akmg

Do make a budget

Whether you are a super affiliate testing with a $100k buy or a beginner using a $50 coupon code to try your first campaign on Facebook - you must take some thought into how you're going to spend your budget. The last thing you want to do is turn on a campaign…blow the entire budget in an hour…and end up with no where near enough data to optimize you campaign and then be stuck with a big loss on your investment.

Make sure to get at least a few full days of traffic, some offers do better in the morning or have significant fluctuations on conversion during the weekend. Also make sure you have enough spend to get significant data; if the offer you are running pays out $100 then a test of $150 isn't going to give you near enough traffic to make an educated decision on whether or not to continue.

Don't be lazy

This "don't" includes a couple of main points:
1. Don't give up too early.
Time and time again… I have seen affiliates test a campaign for less than a day and give up… Remember that we are marketers and it's our job to split test, optimize, and maximize ROI. This is especially true in situations where you know the offer is doing well on a traffic source. If you see some conversions on your initial test but have a -50% ROI, chances are if you have any real marketing skill you can change some things or narrow down your demographic to turn it profitable fairly quickly it just takes a little effort.

2. Don't rely on duplication!
After the days when you could make a killing by simply grabbing an Acai/Colon blog from the traffic source your going to test and changing her name from Becky to Helen a lot of affiliates seem to have forgotten about innovation. Just because you see the same ad all the time on your Myspace account doesn't mean it's the only thing that will ever work for that offer. Sure… these can be used to get an idea of how the offer will perform but PLEASE test some new variations and original ads/landers/concepts along with it.

Do talk to your affiliate managers

Shameless plug or not - This is extremely important to get the highest chance for success on the time and money you're putting into testing this new campaign. There are the obvious questions to ask like ‘What's the offers network epc?', but we can usually offer you a lot more to help and useful information than just basic stats. One question I wish I heard more from affiliates is ‘What can you tell me about the advertiser?'… What good is taking the time to set up a campaign and possibly get it profitable just to find out the advertiser hates your traffic and wants you kicked off because you were targeting too young/old/females/minorities or whatever else it might be? The more transparent you are with your (TRUSTED)AM, the better we can help you create a winner that lasts; when we ask where you're thinking of running a campaign, it's genuinely not because we want to steal your campaign! We are asking because we have info coming in daily that can help you stay away from the mistakes others have made or nudge you towards profitable demographics and/or ideas. We are a valuable tool… use us!

Don't Rush

Always remember to do diligent research before going live and take all the steps you can to be prepared for a profitable campaign. (For starters just make sure the links are live…sounds amateur but it happens all the time) Do you think Picasso rushed his paintings? Think of your campaigns as masterpieces; all you have to do is use all the tools, knowledge, and skill at your disposal to sculpt it into a long-term moneymaker!

"In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it."-Michelangelo

Affiliate Summit East came and went quicker than any show I have attended in the past 6 years of my online marketing career,  (yes I have been babysitting pubs for that long now) but I feel this is by far the best trade show I have attended yet.  It definitely took a few years to perfect the location for Affiliate Summit East – Remember going to Miami in the middle of August with 95 degree weather and 100% humidity?  How could one forget trying to find a place that was open past midnight in Beantown, let alone a cab from the Seaport Hotel?  Without a doubt, New York’s energy, nightlife, amazing food choices and 4:00 AM last call make it the perfect location for ASE.  What’s better than networking at Flashdancers and then bumping into a super affiliate while waiting for some beloved “Cart Food” at 3:00 AM? 

This show was particularly exciting for the AKMG crew as we brought a whole new set of faces that included our new network director, Eva Wong, along with Affiliate Manager sensation Brandon “Kaveman” Moore. I think Brandon actually shaving his beard off got more attention than the ladies in matching white shirts at our booth!  The tradeshow floor was packed, and at all times there was a line of folks waiting to talk to someone at the booth or trying to get their hands on our Jay Z-themed skate deck (Can you blame them? AKMG repp’ed the sickest swag in the show).  

Some people get feisty over those darn decks, and I think I was offered money, alcohol, hand sanitizer, and someone’s first born child in exchange for one.  Not only did we produce our most popular deck yet, but our new booth took stylish and simplicity to a whole new level with a touch of Hollywood red carpet glam.  Since our booth was on the FIRST level (sorry to those networks that didn’t get their app in on-time) Our booth was conveniently located next to the Pulse360 booth and across from Copeac -- allowing for a front row seat to Eagle vs. Krongel’s “Kiss da Ring” drama d’jour.  What what?  If you weren’t there.... I am sure you heard about it.  Eagle, you know I heart you!  

Now for everyone’s favorite topic and what we are primarily infamous for.... The late night party stories.  First night into NY my partner Kim and I went to an amazing wine and food pairing dinner with Chris Clark and Bryn Youngblut.  After 8 full glasses of wine, let’s just say we were feeling quite dandy and by the end of dinner the only thing I could do was simply giggle and infest the rest of the table with contagious laughter.  From there an adventure to Flashdancers was an absolute must.  There was more cash, bottles and hot girls at our table than any other affiliate network’s attempt at throwing a sausage-fest party.  If you were a victim of our ice throwing (cough cough KEVIN) you know you liked it and if you weren’t...I bet you want to party with us at the next trade show.  After quite an epic evening, you would think one would be tired... But no... We still had 3 more nights of networking, partying and schmoozing pubs to tackle.

Just as Jackie had Marilyn  Tupac had Biggie and Smax has  Ruckles, so too  David Ogilvy had Bill Bernbach.  

Ogilvy and Bernbach, the original Madmen, left very distinct impacts on the industry.  As you all already know by one such Thunder From Down Under and his fellow sidekick Boom Boom Pow, Ogilvy believed the ultimate success of campaigns depended on research and rules. To rival Bernbach, running his own shop just a few blocks down Madison Avenue, creative intuition was the underlying force. A few minor points of contention:

David "Oh No He Didn’t" Ogivly: News or benefit-centric concepts – spoon feed the reader the reasons they should buy the product.  Long copy with consumer research. Bottom line: Tell the people what you want them to do to the very last detail to make it as simple as possible for them to say yes.

"Bad Boy" Bill Bernbach: Short, offbeat, unexpected concepts that leave the reader with an "ah ha" moment, making them figure out the connection. Valued inspiration over research. Bottom line: Tell the people what you want them to do, but let them think they thought of it, then pat them on the back for being so darn clever.

Personally, I think of Ogilvy as the father of modern day Direct Response, and Bernbach as the father of the creative revolution.  Digest the contrasts between the two original Mad Men, as in their own words...

Ogilvy: "A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself."
Bernbach: "If your advertising goes unnoticed, everything else is academic."

Ogilvy: "What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it."
Bernbach: "Because an appeal makes logical sense is no guarantee that it will work."
 

So this blog post is a little late because I have been consistently 100 plus emails behind every day on top of balancing a new endeavor as the head organizer for all the 202 Meetups in Southern California.  Sounds like an easy position right?  Well easy isn't quite the word I would use to describe when it came to putting this together, but the hard work and scramble definitely paid off.  When I say scramble... I mean SCRAMBLE.  Just ask my co-organizer in crime.... She not only got texts/phone calls from me at 3:00 am the morning before the Meetup, she also got a wake up call at 6:00 am to remind her that she needed to go hold down our place at the Burton Chase Park in Marina Del Rey and hang out with homeless people by herself while she waited for myself and my friend Eva to show up and take over staking out our location since they weren't available for reservation and on a "first come - first taken" basis...which meant in order to fight off homeless people playing poker, screaming children's birthday parties and family bbq's that someone would need to be sitting in this location until the Meetup started at 2:00.

Delegating staff to pick up food and party supplies from a water front view isn't too tough of a task on a beautiful summer day... but seriously I almost went stir crazy sitting at that park from 9:00 am until my helpers arrived around 1:30 PM to set everything up.  (Way to be fashionably late kids)  Guests started to pour in around 2:30, and by 3:00 we had well over 75 guests show up and over 10 pitchers of Sangria ready to serve.  One of our favorite Midwest values affiliates, Riley Pool agreed to speak at the Meetup about his experiences as a dating affiliate and all the lessons he has learned over the years buying banner inventory on display sites and battling with webmasters.  Riley got a little nervous before it was time to speak... so it was necessary to calm his nerves with a few tequila shots.  For me personally tequila shots are usually a sign that I will be losing a credit card, cell phone, employee or my self dignity sometime in the near future... but in Riley's case is actually made him a more confident and clear public speaker.  Different strokes for different folks I guess?

I initially had a few more people lined up to speak at the Meetup, but spontaneity is always more fun especially after a few glasses of home made sangria, so I decided to put Jason Akatiff aka Smaxor of Ads4Dough on the spot and had him do a Q & A session for everyone along with Nana Gilbert-Baffoe or as Eleah likes to call him "Nana Banana."  For those of you not familiar with Nana's back round, he is one of the original members of Prosper202 prior to the Bloosky sale and re-purchase - So it was a great pleasure to have him in attendance.  Both Jason and Nana answered probably 20 questions each and everyone in attendance seemed so engaged that they didn't seem to notice Eleah's laser eye'd dog running around AND that we had entirely run out of beer.  Even though we are technically competitors, I consider Jason to be a really close friend of mine and have an immense amount of respect for him, so it definitely meant a lot to myself and all the AKMG members that he took the time to attend our Meetup, and didn't kill me for making him answer questions for an hour!  Curious to know what Smax and Nana talked about?  Well next time you will have to attend ;)

The first ever AKMG sponsored Meetup ended up going until about 7:00 PM and we amazingly got everything cleaned up in less than 30 minutes.  Good thing affiliate marketers also like to eat! From there about 15 of us headed to Hal's in Venice and had a few post Meetup drinks and appetizers.  Alas, all the planning fully paid off and we heard from everyone that attended not only did they have a great time, but they took away some helpful tips and techniques that they would be applying to their business models.  I truly wanted to go back to the core values and principles that Wes Mahler had in mind when he started the Meetups.... Keeping it simple, informative and not jamming network sponsors down the throat of attending affiliates.

The next Meetup with be located in San Diego in which Chern Lee & Valentino Vaschetto of Pinnacle Dream Media are my fabulous co-organizers.  Dates are still to be announced and I promise the venue will not be The Ivy, Stingaree, Fluxx or Sidebar!  For those of you reading this and know what I am talking about, I hope you either have a big smile on your face because you understand my humor and what I am referencing (Alonzo especially) or you are shaking your head because you know how much your bank account balance is going to suffer if you go to any of the four places I just mentioned. This post is long enough.... Moral of the story here:  Meetup #1 was a success and that there are many more to come!

If you had the burning desire to permanently glue your eyeballs to your computer screen in a futile attempt to find out more information on me, then search no longer. (Please note I’m taking a break from writing my 87-page thesis on “Finnegan’s Wake” to throw down some 4-1-1 on the D-E-S)

Before I begin, I must admit that after reading barman’s post, I wasn’t sure if I should light some candles and put on the Marvin Gaye, or give my computer screen the side-eye in disapproval of ‘here we go again…’

Cut to barman saying “Marvin Gaye! Marvin Gaye!”

While I am new to AKMG, I am hardly new to the online/tech industry. What can I say? The two of us go together like champagne and stilettos. But don’t let my looks fool you; I may look girly, but my past experience at Slide and GamePro Media has exposed me to the ways of the Internets, and I’ve capitalized on those opportunities. I have met some pretty amazing people along the way; such as Robert Scoble, Jeremy Stoppelman and Mark Zuckerberg...I hope to meet Steve Jobs soon (so I can slap him with the voice of reason to please allow Flash on my beloved iPhone!)

If there’s anything I have learned, is that being a female in a male dominated industry is not exactly easy. And as much as I hate admitting it, this is a man’s, guy’s, boy’s world; so it’s better to embrace it with a smile on your face as a doe-eyed Bambi than to fight it. Between grand Internet start-up soirees and coffee-fueled 16-hour days with the programmers, I picked up a few tips along the way:

1. Shit talking increases when it’s online - Anyone can have a big bark that lacks a bite (ahem…calling all affiliates) Clearly; hiding behind your keyboard increases confidence. The same effect can be achieved by drinking heavily before mustering up the courage to talk to a girl. We’ll call this keyboard courage, and it’s taking the Internet by storm. So quit hiding behind your keyboards and meet us at Affiliate Summit in New York. I dare you.
2. Online stalking is better done in discretion - (This one’s for you barman…you’re the Glenn Close to my Michael Douglas). Having an alias (as I had at Game Pro) makes for interaction with pre-pubescent male teen users a lot easier to handle. If they don’t know your real name, you’re harder to track.
3. True to form, society and the Internets are synonymous - Men still believe that they are the epicenter of the world and that they’re intellectually superior. They are of course sorely mistaken, but then again I have heard denial is a very powerful coping mechanism. In order to prevent punctured egos; just smile, twirl your hair and say “You mean Python as in snake?!” In my experience, it works every time; keeps their ego in tact, while making yourself less of a threat. No one needs to know I have some coding tricks up my sleeve.
4. Knowing how to play Call of Duty makes for a great ice - breaker – Programmer’s and pub’s interactions rarely extend past their computer screens. (I once heard a programmer mention he liked computers better than people because they’re easier to deal with). Knowing their leisurely habits makes for an easier “in”. And if you’re wondering- yes, I do play often!

So now that you have some insights to some of my secrets to success in affiliate marketing, need you really ask “Am I gonna make it as the newest member at AKMG?” I think it’s pretty clear that should our destined aim accounts cross paths, you will definitely be getting some good offers, some COD tips, and enjoy working with AKMG just a little bit more.

Looking forward to seeing you at Affiliate Summit. Don’t let the anticipation kill you too much...