billion dollar companies.

With the mainstream’s immersion in the internet, we’ve taken media to an absolutely new level. That new shift has been incredibly fun for my peeps, my fellow webheads. On the other side of the fence, it’s been pretty scary for traditional media advertisers. They can’t find you anymore, they’re having difficulty learning how to speak WITH you instead of speaking AT you. Can’t you just congregate at the local newspaper like you used to? It was so much easier when one phone call would buy media for millions of people in a specific demographic.

To make things worse, the economy has gone to “the challenge area” and now Marketing Managers and agency folk are pressed to sell more products with each marketing dollar spent. That’s right, selling products is important again. Pass the Rogaine, people are losing their hair out there. The avalanche is here and the snowboarders are winning! It’s ok, we’ll help them out, right?

You never know, maybe they’re reading your blog right now, clicking on an ad and helping you make a few affiliate bucks.