Interview & Thoughts W/ Kris Jones From Pepperjam- Thinking Outside The Box.
April 3, 2007 by Pablo Palatnik
There is so much information out there (online) that is so valuable if you are in the SEO/SEM/Affiliate Marketing industry. It is an ever changing industry which literally, everyday there is something new to know about, new strategies, ideas, etc.
One blog I personally follow is the Pepperjam Blog. It is written by Kris Jones, President & CEO of Pepperjam, which is one of the largest and fastest growing Full-Service Internet Marketing agency’s in the U.S.
I met Kris at the Elite Retreat in San Fran where he gave his presentation on Search Arbitrage and had a great example with his Ugg Australia campaign he did as an affiliate project.
Kris wrote a blog about “Thinking Outside The Box.” I don’t think it’s an option anymore in our industry, its almost a MUST these days. In such a competitive market, ideas being shared, you must stand out to beat your competition and do something not too many of us have caught on to (eventually we will, but if you’re the first, it’ a huge jump start).
The train of thought that comes to most of us is, “What is everyone else doing that I’m not?†This is our thought when we’re not successful at something of course and than you hear guys like Shoemoney making a killing from affiliate offers. We should ask ourselves, “What can I do that no one else is doing?†You might be thinking every idea is taken but the internet is still new and the possibilities to get creative are endless, you just have to find a way.
Here are questions I asked Kris about some things I was curious to find out myself:
1) In such a competitive industry as we are in now, with more and more people entering the affiliate marketing world, why are there so many people sharing their strategies on becoming successful knowing it can be duplicated 100x’s?
Kris: Clearly, not everybody is willing to share money making information for free. In fact, I would consider my friend Jeremy Schoemaker (Shoemoney) and I to be part of a small group of internet marketing professionals with the willingness to share insight. From my perspective, I’m a strong believer in giving back – a lot of what I’ve learned over the years has come from people like Shoemoney who are willing to offer free advice through blogs and forums.
The reality is that there are hundreds if not thousands of different opportunities that exist to affiliate marketers – the industry presents a huge opportunity if you are willing to be creative and think outside the box. When I blog or speak at national conferences my philosophy is to not hold back – I share my insights that have helped me make money. Of course, I assume that others will try to duplicate my success but the truth is that they need to take it to the next level (thinking outside the box) to make sustainable affiliate income.
2) What would you say are the THREE first steps you should take when building your affiliate campaign, let’s say how you went about building the campaign for UGG Australia?
Kris: (1) Brainstorming Session – during this step you are looking for trends, thinking about opportunities presented through seasonality, holidays and popular TV. For instance, American Idol is hot right now and UGG is populr, especially during the winter months – Affiliate marketers must have an approach to monetize similar opportunities; (2) Keyword Generation – we use tools like Keycompete, Keyword Discovery, Rapid Keyword, etc. This step is very important. In general, most successful search-engine marketing affiliates focus on generating keywords around trademarks, targeted brand names, and lower cost long-tail keywords (three or more keywords in length) and; (3) Paid Search Campaign Set-up – Create an Ad Group for your affiliate offer. Note that you have two options in terms of where you send your paid search traffic: {Direct Link,} which is when you send traffic directly to the affiliate offer using the affiliate tracking URL or {Custom Landing Pages,} which involves building your website or specific landing pages around the affiliate offer. When creating an ad group I strongly recommend writing multiple ads – for instance, Google allows you to write multiple ads – they rotate the ads until one converts at a higher rate. Also, because of the Google Adwords Quality Score algorithm, search affiliates should create tight ad groups, meaning that ad text and keywords should be closely related – this way, search affiliates will maximize quality score.
3) We know Pepperjam is successful with its clients (which is an impressive roster by the way) but how much (percentage wise) would you say the Affiliate Marketing aspect makes for Pepperjam?
Kris: Affiliate marketing represents less than 5% of Pepperjam revenues. The other 95% comes from our core management and consulting services, including search-engine marketing (SEM / SEO), affiliate marketing management, and online media buying.
4) For someone who is JUST starting out doing Affiliate Marketing, what would be your advise, as far as if it’s a good industry to get into, fun, etc..?
Kris: Affiliate marketing presents an enormous opportunity for entrepreneurs. My advice is to think outside the box. Allocate the necessary time to learning and understanding the industry since your success will be tied to your ability to be progressive and ahead of the competition, which, in my opinion, is the result of education. The blogosphere presents abundant opportunities for affiliate marketers to learn the business. Also, there are numerous opportunities outside of traditional affiliate marketing (i.e., Commission Junction, Linkshare, Performics). For instance, ad networks such as Azoogle, CPA Empire, Hydra Network and many others allow affiliate marketers to generate commissions on thousands of affiliate offers. Once again, allocate the necessary time to understand the differences between the traditional affiliate networks and ad networks.
5) Last Question! Where do you see this particular industry moving to in the next 5 years?
KRIS: I believe affiliate marketing has only begun in terms of income generating opportunity for smart entrepreneurs. However, the industry has diversified and requires a relatively high-level of outside the box thinking. For instance, more and more affiliate marketers are taking advantage of advances in web services technology to build product feed websites (i.e., Golden Can) and advanced software widgets (i.e., auction ads). Others are tracking buzz and translating popular trends in television, radio and other offline media into affiliate marketing income. I provide examples of this on my blog, such as the idea of creating affiliate offers based on the popularity of hit reality TV shows, such as American Idol and I also highlight the UGG Australia example you mention in the beginning of this blog post.
In 5 years I think the industry will diversify significantly from where it is today. With companies like Google entering the affiliate marketing space I can’t help but think there will be some serious consolidation and diversification of existing affiliate networks. In addition, more and more networks will emerge that offer Web 2.0 and 3.0 technologies that offer affiliate marketers new and exciting opportunities to make money.
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Comments (3)
Pablo, you asked some really great questions and this is a really helpful writeup. It’s amazing that even though we covered a lot of this stuff at Elite Retreat, there was just no way to absorb all of that information at once. So this was super-well done and a great help in reminding me of the stuff we covered. Plus you did a great job at taking the info to the next level!
Great post man.
Michael…
Good work….