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

We are now in largest financial realignment since the 1930’s - a time when banks are scrambling to avoid bankruptcy, housing is dropping to an all time low and individuals are feeling the hard hit of the “economic recession.”  We can easily see how the effects of our economy is trickling down to other areas of business, yet the internet business is still booming.

We are fortunate to be in a business that is not largely effected by what goes on around us, what we usually have to do is find the hot ticket item and hit it hard.  Housing is suffering?… Find foreclosure offers.  Gas prices are too high?… Find an offer on how to save gas.  Our constant goal is to find the next big offer.  What are people in search for?  What is the hot Christmas item?  If we find what people want, we will keep trucking along - ever so strong - even during the economy’s hard times.

AKMG is always looking for the next best thing to come along, but one thing we make sure of is that in the process we are having fun doing it!  Now that winter is quickly approaching, what do you think the next offer will be?  Will it be the hot  RC Helicopters?  The flying monkeys??  Feel free to share any of your ideas!  We have many resources to get the next hot item out there.

Mastering SEO, SEM and PPC tactics can be a daunting task. Companies tend to either ignore it completely & hope for the best or outsource to the experts. For a large scale project, it makes sense to outsource but there are things that you can implement that will go a long way. SEO is a long term investment and is well worth it when you see your website land above the fold on a Google search results page.

As an advertiser, there are basic things that you can do to help the organic search results for your landing pages & website. To start with, always make sure to have your title tag, keyword and meta data for each page. Then, be sure to update your website regularly so that Google will view your site as an authority in your vertical. You can do this with fresh content in the form of articles or a blog. Finally, you’ll want to regularly do keyword research that is relevant to your site. There are a bunch of great, free keyword research tools out there like Trellian.

CKMG, our internet brand development and SEO company, has taught us these simple steps that really go a long way. It’s been a great learning process for us working along side with CKMG on optimizing landing pages and developing brands. Be on the lookout soon for the brands that we’re developing and will be launching later this year!

So, you’re running a search campaign and you want to keep the gap between costs and revenue much higher?  Well, I’ve put together a few tips for getting the best return on your investment.

Finding the right software to track and your search campaigns and their respective accounts
There are many options to choose from.  However, when it comes to getting the best ROI, I’m sure you would agree that a ‘free’ option would be your best bet.

- We highly recommend Prosper202.  Aside from being a bunch of great guys, this free software is phenomenal and can be hosted on your server.  This protects your data and your proprietary industry knowledge safe and everything is 100% managed by you.
- As far as serving/hosting/registrars are concerned, you should always use your favorite solution; one that you are comfortable with.  Always shop around, however, to find the best price.

Strategic keyword planning and purchase
You will find that most of your investing will occur in this phase.

Purchasing keywords without knowing what is going to perform is risky business, and you’ll likely not see your ROI go into the green without the proper research.  To go beyond intuition alone, we recommend the following for implementing a good keyword-bidding strategy:

- Google Adwords Keyword Tools (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal)
- Keyword Discovery (http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/)

Pick the best offers
You can have the best search strategies in the world, but if you don’t have the right offers to match them, your efforts will be fruitless.  We can provide you with the best-performing offers for your next search campaign to match your hard-work and intuition.  If there’s something we don’t have, we will get it - just ask your affiliate manager!

At AKMG, we pride ourselves in helping our affiliates get the best ROI possible by providing the best payouts, the best offers, and useful advice on keeping overhead as low as possible.

In summation, proper planning and meticulousness will yield success without fail.  So, if you like making huge money, and getting the best ROI for your campaign,  you should work with AKMG!

Many affiliate networks only cater to specific breeds of publishers.  Sure, any given network may supply offers for search publishers
if they’re mainly an email affiliate network.  The main intangible that is usually missing, however, is quality.

Here at AKMG, we supply only the best offers to all of our publishers; banner, email, search, or otherwise.  If you don’t see something that you think you could do well with, we will get it.

We are also on top and ahead of, today’s internet marketing technologies for all venues.  We are experts in helping you realize your full revenue potential.

As I’ve said in previous posts, whether you’re an emailer, a search guru, or a banner jockey,  we are your one-stop shop for excellence and utmost performance.

The internet is our world, it is the medium, tools, and content of our profession.  The stream of information is our lifeblood.  The way we package it and sell it distinguishes us from our competitors.  As the analogy suggests,  a stream is most efficient when there are minimal obstacles in its path.  In AKMG’s case, a large part of our stream of success has been due to our director of technology, Josh.  Josh has a lot of experience in taking things apart and putting them together (thank goodness) and he has definitely been a huge contributer  in helping develop AKMG.

I find that AKMG is continually striving to improve the experience of our advertisers and affiliates.  For instance, we recently upgraded the affiliate interface so affiliates can choose which offers fit into their specific categories.  AKMG’s goal is to create an affiliate friendly network, whether it be the affiliate interface, which was done, or anything else that is expressed to us.  Our goal is to be the best, and we can exceed to being the best by learning from those around us.  On this note, always feel free to speak up, whether it be good or not so good.  We are always open to change, because with change comes growth.

I attended the Brand Activation Summit this week in New York and spent 2 days learning all about the Digital Out of Home (DOOH) Media space which is the new emerging media. It is an exciting time for this space as the medium is really starting to boom and people are beginning to recognize its power & reach. DOOH is experiencing exactly what the Internet went through awhile back - lack of standardization of ad sizes & accepted measurement tools, apprehension of some to embrace the medium because it is an unknown - but it has had such great success recently that the possibilities and room for growth are limitless. Things can only go up from here, as well as know from riding and surviving the wave of the Internet growth cycle.

Agencies and brands were on hand to discuss how they evaluate the medium and the success & challenges they face using it. Most are anxiously awaiting the standardized measurement tools in order to be able to evaluate how this medium fits into the overall integrated media plan. It finally seems like online is an absolute must for advertisers and agencies as a part of their plan. Other hot topics were Facebook, social media and mobile.

2009 is projected as the breakout year for the new emerging media DOOH. I’m glad to know that online and mobile will be there to support DOOH so that the medium reaches its potential.