Motivational quotes from Loz Green – Founder affiliateworldconferences.com – istackholdings.com
The biggest problem used to be limited information. Ads were run on several mass media channels with the hope of gaining as much reach as possible. Even with the millions of dollars invested in advertising accounts, there was a glass ceiling to mass media reach.
With the internet and social media came to an entirely different problem. A solution to the old problem of reach, but a seeming overdose of it. This problem is an information explosion or as a social media consultant and author, Michael Schaefer, calls it “content shock”.
It is estimated that every minute, there are 448,800 tweets, 3.3 million Facebook posts, 65,972 Instagram posts, and 500 hours of YouTube content added to the internet. This is much more information than the human mind can absorb in a day. Expectedly, a considerable percentage of the information uploaded to the internet is marketing information. Brands, affiliate marketers, advertising agencies, and digital marketers are constantly putting out content to target audiences on social media.
In 2014, Facebook reported that the average user saw more than 1500 stories in their news feed whenever they logged into the account. This was way too much and Facebook had to cut the amount of content available to an average user. This was reduced to 300 stories and this dropped the organic reach of business pages to about 3%. With this, paid ads became a necessity for businesses and brands to boost reach. Still, the average social media user gets a lot of ads in news feeds. It is estimated that the average social media user gets about 5000 ads a day!
If an ad does not get the attention of the social media user, it is more or less an interruption. And interruptions get ignored. You should consider these two factors to get ahead in social media marketing.
Focus on the Solution: research has revealed that the most effective Superbowl ads are those who tell a complete story with about 4 to 5 acts. These ads feature exposition, rising action, climax, and the solution brought by the product (which is the resolution). But every ad can’t be in a movie form. Tell a story that highlights the solution your product brings. Following the “More is Less” rule, your motive is primarily not entertainment, it is to provide a solution to a problem.
Be Interactive: social media was made for social interaction. Users want to be engaged. Run quizzes, reply comments, show empathy, and let users know that the person on the other end is human and not another computer. Since the announcement by Facebook in January 2018 that they would emphasize meaningful interactions, posts with more engagement in the form of comments, likes, and shares from Facebook friends now get more reach.
Ads are very useful but can be interruptions. Focus more on getting attention and the effectiveness in your reach will increase.
The best tip I (Ian Fernando) can say in any industry is to fail when you are against the wall.
Everyone says this all the time but this is how I learned to be an online marketer. I was stuck and didn’t know how to make more money when I first started. I was held to the wall with no options. I learned that I need to go ahead and just do it. There is a lot of people that read and consume information for a year to try to avoid pitfalls. Pitfalls are necessary to learn a way to climb out. This helps with the creative process and thought process. Learning to be broke with no help puts you in a state of survival and it helps you grow as a person and helps your business grow.
There are nights where I can’t sleep because I needed a solution and those are when the best ideas come alive. You want to try and do but then you think it will fail but that is fine. You have to understand why you failed because a mentor’s experience does not necessarily mean it will be yours. You can take their lessons but you actually doing them might bring up a new solution to your problem. This is why failure is so important in your ongoing journey of being not just a business person but a person in general. We learn by doing not being cautious.
Remember Thomas Edison found 999 ways on how not to create a light bulb.
About the Psychological Aspect of Affiliate Marketing
“One of the biggest tips I can give to anyone interested in affiliate marketing is to expect a roller coaster ride of ups and downs. You can make a lot, really fast, but you can also not make any money, and seem like the entire world is against you. This can cause depression, feeling horrible, not wanting to be around people and feeling dumb like you can’t get anything going. This is normal, it’s a huge part of this extremely volatile industry that’s a lot of fun with many, many great people. No one talks about this, because the gurus that have to sell courses do so with fake screenshots, lambos, and rich lifestyle – but the truth is, while you can earn killer money it’s not easy; it’s very hard, time-consuming and stressful. Go in with the right expectations, and you should do just fine, I’ve been a full-time internet marketer since 2008, but I always expect to make a $1, then $10, then $100 and so on, never dream of a billion dollars. One step at a time.”
A few wise words on finding profitable campaigns
“If a campaign is a winner, it will be a winner from day 1. The bs that you can optimize a bad campaign into a profitable one with endless testing is BS. You can optimize up from minus -20% ROI to positive 20%, but you can’t go from -100% profit to +. This is why it is important to split test many different offers and also angles. Spy, take what received a lot of traffic and make your own slight variants and start there.” – https://iamattila.com/
Insider Tip from Vito Glazers, who has helped more than 100 entrepreneurs use news, media, and celebrities to share their stories with the world.
Bill Gates famously said if he was down to his last dollar, he would spend it on PR. Having spent more than a decade working on the digital side of advertising, I have seen a few brands have tremendous success, but have seen many more fail. The issue that I have seen is that people spend thousands, sometimes even millions, on product development, technology, tracking, metrics, and many other variables, but the most commonly overlooked, is developing the story for their brand.
In today’s world, there are very few new products and ideas. People are exposed to ads for nearly everything they are interested in all day long. So how do you make your personal brand or your product stand out in a sea of advertising chaos? The biggest asset that I have seen in common with all successful brands, is that they invest in creating a story that really resonates with their target audience. These days, customers buy stories. They will pay more for the same product if the story makes them feel connected. A masterfully crafted story creates a loyal, recurring customer, who is eager to share your story and how it connects with them with people in real life and on social media.
Here are a few ways I help brands tell their stories. There is the traditional way; you write up a pitch and send it to a bunch of media outlets. This method is a bit tedious and ineffective. Three less traditional, but more effective ways that I advise those looking to create a story, are my methods called Newsjacking, Cause Based Marketing, and Celebrity By Association.
Newsjacking is the art of making a controversial public statement in your brand’s voice about a trending topic in the media. Cause Based Marketing is a safe way to generate publicity around your brand by focusing on a trending cause that aligns with your brand, getting publicity around the cause, and then incorporating a subtle plug for your brand into these feel-good stories. Lastly, Celebrity By Association is a method used since the conception of media, which is to associate and be endorsed with other celebrities or popular brands that are at the level you want to be operating at, until you are recognized by the public as equal to those famous people and brand.
If you believe in your work and your product, then it’s your obligation to share your story with as many people as you can so they can benefit from knowing you exist. Everyone has a story to tell, and an audience that needs to hear it. – www.vitoglazers.com
Truth be told, the most memorable and epic business relationships are often made and solidified during the social scene. So where do you go? And how do you make the most of it without getting lost in the crowd?
Here are my tips from over two decades of experience:
Working the trade show floor is a great start at the trade show. It lets you see who’s who and you can also get a good feel for their team, the ones working the booth and the others who walk the floor. But not everyone from these companies have a booth and even the ones who do, you don’t always meet the whole team. So where can you find them? At the parties of course! And at the end of this message, I’ll let you in on the really good stuff!
When you get a chance to see these people outside of their “business mode” mindset, you really get a deeper look into who you’d like to do business with. Bonds are formed that you just can get on the show floor. Buying a drink for someone, letting them sit at your reserved table and sharing bottle service as you are having the time of your life is what does it. That’s what can take you over the top with the people you need to be in good with. Don’t be a dork, don’t over try, don’t show off and always be humble. Networking is like dating—don’t talk all about yourself, listen to them and hear what they do and what they’re looking to do so you can jump in then with your solution rather than pitching them hard from the start. I find that people can waste away days working the trade show and leave without any results when they only work the trade show floor and they don’t really get a chance to talk to prospects deeper about their business model. Sure, that external battery was cool to get from them on the show floor and they have a nice biz card, but did I really see if I can work with them? What do they do again?
That’s where the party scene really can take your networking over the top and that’s exactly why I built the Affiliate Ball. I built it so people can form bonds and let loose with fellow industry friends. It doesn’t hurt to be able to see who sponsored the party. Branding with your logo being seen at the big party certainly can help your company get past the, “who are you again”? You’re THAT company that sponsored the party, they’re clearly having fun at. They see your logo all night. Instant name recognition can help you get a great head start against the competition.
Now we can get a little deeper into my Affiliate Ball for a sec. When I laid out my plan for these events, it was with 1 goal: How do I make my parties different from the others? And, I want them to remember the Ball 10 or even 20 years from now because it was legendary. Remember that Snoop Dogg Affiliate Ball when you got up close and couldn’t believe you were dancing with Snoop at an industry event? Or the bond you formed that night with the group of people you met there and can’t wait to see the next year or sooner? That’s how I want the Affiliate Ball to be. Remembered for years with bonds that last a lifetime. Believe it or, I don’t think that’s asking for too much.
Now here’s a chance for you to still get this party scene right and take my advice.
From Snoop Dogg to Ludacris, and T-Pain to Tha Dogg Pound this year, the Affiliate Ball is THE not-to-be-missed party at Affiliate Summit, Tuesday night January 28th at Light Nightclub in the Mandalay Bay Hotel. It’s not only the official party of the Summit but it’s also the BIGGEST party of the show averaging about 3,000 Affiliate Summit guests per Vegas party. So here’s how to work it best:
VIP Preparty: Get in early with the crème of the crop before all the noise and lines and network in a quieter atmosphere with the biggest players in the industry while Rat Pack Ricky performs classy Sinatra Style tunes.
Snag VIP passes with this link today, we’ll run out soon!
https://vipprepartypasses.affiliateball.com/
Throw Down For A Table: Show people you mean business, invite potential clients/partners to sit at your table and have a drink, and relax in comfort while you enjoy the AFFY awards and multiple music performances!
Book your table or get your logo seen on the screens – http://www.affiliateball.com/sponsors/AffiliateBall_2020_Sponsorship_Details_Vegas.pdf
Book it now while they last, only a few left.
Live Large With Your LOGO On the Big Screen: Besides the fun of having your logo in your pictures and those with Tha Dogg Pound making it look like YOU threw the party, having your company’s logo on the MASSIVE I-Max sized screens provides instant familiarity and credibility when you’re introducing yourself and your company. AND, you don’t have to be a $20,000 sponsor to get in the rotation. You can now with this link starting at just 1K! You’ll even get seen on the Affiliate Ball website and get special thanks on the mic from yours truly.
View special offers
Meet 40,000+ industry people with one email blast!
I can get you in our e-newsletter that goes to 44,000+ past guests with our sponsorships. Email me if you’re interested in more details
info@AffiliateBall.com.
For those interested in getting these deal you should do it now before we run out. We’ll close the last second sponsorship deals Monday by 7 pm. Tables are first come first serve.
Can’t wait to see you at the Ball!
– Darren Blatt
Who we are
Juergen is the product owner of vene dash. He has been in the mobile industry for almost 10 years working for advertisers, adnetworks and a few startups. Over time he has gathered a lot of experience in ad tech and tracking technologies.
vene dash is powered by freenet digital that promotes a diverse portfolio of digital products. Their digital entertainment platform approach offers highly integrated services ranging from user acquisition, payments, customer management and premium consumer content and services. With sureyield they operate an exclusive affiliate marketing network, built for premium affiliates and advertisers, focuses on in-house and performance marketing, across multiple verticals and geos.
1) Please tell me the background of vene dash. The idea, your journey, and how it came to be.
Before vene dash was born, we being one of the biggest mobile entertainment providers in Germany, were looking for a tool that could help us track our internal campaign performance. After spending hours scouting the market, we came to the conclusion that solutions available at that time could not cover all our needs. Therefore, being a part of a large corporation and having the knowledge, the experience and the qualified resources, we decided to design our own software to support our business in the best possible way. This is how vene dash was born.
Fast-forward a few years and a successful multimillion-dollar business run through our platform, we determined to make our software available to other companies seeking a stable and a reliable tracking solution designed and engineered in Germany. Given that vene dash was created as an internal tool, its functionality and features are based on the real needs of performance marketeers. We know exactly what the market needs!
2) There are so many tools out there, why did you choose software as a performance marketing service?
You are right – there are many choices out there and the competition is tough. This is why we included an array of unique features that differentiate us from the competition. We also have the luxury to belong to a large German corporation, meaning we can listen to our customers’ needs and develop our tool in a way that makes most sense for our customers instead of being driven by financial targets like other smaller companies are.
3) How do you find customers for your software? What is your customer acquisition strategy?
Here at vene dash we believe that to get good results we need to have a multi-layer approach to acquiring customers. This is why we go about it from multiple directions – be it email and content marketing, website optimization, SEO, social media marketing or personal outreach, both online and offline. We run campaigns on all major channels, work hard on optimizing our assets and our Sales team goes far and beyond in contacting people who could be interested in our platform. Our next step is setting up our own incentive-driven referral program.
4) What scaling challenges have you faced in your company in terms of revenue, customers, industry?
The performance marketing world is a very high-paced and competitive environment, meaning things change fast and one should react quickly. We receive new feature requests regularly from our customers who want to stay on top of the game. Satisfying the specific needs of all customer is a challenge but also extremely valuable for us as we can make our product even better. We at vene dash have organized our work and our teams in a way that we can react and adapt fast and it has been working quite good so far. That said, we still find ourselves playing catch with others on a more or less regular basis, which can be challenging at times but is also what drives us forward.
5) How do you measure your success? Is there any metric to keep track of when it comes to your business?
Absolutely. Being a German company, we love data and knowing where we stand at any given moment is key when important decisions need to be made. We track all our campaigns, every euro spent, every click and every conversion. We run reports on a weekly basis and look at the whole acquisition funnel to make sure we are where we want to be and if we’re not, we make changes to our strategy and do things differently the week after.
Another angle to this is the feedback we receive from our customers and industry colleagues. Getting positive feedback shows us we’re on the right track, which is very rewarding. We are a young and dedicated team striving to make sure vene dash reaches its full potential and we take pride in adapting quickly to anything that awaits us around the corner.
6) What is your customer retention strategy?
We love doing things the right way. That goes for every aspect of our offering – on the product side as well as on the customer success side. We believe that only happy customers bring other customers and therefore do our best to keep our existing users very happy.
Our dedicated customer success managers are very knowledgeable and take time to make sure every customer gets the support they need – from product demos to migrations to any other question about specific product features. We take pride in ensuring quick and qualified responses so that our customers can be productive on the platform from day one.
We also pamper our clients by running exclusive campaigns that only vene dash customers have access to. This combined with qualified and responsive staff makes our users feel valued and well-treated.
In addition, we are currently working on providing a library full of insightful, current and relevant articles, blog posts, white papers, how-tos, etc. to keep our users well informed on what is going on in the industry and how to navigate the complex waters of performance marketing.
7) What is it about your platform that sets it apart from the competition?
vene dash is a solution that empowers you to have full control over your campaigns without having to cut any corners. As mentioned before, our platform was designed by us, a service provider company, and not by marketeers. We know exactly how the market operates, what the regulations in each geo are, the requirements and obstacles that a network or an advertiser needs to consider in order to protect its revenues and keep its services live. We have invested many hours in developing sophisticated tools such as URL checker, Traffic blacklisting, Fraud protection and our recent billing feature that allows you to pay your customers with cryptocurrency.
In addition, we pride ourselves in designing and engineering our product in the heart of Berlin, which means we follow strictest data protection policies, making our platform one of the most trusted and secure ones on the market.
8) What are your expansion plans for 2020 and beyond?
We have big things planned on the product side as well as on the marketing side for 2020. We will be introducing many new features and improvements within the first quarter next year. One of the most exciting one that we are about to roll out is the possibility to let publishers request payments via cryptocurrency. Apart from that we plan to introduce several features around automation in 2020. The aim is to automate processes and minimize manual work as much as possible so that our customers can focus on increasing their business instead of keying in the data.
We will also be sponsoring a very big networking garden located right before the entrance to Hall 8.1 at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona end of February. We are very excited about 2020 and look forward to welcoming new customers to our platform and see them benefit from vene dash.
Chad Sorenson is the President and Founder of Adaptive HR Solutions and has over 25 years of diverse business, communications, and human resource experience.
He works with companies across the state that range from 5 to 1,200 employees and focuses on leadership development, manager training, employee performance management and employer compliance in industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, construction trades, and professional services organizations.
The greatest impact business owners can have on employees, productivity and company culture comes from two questions: What can I do to help my employees succeed? AND How am I serving my employees today?
The goal of any owner is to ensure their company is running at full productivity, producing as much as possible, as quickly as possible, and with the highest quality possible. This can only be achieved by ensuring the workforce is well equipped for the job. Let’s break it down to three points:
1. Employees need the right training and knowledge for the job. We think nothing of laying down $5,000 for annual preventative maintenance on an $80,000 piece of equipment, but why is it so hard to invest $1,000 of training in a $80,000 employee. Continuous training and skill development will keep the workforce on the cutting edge.
2. Employees need to feel secure in their job. For some, they’re the sole breadwinner of the family and worrying about how they are doing at work and what the boss thinks of them can consume their energy and focus throughout the day. Regular conversations about performance and expectations go a long way in helping an employee feel secure and redirect their attention back to the task at hand. Remember, in a vacuum of information, employees fill the space with something, and it is rarely good news.
3. Employees need to like where they work. We spend more waking hours with the people we work with than we do our families at home. You wouldn’t stay with a spouse if you disliked them day in and day out. Yet, why do we expect employees to put up with a toxic culture at work? Setting the tone starts from the top but holding people accountable to the culture happens at all levels.
It’s not difficult to create a workplace people enjoy, and it doesn’t cost a lot of money. When we look at our employees in a different way, we can create a culture of acceptance, performance and accountability. Start by asking these simple questions: What can I do to help my employees succeed? AND How am I serving my employees today?
He is the founder and CEO of Gotham Club Media and runs a very successful affiliate network with exclusive in-house vsl offers. I’ve had the pleasure of working with him for over two years and must say not many know their business inside out like he does.
Most people make the majority of their traffic from one offer and one traffic source. Or at least one TYPE of offer and one TYPE of traffic source. This allows people to master that traffic source. But people need to understand the marketing messages and the audience and if the offer can fit into what they do well with the existing type of traffic source.
Personally – and I really hate to say this – but the network reps we work with, I’m sure they’re great, but they just don’t have time to really understand each offer on a deep level in terms of what’s working or what isn’t working in terms of traffic sources, GEOs, market, creatives, etc.
You want to talk to the company and ideally the PERSON who created the marketing and the offer to guide you on what’s working. They are going to have a world of knowledge and data. Not only can they save you time by telling you if the offer ISN’T right for your traffic source or marketing skills, but they can also tell you the newest of what IS working in terms of marketing messages and targeting. This will keep you AHEAD of other affiliates/pubs by doing extra work to get purer, better, more recent and accurate information. And the reason I say all this is because I am a business owner and offer creator and I see that the affiliates who drive the most sales are coming to me directly and we have an ongoing channel of communication about marketing. And that’s not even starting to get into the fact that you can cut better deals dealing directly with companies (if they have an in-house affiliate program) which has the possibility to double or triple profit, allow you to buy traffic other affiliates can’t even afford and just in general, be more dominant.
Steve is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder at Convert2Media, a leading affiliate network. For over 7 years Convert2Media has set the standard in Online Performance Marketing. When it comes to directing your online budget, there are many places to choose from. Their team of experienced marketing professionals can provide you with an analytics-based approach to getting the most out of your online marketing activities.
Hacks of Product Launch by Steve Howe
1. Outsource specialty roles (when you’re up against the clock, nothing comes close to giving you peace of mind more than having a workforce that is available when you need them most). In my case 9-5 wasn’t going to get the job done. I had to outsource and hire specialty roles. Don’t be cheap and hire professionals.
2. Home team advantage: use your local resources and community. Building a grassroots squad or movement is a lot easier when you are on your home turf. Use every advantage you have and think outside the box in an effort to reinforce your brand awareness during your launch. Also, try your best to launch around a larger event which might bring a larger audience together which shares an identical interest with your product or brand.
3. Every single day be sure to start on your hardest thing first and plan for the worst. This gives you time to adjust in cases where “anything and everything“decides to show up and try and piss on your plans.
Challenges
1. Urgency: sometimes I feel like a robot without emotion in the real world and want everything to happen immediately. I don’t understand why some people set such low standards for quality work output. Time management and efficiencies become frustrations of mine. I love people who operate at a high level of efficiency.
2. Measuring marketing impact of non-trackable expenses: depending on what type of product launch you’re doing you can have expenses in goods or materials which is hard to quantify ROI. Coming from a digital marketing background it was difficult to take the leap at times and no know how to measure the impact (awareness vs revenue)
3. Stay in your own lane and stay focused. Along with the launch journey, lots of parties will come along and try and get you to modify your plans to include this or that or change this for that.
Stay true to your vision and goals and don’t try to be all things to all people. Consider everything but stay focused on what got you this point — you!