Well, they published a press release yesterday publicizing all of their b.s. lies:

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., March 10 /PRNewswire/ — Hydra Network, operator of the largest performance based multichannel digital advertising platform, today announced its transition of the Hydra Network portion of its business to an exclusive, invitation-only network, part of an ongoing series of moves designed to win broader adoption of cost-per-action (CPA) advertising among mass market brands and agencies.

Following the introduction of new more stringent membership guidelines on March 1, the company has decreased Hydra Network’s base of active publishers from 17,000 to less than 2,000 of its best performing, highest quality marketing partners in a bid to increase quality control without sacrificing its capability for delivering high volume distribution with mass online reach…

Cute.  :)  Read the full press release HERE.

More criticism and an explanation of how they’re ripping off publishers, advertisers, and the industry on an oh-so-new 2.0 platform (whose features have been available on other networks for 2+ years) to come!

Guess I was right about that “Wow, we’re in a lot of legal and media issues in the public and industry’s eyes, so our company’s in dire need of a face-lift” thing.  

This brings me back to my days as a Senior Account Manager at Specific Media and replying to agency requests at all of my previous employers as a salesperson.  Too funny…

Comedy!..   Watch and Enjoy!  :)

Describes a typical agency-media relationship in the advertising industry.   To the author of this video:  Many Kudos!!!  :)

I’ve learned a good lesson today:  after 14 hours of work, don’t try and work too fast.  Now, I have to re-create my blog template, which takes time away from my revenue generation efforts.

Let this be a lesson to you all!  Don’t work too hard, or too fast.  You end up making mistakes that cost more than they’re worth.

Needless to say, I’ll have a new and improved design up soon.

Why do media buyers/planners always ask for verification that their ads are live in the form of a screenshot??

Haven’t these guys ever heard of cut and paste? I can understand that they most likely have some kind of cute PowerPoint presentation they put together for their clients for every launch, but then haven’t the clients asked how easy it is to fake a screenshot?

Why even bother?? Can’t you just close your eyes and imagine it on Fox.com? Didn’t your design department hand the client screenshots of what the ads would potentially look like in a live environment anyways?
It just amazes me the chain of ignorance that occurs in the online advertising world and the lack of education that most agencies and companies provide to their clients. If professionals took half of their time to educate their client completely on their agency’s system’s and processes as well as providing full transparency into their media buys, it seems that the agency and the client could have a much stronger and mutually beneficial relationship.
I’ve created my success throughout the years by educating my clients to the fullest of my extent in what I do and what I could provide them through my services. FULL TRANSPARENCY has always been my motto. Why? I have nothing to hide! I believe in my work, I am thorough, and I want my clients to feel like I am an extended member of their team or another member in their company. When your clients realize that you’re completely on their side and acting in their best interest, everyone wins.

So back to screenshots… Who needs them if you have 100% trust in your agency/consultant? Begs a good question…, huh?

Hopefully it won’t be too long till my next post.

While I’m not sure how they’re traffic converts, I can say with confidence it’s been a pleasure working with the folks over there thus far, even though my endeavors with them haven’t come to fruition due to delays on my side.

If you’re looking for a new source of traffic whether it’s pops, PPC, text ads or otherwise, I’d suggest giving them a try. We’re always looking for new sources of traffic, and when you think about it, do we ever know with so many offers and other variables involved with testing how any traffic will convert? It’s all about testing and measuring, as any good media buyer and affiliate marketer knows.

Here’s some quick info about AdManage:

Core Services:

CPV: Pop Ups
PPC: Pay Per Click Advertising on Hundreds of Partner Website Search Engines
CPC: Text Ads
CPM: Rich Media and Graphical Display Advertising Banners

XML Feeds: “Backed by a knowledgeable customer support staff and technology team, the AdManage search XML feed is simple to integrate, with program set up accomplished within a day.”

If you’d like more information on AdManage, feel free to shoot me an email or click their Logo above.

Remember, this blog is all about answering your Affiliate Questions!

-Josh S.,
Grand Rapids, MI

This is a great question.

Keep in mind that everybody and their brother wants higher payouts for the offers they’re running. Your Affiliate Manager is the one to approach with this question, but you want to be careful how you phrase it. Simply asking him “Can I have a higher payout for this Free Credit Report offer?” isn’t going to get you very far. This is what has worked for me in the past:

Affiliate Managers earn commission off of your sales, so they like it when they’re affiliates are driving lots of traffic for these offers, as it only puts money in their pocket. If you play on this idea, and emphasize volume, you’re likely to get a higher payout.

Here is the pitch I give when I need a higher payout on an offer:

“Mr. AM, I’ve been testing this campaign for a week now, and it seems to have potential. I’m driving $XXXX worth of sales to this offer now daily, but I’m just barely above break-even with my costs. If you could give me a payout of an $XXXX% increase, I’ll be able to produce XXXX% more traffic for the offer, and we can work more off of a volume model that way. What do you think?”

Usually, this approach works very well, and they grant me my request. Granted, you now have to follow through somewhat with what you’ve told them, but if you can get the increase, then you’ll be more likely to be successful with the offer.

Demographics are always important when it comes to pairing the right offers with the right audience. For email affiliates or affiliates running banner ads to drive traffic, demographics aren’t an issue because you know who that user is based on their email information or the site that the banners are hosted on.

However, I know a lot of affiliate marketers who are turning to contextual pop-up networks for their traffic. And if you think about contextual networks, fundamentally, the demographics are of no relevance to the ad targeting. If software on the user’s desktop is serving the ad, it doesn’t matter who sits at the computer, that software(contextual network) will continue to send ads to whoever is using the computer. There could be a household of 4-5 people that the contextual network is sending traffic to.

So when you’re thinking demographic for contextual networks, remember that it’s not the user himself that you’re targeting, it’s keywords and URLs that you’re using to target that offer no matter who is behind the computer.

Tell them that you’ve tested the offer, and that you’re only at about break-even margin on the amount of money you spend promoting the offer. Tell him that in order to run it, you’ll need $X more or %XX more in order to continue sending traffic to the offer. You can throw in that you project at that rate increase, you’ll be able to deliver them more volume. Because AM’s work for commission, bigger volumes are like music to their ears and you’re likely to get a rate increase.

This isn’t a great tactic to take every time, but in situations where I really need the rate increase, and I’m able to generate volume, this go-to discussion ALWAYS gets me the rate I’m asking for.