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My post about monetizing international traffic, published today on the MediaTrust blog-

For those of you who read my article on the MediaTrust blog named “Bite-Sized Affiliate Marketing Tips“, then you probably noticed my emphasis on the importance of driving at least some of your revenue from international traffic. Often in the flat digital world that internet marketers spend the majority of their day in, many forget that our potential reach on the web lies far beyond our own borders. Our daily lives are living examples of the global citizen’s we are becoming. After Jon Brougham, the Headmaster of The Hun School of Princeton made a recent address to my school, I was prompted to take a look around the room I am currently in. I can easily find three different items made in three different countries! He later said:

“In this flat, small world, we will rely upon mutual understanding and collaboration, not just for peaceful coexistence, but for economic well-being – for the exchange of products and ideas that will be our life-blood… If you are not ready to play in the global sandbox, you will be left out of the game.”

The main reason why affiliates choose to promote offers internationally is because the traffic costs are less expensive and are not saturated with as many competitors. For those that are just starting to get into the foreign markets, the most common transition is to target other English speaking countries, so that your creatives and landing pages do not need to be edited. A lot of the time people don’t realize it but yes, a lot of campaigns allow targeting to Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. All four are countries which speak English as their first language. If you combine the population of all four countries, that’s roughly 100,000,000+ more consumers that you are missing out on!

Then there are the countries that need to be targeted with translated creatives. MediaTrust hosts a variety of campaigns that offer expansive international targeting, and is the leading affiliate network for translated offers. In the past few months, many MediaTrust affiliates have been targeting France and French Canadian demographic, mostly located in Quebec. This has been an enormous success for many, and there is still room for more! Meanwhile, other MediaTrust affiliates have been seeing success by targeting Spanish speaking countries such as Argentina, Colombia, and Spain.

Now as you dream in the endless possibilities of less expensive traffic, the question remains: Where are a lot of these affiliates getting their traffic from? Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and Bing remain popular for primarily English speaking countries. (Of course still have high volume traffic for any country/language throughout the world.)

For French Canadian traffic: The most popular traffic source is BV Media, they own a 90% reach on traffic in Quebec!

For Spanish traffic: This is a gem that has remained untouched by any affiliates and has placements on high quality Spanish sites: Impresiones Web

What about Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and others? Have you thought about being one of the first to monetize traffic in Asia with CPA offers?

There really is a lot of money to be made internationally, and the opportunities are often overlooked. Now time to brush up  your language skills as you get up and running in the foreign markets. Good luck!

This is a little more about my recent internship with MediaTrust this past summer in New York City. Originally posted today on the MediaTrust Blog.

Back in June, when the summer of 2009 began, many of my friends were off traveling throughout the world or simply taking in the sun on the Jersey Shore. For me, a 16 year old student at the Hun School of Princeton, I decided to see what it’s like working for an internet company by interning here at MediaTrust. This experience was my first taste of the corporate world, largely thanks to the MediaTrust CEO Peter Bordes who responded to my Twitter message, which lead to me being invited to join the MediaTrust team.

Leading into my first couple days as the new intern in the New York City office, I was unsure of how I would be accepted being that I am much younger than the typical college intern. Also, as an affiliate marketer myself, I know that very few affiliates have seen the other side of performance marketing networks in depth and my opportunity was invaluable. My official title was “Marketing Intern”, and I spent the majority of my time working with both the marketing and sales teams under guidance from Trip Foster, the MediaTrust CMO.

As I started out, my main goal was to get a little taste of everything within the company. This allowed me to gain perspective of the areas within a company that I would likely enjoy working in, as well as the areas where I would be most effective and efficient. One great thing that I noticed is that right away once I started is that there was a mutual learning relationship between me as an affiliate marketer (the demographic which MediaTrust currently caters to) and the performance marketing network themselves which I as an affiliate, heavily rely on. I was able to provide insight to the affiliate managers of my experiences as an affiliate so they could understand the tools and techniques savvy affiliates use, as well as provide the sales team with information on hot offers to bring onto the network.

My experience shed light on a lot of the good, bad, and ugly parts of managing a company that is growing at an astounding pace. One of my most memorable parts of working with the MediaTrust employees is their entrepreneurial spirit. Quite frankly, I am glad that I was actively involved with MediaTrust this past August because as you are probably aware, MediaTrust was recognized as the 9^th fastest growing company in America by the Inc.500. They really do deserve the prestigious award. Their hard work is a testament to the award along with the entrepreneurial drive within each employee that motivates them to be the best in this industry.

Just to put this in perspective: eBay’s employees generated $527,238 per employee in 2008.(RoyalPingdom.com 2009) Meanwhile, MediaTrust’s employees generated $638,333 per employee in 2008.(Inc.com 2009)

I am really glad that I was able to give my input and contribute to this fast paced and fast growing internet marketing company throughout the summer. I really can’t thank the MediaTrust New York City team enough for taking the time to show me how you guys do business. Chantelle White, the Senior Sales Manager had one clever way to describe it: “This is a company full of achievers; you have to be on top of your game.” In case you guys haven’t noticed yet, MediaTrust is making things happen. I am truly proud and privileged to work for MediaTrust, I could not have asked for anything more.

Now as I leave MediaTrust for my junior year in high school, I will surely miss this internship and I will always remember the core values of the people here that made my experience so memorable. I look forward to contributing to the MediaTrust blog throughout the year. Stay tuned throughout the year for more affiliate tips that I discovered this past summer!

This is my guest post that was published yesterday on the MediaTrust blog:

10 Quick tips that can help you get started making money in affiliate marketing today.

In the past, we’ve offered many in-depth articles on various parts of internet marketing, such as information on SEO, PPC, social media and marketing in general. With more and more people entering this industry every day, it’s easy to succumb to information overload. To many new affiliates, this information seems useless since they are not yet savvy enough with internet marketing to generate revenue with more advanced techniques.

To start generating revenue, a new affiliate does not need to understand the very complex inner workings of SEO, PPC, social media, etc.; they just need to understand a few key tips about internet marketing in general.

I’ve compiled a list of 10 tips that you can help you get started today:

1. Familiarity with HTML is a must in order to edit landing pages, place pixels, etc.

2. Hope is not a strategy for growth, planning and executing your campaigns is key.

3.  Do target online Moms. Why? 67% of Moms online look for help making a purchasing decision. (Marketing To Moms Coalition Survey 2008)

4. Target market is key – targeting a Mom on a free iPhone email submit will not convert well; lip stick samples will likely convert better.

5.  Always track your paid advertising, eliminating poor ad placements can make or break a campaign.

6.  Landing page CTR is very important, you want as many users seeing the offer page as possible. Use click heat maps to optimize landing pages. ClickHeat is an awesome free tool.

7. This is BIG. If you can target Australia or UK, do it, the competition is much less fierce. Or better yet, promote an offer that has a translated landing page (French, Spanish, German, etc) to other countries.

8.  Are you thinking about doing SEO? Before investing in SEO, make sure you test to see if the traffic converts for the keyword that you are targeting via PPC.

9.  Be aware of macro environmental trends that may cause a certain campaign to convert higher. For example, weight loss products typically convert higher in January, right after many people make a New Year’s resolution to lose weight.

10. Affiliate marketing income can fluctuate, find multiple traffic sources that are profitable to create stability in case one traffic source is terminated.