Matt is the managing director of WOWTRK CPA Network. Matt has been involved in the CPA/CPL industry since the age of 12, when he setup one of the first cash back websites in the UK. In 2007, at the age 16, Matt setup WOWTRK which has become a leading international network, working with many well-known, multi-national organisations.
Tell me about yourself, what do you currently do?
I’m Matt, the Managing Director of WOW Media, a multidisciplinary marketing agency specialising in Affiliate Marketing. I set-up the company in 2007 and since then the business has grown from strength to strength, particularly within the performance marketing sector. We currently have six dedicated WOW sites, including WOW Trk our CPL affiliate network, our freebie website, a voucher code website and various other projects too.
What was the inspiration behind WOW Media, how did you get into the industry?
I started out in the industry when I was very young. When I was 12 I started selling sweets in the school playground, after I’d made my first £20, I invested it and made my first website. It was a cashback site which later became ‘British Rewards’. Users would complete affiliate based offers and earn cash back in their member accounts. This propelled me into the world of affiliate marketing at a time when it was a fairly new concept.
What is Affiliate Marketing & does it work?
Affiliate marketing is when an individual or even another business, promotes a product or service on behalf of a merchant and receives a commission for doing so. It enables an advertiser to reach a much wider customer base through the various different ways their affiliates promote the offer.
An Affiliate network is a platform that connects the right affiliates with various advertisers and then tracks the performance using various tracking methods. When a WOW Trk affiliate makes a sale or generates a lead, the action is shown in their account. They are then awarded the commission when the advertiser has confirmed the quality of the lead.
What’s the best thing about Affiliate Marketing?
It allows publishers to earn a second income, monetise their existing blogs and websites or even act as a platform for setting up their own business. This is appealing because it’s a flexible way of making money online – You could travel and earn a living, it’s great for stay-at-home Mums or for anyone wanting to work remotely in the digital space.
What has been the biggest challenge you’ve had to face in business?
I would have to say growing the business with no financial support has been the hardest challenge. Obviously at such a young age I had no income to inject into projects, in the early days I re-invested all profits back into the business. It really was a case of starting with nothing and turning it into something.
How do you stand out against competition?
We’ve introduced a lot of unique tools for our affiliate network, WOW Trk. This really sets us apart from other networks and allows us to focus on quality leads. For example, our fraud detection platform WOWDETECT enables us to increase an Advertiser’s return on investment, it’s a superior platform in comparison to the typical fraud prevention methods used by other networks.
We also offer a range of tools to help Affiliate’s increase their sales and earn more money from the platform, such as a plugin that can be installed on their WordPress websites, this enables them to quickly start promoting WOW Trk offers with minimal effort.
What Defines the way you approach business?
Relationships are what underpin business and ultimately success in business. Our Affiliates, our merchants, our business partners are all built on solid relationships and understanding from both sides. As long as there is good communication, good collaboration and of course a common goal, then your approach to business is on the right track.
What different ways can an Affiliate make money?
There are so many methods and so many different offer types to promote. If you’re interested in selling something to your visitors you might promote a ‘CPS’ offer and earn a commission for every sale you generate. For this you need a good pre-sell, lots of interesting content and information about the product. WOW Trk is predominantly a CPL network; affiliates generate leads rather than sales and earn a fixed amount for every lead they deliver. This can be more appealing because you only need to generate interest, you don’t need to close the deal.
In terms of how they promote the offers, it does vary between advertisers, sometimes there are certain restrictions but usually it can be a combination of website traffic, social media, email marketing, even PPC. This opens affiliate marketing up to almost anyone who has access to an audience in the online space.
What’s the most common mistake you see new Affiliates make?
Trying to promote offers that are unrelated to their audience. Generally, if you have blog traffic related to something very niche or specific, those visitors are unlikely to be interested in a service or product that’s completely different. You could call it lack of targeting, that’s a very common mistake. As an Affiliate you should be segmenting your emails, adding relevant and relatable advertisements to your website and building a targeted community on social media.
What’s your top tip for a new Affiliate?
That’s a difficult one, I would have to say research and keeping up to date with everything in the industry are the most important things. Research, because you can’t pre-sell something unless you’ve taken the time to learn about what it is you’re promoting and get an understanding for the brand. In order to compete with the top affiliates out there, you also need to keep your digital skills fresh and utilise new tools and platforms that can help you increase your sales.
Is Affiliate marketing a long-term profitable avenue?
Affiliate marketing has been around for quite a few years now and it’s definitely here to stay. For merchants it can totally transform their marketing strategy, they could have hundreds or even thousands of other people helping build their brand awareness, reaching more customers than they could ever have reached without it. More and more advertisers are starting to see the benefits of this model, so affiliate marketing is only going to develop in the future.
I would like to thank Matt for taking time out of his busy routine for us. I really enjoyed Matts interview and I hope my readers would also like to read this interview, It was a great pleasure for me to interview him. I have plans to keep on interviewing more people related to performance marketing industry, So if you want your favourite people interviewed please mention their names in comments below and i will make sure they are interviewed in our upcoming posts. Also I would highly recommend my readers to try out WoW Trk
~ Kj
