Game time is approaching for the best time of the year for Affiliate marketers. The holidays are just around the corner and coming fast! Are you prepared? Well….we are. Every holiday season Networks and Affiliates have a window of opportunity to catch up of low performances for the year or absolutely crush their goals and take their businesses to another level. Now I am not an economy guru, but with the way the economy has treated all of us lately we could see a HUGE spike in online sales because people always find a way to make up for lost time…if you know what I mean.

For Affiliates out there looking to ramp it up for the holiday season. Revenuetoday.com has great article on tips for preparing your site and your business for the upcoming holiday season. Check it out: http://www.revenuetoday.com/story/Keyword+for+the+Holidays%3A+Prepare%21

At AKMG the hoilday offers are already coming in. We are very excited about our line of holiday offers. Be sure to log in and check them out! 

So with your website pimped out and having the best offers ) on the market we should have no problem starting the holiday season of right. Don’t you agree?

Talk to me,

Chris Mello 

Everyone is buzzing about the state of the economy and the slashing of advertiser budgets. I have been speaking with many agencies over the past few months and the tide has turned recently. It seems like more agencies are recommending CPA campaigns as a part of the overall budget since everyone is being held more accountable for every dollar spent. This is a good sign for our industry but on a bigger scale, it reinforces what a tough economic situation we are in at the moment.

So it begs the question: should advertisers have to prepay for CPA media space? The word on the street is that the industry trend is to be much more cautious with new advertisers. It is tougher for new advertisers in that they are now required to provide credit references, they are given shorter payment terms and are limited in how many leads/sales are sent to them until the networks & publishers know that they will get paid. So much for the good old days when a handshake sealed the deal. Times are way different now.

Here’s to hoping that we see an economic turnaround and increased CPA advertiser budgets. Let the countdown to election day begin…

“The sky is falling, the sky is falling!!!” Boy have we all heard a lot of that the last couple of weeks with the stock market and the economy. But for all you affiliates out there, how many times has your affiliate manager promised you the world on this next campaign and it bombed!

There is one subtle difference between AKMG Affiliate Manager’s and most others out there is…credibility. That’s right we have and never will put any affiliate into an offer that we know wont do well for them. We focus on build the relationship on trust and integrity. Pushing offers to affiliates all day long day in and day out can get old very fast for you and for us. 

Personally my number one focus when I am working with an affiliate or prospective affiliate is to get to know them. Obviously what offers work the best for them, but more importantly I like to know about them: their likes, dislikes, hobbies, family, relationships, friends. Because in the big picture if we are going to be successful we are going to be working together for a long time. We might as well start off on the right foot. 

One success principle I have learned is to focus on daily activities first and your stats, numbers, revenues will automatically be there. Switch the two and you could be in serious trouble. Say what you want about the “Secret” or “The laws of attraction” but these principles are here for a reason and every time I follow them consistently good things always follow. Here is a quote from the book on the picture above:

“When you achieve authority and trust, people will come to YOU when they need the knowledge that you have. This translates into customers that will also provide word of mouth about you and your credibility.

This is what I follow. Do you?

Talk to me,

Chris Mello 

I’m counting down the days until Election 2008, which falls right in the middle of ad:tech NY. Luckily I live in Florida and can vote early. There has been so much talk about Election 2008 and the recession, foreclosures, stock market crashing, job cuts, to name a few topics. The average person is inundated with these doom & gloom messages non stop through every medium possible including TV, Internet and print. It’s hard to focus on anything else these days. But it doesn’t all have to be negative news. Some of the offers we promote give peace of mind and relief to American’s like deals from Entertainment Book 2009, lowered auto insurance and information on educational opportunities.

Not only can we help Americans and ease their mind but our business can benefit from Election 2008 and the recession mania in several ways listed here.

1) We are successfully pushing Foreclosure consultation and Debt consulation-type offers
2) We are working with advertisers who have come up with innovative Work at Home offers
3) We have offers that give discounts & coupons on products
4) From an advertiser perspective, we offer a solid ROI on their advertising budget

But on the flip side, advertisers want to hold onto their money as long possible which makes the business relationship very tenuous. I know most people will agree that they are anxiously awaiting Election 2008 so that we can begin to overcome the recession and get back on the road to better economic times.

May the best man win!

There are several hundred working ‘flavours’ of Linux available to businesses, home offices, and any hybrid-environment that an end-user is wishing to set up.  Here, at AKMG, we love Fedora, specifically “Core 9″.  You might be wondering why fedora linux is the best for the marketing industry?  Let us count the ways.

First of all, the functionality is the absolute best.
- Unrivaled compatibility
- Ridiculously easy installation and pre-config
- Fantastic graphical control for any services

With all due respect to the ‘command-line heros’, visually, Fedora looks and responds great.  They don’t include all of the ‘fu fu’ effects built into the GUIs that can slow the functionality down.  Although ‘pretty’ is nice - no one stares at a server screen all day, so I choose functionality over fu-fu any day.

Customizability.  All linux distros are well-known for this feature.  Actually, it’s one of the key reasons for having Linux!  Fedora, however, completely rocks this feature and it’s so malleable that you can shape a backbone to your specific company’s/industry’s requirements.

Stability is fantastic.  Our servers have been up and running without fail since the day they were born.

Cool little fedora tools:
- Desktop on a USB Drive!  Yes, I’m not kidding - desktop on a stick.
- Fantastic network utilities
- Great firewall management
- Great package installation/updating utilities

All in all Fedora serves us great over here, and I give my highest recommendations to marketing/advertising industry partners.

Get in touch - I’m always up for a nerd session.

Josh
josh@akmg.com

We were in Las Vegas early last week for DMA 08 - the largest direct response marketing show. It was my first time at DMA and it was definitely an experience to remember…I mean, it’s not every day that you get your picture taken with Elvis! Attendance was down from last year but the exhibit hall was still full of direct response marketers who were anxious to talk about their specialty and expertise. It ranged anywhere from list brokers (there were a ton of these companies there!) to call center management to direct mail printing to graphic design work. Some of the people that we met did a bit of online marketing but for others, it was foreign concept. It’s always challenging to explain what you do, especially CPA marketing, to someone who doesn’t even understand basic online marketing. It was good practice to simplify an explanation of our business and what we do.

In addition to exploring the exhibit hall, we re-connected with some of our publishers and advertisers - the usual trade show suspects! We had really good meetings and we’re working on some really innovative stuff. It’s surprising how many ideas you can get from an offline direct response show that are easily translatable to online. Now we have a mini travel break before heading to ad:tech NY (link to ad:tech site) and then it will be back to our comfort zone surrounded by online people.

Please contact us to arrange a meeting in NY.

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…