At the Affiliate Summit West, Karen Hoxmeier took the time out of her busy schedule for a quick interview. Once we scored a table at the ever bustling Cafe Madeleine in the Paris Hotel, we caught up about her extensive affiliate marketing experience and position with FMTC.
For those of my readers unfamiliar with FMTC, FMTC offers powerful tools for bloggers and content niche site owners to monetize their sites. In fact, these tools led to FMTC receiving the coveted Service/Tool of The Year Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Award. FMTC eliminates the hassle of managing deals and coupons that often cripple a content affiliate’s monetization efforts. After all, a content affiliate’s passion is writing, not technical and administration work.
By now it is obvious how Karen and I ended up chatting at Affiliate Summit. We both love working with content affiliates and helping them monetize their sites. Below is our conversation.
Steph: When did you get into affiliate marketing?
Karen: I actually stumbled onto affiliate marketing by chance. In July of 1999, I bought my first computer and got online. I quickly discovered online shopping and was thrilled with all of the great deals I came across. I also found a site called MyPoints, where I could earn gift cards by shopping online. MyPoints had a promotion for 500 free points if I created a website on Homestead. I decided to build a one page site that I could share with my friends, listing the deals I scored that week.
By November, I started getting traffic outside of my own circle of friends. It was also around this time that I was shopping at Amazon and I noticed something they referred to as an “Associates Program”. It was like a light bulb went off in my head. I could keep doing what I’ve been doing, sharing deals with friends, and get paid for it!
I knew I was on to something and that a Homestead website wasn’t going to get me there. I bought an “HTML for Dummies” book and found a website geared toward kids on how to write HTML. MyBargainBuddy.com launched on January 15, 2000.
At the time, I was a stay at home mom with three little kids. MyBargainBuddy.com provided me a steady income with the ability to stay at home with my kids, on my own terms. I didn’t want to leave my kids or have to ask a boss for permission to stay home with a sick child.
Steph: I am right there with you. I have two little ones. Affiliate marketing allows for many of us to stay at home. We can be the moms we want to be AND support our families financially. What was your next step in affiliate marketing?
Karen: I continued developing and growing MyBargainBuddy, which I still run to this day. I also dug into educating myself on the industry by attending conferences and networking with others in the business. I added consulting to my portfolio in 2008. Soon after, FMTC made me an offer. I loved that their tools offer new and veteran affiliates an easier path to success. I also enjoy how my work at this one company has a ripple effect for so many other companies, big and small.
Steph: What do you see as the biggest difference between the affiliate marketing industry now and when you first started?
Karen: Today’s market is saturated with coupon and blog sites. There are also a lot more advertisers out there. When I launched MyBargainBuddy, I was first to market, which is a huge advantage. It’s easier to stand out when there isn’t a lot of competition. Now when an affiliate launches a site, there are 1000s of sites just like it.
Affiliates have to be original and do their best to connect with their reader so the reader considers him or her a friend or a valuable resource. Affiliates really need to keep their eye on the competition and innovate to differentiate themselves.
“Affiliates have to be original and do their best to connect with their reader so the reader considers him or her a friend or a valuable resource. Affiliates really need to keep their eye on the competition and innovate to differentiate themselves.’ explains Karen.
Steph: What is your role at FMTC and how does your experience come into play?
Karen: I am the COO (Chief Operating Officer) at FMTC. I get to wear a lot of different hats, but my number one job is making sure the service we provide is the absolute best on the market. Being an affiliate for 15 years and consulting for other affiliates, I know what publishers want and what they are going to need in the future. It gives me a unique perspective as a service provider to have such firsthand experience.
Steph: Who should use FMTC?
Karen: Since 2007, FMTC has been providing content to large loyalty, coupon, and deal sites, such as Ebates and Slick Deals with our Enterprise Level Datafeeds. But our service has evolved and is now also serving bloggers and other content focused sites.
In fact, we just launched Fresh Press Media, which is designed just for bloggers and content publishers. With a Free account at Fresh Press Media, users can search a database of over 100,000 offers by brand, keyword, category, or deal type and each of the offers includes a monetized link. This makes it easy for a publisher to find the perfect monetized content to tie into their posts.
We also take the stress out of keeping offers current. Fresh Press Media has a tool called Pods, which are similar to Adsense in that they add blocks of monetized content to your site. However, unlike Adsense, our tools give the affiliate complete control. Users can choose which ads are run based on brands, category, keyword or even deal type.
Steph: I love that! I am always telling affiliates to take down their Adsense. Not only are the commissions horrible, but users associate whatever brand pops up with the affiliate’s site. It is not always a happy association. How much does it cost and how does it work?
Karen: At Fresh Press Media, we have several options to work with anyone’s budget. A free Deal Bank account uses Skimlinks to monetize the offers. (Note: Users do not have to install Skimlinks code on their blogs to use this. All they do is paste URLs into their post, like they would normally.) With the free option, all the affiliate needs to do is sign up with Skimlinks to start monetizing. One Pod is included with our Free Deal Bank account.
If a publisher wants to utilize their own affiliate relationships and use Pods, they can sign up for a Pods subscription for as little as $25/month. A publisher would then join programs individually, provide us with their network IDs, and we would give them affiliate links that credit directly back to them. They would also have access to Skimlinks URLs for programs they have yet to join.
Once a Pod is on the page, the affiliate doesn’t need to go back to update with the latest seasonal offers or discounts. We take care of the updates automatically, so the affiliate has an evergreen post or page. We know a publisher would rather focus on writing new content versus monitoring ads and updating them all the time.
Steph: Sounds great. I can’t wait to try it out!
Thanks for reading this interview with Karen from FMTC. I hope you learned as much as I did. I will be testing out their product soon and will provide videos of how easy it is to set up. And of course, all my programs are already signed up with FMTC if you want to get started now.
Want to meet Karen and myself in person to talk shop? If you live in the San Diego/Orange County area, we are hosting an Affiliate Marketing Meet-up in Carlsbad. Click here for details.
Follow these links to learn more about FMTC and Fresh Press Media.