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Byron Kho Unlocks Money Making

Byron Kho is the CEO of IDz Media, formerly InstantDollarz, an affiliate network and advertising solutions provider.  After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 2005, Byron helped build and develop IDz Media from loyalty website specialization to an affiliate network handling tens of thousands of clients.  IDz Media continues to do all development in-house, including its affiliate network software, the now ubiquitous Content Unlocker software it debuted in 2008, and exciting new products scheduled for release in late 2011.

1) Byron, tell us briefly about yourself and how you got started in this industry. Before moving into this industry, I was conducting biomedical research into neurodegenerative diseases at Penn.  While fascinating, the bureaucracy and politicization of science was very frustrating and prompted me to look at opportunities elsewhere.  Initially as a side project, my business partner and I started developing websites back in 2004 and 2005 to varying degrees of success.  We ran all kinds of content sites, including a very popular MCAT preparation site, several ringtone sites, credit card comparison sites and other such ventures.  Our first financially successful hit was a shopping cash back program that very rapidly grew in sales and volume to grab a place right behind Inbox Dollars and FatWallet for a time.  We started out as affiliates working with content we enjoyed creating and sharing, but we picked up a lot of experience on the way and realized that we could do a lot more with our talents.  We then switched business models to helping others monetize their own content and generating value for advertisers.  Currently, we operate as an affiliate network and as an advertising solutions provider for all types of clients.

2) Do you think being an Asian in this industry has hindered or helped you achieve the level of success you currently have or anticipated?I would throw age into the mix as well.  As a very young entrepreneur trying to pitch my wares to networks and advertisers way back in the day, age and race were definitely considerations I had to think about.  I assumed that everyone would take young people less seriously, and knowing some of the stigmas against Asian marketers, I felt that I also had a duty to ensure I presented myself as a serious, educated businessperson with some solid ethics.  This rather obligated me to set aside some time to review what I wanted for myself and for the company, how I thought I could get there, and then putting all of that to paper as our future plans.  In reality, I found the industry to be extremely diverse and accepting – which was exceptionally rewarding and helped let me know this was a business I wanted to be in.  Looking back, I realized that the time I spent planning was the best possible thing I could have been doing to get started properly, and get ahead.

3) What are the top 3 factors that you feel contribute to your success? First is definitely technology.  I’m the front-end designer and my partner is the back-end programmer, and together, we’ve built a whole slew of advanced products that have helped establish our little niche in this industry.  A case in point: a few years ago, we sat together in a little room for ONE WEEK and cranked out the software for our affiliate network.  Today, our affiliate network software handles tens of thousands of clients; hundreds of advertisers; tracking and adserving for millions of impressions, clicks and leads every month; robust IP filtering and fraud detection/prevention measures; and rigorous accounting and quality control management modules.  With only minor modifications and periodic upgrades to newer versions of PHP, SQL and other necessary items, our programming has stood the test of time – no major failures or technical loopholes (fingers crossed, of course).  Back in 2008, the release of our Content Unlocker software got a whole new channel of online marketing started and a whole bunch of our competitors busy replicating.  At the moment, we’re even working on a new technology that will hopefully break open a channel of its own.

Second, planning.  I find it a great idea to keep up to date on all sorts of news, from tech updates to entertainment tidbits.  Everything is of use to an affiliate marketer, and can help you figure out the Next Big Thing.  We sit down and figure out what’s working in the industry and what people want, and from there we plan what products and services we need to be offering to keep up with the times.  Same with managing content – you need short-term and long-term analyses of what will be hot, and you create and release content and marketing plans accordingly.

Third, being prudent with risk.  After being around this long, we’ve seen dozens and dozens of companies rise and fall, many of them catapulting their way to short-term fortune with poorly prepared forays into new channels and abusive marketing methods that provoke consumers, advertisers and the government to react – and react hard.  When releasing our Content Unlocker technology, we chose to ease into the markets and grow conservatively, constantly monitoring advertiser response to these new business methods and practices.  We take the time to properly introduce and acclimate our current and future clients to our new products and services, leading to more steady growth, manageable cash flow and an overall positive experience.  Six years after our founding, it’s this approach that has ensured that the issues and scandals plaguing our industry have not touched us in any significant way, and which sees us still around when many of our more wild competitors have disappeared or have garnered terrible reputations and frequent lawsuits.  Much of our aversion to risk is because it will eventually lower the value of the business: largely unethical behavior will generally make up a significant portion of that risk, and it is that kind of behavior that advertisers and the government will eventually target for punishment and over-regulation.

4) How important is it to you to communicate with your partners? Is there a particular message you are wanting to convey? Lines of communication should always be open.  To build strong healthy relationships between partners, both sides need to be convinced of what the ultimate goals are, and whether or not the other side is stable, honest and trustworthy.  The more they know about what we do, why we do what we do, who we are and the problems we face, the more likely they will be there for us when we need it – and it’s a two-way street.

5) Talk to us specifically about your experience and frustrations in dealing with people in the industry. Personally, I love learning, so hearing about or debating new advances in technology and how they can propel the industry forward is a supremely attractive proposition.  My frustration comes around when dealing with companies that are less interested in ideas and very narrowly focused on numbers, or on things that are comfortable.  We see it often: companies go stagnant, doing the same old thing year after year, and don’t adapt with the market and with new discoveries until it’s rather too late.  We’re often in the front of the room pitching new business models and technologies to clients and having to persuade them that new ways aren’t bad, that they shouldn’t play defensive and always be retreating on their marketing, and that figuring out what the “next big thing” is doesn’t include doing the same thing you’ve done for the last 5 years.  We’re a technology company, so for us it’s easy for us to have an idea in the back of our mind one day, and a working advertising platform to play around with the next; creativity is our lifeblood, and so we’re always trying to preach the religion of change.

6) What do you think is the impact of the “new” media on today’s generation? Are they leveraging it effectively and more importantly – are they leveraging it for the betterment of our industry? A lot of the time, today’s generation is creating the new media and leaving others to leverage it!  The business news section is filled with an incredible amount of innovation shown by tons of young technology and marketing firms and their subsequent acquisitions by industry behemoths, and the fact that this growth and creativity hasn’t let up and continues to attract advertiser dollars is a testament to its positive effect on the industry.  These newcomers create new technologies, leverage other technologies to create new products and services, and then incidentally create huge public demands for all these new things.  It all adds up to more methods of reaching consumers, some in more meaningful ways than the “old media” that came before it.  Even when there are speed bumps, there have always been community-minded companies and professional organizations that step up and help develop industry guidelines, best practices and even lobby for changing the legal and regulatory atmosphere to better serve society and business together.

7) Being a minority myself, there are constant stereotypes that I have to overcome, have you ever experienced this? Yes and no.  I try to combat those stereotypes before I ever have to face them, so it’s mostly preparation and a little bit of luck that has limited my exposure to any negative stereotyping.  With the reputation that certain rings of Asian “marketers” have, I have always prepared well ahead of time to defend my ethics, traffic quality and goals and beliefs in a coherent fashion.  That job gets easier and easier as time goes on, as the reputation I’ve built for my company can now speak for me.

8) What are some effective tools and products that help you keep your life organized? We use a lot of internally designed software to manage our marketing campaigns, financial accounting, quality control, etc.  We designed them to streamline, centralize and automate as many of our tasks as possible, so it ended up being more efficient, decreasing the amount of repetitive daily tasks and leaving us time for R&D, and saving us a ton of money that would have otherwise been spent on hiring out some third-party applications.  For my own life, I go simple.  The calendar on my phone keeps my schedule intact, OneNote holds my “Giant List of Stuff to Do and Look Into”, and Google Docs was the easiest way to coordinate development projects and issue tasks to my team.

9) If you had a money tree in your back yard and could purchase anything for your business tomorrow, what would it be? A few motivated and dedicated programmers are worth their weight in gold.  That’s what I’d get – you can never have too many programmers.

10) Any words of wisdom for my readers looking to get into this space? As a technology house, we are a fan of marketers who really know the mechanics of their tools.  Put your time and effort into figuring out the products and services you use.  You should always have an edge, and being intuitive and improving efficiency can always make you money – whether you’re creating your own products and software, or trying to streamline campaigns for clients, or just fiddling with landing pages and driving leads.  Knowing your stuff is always good for the sales pitch!

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PeerFly has few Peers.

Recently PeerFly was awarded the #2 Network in our Annual Survey of Networks. Their CEO Chad French was pretty damn happy about that, considering he only opened the doors in 2008. We decided that it was about time we sat down with him again and see what he is doing with himself, and what we can expect from his network.

We spoke to you a few months ago; you seemed really excited about the future. How does it feel that half a year later your network has blown up and you’re one of the top CPA networks in the world? It’s been an awesome experience.  When I started building the platform for PeerFly in 2008, I had no idea we’d be one of the top networks in less than 3 years time. I attribute our phenomenal growth to my team and the long hours we put in every day to make sure we’re the best we can be.  We’re never content with where we are at any given moment so we continue to push ourselves to the next level. If there isn’t a next level, we create one. We’ve done so much in 3 years… watch what we do within the next 3!

What do you think that you are offering that other CPA Networks can’t provide? I believe the advantages we have over other CPA networks are two things: creativity, and in-house development. We have a list a mile long of ideas that we want to implement into PeerFly and future assets that are not found elsewhere. We are extremely inventive and think outside of the boxes box! Myself, and two others on my team, have web-based programming backgrounds with varying levels of skill. So, when we come together and conjure up something super creative, we’re able to easily implement those ideas within our system. We’ve never relied on a 3rd party to provide value to our affiliates/clients.

Other things we provide that others don’t are several payment schedules based on revenue, several payment methods, daily payments (over a year now), over 1,300 offers in many different verticals, live chat support, a rewards program, and a lifetime 5% referral program.

As you know, fraud is a serious issue. What is PeerFly doing to combat fraud? What types of fraud are you seeing personally? We have been described as one of the most strict and rigorous in terms of fraud and compliance. To begin, our compliance department is composed of two different segments: approvals and traffic. Among other things, all applicants have to verify their phone number using our pin verification system as well as upload a government issued photo ID. If verification passes, they still have to pass another additional 20+ internal points of assessment.  If an applicant is approved and becomes an affiliate, our dedicated traffic manager audits their traffic closely and works proactively with our clients to ensure quality is where it needs to be.

We don’t really see “fraud” like we used to when we first started. Rather, we see non-compliant traffic. IE; traffic that may be legitimate but is not an accepted method or type as described on the offer page. Some affiliates just don’t know how to follow directions. However, most of the time we’re able to catch it before it becomes an issue and steer that publisher in the right direction.

We’ve talked about those networks that don’t pay their bills. What is your philosophy about this? Paying our affiliates on time is something else that sets us apart as well. It shouldn’t even be an advantage because that’s CPA network predicate 101! But, unfortunately for this industry, it is. For the first two years we were in business, we had an extremely low overhead that allowed us to save, save, save. It wasn’t until the beginning of this year that we actually got an office. Even with the office, only a couple of us work there – one being part time. We have had no investors and we’ve bootstrapped everything. Our savings has allowed us to continue to pay everyone on time even when our clients are several weeks or months late on their payment. We’ve been fortunate enough to float money without issues and I attribute that to our non-flashy, low budget, saving mentality style.

For networks that have trouble keeping up with payments and are starting to build a reputation of bad payment issues, you need to step back and reassess what you are doing in this business. The #1 priority we’ve had since day one is paying people what they earned, on time. We will make sure our affiliates are paid on time before our own pockets are paid on time. With the power of the Internet, it’s super easy for a handful of affiliates to take your business down because of your bad financial decisions. I’ve seen it time and time again. Always make sure your output is never more than your input or else you will see failure.

What do you think the biggest mistakes most affiliates are making right now? Giving up. Unfortunately, a lot of people equate this industry with a “get-rich-quick” scheme. They get into it looking to make an easy dollar and then give up when they discover it’s a lot harder than they perceived. I believe there is nothing “hard” about this business. You just have to know what you are doing so you can formulate a strategy. The only thing that separates new affiliates from super affiliates is information. That’s it. You don’t need to have any money, special talent, skills, or degrees. We have affiliates who make $20k a day and it’s not because of their good looks! They understand how to take an offer, formulate an action plan and know whom to target.

Are you offering training for affiliates? Why or why not? What specifically? We’re currently developing a whole new interface and website layout. With the launch of the new design we will also be introducing a “Training & Resource Center” which will focus on providing the information our affiliates need to succeed.  We want to start doing live Q&A sessions, video walkthroughs, a dynamic FAQ system, message board and more. We don’t think our affiliates should be paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars on coaching programs when we can provide all of it plus more for free.

Where do you think affiliates need to go to learn how to be super-affiliates? I believe our upcoming resource center will prove to be a valuable asset and will be able to take our affiliates from “newbie” to “super” in a short time. Other places to frequent for free guidance in this business are forums like: WarriorForum (http://warriorforum.com), DigitalPoint (http://forums.digitalpoint.com) and reading all the latest industry related blog posts at AffDaily (http://affdaily.com) where lots of industry bloggers provide valuable insights and information.

Do you recommend that affiliates try many networks, or stick with a few proven networks? Why or why not? Stick with the proven networks. There should be no need for you to go out looking for or working with new networks that don’t have any history. If anything, let them prove themselves first. If they seem attractive because of payout claims on a certain offer or the types of offers they have, simply ask the current proven network you’re with if they can get those offers or match those payouts. Nine times out of 10, not only will they be able to get that offer but also beat the payout on it as well. The proven networks have a lot more clout and can negotiate better payouts with advertisers. Not to mention – if you work with an unproven or unheard of network, they are more than likely brokering the offer from a bigger, proven network anyway.

What is your opinion of all the FTC lawsuits? How are you guys protecting yourselves from legal actions by the government, and what do you recommend for affiliates? Our industry obviously needs regulation. I want to help build an industry of value, integrity, and sustainability. Not scams, lies, and falsehoods. Advertising powers the Internet so we really have a bright future ahead of us just as long as we can stay accepted and compliant! I applaud the efforts of groups like the Performance Marketing Association, the Executive Council of Performance Marketing and even the Federal Trade Commission for creating standards and keeping both sides straight.

As for us, we work with our attorney to ensure our practices stay within FTC guidelines. We have absolutely no intentions of going outside the realm of veracity and standards this industry relies upon to grow.

Check out Peerfly here

 

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Avoid These 5 Useless Website Promotion Techniques

SitePronews.com- Every owner of a website on planet Earth knows that getting a constant flow of targeted traffic is the key to making money online. The world wide web attracts such a massive number of buyers that regardless of what you sell, you will make some really good money when you have lots of traffic.

Internet marketers are constantly coming up with newer ways to expand their reach across the Internet because no website can survive without enough targeted traffic. In their quest to obtain more of the elusive traffic, the website marketers have come up with some rather creative ways to bring in greater amounts of traffic in a short period of time and with little effort.

My email inbox has been flooded with sales letters promoting some automated software or seldom used secret that promises an explosion of website visitors within 30 days. The disturbing part of all this is that it goes against the teaching of our early years; that nothing good comes easy and there is no quick path to building a successful business. As a result of these promises of abundant website traffic and exploding sales figures, many have abandoned those time tested methods of attracting real targeted website visitors that are prepared to take some kind of action. Keep in mind that website traffic isn’t something that you can just get, but visitors will come to your website when you have something to offer, enticing them to click on your link.

Too many people are cashing in on a person’s desire to get to the top without much effort by offering some really useless website marketing techniques that could actually kill their search engine rankings. The fact is that these are nothing more than ‘Marketing Fads’, that may produce some huge results in the beginning, but when the newness wears off their effectiveness will fade away forever just like the telephone booth.

Remember when pop-ups and pop-under advertising came out years ago? This was the hottest marketing tool since the time of placing fliers on cars in parking lots. However, when everyone in the world started using pop-ups to promote their websites there were windows popping up every time you visited and exited a website. Internet users worldwide got so sick of all those pop-up windows that someone invented pop-up killer software. The search engines even started penalizing websites that were using pop-up scripts and soon after that method of website promotion faded away.

I will attempt to identify and explain some of these useless website promotion techniques that should be avoided at all cost. Using some of these bad website marketing techniques could certainly kill your search engine rankings.

Automatic Search Engine Submission Services

These free search engine submission websites allow you to put in your URL, keywords and a description of your website. You then click Submit believing that your website is on its way to being indexed on thousands of search engines. Not so! First of all, the major search engines require manual submission by hand and even implement coding script to prevent auto submission. Secondly, when you click on that Submit button you have no idea where your website link will end up going. Your website link could be automatically posted to porn or international directory websites that are nothing but a colony of spam links. If Google crawls your website and finds out that you have links to your website coming from other websites with rotten content, then your website will pay the price in low rankings.

There is absolutely no substitute for manually submitting your websites to the search engines directly. You will have complete control over where your link is going, and the search engines will automatically crawl your website to get your title and description.

Auto Submission to Directories and FFA Sites

You may have seen those places that claim you can blast your website to over 2 million websites and directories. As a general rule, please stay away from anyone that uses the word ‘Blast’ because this is just another way of saying Spam. It sounds like you are literally placing your link on millions of other websites and getting tons of instant backlinks to your website. Those FFA or Free For All websites are nothing but a link farm containing links from sites with bad or irrelevant content. The search engines will never see your website as being respectable enough to rank high in the search results if it is affiliated with that type of environment.

Lead Generation Software

I once received an email that said, “Hello Webmaster, My name is John. I have been searching the Internet for some business opportunities and came across your website. I just wanted to know if you are still in business today. Please email me at this_email@emailaddress.com and let me know. Thank you.”

I replied to the person giving them more information about one of our websites. That particular email was forgotten until I received a few other emails with the same content from different names and email addresses. This matter sparked my curiosity and prompted me to do some further investigation to find out why these emails turned up so frequently.

I discovered that this was the work of lead generation software that extracts website links and email addresses from the Internet for any category. You just type the keyword in the search box and the software literally pulls in millions of email addresses. The software even allows you to mass email all those addresses. On the surface it appears to be the perfect way to put your website link in front of millions of people in the same industry as you.

This has the look and smell of spam, but because the one sending the email does not attempt to sell you anything, it’s not quite spam. This marketing technique is not very effective because the email is generic, impersonal and did not give the reader a reason to respond. Your emails should speak to a person’s needs and not just at them. Readers respond to emails if you find a way to reach their interests, giving them a reason to take action.

Backlink Generating Software

Google loves websites that have lots of quality backlinks, considering such links votes on the importance of those sites. Somebody got this crazy idea to automate the link building that Google loves, hoping to get huge numbers of valuable links and move to the top of the search engine results. Google has now gotten smart and has found to way to detect how you are getting your backlinks and even the speed at which you are getting them. So, if you are still buying links or using software to get instant backlinks, then chances are Google will find out and penalize your website. Nothing can substitute for writing valuable content that will automatically attract quality backlinks.

Automated Article Submission and Article Spinning

Writing high quality articles is a great way to attract targeted visitors to your website. Again, someone invented a way to automate this process as well. They came out with article submission software that they claim will automatically submit your written articles to hundreds or even thousands of article directories. There is even software that will take one written article, spin the title and words around, and submit them to more directories. This software sells like hotcakes because people don’t want to do the labor intensive work of writing their own articles and submitting them manually to article directories.

The real, authentic article directories that can syndicate your articles are getting smart and have installed a special code that disallows auto submission of articles. They have also installed a special script that can detect articles that have been spun off from the original. Most of them manually approve articles before they are published in their directory and can easily detect duplicate and spinned content.

Conclusion

Widespread use of these automated website marketing techniques has taken away the need to apply really genuine website promotion that gets real results and replaced it with push-button marketing. You may see some quick and positive results, but only for a short period of time. Treat your website like an infant; give it lots of attention, feed it some healthy content, protect it from dangerous spam activity and let it grow naturally over time.

Deek Ennis is the Founder and CEO of Buildstar Wholesale Resources. Since 2003 they have helped over 100,000 businesses fulfill their wholesale and drop ship product sourcing needs and save money with free worldwide shipping on over 5 million wholesale products. Deek is the author of numerous published articles on internet marketing and business such as, “7 Do It Yourself Techniques to higher Search Engine Rankings” and “How to Avoid Getting Scammed While Buying Wholesale”. Learn how Deek and Buildstar can help fulfill your wholesale product sourcing needs at www.buildstarwholesale.com.