Interviews

WTAFF – The #1 Affiliate Marketing Newsletter Interviewed Me Recently…

WHAT THE AFF is a FREE newsletter covering the latest news, trends, tips and tricks in the affiliate marketing industry. If you haven’t yet signed up to receive this newsletter everyday (Monday-Friday) you should right away at http://bit.ly/wtaff-subscribe

Here’s the INTERVIEW

WHAT THE AFF interviews – where we bring you short and sweet interviews with the top online marketers on this side of the Milky Way.

Today’s guest is Attila O’Dree, aka iAmAttila. He’s a veteran in the industry, a past speaker at Affiliate World Europe, a well-known figure on the STM Forum. He’s basically been through it all in the past 20 years and we’re happy to bring you a glimpse from it!

WTAFF Crew: Describe yourself in 20 words or less (focus on personality, not affiliate experience).

iAmAttila: Serial entrepreneur, married with 2 kids. Loves technology, 70% introverted, 30% extroverted, not a fan of sports, world traveller, car lover, BBQ fan, avid non-fiction reader and documentary watcher. 

WTAFF Crew: How long have you been in the industry for, what’s your beginner story?

iAmAttila: I first touched affiliate marketing without knowing it was affiliate marketing in 1996 by promoting Cyberthrillcasino on my warez sites I made and hosted on Geocities and Fortunecity. 

I owned a web design company pre-dotcom bubble and did super well designing logos for many startups and getting paid huge money for it; then I got bored of the Internet and after finishing high school started organizing dance events and raves. 

Did that for a few years, then moved to Serbia and since these EDM events lose money, I had a choice – move back to Canada or stay in Serbia and do something online. Then got into SEO, then paid media buys and here we are today.  

WTAFF Crew: Creative wizard vs numbers geek – where do you find yourself between the 2 extremes and why?

iAmAttila: I am definitely a creative wizard that sees opportunity. I have huge problems with organization and logical thinking.

I have a really easy time explaining things and writing instructions that’s why I love to blog. Creativity is a major asset in online marketing because it allows you to think of a lot of new ideas and come up with super unique angles.

I’m also a tech nerd, and really enjoy technology – this actually is not a good thing because since I know so much about tech, I overcomplicate a lot of things and later learn from huge 7 figure affiliates on how they made so much (after that offer or vertical dies of course) and usually its SO SIMPLE.

Why? Because they don’t have the tech background and think really simple and just do it simple.   

WTAFF Crew: What are you focusing now, in 2018? Why?

iAmAttila: In 2018 my focus has been on lead generation and branding. I took a break from blackhat as I was building a house and it took the life out of me to micromanage all aspects of it.    

I feel lead generation is something that Facebook and Adwords will never ban because every business needs it.

Branding is very powerful, if you sell generic you compete on price – if you establish a Brand then you don’t have competition; you sell an image and you can price your product however you want it established. 

WTAFF Crew: What’s the biggest challenge you are facing in AM/your campaigns/your business right now?

iAmAttila: The biggest challenge hands down is FACEBOOK’s crazy ban crazy attitude. They banned our wholesale WordPress sites company – www.wholesalewpsites.com saying they don’t support the business model.

When asked, the rep was puzzled too but said he couldn’t do anything. Can’t really run a sustainable business when instead of worrying about marketing, you have to worry whether your account dies right away.    

WTAFF Crew: We’ve seen you post both on FB and on the STM Forum about not being dependant on a traffic source. Could you explain to everyone what you mean and more importantly, how can that be achieved? Give us some steps we can share with everyone.

iAmAttila: Luckily I listened to people when I started blogging so I created a mailing list right from the start.  A highly engaged mailing list with a great open rate that has grown to over 11,000 affiliate subscribers to date.

A mailing list allows me to email my subscribers anytime I want, and I can say whatever I want.  No policy worries. 

Since email has been such an asset for my brand iAmAttila; I’ve started 2 years ago creating mailing lists in the nutra vertical by giving away lead magnets, to get people to optin to my lists.

These lists are nurtured with free-useful content, and we promote a lot of offers direct to the lists. Price is almost free, aside from copywriting costs, and it’s stable and I don’t have to worry about frequent bans like on FB.

WTAFF Crew: You’re one of the people in the industry that also setup services for affiliates. Can you walk us through what business you started and why?

iAmAttila: As I said earlier, I have an eye for opportunities. Early on I read a book called The Lean Startup; and I followed the advice in this book as well. (I like listening and following advice from smart people).

So when I got into affiliate marketing, and started hiring a designer, programmer, assistant to help me with campaigns, I created Banners&Landers to ensure I run a lean operation.

Two reasons why I created Banners&Landers – #1, to keep my employees busy since I didn’t have full time work for them 8 hours per day, and #2 to ensure if I am making zero money from campaigns because we didn’t hit a winner, their salaries will always be paid.   

I never in the world expected Banners&Landers to be so successful that we’ve had over 4700 satisfied customers to date.   

Aside Banners&Landers I realized not many people are creative, so I hired some super creative writers for myself to write us ads angles and landers – again, to ensure I run lean I created a new company called Anglesaurus where we come up with angles for affiliates. It became pretty famous for our 10 angles for $100 bucks offer. 

WTAFF Crew: What events do you find most useful, where can people find you usually?

iAmAttila: I am a huge fan of anything STM organized; I know these guys forever and they are truly the pinnacle of affiliate marketing online.

I have attended every single Affiliate World Europe to date and will in the future as well; so you can definitely meet me there! 

WTAFF Crew: To wrap it up… Affiliates and online marketers like to show off sometimes. We want to switch it around so we ask what’s the purchase you are least proud of?

iAmAttila: I honestly don’t spend a ton of money, that’s why I was able to build 3 houses for cash in the last 4 years – the last one costing me 1,200,000 Euros. 

But one of the purchases I regret is buying the house of Miro’s grandfather (Miro’s my right hand man in charge of managing orders @ bannerslanders.com).

I bought this house for x and ended up selling it for way less. I jumped into it, thought it was a great idea but then life got in the way and we moved to Budapest, and the idea never materialized.

I wanted to renovate the house and open a car wash, a Fornetti franchise and a cafe as it was at a busy intersection. Wish I would’ve listened to my wife Dora not to buy it!!

WTAFF Crew: Thanks Attila! It’s cool to see how some affiliates like you put their money to work in so many other areas! ‘Til next time!

 

WHAT THE AFF is a FREE newsletter covering the latest news, trends, tips and tricks in the affiliate marketing industry. If you haven’t yet signed up to receive this newsletter everyday (Monday-Friday) you should right away at http://bit.ly/wtaff-subscribe

admitad – Connects Thousands of Satisfied Customers Across the Globe

“I decided not to reinvent the wheel; I just wanted to improve the existing platforms and excel at customer service”

Alexander Bachmann, admitad CEO & Founder

 

Built on extensive customer experience and passion for brands, the affiliate marketing space has matured into a significant channel for driving sales for advertisers of all sizes, and will continue to grow. The platforms providedby affiliate networks for advertisers and publishers are, in many cases, the juiceof sales growth, offering measurement and quality assurance for both.

 

Hence, the next question is – when was the last time you went shopping around for a new affiliate network? Everyone has heard of the ventures that havebeen here since the 90s, but what about the new wave of CPA networks?

If you are an affiliate/publisher looking for a network with global top-paying offers, customer-centered approach, and a continued focus on building a high-performing and service-driven team, then I highly recommend admitad.

 

Originally launched back in 2010, this global network of Cost-per-Action affiliate programs has expanded beyond its headquarters in Germany by launchingsix offices around the world, with plans to further global expansion. These ambitionsare fueled by the fact that the network has enjoyed six consecutive periods of year-over-year revenue growth by more than 100%.

 

Another thing worth paying attentionto is the story of success of admitad CEO & Founder Alexander Bachmann. When he was only 17, Alexander Bachmann dropped out of school to set out on his entrepreneurial journey.

 

With just $27 in his pocket, he was able to buy a domain name and a web hosting to kickstart his dream.

Prior to admitad, Bachmann contributed as a publisher atZanox&Affilinet. These platforms are considered to be the European affiliate marketing giants. Instead of going head-to-head with Zanox, Bachmann discovered an opportunity in the Russian market,namely, in Cost-per-Acquisition (CPA) affiliate marketing. Fortified by his experience as a top affiliate, Alexander decided not just to create his own affiliate network, but to build a company with all the features and qualities the current platforms were lacking.

“I decided not to reinvent the wheel; I just wanted to improve the existing platforms and excel at customer service,” Alexandersays.

 

Today, Bachmann’s admitad is valued at over $100 million, with an annual growth rate of over 100%.

 

To note, admitad has maintained a highly centralized decision-making structure within the business, with Bachmann himself being the primary decision-maker.

This centralized model of decision-making enables admitad to move fast, make decisions without bureaucracy, and inevitably get the jump on its competitors when the opportunity arises.

As a global access point for clients facilitating productive partnerships between the advertisers and the publishers, admitad is set to provide the most adaptive and smart solutions for the immediate business boost, as well as help its customers launch and develop a successful business.

 

Promising Services by admitad:

Neither an initial cost of entry nor any extra pay to promote the offers to top affiliates is envisioned. Each admitad client is assigned an individual account manager; this allows to deal with all the queries (in your native language) and solve every issue faced by the clients in this field to optimize the campaign, including recruitment of additional partners based on the client’s criteria and admitad monetization tools for publishers;

 

  • admitad is known for paying affiliates before they even get paid by the offer owner/advertiser. It’s worth saying that the company’s publishers can have access to funds withdrawal even with the advertiser’s negative balance. Most of the affiliate networks follow a monthly payment schedule, whereas admitad has a weekly pattern. The company offers its clients a variety of payment methods so that everyone can find the rightfit at admitad via PayPal, e-payments, and Wire Transfer in all major currencies;

 

  • admitad has tied up for different product and service categories to provide the most matching advertisements for your site. The following are some of the categories, for which admitad has regular campaigns:
    • e-commerce – accessories, apparel, electronics, furniture and household products, sports, car goods, Chinese goods, and kids stuff;
    • mobile devices;
    • onlinegames;
    • services, including finance, food delivery, coupon services, travel, and many more.

Here is the full list of admitad categories.

  • The signing up process is straightforward; the necessary options are arranged in an easy to pick manner on the navigation bar; it won’t intimidate you with tons of terms and features, arranged in a clumsy way. When you sign up for admitad, in addition to having access to the many great features of the program, you are also provided with support tickets on multiple languages. admitad’ssupport team will reply to your ticket in a split second,offering the necessary solution.
  • admitad provides Asian business to expand into Western markets and works as an entry point for entrepreneurs eager to go East. As recently reported by admitad, Chinese e-commerce has already earned one third of a billion dollars gained from deals through admitad affiliate program. For less than 9 months of the current year Chinese sales achieved the amount of $ 310 million – this includes a total revenue growth of over 70 Chinese e-shops and their offers promoted by admitad. Until the end of 2017 the revenues will hit the $500 mln. The y-o-y dynamics is on graph below:

 “One of the vectors that we have chosen for admitad’s development is really ambitious. We want our company and the instruments we have created to become a hub, an access point where Chinese e-shops could attract buyers from all over the world. What is more, with the CPA payment model which is transparent, demonstrative, scalable, projected – there are a lot of advantages. On the other hand, we see that many European and American products are in demand in China. For this purpose, we have established an office in China in order to help non-Chinese global e-commerce to enter the Chinese market and find core solvent audience there. It is important to us to combine these courses: to help business to sell, and buyers to purchase desirable products. 

Indeed, the world and business are becoming global and admitad, being a global company, does its best to cooperate in that effort.”

Alexander Bachmann, admitad CEO

To sum it up…

 

admitad’s global expansion strategy is aimed to provide fuel for a continued growth and innovation in the affiliate marketing space. The platform has become an indispensable tool both for advertisers and publishers. It gains not only transactions but also an invaluable brand recognition, regular payout system with pre-payment options, responsive customer care team, various niche support, fraud-proof analysis, and customer engagement, while efficiently delivering the type of content demanded by today’s sophisticated online consumer.

It’s high time to raise the bar and get the payouts you know you deserve. admitad is here to help you launch and develop a successful business!

 

Check it out right now by signingup!

[EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW] Never forget why you started – Mike Schwalbach on putting people before profits

I’ve known Mike for YEARS and when I was looking for interesting people to interview, I knew he was the right man to ask!  WARNING:  You won’t be dissapointed!  Guaranteed!    Just like my previous interview, I give you ALL the goods, from A to Z on a man that to me is a legend in our industry.     PLEASE Share this interview with friends, co-workers, relatives, help spread the word and the story that is…

Mike Schwalbach’s nontraditional “rags to riches” story will inspire you to go beyond the numbers and look at what really matters if you want to be successful.

Where does the story of Mike begin?

On one hand, I’m a self-made man who has found success through hard work. I was born in Amsterdam and raised by my mother, a German-speaking Portuguese immigrant. She left my father who was an alcoholic when I was very young. We had practically no money, living in the Bijlmer area of Amsterdam – a place which is not considered to be very nice. Everything I’ve learned about entrepreneurship comes, in a way, from her. She was a real survivor.

It was tough, honestly, but it made me who I am. I learned to work hard from a young age and found my entrepreneurial spirit early. I was independent and always made my own money because I had no other choice. My parents didn’t have to give me anything, which was good. I used that energy to build a number of successful businesses over the years.

On the other hand, I’m an entrepreneur who has been active in our industry for quite some time. I was one of the first heavy users of the internet, and I’ve always looked for opportunities, which means I’ve been a part of many projects that people know… I was involved with the company that built most of the major Dutch search engines, such as Funda (which is still the biggest real estate site in the Netherlands), Autotrack.nl (which targets audiences that need to buy a car) and AskJolene. I went to some of the first shows in our industry, InterNEXT and Phoenix Forum back in the late nineties, where I started to build relationships which have lasted to this day.

Read more[EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW] Never forget why you started – Mike Schwalbach on putting people before profits