Ian Fernando » advaliant

MediaTrust: All About the FTC and More…

Ian — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:49:43 +0000

This is the last of the video series that I have been posting up in the past few days. This one is a pretty lengthy one and a really good video I think in my opinion. I got a chance to talk to Lauren from MediaTrust about the issues that has been going around the affiliate marketing industry about the blog style designs, using celebrity images, ftc laws, and all that good stuff.

I think I asked too many questions about the FTC to Lauren that she started turning red as the video progresses, but she held her own. The video is 10 minutes long, so I hope you are able to watch it that long, it does have a lot of good info. Lauren definitely gave a lot of information and was willing to share the information with me and my readers.

Again, I want to thank Peter and the whole MediaTrust team for having me at their office and hope to come visit once more!

That is it with the video series that I have been posting in the past couple days and I hope they were all informative. If you missed any, you can check the rest via my YoutTube Channel.

MediaTrust Interview: Pulling Offers for Publishers

Ian — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 23:45:27 +0000

Again I am back with a really good interview from MediaTrust and this one is geared towards the types of offers we want and how we want it to look. When we are with a network and there are offers that did will last year or want to test out an offer you often ask the network, do you have this offer.

Well, it is interesting to see how a network does that on their and and how they grab it to fill our needs and all affiliates a like. While I was at the MediatTrust office I interviewed Shauntel (I apologize if I spelled your name wrong) to discuss how she pulls in offers. We discuss what an exclusive is, how she pulls in offers that relates to our needs, etc.

I apologize for the lighting, in my camera screen it looked good. I guess once I stepped in the shot it decided to go dark on me. In any case it was a good interview seeing how a network works to help us out.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Generally Speaking with MediaTrust

Ian — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:10:56 +0000

Almost like I was part of MediaTrust’s Relevantly speaking video series. Anyways, I got Glenn from MediaTrust to talk about certain aspects of MediaTrust and what they are up to as a company.

A couple things that were interesting were the fact that MediaTrust/Advaliant is partnering with Facebook to provide a better service to affiliates. Now I personally think this is a great jump into Facebook marketing. I have had several case studies on marketing on Facebook and I would sometimes reach a snag.

For example, everyone that does advertise with Facebook will have an account representative! Now that is such a huge plus, since it is hard to get a rep at Facebook now.

There are also random discussion with overseas affiliates and how MediaTrust/Advaliant as a company will leverage the industry to help benefit others. Enjoy the interview!

Click here to view the embedded video.

IANteractive Day all Night Long at Affiliate Summit

Ian — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 21:48:31 +0000

Meet market at Affiliate Summit is very cool because you get to hang out with smaller groups and smaller niche related business. This is a kick off to affiliate summit and it is always a new way to meet people and interact. I met a couple new people and a lot of my readers at the meet market and I talked to several networks about AFFpinions.com and what they would like to see in it. One network actually started to give me lip about how it goes against TOS, I obviously argued just because she thought she was cooler than me.

I also met the affiliate rapper von doogan from PPC.bz – I was thinking about doing a freestyle duo with him on video – lol. I met a lot of people there and just hung out for a bit, until later in the day and night.

I met up with Missy Ward, Shawn Collins, Brian Clark, Brian Littleton, Jim Kukral, and Zac Johnson. There were many more as well that I met up with, such as my readers and networks, I even met the player Mystery(I think my game way stronger…). Cool guy, that he goes to these events and trying to monetize his sites better, awesome how business interlace into affiliate marketing.

After the meetup I was tired ad had to get ready for the IANteract Dinner which was sponsored by Paradigm Visions Inc. I want to thank Erik and Sara and their company for sponsoring such a intimate networking event. I met up with my good friends and invited new. I wanted it to be a great networking event that is intimate where we all can network and talk about affiliate marketing and of course grub out.

The food at the Rum Jungle was crazy good that one of a new attendee keep ordering more food, it was part of this unlimited dish platter. It was great to meet new people and see how everyone interacts with one another. Since it was more intimate we actually had a lot of time to talk about affiliate marketing business, how others got started, and how it is working out for them. Glad Paradigm was there to sponsor such an event.

After getting our stomach stretched, me and Ad Hustler started to go over to the Red Rock Mansion (over exaggerated) and meet up with Advaliant publishers and WickedFire members. I met up with Jivan and Geoff from Advaliant great friends of mine and had a good time. The mansion it self wasn’t really a mansion, I mean it was big and nice but I wouldn’t call it a mansion. Maybe because there were too many people, but it was nice.

There was an indoor pool, a big ass backyard, and like a ton of small rooms. I met up with Ruck and his team from Convert2Media, owner of datingloot.com, Nick Throlson, Bryn, Neil and many others. It was also cool to meetup with people that I met up with from past affiliate summits.

After the Red Rock Mansion, we decided to go out and go harder – we decided to go to the strip and hit up a ‘bar’. The bar was crazy fun and crazy a lot of money. I met new people there as well and met a new network there. It was interesting to say that strippers actually are not that greedy, if you tell them you are a spammer they give you the dollars.

I was done after that and knocked the hella out!

Dinners at Affiliate Summit East: Boston

Ian — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:11:35 +0000

The best part about these conferences/conventions are the fact that you can eat for free. All this time you do not need to go ahead and spend money, bring like 50$ and you are good to go. Unless you shop and want to spend money but other than that you basically eat for free. This a very important for networks as it creates that intimate relationship with their affiliates. I enjoy speaking to other affiliates on the network and have a relationship with them.

I have been to lunch with Andrew, Benny and Frank, John Hasson and his wife. I have also been to dinner with Advaliant, CX Digital, and ofcourse my IANteract Dinner. These small private dinners and lunches are great for creating a great relationship with other affiliates. A small lunch or dinner is great networking. Interesting when I went to lunch with Andrew and everyone on Sunday, everything was closed! I was like WTF what closes on Sunday at 1pm! Well we finally found a restaurant that served some banging clam chowder. We really didn’t eat that much, just talked.

Now to the dinners, first let me talk about the Advaliant Dinner. This dinner happened right after our fishing trip. This was another reason why I didn’t want to bait my fish or maybe be actively fishing because I did not want to smell like fish. We drove out quite far from Boston to the fishing place and then farther out to the actually fishing place. Met a lot of interesting people on the bus and on the boat. But I do not recall the restaurant’s name but the food was really good, except the fact my risotto was a little over cooked.

Michael from SlightlyShadySEO definitely destroyed his dish. He basically breathed in his steak. I personally got a type of fish which was good. I didn’t want anything heavy since I got off a boat and I didn’t know I how I would feel after I ate it. The only bad part about the restaurant is it took almost 3 hours to received our food, I was starving since I didn’t anything on the boat. Not sure if it was the mass of people entering at the same time or the restaurant. Overall it was great and I want to thank Advaliant for inviting me on the trip and dinner.

The next dinner I had was with CX Digital. This network treated us to a place called KO Prime. The atmosphere was interesting as we went late in the day and it was dark with light red lighting. Pretty cool environment. I want to thank CX Digital for the invite as well. I learned a lot from the dinner as I was talking to an email spammer list builder and how he makes a living on just emails. They do say the money is in the list. But it was interesting to hear what he was saying. I am into email marketing but I haven’t been too successful with it. I asked him some questions and shared some stats with him and he said my stats are great (on a low scale)! He showed me some tricks and testing to make sure my emails are getting opened and are being received. So I will make sure to take what I learned and apply it.

But to the dinner. The dinner was really good and flavorful. I ordered a $30 salmon dish. I actually took a picture of my salmon (via my iPhone) because I was surprise of the portion I received.

I wanted to know if they was something missing on the plate, it just looked too small. The presentation was ok I guess, since it was like a huge friggin white space with a minnow on my plate. The salmon was good though, with the little portion I had. Gabriel from AffSpy also had the little minnow as well. I twittered this picture and saw a lot of response, pretty funny.

So going to these conventions really saved me a lot of money on food and even transportation. There is very little need to even get a cab since networks will definitely stunt out and give you a ride in a stretched hummer. So what I am saying is traveling to these conferences are cheap and everyone likes to treat one another.

Overall I encourage a lot of people to start attending these events just the networking a lone is very powerful. I make sure I make use of the networking as much as possible. I try to talk to as much people as possible as well. Also creating that relationship with your Affiliate Manager can mean a free lunch or dinner or you eating out at a Burger King.

Boat Rides, Throw Ups, and Strong Networking

Ian — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:10:29 +0000

I was in Boston 2 days earlier to make it to a special event, a Fishing Trip hosted by Advaliant. I was looking forward to the fishing trip because I haven’t real ‘fished’ or salt water fished. I fished when I was younger near rivers and lakes. I went on the trip with Sam and he started to feel a little sick, there were a couple people that were feeling a little sick. Once I met up with my affiliate manager, I was introduced to NickyCakes and friends.

The road trip was super long, it literally took an hour to drive to the beach area, I was already tired but looking forward to the fishing trip. It was a hot day too the sun was piercing on my head, man I need my fitted. Well we started boarding the boat and we were giving some safety tips on hooking and baiting our rods. Now I didn’t know we had to bait our own rods. I was not going to get sloppy and then smell like fish at dinner, dinner is right after the fishing trip.

On the boat I just simple talked to people. A lot of people already knew me from Affiliate Summit West in Vegas or via my blog. I met up with a really smart kid, Michael from Slightly Shady SEO. This guy is smart and can eat a full blown cow in under 10 minutes! I met up with Michael several times during the convention as well. I also met up with Igal, Dimitry, and so many others on the fishing cruise.

I have videos of affiliates catching fish, I will be making that video soon. So after this we went straight to dinner and it took a while but We ate and it was good food. I want to thank Advaliant for the fishing trip and for letting us have a good time while others cringed in the corner of the boat.

The following day Sunday, the first official day of Affiliate Summit, I went on the CAMA Cruise. I want to personally thank Eric Nagel for personally inviting me and having the opportunity to talk to him. Eric is a great guy, we actually met up right before the boat cruise – since I went to get Dunkin Donuts prior to the boat trip.

The CAMA cruise was interesting, I met Brendan from Motive Interactive, Debby from Market Leverage, and a new person on old school guitars. He have seen my blog and would like to know how to generate traffic and monetize his blog. He has also seen some of my video tutorials and wanted to know how to generate traffic from YouTube it self. We talked near the end of the cruise and I gave him some quick pointers which can definitely help his blog or site out.

After the boat trip it was time to register for Affiliate Summit. I went back to my room and chilled for a while and just freshened up. I went back down and registered and started heading towards the Meet Market. WOW. The meet Market this year seemed bigger and much more crammed. I think there were more advertisers this year or the room was just super extra small.

I met up with the Tracking202 team and just relaxed for a bit, but it was hard with the 6 inch of space between tables. Later while the Meet Market was up, I met up with Mukil one of my mentorees. He definitely was there to get to know me and pick my brain. We discussed several aspects of PPC and just talked about the benefits of Affiliate Summit, hope to see him in Vegas!

The Meet Market definitely took out my voice and I was definitely tired. A lot of people actually recognized me from my blog and stopped me to just talk and say whats up. I actually thought I was going to learn a lot from Affiliate Summit, but this time around I actually lost my voice by showing and teaching some things to others. It was an interesting flip because I was in the same situation they were in at my first Affiliate Summit in Vegas.

After that was all done I went back to my room to relax. I was tired, I just decided to chill for a bit before my dinner because that night it was going to be hectic!

Ad Tech Day 1: Keynote and Lap Dances

Ian — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 15:15:07 +0000

The first real day of Ad-Tech was very interesting and educational especially the keynote. The keynote showed a lot of information about our digital age. Jeffrey Hayzlett spoke about Kodak and how they have changed their business model to accommodate the changing economy. How they market and how they approach and what the new brand the consumer sees.

Kodak has changed the perception on how consumers view them as and how the consumers see them. They have changed how they are viewed on the Internet as well. Creating social groups and social networks to help with the demand of digital pictures.

Kodak has changed base on the growing industry, with more people moving from analog to digital – Kodak adopted. The re-branding has helped consumers recognized Kodak as the new digital printing, photo sharing, low ink toners, etc. Being seen as the gateway to the new era, they want to stay right side by the consumer. This allows them to relate with the average consumer whether it be price, needs, in expensive products etc – Kodak is there to help with the changing industry.

More and more marketers and companies see the Internet as a new place to hang out, a place to share and interact without face-to-face contact or even picking up a phone. Companies such as Kodak see the opportunity and want to tackle this industry as close as possible to their digital photography, digital marketing meets digital photography â€“ makes sense.

Exhibit Hall:

This was huge. John Chow says it is not as big as CES but I think it was huge. This would be my second time going to a big convention and compared to Affiliate Summit West, the booths are bigger, more louder, more people, and the hall was bigger! I toured the place for a little with Wes Mahler and John Chow.

Later we went a head and decided to split off as I wanted to meet all my affiliate managers â€“ that had booths this year. John was just throwing footballs in to the crowds of people, evil John evil!

There were a lot of new business aspects such as digital security, security of user data, PPC analytics, email marketing, etc. There was so many a lot were geared towards digital marketing that I did not see a lot of bloggers nor affiliates. Strangely enough some bloggers found me as well as affiliate marketers. Even networks read my blog, which is kind of strange, but readers are readers especially if they read it all the time.

I met with all of my affiliate managers I believe that had booths, even new networks that I recently just joined. It was fun, crowded, informative, and tiring. After several hours talking and engaging with several booths I went back to the hotel.

After Exhibit Hall:

After visiting the exhibit hall and talking to some people I met up with a new blogger who wanted to learn all about affiliate marketing but is scared to jump into it. So far he has spent over 5k in learning courses and ebooks and audio to learn affiliate marketing, yet he is â€˜scaredâ€™ to jump in. I can feel for him as I was once there and scared to lose the money I have. But 5k in seminars, ebooks, and other aspects of marketing might be a waste if he does not actually do the affiliate marketing for himself.

Marketing alone is not just knowing the knowledge but also doing it and getting the experience. What is all the knowledge with out experience? I also met up with another new person who wanted to get into affiliate marketing and wanted to know how to get out of a 9-5 job. Later in the day Wes Mahler and I met up with him as well as the other person we met up with during the exhibit. We all had dinner and discussed multiple dimensions of affiliate marketing and exchanged ideas.

Later that evening we went to an affiliate network party which later then became several affiliate network parties. The first party we went we engaged our new friends to the affiliate network to get some exposure to what affiliate marketing is. Engagement with the affiliate managers and even discuss how it can better help them in the future as far as income.

As far as the private parties, which proved to be a better place to network and have a more intimate discussion with your affiliate, the night soon turned into chaos. There were several parties that night. We went to 2 bigger affiliate network parties and then ended up going home.

Later that night I met up with Ms. Danielle and Bob at another party at a local bar. Which then once i arrived we went to another bar – erhm Gentlemen’s Club. Everything was great I met new people that are all affiliates, but didn’t really get to talk too much especially if women are dancing in front of your face. Just to let you know the West Gentlemen’s Club has nothing on the East =P! It was very entertaining and one of the big guys just kept buying lap dances for everyone. I was just sitting and then bam a new lady shaking it. But it was entertaining!

I was tired by then and we all took our separate ways back to the hotel.

Pictures from some of the parties, these are from Day 2: