Leadership Summit Interviews

The following interviews were conducted as a run up to the Offervault Performance Marketing Leadership Summit.  They were hosted by Jim Lillig, The Director of Business Development of Offervault.com.  The Leadership Summit brought together the top leaders in the Performance marketing Industry to discuss the issues that are vital for the industry to survive in the competitive online marketing arena.  Each interviewee was asked the same question, “What do you see as the single biggest obstacle to growth in Cost per Action Marketing over the next 6 to 12 months?”  Their answers are not what you would expect.

Todd Crawford Interview
Todd Crawford, co-founder of Impact Radius.

A recognizable veteran, Todd Crawford brings to Impact Radius a passion for performance advertising and a commitment to its growth. As a co-founder, he evangelizes the opportunities presented by a multi-channel approach to the performance model. Prior to Impact Radius, he served as vice president of sales and business development for Digital River’s affiliate network, oneNetworkDirect. Todd also contributed to the founding team at Commission Junction in 1998 and led its business and sales development efforts as vice president for more than seven years.

In 2007, Todd won the Affiliate Marketing Legend Award at the Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards in Las Vegas. He holds a bachelor of arts at the University of Minnesota, Twin-Cities.

Listen to his interview here.

Tom Cohn Interview
Thomas A. Cohn – Of Counsel – Venable LLP

Thomas Cohn advises clients on the legal and practical aspects of compliance with FTC and other federal and state consumer regulations and industry selfregulation programs, as well as representing clients during investigations and enforcement actions. His clients include a wide variety of online and offline advertisers and marketers, in many different subject matter areas. His practice covers all federal and state consumer protection and privacy laws and regulations, including newer ones such as the FTC’s ID Theft Red Flags Rule.

Mr. Cohn draws on experience gained during his 17-year tenure at the FTC, where he was Regional Director and Assistant Regional Director for the Northeast Region, attorney in the Division of Marketing Practices, and legal advisor to the Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection.  As FTC Northeast Regional Director, Mr. Cohn supervised all professional and support staff and led multi-agency enforcement efforts against various anticompetitive, unfair and/or deceptive practices. He was also responsible for numerous local and regional media and outreach efforts to educate consumers, business groups, and law enforcement agencies about how to detect and avoid fraud as well as how to comply with antitrust and consumer protection laws enforced by the FTC, such as the Telemarketing Sales Rule, regulations under CAN SPAM Act, Children’s Online Privacy and Privacy Act, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and consumer credit statutes such as FDCPA, TILA, FCRA and FACTA.

Mr. Cohn also spent four years as Legal Advisor to the Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, where he reviewed law enforcement recommendations, Congressional testimony, and other matters for the Director.  He served five years as a staff attorney in the FTC’s Division of Marketing Practices, where he litigated fraud and rule violation cases, coordinated test shoppings of funeral homes for compliance with the Funeral Rule, and played a key role in the development and implementation of the Funeral Rule Offenders’ Program, an innovative, self-regulatory alternative to traditional law enforcement.

Mr. Cohn is a graduate of Yale College and Boston University School of Law, and is a member of the New York City Bar Consumer Affairs Committee and the New York State Bar Food, Drug & Cosmetic Law Section.

Listen to his interview here.

Chris Graham Interview
Chris Graham, VP Business Intelligence for Atrinsic.

Chris entered the world of brand protection when he joined Email Data Source in 2004. CANSPAM was just getting into full swing and the initially vague nature of CANSPAM was scaring many brands away from third party email and affiliate marketing. So Chris went to them with a system that not only allowed EDS to see if anyone was violating trademark or using unauthorized creative, or any of the other issues that came with email, but it also allowed them to show their clients the companies and affiliates who were doing things right for their competitors and who should be considered valuable potential partners.

After EDS, Chris discovered Syntryx. A complex system jammed full of data that enhanced his EDS clients understanding of who was who and who was doing what in the world of email, and it also began to fulfill the same goals for the rest of the web . Taking Syntryx to market was his next venture and it allowed Chris to see even deeper into the world of online marketing; both the good and the bad

Today at Atrinsic Chris sits, somewhat, on the other side of the table. No longer selling intelligence systems, but instead, selling the importance of using the many systems available to us today that allow Atrinsic  to truly evaluate the marketing of their clients and their competitors. Chris’s main job is to battle the forces of evil and protect a brand’s identity from being tarnished in the performance marketing space.

Listen to the entire interview here.

Cari Brinker Interview
Cari Birkner – Compliance Specialist – Lashback

Cari Birkner leads social media, industry outreach, and email compliance content development for LashBack, LLC, the largest provider of actionable compliance and brand intelligence data for email marketers. In addition to contributing to Deliverability.com, FeedFront Magazine and the Smart Data Collective on the subjects of compliance and international email marketing, Cari edits and publishes the LashBack TRUSTED Blog and Email Compliance Newsletter.

Cari is well versed in compliance matters affecting affiliate marketers, particularly concerning the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act, European email legislation, suppression file management technology, social media, branding and email deliverability. While working at LashBack, Cari has been at the forefront of monitoring email compliance for advertisers, networks, publishers, legal professionals, ESPs and government regulators. Cari began her career in the online marketing space as an intern and officially joined the LashBack Marketing team in 2008. In 2009, Cari earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a specialization in Marketing from Southern Illinois University.

You can listen to her interview here.

Mark Roth Interview
Mark Roth, Founder and CEO of OfferVault.

In this interview, Mark will be discussing the future of Performance Marketing as he sees it, as well as some of the results and insights that we have gleaned from a recent survey of affiliates that are registered at OfferVault.  If you want to know what affiliates think of networks, you will want to tune in here.

Article Marketing is Good For you

Want to have hundreds of engrossed visitors checking out your site on a daily basis, at no charge to you? If you say “yes”, then article marketing is the answer for you. Below are some advantages of article marketing that you should know about if you are yearning to get into it.

One of the remarkable benefits of article marketing is that you acquire an ability to pre-sell your products with ease. Articles that are informative in nature can also warm up your prospects about the product and give them enough info to help them reach a buying decision. Essentially, the article is not meant to be a sales pitch, but rather educating potential buyers of the items or the problem it will be able to solve. This can literally grow your sales because when your potential customer is in the buying mentality, which will make it simpler for you to make a sale. A lot of article marketers don’t utilize this strategy and hope to be overflowed with customers, when in reality they can use their articles to pre-sell their items and direct interested people to their website. The reason why pre-selling is extremely important these days is because people have become highly conscious about where they spend their money and high. To help people have better buying experiences and for them to make a calculated choice, informative articles can provide answers. The last thing; you should always strive to tone down your pre-selling so that you don’t end up converting your article to an advertisement.

Article marketing is a way to instantly connect with people all over the world who are potential customers. You are able to submit your articles to many online sites at the same time, thus reaching a wide audience quickly.

All Internet marketers realize the benefit of growing their rankings in the search engines. It’s one of the most excellent things that can occur to your website, period. Article marketing helps you out in this area by giving you an easy way to increase your page rank. The page ranking of your site definitely influences the type of ranking you will earn from your website in Google, which is presently the leader among search engines. When you radiate your articles online, they construct backlinks, and when you get pertinent backlinks, your page rank increases. Your page rang will have a better standing, as the number of quality backlinks you have increases. In addition, there are many article directories have excellent page rankings, meaning they will be allocating on to your site. Your page ranking is not only advantageous and held in high regard according to Google, but it is also a positive sign in front of your visitors. If you plan to sell your website someday, having a good standing page rank will allow you go ask a higher price. So there are tons of advantages for growing your page rank and article marketing can definitely help you with that.

Another noticeable perk of article marketing is that you’ll receive a usual flow of traffic from the search engines as well as the other websites that have published your articles. There are several marketers that are still receiving traffic from their old articles that were published quite some time ago. The explanation for this is the Internet has become a powerhouse of information that is perpetually being fed superior quality content. When your articles are a high caliber and provide relevant info to the reader, they don’t just receive a good ranking in the search engines but also get distributed in newsletter, ezines and websites that publish third party content. This just proves that your articles have an ability to direct new visitors to your site again and again, without having to spend money on them. It’s free traffic forever and the greatest thing is it’s highly targeted.

Make sure that your articles have your primary keywords in the body and as well as the title so that you’re able to rank for them. Search engine traffic can be the best kind of all, especially when you rank well for relevant keywords that get high traffic. The reason why it is easy to reach high positions in the search engines is because the directories that you publish them with are seen as authority sites, giving you an advantage. Many webmasters are constantly seeking content, and some of these will find your articles and re-publish them on their sites, giving you another source of traffic. So you will eventually be getting traffic from all over the internet, sometimes from sources you’ve never heard of.

Article marketing is also a great way to get exposure for the services you offer. There are a number of talented freelancers who strain to find opportunities via freelancing sites such as Elance, due to the heightened competition. However article marketing is an option that few freelancers practice with to promote their service. You can write and announce articles that explain the niche you’re targeting and then deliberately introduce your readers to the service you’re providing. This would make is so much easier for you to direct traffic and convince clients from every part of the web, instead of only depending on the big freelance portals.

Article marketing, then, is a proven method for getting you high quality traffic, and it’s completely free to use. It’s a method that, when done right, can bring you good results in a short time.

Jeremy Shoemaker Information

Jeremy Schoemaker Bio

Jeremy Schoemaker, otherwise known as Shoemoney, is a somewhat legendary Internet marketer and blogger who is famous for, amongst other things, being extremely successful with the Google AdSense program. One of the most famous links on his website is an image of him holding an AdSense check for nearly $133,000 in 2005.

Detailed Overview

The beginnings of Jeremy Schoemaker’s online career began in 1995. He had graduated from high school and was working at a well-known national retailer when he was approached by someone looking to hire him to work for their newly created Internet service provider company. Because of his technical background, Jeremy found the job to be challenging and rewarding. Among the things he did were learning how to manage servers, build websites and develop security systems.

He remained in this position for a couple of years and then returned to college to complete his degree. It was during this time that he founded his first business which was centered around Apple Macintosh gaming. Quite by accident, he was contacted by a company that produced the games and they wanted to advertise on his website since it had become very popular. That is when Jeremy became aware of the true power of creating websites that people would want to visit and then monetize them with advertiser dollars.

However, in 2000, when the dot com bubble burst, Jeremy found himself struggling for income and at a new low point in his life. He was severely overweight, deep in debt and smoking over two packs of cigarettes a day. Around this time, he met his future wife who encouraged him to get back to what he knew how to do well, create websites that people want to visit. In 2003, he began doing just that and became incredibly successful with his ringtone community website that was the source of his infamous AdSense check. Around the same time, Jeremy made massive changes to his personal life which included losing over 200 pounds, quitting smoking and starting a family.

Leveraging on his success, in 2007 Jeremy founded another company known as AuctionAds. The idea behind AuctionAds was to serve ads that were running on eBay on contextually relevant websites. The idea was so successful that it was purchased within six months of its creation by a larger competitor.

Today, Jeremy spends much of his time on his main website and blog Shoemoney.com where he talks about his successes and failures in his online marketing career and also helps others achieve their own goals. Since his only career began in 2003, Jeremy has established himself as one of the most successful affiliate marketers in the world having earned millions of dollars in that time.

Reputation

Jeremy Schoemaker is one of the most well known and well respected Internet marketers in the world today. From his humble beginnings in 2003, Jeremy overcame significant odds to become one of the most successful super affiliates anywhere earning millions of dollars in that time. He lives in Lincoln, Nebraska with his wife and two children and continues to help other affiliate marketers grow their own businesses.

Domain “Whois”

The Whois information for a website lists the owner and their contact information. The Whois information for “Jeremy Schoemaker” is public which is generally a good thing. This indicates the owner of this site has nothing to hide.

Your Own Right Approach to Affiliate Marketing

When an affiliate marketer gets accepted into a few networks, the first task they have is selecting an offer and deciding how to promote the offer. Today we will discuss several approaches that you can follow to shape your philosophy in selecting niches and offers that are best for you to promote. Of course any of these approaches along with many others are feasible and all affiliates must decide what is right for them. One of the beauties of affiliate marketing is that there are so many different ways to approach it and everyone can find an approach that works best for their own experience, work style and personality. The 3 approaches that we will examine in this post are expertise, seasonality, and audience targeting.

Expertise

Someone who knows about a product is more likely to be successful at promoting an offer. The affiliate will be able to produce better traffic because they know how to target the traffic. They know who ideally will use the product, and pick the appropriate creative or linking method to convert an offer. Expertise in the subject matter will also be a benefit when it comes to keyword research.
When creating content for a Website, expertise in the subject could help you do a better job in blending the content in with an image that naturally fits the theme. For example, if you are currently going to school and you are studying education, a great way to promote an affiliate offer is to match an education or business opportunity offer that best reflects the content being mentioned. So, someone earning an MBA may want to learn about currency trading (FOREX). Alternatively, someone who is studying elementary education may want to purchase a video series about child development or methods to improve reading comprehension.

When targeting social networks, an affiliate often joins certain groups and organizations. Affiliates, like everyday social site users will see the kind of traffic that is appearing within their personal social space. Looking at the advertisement below, it makes sense how the #1 affiliate marketing group on Facebook has two affiliate network advertisers posted on the right. This is called contextual targeting. Ensuring your context matches your users is fundamental.

Seasonality

For every season, there is an affiliate marketing vertical that will capitalize on traffic more so than others. To follow this approach, you must be on your toes, be able to execute quickly and be comfortable handing deadlines. For example, you could promote offers relating to Valentine’s Day but you need to start watching for these offers well in advance of the holiday and be ready to integrate them into your sites and landing pages in time to promote for the build up before the big day. Then you have to watch for the next seasonal happening and be ready to do it all over again. As another example, consumers who are looking for great gifts during the holidays will often make more As-Seen-On-TV purchases from October thru December than any other time of year. Sure there is work involved following the seasonality approach, but the payoff could be substantial. On the flip side, many affiliates prefer to focus on the evergreen type of offers that never go out of style, like, dating, weight loss, beauty and health or auto insurance. As I said earlier, there are many different ways to approach affiliate marketing and you need to know which one makes the most sense for you personally.

Audience Targeting

There are several websites on the Internet that will help you understand who your prime audience will be for a particular niche or offer. Everything from age, sex, geography, income, and education are described (see below). Such sites include Quantcast, Microsoft ad labs, Compete.com and others.

Offervault (www.offervault.com) has a handy demographic feature as well. You can click the “D” demographics button next to each offer and get an instant snapshot of the demographics for typical visitors to that offer. If you are interested in taking this type of approach, there are several traffic sources where you can put this information to good use, most especially Facebook.

There is probably no better place to get traffic pinpointed to particular demographics then Facebook. Plenty of Fish, a major dating site, also has a wealth of demographic data that you can use to target your ads. Lastly, Pay Per View traffic sources will often allow demographic targeting. When done right, this strategy can often produce some of the highest conversion rates of any type of targeting and of course we all love getting high conversion rates on our offers.

Rebecca Madigan of the Performance Marketing Association

Rebecca Madigan is executive director of the Performance Marketing Association. Since leading the formation of the PMA 2008, Rebecca has built the PMA to be the only trade association representing performance and affiliate marketing. The PMA has committed to connect, inform and advocate on behalf of this growing industry, most recently spearheading the fight against the ‘affiliate nexus tax’, legislation being proposed in several states, and which is detrimental to affiliate marketers. Rebecca was formerly director of product management at Commission Junction, Impact Radius, and at Lurn, Inc., where, with Anik Singal, they founded the PMA in April 2008. She has collected 25 years of leadership experience in product management and marketing.

About the Performance Marketing Association

The Performance Marketing Association is a not-for-profit trade association founded in 2008 by the leaders of the performance marketing industry, to connect, inform and advocate on behalf of this rapidly growing field.

The Performance Marketing Association (PMA) strives to raise the profile of performance marketing by demonstrating the value of this multi-billion marketing channel, which comprises more than 200,000 businesses and individuals. Continued growth of the performance marketing space is expected as advertisers, facing small budgets and big expectations, increasingly look to performance-based marketing initiatives to expand their business.

The PMA is the first formal organization representing the burgeoning performance marketing space and offering members a means to learn, share or communicate on a global scale. The collective knowledge of the community is shared and best practices are outlined, thereby providing performance marketers with the tools, information and support they need to grow their businesses.

In addition, the PMA gives performance marketers a unified voice to address issues and challenges facing the industry, such as the “advertising tax” proposed in some states. The PMA investigates these issues, maintains close contact with members, advertisers, legislators and news organizations to inform and educate and provide resource materials. The association also coordinates advocacy efforts, speaking on behalf of the industry – allowing its members to be heard while still focusing on their respective businesses.

With the PMA leading the charge, businesses will continue to grow and succeed, the quality of work will be demonstrated, and further quality participation in the performance marketing field encouraged.

How to Get Started in Affiliate Marketing

There are many reasons, but here are three reasons I would start market affiliate programs:

1. you don’t need to create your own products,

2. you don’t have to deal with customer service very often, and

3. you can create a business on just about any topic you want, including a hobbies.

Affiliate programs generate billions of dollars every year in revenue. For your success visit www.ppc-profit-marketer.com there is plenty of room for growth, and so anyone can make money. If you’re looking for an easy way to start a business online, affiliate programs are your answer.

When starting an affiliate business, there are three things you need to do to get started:

1. what will your topic be?

The first thing you need to do is write down several topics you’re interested in. This can be anything. Don’t limit yourself in this stage of your business. You’re just getting started, so right now is the time to let your imagination run free. For more help go to www.greatpromotionsite.com .Once you’ve chosen several topics, you want to do keyword research. Look for what’s called “Long Tail Keywords”. These are usually keyword phrases that have three or more keywords. Some of these you will be able to use. Others you will need to discard.

Then compare the amount of searches to the amount of results you find in the search engines. If a keyword phrase is really competitive, you may want to discard it.

What’s important here is that you remember there must be an audience for whatever you choose to market. Also, since you’re starting an affiliate business, you’re not limited to the number of topics you can promote. It’s a good idea to find three to five topics you are interested in and then diversify.

2. Will you build a website?

Although some would tell you that building a website is absolutely crucial to your affiliate marketing success, it really isn’t. There are plenty of marketers who send traffic directly to the merchant using pay per click, or some other marketing technique that doesn’t require a website.

The purpose of your website is what’s critical here. You can build a site as simple as a one page lead capture page to capture email addresses. Give your visitors a free report or some other bonus for joining your list.

3. How will you promote your new business?

How you promote your affiliate website depends on several factors. Do you like to write? Does the technique you have chosen require a lot of time? Do you have some spare cash you can use to promote your new business? By visit on www.affiliate-windfall-secrets.com if you do, then you can combine your marketing with simple websites and earn your first commissions in days. For more information logon to www.master-affiliates-marketer.com .Internet marketing techniques to consider are: search engine optimization, forums, article writing, pay per click, and free classifieds. These work well with affiliate marketing. Choose one and try it for awhile. When you feel comfortable, choose another and add it to your marketing plan.

Before starting an affiliate business, you should consider these factors. After all, if you’re looking for an easy way to start a business online, and you want to start earning quickly, affiliate marketing is the way to do it.

Article Marketing Software Here.

 

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