In these economic challenging times I depend on the words of others to inspire me, and to carry the day. I thought I might share a few of these with you - I believe there is wisdom in them that we can all appreciate.

James Whitcomb Riley:

The most essential factor is persistence - the determination never to allow your energy or enthusiasm to be dampened by the discouragement that must inevitably come.

Charles M. Schwab:

The man who does not work for the love of work but only for money is not likely to make money nor find much fun in life.

Henry Boyle:

The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people half way.

Denis Waitley:

The most splendid achievement of all is the constant striving to surpass yourself and to be worthy of your own approval.

William Faulkner:

The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stone

We’re going back on the road again for the DMA 08 Conference in Las Vegas, NV. DMA 08 is considered the largest gathering of marketers in the world and there will be over 550 companies exhibiting. It will be my first time attending a DMA show and I know I’m in for a treat…being surrounded by so many marketing people at once!     Las Vegas is a great setting for the show since it’s all about marketing. Every where you turn, you’re inundated with ads in Vegas whether it be on massive billboards playing video, cabs covered in ads, people handing out flyers or really just about anywhere you look. It will provide inspiration I’m sure for a lot of people. Oh and a lot of fun with the casinos, shows and great restaurants.

It will be a little bit of a detour since we normally hit the usual trade show circuit - ad:tech and Affiliate Summit - so it will be nice to mingle outside of our comfort zone. For me personally, I’m excited at the prospect of meeting agency and brand contacts to enhance what they’re already doing in the CPA space. Plus introduce anyone who isn’t working on CPA to world of “measurable ROI”. It’s always beneficial & informative to chat with people outside of your day-to-day to learn what’s going on in the world of advertising and marketing both offline and online.

AKMG will be at the DMA 08 conference from Sunday through Wednesday so please contact me to set up a time to meet. We’ll be hitting the floor all day Monday & Tuesday.

Them….                                                             Us……

I am sure by now you all have heard what is going on with our US economy. And if you haven’t where have you been? Some of the biggest companies in United States history have been sold, bought, downsized, or shut down completely.

So everyone is asking the question: “What is going to happen to my job/my future?”

I have talked to several affiliates the last month and they have all said the same thing, “I haven’t felt the hit of the stock marketing with my affiliate business.” 

Performance marketing is the wave of the future. When you are able to offer consumers the best of everything, at anytime, and from anywhere you can’t lose. Life will go on for America and the rest of the world. Consumers will still buy products. The reason why affiliate marketing is still going strong is because we have positioned ourselves as the best and most efficient way to deliver products and information at the click of a mouse. 

Traditional marketing can not compete with performance marketing any longer. It creates a vested interest between both the merchants and the affiliates. Merchants have to create the best products and affiliates have to deliver the best traffic. It is a win win solution for producers and consumers. 

So sit back and relax…wait don’t relax keep working and build your affiliate business empire.

Any feedback?

Chris Mello

As many of us watched the VP debates last week and are making it a priority to watch the Presidential debates tonight, we can’t help ignore that there is a lot going on in the world that is in the unknown. Who will our next President be?  Will the bail out plan be passed? Will Wall Street turn to the upside? What bank is going to close next?  All these things are very important, but they are pretty much out of our control, which can be quite stressful. Although, one thing we can control is the effort we put forth into making the most of ourselves - whether it be in the workplace or our personal lives.

For myself, in stressful times I find it most important to keep myself busy and focus on others, because for starters, it takes the focus off of “me” and secondly, it makes me more productive in all areas of my life. By focusing on others at work, I find it interesting to learn about my affiliates. What I mean by this is what offers work best for them, what do they do away from work, when are their birthdays, do they have any large plans coming up, who is their favorite NFL team, etc.  I know for myself, it is necessary to have a personal interest in my side of work or it just seems like… WORK.

What I’m trying to say is even in these unknown times, it is your best bet to put the most effort into whatever you’re doing, whether it be in work or fun, because at the end the day the one thing we can control and change is ourselves.  I know for myself it is a great feeling to walk away from something saying,  ”I did the best I could do and I had fun doing it.”

What about you?  How do you get through these stressful times?  If you want to talk politics, go ahead… If you want just talk, then feel free to talk…

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See our solution on my Prosper202 Guest Blog - “SSL Workaround for Non-Secure Pixels from AKMG”!

So you’ve got your killer product that you’re going to sell on a CPA…you have your merchant accounts set up…your marketing collateral is ready to go…now it’s time to sit back and watch the sales come in! Right? Well this is true but it only lasts so long. As an advertiser, you need to constantly tweak and refresh your landing pages in order to keep consumers interested and excited about the product. You need to give them a compelling reason to fork over money on the Internet and in this tough economy.

I’ve come up with a few ways to improve your landing pages.

1. Add video to the page to engage the consumer and help them understand the benefits of your product or service
2. Improve load time so that the consumer experience is enjoyable
3. Change up the marketing copy and product benefits to see what works best for your target audience
4. Eliminate unnecessary items on the page - avoid clutter!
5. Have consistent creative and an integrated approach to your marketing
6. Make sure your forms function properly
7. Test, test, test to see what works best!

It’s usually the little things that can really make the difference like increasing the size of your call to action button which will lead to increased conversions. Take the time to review these ways to improve landing pages listed above and you’ll be on your way to the top of your vertical!

AKMG journeyed to ad:tech London this week to attend our first ad:tech outside of the United States and experience UK affiliate marketing. It was an experience from day one which started with 30 minutes of sleep the entire night on the way to London and ended with Kim White, AKMG President, and me running to our gate at Heathrow. It was our own version of National Lampoon’s European Vacation!

It was an interesting experience to immerse ourselves in the culture for a few days to see how the average consumer is bombarded with advertising. There is much more advertising there than in the United States. They cover entire taxi’s with advertisements that are every color of the rainbow, digital advertisements line the walls of the underground stations, even the bottom of the seat covers that flip down in the taxi’s have ads on them. You can’t walk more than a few steps in London without seeing some sort of ad. It makes sense that advertisers need to have an integrated approach to their marketing plan to include outdoor, print, TV and online. Affiliate marketing campaigns across the pond are in luck to have such offline support to the campaigns being run online.

The show itself was a mix of US and European networks so we saw a lot of familiar faces. But many of the UK networks were extensions of existing US networks. The offline advertising is abundant but it seems like affiliate marketing is still in its infancy. This was evident at the show because it was mainly networks and we were told that the show was half as large as last year. But it was a great experience nonetheless.

If there are any UK advertisers that do affiliate marketing, please get in touch as we’d like to test the waters!

In my time spent as an Affiliate Manager, I am learning more about what affiliates deem as an amazing offer vs a mediocre one, based on conversion rate, epc or just plain old money.  As we all know, epc is often the proven winner, but that is not always the case.  For example, in the affiliate manager’s role, we can easily assume if an offer that pays out $20 has a 5% conversion rate with a $2 epc - it is a true winner.  I am finding out there is much more than just epc and conversion rates.

For an affiliate that promotes via email, the most important part is the offer getting in the user’s inbox…. then the open….. and of course, the lead/purchase.  The part we don’t see on our end is how many emails were sent out, how much money was put into the specific drop or what the affiliates are expecting for their ROI.  We just have what is in front of us - what we can’t see is what else was put into it - that is until we get an idea from the affiliates.  This is why it is so important to know what your metrics are - what you look for and how many emails were sent on a specific drop.  By understanding what was put into an offer, we can have a true understanding if an offer performed well for our affiliates or what else is required to turn it into a profitable campaign.

I want to make it an effort to find out what works for you - whether you want an offer that has tons of clicks, you want a high epc or you want to earn $2,000 per drop.  By knowing this I will do my best to follow the offer’s true performance according to your metrics and know if it was a hit or a miss.  Of course my goal is always to give you a offer that will be a success.

Here at AKMG we like to keep the lines of communication wide open between us and our Affiliates. We take the “Help Me Help You” philosophy. All of us here work very hard to provide you with the best offers, client services, payouts, incentives, etc. Sometimes it can be hard for us to know exactly what specific help may be needed to help you succeed . Allow this to be your opportunity to help us raise the bar by providing us with your latest feedback to result in helping you make more money:

-Tell us what you like about us.

-Tell us what you would like us to improve on.

-How does our back end system work for you?

We will consider the validity of every suggestion. We understand the success of any business has many components working at one time to make it run smoothly and the intention of this blog will reflect that. 

Please post your comments.

Talk to me,

Chris Mello

I was searching the world wide web last night and I came across an interesting blog. It discusses how you as a leader of your business treats your tribe(customers), as the author puts it.  At AKMG our tribe is more than your customers, clients, or affiliates they are our family. We understand they are some big time networks out there so what is going to separate us from the big doggs? Simply, we care. We care about being available at anytime day or night. We care about resolving tracking issues (which rarely ever happens). We care about paying everyone on-time every-time. We care about making our Affiliates feel like kings. Here is an article about the 101 ways to kill your tribe: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/files/101WaystoDestroyYourTribe.pdf

You have anything to add?

Let me know,

Chris Mello