Tell us a little background info about yourself. Where are you from? How old are you? How long have you been working in this industry?
My name is Philip Shapiro. I’m 21 years old and from New York. I’ve been an internet entrepreneur since I was 13 years old, and evolved my marketing savvy into successfully starting and running the affiliate network, CPATrend. I have been in the affiliate marketing industry for approximately 4 years, and I have loved every second of it.
What accomplishments so far are you the most proud of?
Perhaps my greatest accomplishment in my life has been developing a CPA network, with such incredible competition in the industry, into a successful, rapidly growing, reputable network. I’ve pulled countless 20 hour days working on CPATrend, and the hard work and dedication that I have put into the network has been showing incredible results. So I’m extremely proud of what the network has been able to accomplish in only 9 months!
How did you come to learn about this industry? Why did you choose this career? When did you first realize the full potential in affiliate marketing? When did you first “hit the big time?”
I learned about this industry when I stumbled upon the rights to an affiliate marketing eBook. I hadn’t known much about affiliate marketing, but I knew about internet marketing. I read the eBook that I purchased the rights to and was intrigued by it (and it’s 75 pages of content!). I then proceeded to creating an affiliate program at paydotcom, which was a complete bust for me. I’m glad that I failed with it, because it opened my eyes to the real possibilities of the affiliate marketing industry. Researching the industry at this time was what really helped me realize the incredible potential of affiliate marketing. I eventually became a PPC marketer and had great success with Adwords running campaigns in the Acai Berry craze. Additionally, I was pulling in about $30k per month with YPN during their beta period. Ah the good ole days! That was short lasting though, so I decided I needed to do something that would not be seasonal, or one time hits. I chose to start a CPA network, as I’ve worked with so many networks in my time, and was never ultimately pleased with any one in particular (though there are so many great networks, each has its flaws). So I decided to do what most entrepreneurs do, find something that works and make it better.
You say you were successful with offline business in your teen years. What kinds of businesses were these and where did you learn to run them?
When I was 18, and a freshman in college, I formed an offline scrap metal business with my brother and a friend. I no longer work with my brother as I had way too much on my plate with school and internet marketing (and left the company after 2 years), but he turned it into a multi-million dollar corporation in an incredibly short period of time. This is also a very cut-throat industry, so there have been obstacles in the way. You ask, where did I learn to run businesses like this? That’s a difficult question for me to answer. Entrepreneurship has always come naturally to me. I’ve never been able to work for anybody, and only had one job working for somebody when I was 15 years old (for 2 months). There are 2 types of people, those who work for somebody, and those who work for themselves. Everything I look at, I see the business message behind it. It’s this mindset, necessary research, and a lot of effort that has given me the power to run several successful businesses.
How did you achieve success at such a young age?
I got lucky I guess! That, or I work myself incredibly hard and neglect other aspects of life. There are times that I’ve turned down going out with friends, going to parties, movies, etc. because I wanted to work on my business. I think that as a young person with so many different activities that can be done, especially in New York, the mindset and desire to develop long term success is what truly inspired me to kick so many things into action at my age. I have dreams of my future, and the only way to get there is to work myself until I reach my goals. Otherwise, if one sits back idly, nothing happens for you. So keeping goals in mind and trying to achieve them is really what has given me the success I’ve enjoyed.
How have you been able to quickly gain a good reputation for CPATrend?
I think it’s fairly simple to answer this question. I’ve worked with networks that have great offers, but bad support. Networks with great support, but bad offers. Networks that feel and seem legitimate, but withhold payments. After a while, I realized that I could do a better job by combining every positive aspect from each network that I’ve worked with and implement them into mine. CPATrend offers its affiliates top quality offers, not thousands of poor converting offers. We pay our affiliates on time, every time, but usually early as my affiliates can vouch for. I can certainly say that the support I provide is second to none as well. I spend countless hours every single day giving support via phone, AIM/Y!M/MSN, and email. I love dealing with affiliates and treat every affiliate as an individual with individual needs. CPATrend is a human company. I run it in a way that it breaths, and isn’t mechanical like some other networks can be at times.
What do you think it takes to be successful as an affiliate?
To be a successful affiliate, you really have to have drive and dedication in you. At times, it can be incredibly tedious to develop a successful campaign, but the best affiliates know that after that time and tedious effort, you’ll be able to sit back and just watch the money roll in day after day. Split testing is essential to successful campaigns. Find the demographics that work for a particular offer. Doing demographic research before hand can save you a lot of money on split testing. Also, I’d recommend finding a traffic source that you’re best at, and sticking with it for offers that convert well with that traffic source. Don’t overextend yourself, and realize when a campaign isn’t being profitable for you and shut it down.
What do you think more affiliates need to understand about the network side of things?
This is a great question. As an affiliate in the past, I had no idea the tremendous amounts of work networks must put into developing relationships with advertisers and their affiliates. There is a crazy amount of paper work that is always being done, and there’s really never a moment of absolute calmness when running a network. It’s also not known to all affiliates that networks often take huge risks in paying out their affiliates before receive payments from advertisers. It requires a lot of financial backing to really run a successful network, and a mentality that the high risk will eventually be future profits.
What have been your biggest failures and frustrations as an affiliate and now as a network owner?
As an affiliate, my biggest failures and frustrations all stem from the same thing. At times, I’ve accidentally set campaigns to a very high CPC bid, and simply went to sleep. When I woke up the next day, I’ve seen thousands of dollars spent, and no conversions. So I suppose recklessness at times developed some of the greatest failures I’ve had. As a network owner, the biggest frustration for me is when an advertiser pays late. I’ve developed some great relationships with our advertisers, but I’m extremely anal in terms of payments. I pay out my affiliates on time or early, every time, so for that ethic not to be returned to me by advertisers, I get extremely frustrated.
What is the single toughest problem you've had to face, and how did you get through it?
When CPATrend was first launched, our approval process wasn’t the strongest. We let in several affiliates who should not have been accepted and they drove lots of poor quality leads to our advertisers. After one month of these poor quality leads, we were shut down by many of our advertisers. It was this moment that I made a change. I purged the network of all poor quality/fraudulent affiliates. I paid out all of our affiliates (including those that caused the problems for me), and terminated every account that was suspicious or driving poor quality leads. I then completely changed our approval process and completely tightened up the network. We now reject a large majority of applications, and only approve quality affiliates, which our advertisers now have been ecstatic about. We fought through the initial losses, and battled our way back to becoming a successful network, with a great reputation.
Is there anything that you don’t like to do, that you just hate working on?
I hate paper work. I’m not the type of person who will just sign something and fax it around. Every IO or contract that comes my way, I read in it’s entirety, red line it, and sign it. I deal with tons of these in any given week, and I just absolutely hate it. They’re very long and repetitive (when dealing with many per week), but they are an essential part of running an affiliate network. Once the paperwork is over, the rest is quite enjoyable for me.
What is the future of marketing?
The future of affiliate marketing is a bright one. Affiliate marketing is expanding every day, and it will never slow down. Why? Because there is a constant need by companies with products to have passive income. It’s so much easier for these companies to let others sell their products or attain leads for them, by paying out a percentage of the profits. Affiliate marketing is only growing stronger as our generation evolves into one that is computer savvy. As time goes on, more and more people will be doing all of their shopping online, and affiliate marketers will enjoy greater success from this.
What niche has worked best for you?
We’re having great success with the eCigarette niche, gaming niche, dating niche, and BizOpp niche.
Which methods of promotion do you favor?
I personally favor PPC/FB marketing. I’ve been a PPC guy for quite a while and have a hard time straying away from it. I also recommend media buys, contextual, and email marketing to all affiliate marketers! Huge profits to be made via most marketing methods, especially these.
How have you made those promotion methods successful?
Split testing has been the most essential part of my success with PPC and FB marketing. Additionally, demographic research is really a great thing to do when you have the access to target specific demographics like you do with Facebook marketing.
What have you been up to recently? What projects are you working on?
I have been solely running CPATrend and spending all of my time on it. It’s my passion, what I love doing, and I don’t see me taking on any other projects any time soon.
Do you think anything particular in your past prepared you for this industry? Your education? Jobs you’ve held before?
Honestly, I hated account and economics. I’m currently a senior in college, and am taking Political Science and Philosophy. I find both very interesting, but they haven’t helped shape myself in order to prepare for the industry. If anything, my business helps shape my politics. However, running many businesses for a big portion of my lifetime, and doing lots of research has helped prepare me for the industry.
What are your greatest strengths?
I believe my greatest strength is my work ethic. I work hard, and don’t give up on myself. When starting CPATrend, many people told me I would not be able to compete with the big name networks, but I believe(d) in myself and 9 months later, I am competing with the big boys. It’s just a matter of patience and putting in the work to be successful. Statistically, most new CPA networks simply fail quickly. Fortunately, CPATrend does not fall into that same category.
What are your greatest weaknesses?
I believe my greatest weakness is that I move too quickly. I jump into things from time to time without doing all of the research necessary. I’ve run some terrible campaigns in the past and this was because of rushing into them. However, when I do the appropriate research and put huge effort into something, it tends to work out.
What motivates you?
I’m a very modest person. I don’t walk around with jewelry, watches, and money dangling out of my pockets. I’m just an average 21 year old and I don’t try to live about that. I enjoy my life, and my success does not change who I am, and I won't let it. What motivates me isn’t money necessarily. I believe money comes with persistence and hard work. However, my main motivation is success. I absolutely love the feeling of waking up to see the sleepless days paying off. Nothing feels better than when people don’t believe in you, and you can prove them wrong.
What is the best advice you’ve been given and try to apply to your life?
Don’t overextend yourself. Stay within yourself. There have been times I’ve wanted to overextend myself, in terms of investing. I’m always looking for long-term profitability, even at my age, because I know what my future goals are, and I try to make them come to fruition as soon as possible. However, sometimes it’s best to just take things slow, one step at a time.
Who has impacted you most in your career, and how?
My family has been a great support of what I do, even though a lot of them don’t necessarily have a solid grasp of what exactly I do. My brother has been a really big part of my success, as we’re both young entrepreneurs who have stepped into our respective niches and are standing out in them.
What kinds of people do you have difficulties working with? Any good stories?
I simply don’t like people who are overly arrogant. We do not get along. I’ve had the pleasure of dealing with thousands of people in the past 9 months. I have mostly only good things to say about the people I’ve dealt with. But there’s always the few who don’t make things very pleasant for you, no matter how hard you try to be respectful and professional with them.
What are some of your long-term goals? How much is enough? If money was no object, what would you be doing?
My long term goals are to establish a large, successful CPA network and to really love what I’m doing. So far, I absolutely love running CPATrend, and I can’t picture anything ruining that enjoyment for me. This is the business I’d like to run for the rest of my life, and if I do so, I know that I’ll truly enjoy my life. In terms of money, I don’t think there’s a clear distinction on how much is enough. My goals are to live happily and comfortably, not to burn money for fun. I want to be charitable with my money, and give back to those who have given so much to me. The more I make, the more I can do this. If money was not an object, I wouldn’t change a thing. I absolutely love running CPATrend, and wouldn’t want to do anything else.
Where do you want to be ten years from now?
I know it sounds redundant, but I want to be in the same position I am now, running CPATrend. It’d also be nice to have a family at that point, but who knows what the next 10 years has to offer me.
How do you like to spend your free time? What doe work-life balance mean to you?
In my free time, I play the guitar, hang out with friends, party a bit. I really live the life of the average 21 year old, but I just work online, as opposed to the rest of my friends. Work-life balance is important to me. I am usually so busy working, but I always make time for the people that are in my life.
If you could go back to being 18, what different career choices would you make?
None. When I was 18, I started that offline business previously mentioned. This was a huge success and helped finance my CPA network!
Do you have a Twitter account or Facebook “Like” page?
I have a twitter account for CPATrend, which you can follow us on. I’m not too active in terms of twitter, but I certainly plan to become much more in the near future.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment