Web Affiliate Marketing Blog

We have reached the 1/2 way mark in my series of interviews, and having heard from an Agency (Fiona), Merchant (Zak) and Network (Hero) side, we now have the chance to hear things from an Affiliate perspective. John Lamerton (A4U John).

Without any messing about, lets get straight into the interview where we learn about Johns hatred of people who p*ss on his tent, and his unrealistic dreams for Plymouth Argyle (they’re a football team… or so rumour has it…).

How did you first hear about Affiliate Marketing?
I guess it would have been via similar sites to my first website (How to make money online, by someone who isn’t making any), so having burned through Get paid to surf, Get paid to read emails and Get paid to make a sandwich without actually earning any serious money, a new idea was being formed: Get paid to sell stuff!

The first network I joined was probably Magic Button, followed by Your Cheque, before some upstarts called UK Affiliates came on the scene. Affiliate Window were the BIG network in those days, with around 10 programs. It was an AWIN newsletter that introduced me to some guy called Matt and his tiny blue forum with about 5 people posting. I also recall spamming, I mean posting on some newsgroup where I met some dodgy bloke called Frostie

What has been your career track and did it help your prepare for you for this industry?
Well I was a Civil Servant in my previous life, and whilst I wouldn’t say it helped prepare me for the Affiliate Marketing Industry (apart from acclimatising me to the red-tape and pure BS that some people come out with), if I had been doing another job I might not have become an affiliate in the first place.

It was only my total hatred for my job that kept me working for an extra 5 hours every day on top of the day job to earn money from Affiliate Marketing, kept me motivated for the 18 months that I essentially worked at Affiliate Marketing without taking a penny out of the business, and of course, made me look at other ways to earn money in the first place.
And it’s also made me ultra-determined never to go back to that sort of “career”.

If you had to sell up completely, what career path would you choose outside of IT/Affiliate Marketing?
I’ve been my own boss now for nearly seven years, and there’s no way I could go back to either being answerable to anyone else or getting up first thing in the morning with all the other “9 to 5’ers”. I’ve also tried having an office/shop full of loads of staff working for me, and I hated that too (spent more time fire-fighting staff and building problems than earning money), so whatever I did would have to be pretty much me on my own, working from home… (isn’t it great when your dream job is the one you’re already doing?)

I’d probably concentrate full time on managing my investments – Particularly if I’d sold up I’d have even more money to play with, so could take on some interesting investments that I don’t have the time or money to monitor or research now. I’ll never be a Day Trader though for two reasons:
1) I’m far too cautious
2) The FTSE opens at 8am, which is still snooze time for me!

Sat in a pub with your friends, how would you describe what you do?
That’s the conversation that normally starts with me trying to explain the role of Affiliates, Networks, Agencies and merchants using pepper-pots, cigarette packets and half empty pint-glasses (To represent affiliate bloggers like myself whose glass is always half-empty!), and ends with me using the statement “Basically, I sell stuff on the Internet for the likes of [Insert brand names they’ll have heard of] who pay me a commission for each sale” and then answer the question that follows with “No, I don’t just sell stuff on eBay… by the way it’s your round!”

What aspects of the day to day running of Big Idea Media are you personally responsible for?
I have a hand in pretty much everything. I write content and manage the PPC ads, I do the accounts and pay the wages. I reply to those AOL users who don’t know their @ from their elbow, and I badger people for link-swaps on an almost daily basis. I deal with any major problems that come along and ensure that the company as a whole is working towards the goals I set. At a push, I’ll even make the tea or dabble in tweaking some HTML code (which normally breaks things, so I leave it well alone)

Basically I’m a control freak, who works along the lines of “no-one can do it the way I want it done, so I’ll do it myself”, but I’ve also got a few key members of staff who I can trust to look after their respective areas and (I hope) I don’t tread on their toes too often!

What are the biggest changes you have seen since being involved in the industry?
The Industry is more professional now, without a doubt. But as more money has entered the arena, it’s been accompanied by a lot of unwanted office politics – When attending get2gethers nowadays you have to be careful to remember who isn’t talking to who, and who refuses to work with who whereas 5 years ago it was a load of buddies meeting up to talk shop and party.

There have been many changes in the Affiliate world (SERPS updates, Google slaps, spy-ware, brand bidding, muppet merchants) that have tested affiliates resolve, but affiliates have always adapted, and always will – The fundamental idea of affiliate marketing will always stand tall, and the affiliates who build their own brands with loyal customer bases will be the ones who reap the rewards in the long-term.

In an ideal world with no boundaries, what issue would you address first in the affiliate marketing world?
No boundaries? Great idea! Let’s remove that bloomin great boundary that they call the M25, as it seems to be keeping most of the networks and account managers fenced inside a 20-mile radius of London.

And how about banning merchants from swapping networks every three weeks? Or stopping and starting their programs due to “budget” – FFS this is paid-per-sale marketing. What CEO of the company is going to say “I know, let’s stop taking orders so we can afford a huge TV campaign”

That’s my main merchant/network gripes, and I know from reading Zak’s interview that merchants have affiliate issues, so whilst we’re doing “anything is possible”, how about everyone swaps jobs for a month – Network staff have to live purely on what sales they can make as an affiliate, and affiliates have to try and keep everyone happy whilst being called a muppet by some slightly balding, little-bit-portly, middle aged (middle aged?? I’m only 30 y’know!) affiliate…

How reliant is the internet on Google and is it a good thing?
I think the Internet as a whole is completely dependent on Google. If Big G woke up one morning and said “Actually, we’ve made enough money now, we’re gonna call it a day. Go find your own pages.” (Dunno why they would, but you never know!), the whole Internet would grind to a halt. They’re not as dominant as they were a few years ago – MSN and LiveSearch is eating into their majority, but a quick look at my stats for this month show that 81.76% of our search engine traffic came from the G.

Is it a good thing? Yes of course, we’re getting loads of free relevant traffic that buys stuff and pays the bills for us – how can that be bad? It’s good, but worrying – What if they wake up tomorrow and think “We don’t like this John Lamerton guy anymore… lets ban all his sites”? Well, they could, but look at it from their point of view – All they care about is giving their users the most relevant pages to their search – If you write content to be relevant to the subject topic (rather than writing specifically for Google), and don’t over-optimise your SEO activities, then you’re naturally going to end up at the right end of Google’s ranking system.

In 3 years time, how do you think the industry would have developed?
3 years is a long time in Affiliate Marketing – 3 years ago I was just about to retire from the Industry forever! I reckon the next three years are going to see more of the affiliate “brand” sites bought out for big bucks, and some new heavy hitting affiliates entering the arena (Like the tabloid papers who now have a cashback site and a bingo site each)

I also believe that in 3 years time, every person in the UK will own a discount code website and be members of at least 59 social networks. And I’ll still be sat here moaning about how it’s not like the old days (maybe I am middle-aged after all!)

Complete this sentence in no more than 25 words
At the next A4U Expo I would…
like to finally uncover the secret of the strange green glow that lit up the docklands at last years event.

Now its time for some quick fire either or….

Wembley or Twickenham
Wembley. Especially as I’ll be heading off there at the end of May to watch Plymouth Argyle beat Bristol City (again) to win promotion to the Premiership.

Risotto or Roghan Josh
Depends on the Risotto. Chicken or Beef yes, anything fishy, no.

Hardcore or Winebar
Neither, I’ll be in the pub with a live band on!

Bill or Sergey
Bills Money, Sergey’s fashion sense.

Burn It or Recycle It
I’ve got into composting stuff over the last year, but it’s much more fun to burn stuff, although I do have burn scars from a firepit session last summer (don’t play with fire kids!)

2 Wheels or 4 Wheels
I was never allowed a motorbike as a teenager (something to do with both my elder brother and sister having motorbike accidents breaking legs and losing bits of leg), so never got the chance to find out how much fun they are, so it’s four wheels all the way for me – although I did nearly roll a Robin Reliant once, which was a lot of fun!

Hotel with Spa or Backpacking
I’d be in the hotel every time. I don’t do roughing it at all when it comes to sleeping. I even stay in a hotel when going to festivals and bus it in every day. Yes, I know it’s cheating, but tell me that when I’ve just had a great nights sleep, hot power shower and a cooked breakfast whilst watching the footie on the telly, rather than spend the whole night trying to stop people p*ssing against my tent!

XBox or PlayStation
Neither. I still play PS2, but prefer the Wii. It’s just sooo much more fun.. and you look a prat if anyone walks past the house whilst you’re trying to play boxing.

Sun or Snow
Oooh, a toughie… Nah, can’t call it – I’ll have both please Bob.

Frank Sinatra or Snoop Snoopity Doggity Dog
Either’ll do for me as background music, wouldn’t go out of my way to listen to either specifically though. Now if you’d asked Foo Fighters or Maximo Park…

Thanks John!

The next series of interviews will follow shortly, where once again we hear from all 4 corners of the affiliate marketing industry. We have Shane representing the Affiliate corner, Sean the Agency corner, Graham the Merchant and Nic the Network.