Interview: Jared Esguerra (Affillion)

We're very excited to present our 15th interview with Jared Esguerra of Affillion. Jared "Izwar" Esguerra is a full time internet entrepreneur for over 8 years and is the cofounder along with his partner Kenneth Metral of Affillion.com a private Miami Based CPA network which is quickly growing to be hottest and most exclusive network in the industry. 1. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from? How old are you? My name is Jared Esguerra, i developed a nickname of IZWAR which stems from my last name which literally means "Is War" in spanish. I'm turning 24 years old this december and I was born and raised in Miami,Fl and i think its still the best place to live although i am a travel freak. 2. How long have you been in affiliate marketing and how did you get involved? I have been involved in affiliate marketing for over 4 years now and i remember the first time i learned about it. I had been wasting so much time trying to learn how to make a dollar online, i have done pretty much anything you can imagine online business wise and after seeing every method out there affiliate marketing is and always will be by far the most effective and most powerful way to make a living online. I was turned on to it by a friend who was making amazing money, at the time i thought it was very easy since i saw the amounts he was pulling in but it was a rude awakening in the beginning. 3. How long was it before you realized you could live off your affiliate income? Well once i got the hang of things i saw some very large wires coming in pretty quickly, i remember when i was 20 years old seeing 10K wires come in every week. I was like a kid in a candy store, ill admit now i blew through that cash pretty stupidly but hey we all live and learn, and it caused me to mature very quickly. Needless to say on that first wire is when i realized that this was all real, i was so worried in the beginning if i was going to be paid or not, once i saw the cash enter my account i knew the potential of this industry was limitless and i knew automatically this is what i wanted to do. The jump between being an affiliate and owning a network is one i wanted to do from the second i was successful at being an affiliate, i much rather prefer to work with affiliates, teaching them what i know, how to grow, how to scale their campaigns and help them to avoid the mistakes that i have made then just pushing sales myself. 4. What has been your biggest success to date? I would have to say launching and getting Affillion.com to the point of were it's at. It was always a dream of mine and my partners to have a successful CPA network, one in which we help affiliates grow and watch there success. We are by no means were we want to be, but our progress is looking great and i am really enjoying the trip so far. 5. What was the biggest mistake you made when you first started doing Affiliate Marketing? Hands down the biggest mistake was to much reading and not enough action! I think this is something that all new affiliates need to really understand. When you are just starting in affiliate marketing, yes its cool to read a few blogs here and there, but just to get some basic information, NO ONE is going to spoon-feed you successful campaigns when you start, just get out there and test, PPC vouchers are so underrated its free money! Use them lose the money and learn from it. I guarantee you that you will learn 1000 times more by putting up campaigns, building landers setting up tracking yourself, and losing money then you would asking questions on a forum. There is information overload out there, so stop reading and start doing! Understand that in affiliate marketing your going to fail over and over until you have a successful campaign just remember that success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. 6. Tell us a little bit about Affillion.com and what you do over there? I like to think of Affillion as a members only based night club, everyone wants in but only a few can really get in or match what we are looking for ;) We like to keep it private and exclusive because this way Myself and my team's resources are not spread to thin. We can really devote all our time and energy into taking an affiliate and developing them into a super affiliate. I would much rather have 50 hard working affiliates that i can work with personally versus 5000 that just take up time, space and even worse sending fraud which is a whole different topic in itself. 7. There are already so many CPA affiliate networks out there. What makes Affillion different? It seems every time someone answers this question they say the same old response, we offer the best support etc etc well thats great but we take that to the next level. Affiliates will have my personal cell phone along with my team's and if its 3 am on a sunday and i get a call from you, guess what? im getting my ass out of bed to make sure what ever issue you have is resolved. Affillion is based around affiliates and we are nothing with out them so we treat them like gold, we go to bat for them against advertisers, if there is ever an issue, affiliates can vouge that i will cover them personally from an advertiser because that is what networks are supposed to do. I like to get to know my affiliates personally and become friends and create long term relationships because in this industry loyalty and reputation is what really makes or breaks networks and affiliates. By being a more private based affiliate network, affiliates can also count on our exclusive offers not being so saturated. Were making some huge moves in the next couple weeks adding hundreds of offers more, being able to match and BEAT any payout on the street and weekly payments from day 1, not to many networks can offer that. Another thing that sets us apart, is we are open minded as far as traffic types are concerned, there are many traffic sources that networks freak out over, but instead of just saying NO from the start, we give everything a shot and test it out first, because sometimes with the right angles you can get different things to work. Aside from everything i just mentioned we like to really reward and get to know our affiliates as i mentioned before. We periodically award our top performing affiliates by flying them out to miami and showing them a great time completely on the Affillion Network. In the next couple months we will be launching the "Affillionaire" contest were i guarantee you as an affiliate, your going to want to take part in this :) 8. Do you have any exclusive offers that other networks don't have? We are currently securing 3 exclusive deals that no other networks will even come close to having. 9. Which offers are performing well on your network? Credit Reports are hot right now, Dating is always a big player anywhere you go and we have a good assortment of different niche offers to choose from. Besides that i would have to say our biz opp offers are doing well. If we dont have an offer, let me know and ill work my ass off to get it, as well as get the best payout rate possible for you. 10. Which traffic sources prove to be the most effective for your top earning affiliates - E-mail, PPC, PPV, Facebook, Media Buying or any others? PPC and Facebook are hot right now and were loving the traffic. Email is our next biggest earner. We are almost always open to experiment and do small tests with alternative traffic sources instead of just saying NO from the start like most networks do. 11. Do you offer online training for new affiliates? I would not say its training per se, we usually dont bring in 0 experience affiliates. What i like to do is take an affiliate who knows the game but perhaps has failed before and just needs guidance and steer them in the right direction. Working with someone and seeing them become successful because of your help is a feeling that is pretty difficult to beat and one of the main reasons i started this network. My partner Kenneth Metral is a great asset to affiliates in this area, he really spends a ton of time giving affiliates tips and tricks to take there campaigns to the next level. 12. What are the criteria for a marketer to be accepted at Affillion.com? How does Affillion.com prevent and handle fraud? I like to work with affiliates who have had some real world experience, not just reading a ton of information on a forum and then expecting a successful campaign. Since its a private and exclusive network we try to cater to the mid level to high level affiliates, however that is not to say i have not accepted total beginners and trained them to become very successful affiliates, i do it once in a while when i can. All in all we are just looking for hard working, loyal and HONEST affiliates. Honesty is so huge in this industry, i live and die by it. If your going to run some traffic source that you have doubts about, tell me! chances are i have experience with it and can tell you ahead of time what to do and not do. Worse case scenario ill just have to tell you no you cant run it, but if you run the traffic without telling me first that is when were going to run into issues. Trust me, back when i was an affiliate i sold everything you can imagine, with every traffic source you can imagine so i know how it is and i dont forget that ever. Fraud is a very frustrating issue in this industry, and its ridiculous how wide spread it is. When you apply to affillion you should be ready to receive a phone interview from either myself, my partner or anyone from our team. We will go over your application, ask you some questions and just get to know each other on a personal level. Its funny how many affiliates just dread the phone but its going to be crucial if you want to work with us. I have been in the industry so long and been on both sides of the fence that i can feel out a fraudster pretty quickly so please dont even try it. 13. For those who are interested in working with you and your affiliate network - What's the best way/time to reach you? My AIM is on pretty much 24/7 so just drop me a message @ AFFILLIONJ or shoot me a text or call @ 305-205-7745 pretty simple :) 14. In your opinion, what are the best places for a new affiliate to learn affiliate marketing? What advice would you give for them? As i mentioned earlier in this interview, affiliates needs to stop reading and start doing. There is information overload out there and you can spend months mabie even years wasting time, Trust me i made this mistake and its a killer, what you learn in a few weeks of losing money is invaluable in affiliate marketing and no forum or course is going to compare. Another crucial thing about this industry is you have to be ready for failure, your going to have a TON of failing campaigns before you hit that gem that makes up for all the losses, i say that success is 99% failure and it could not be more true in this industry. If i really had to recommend any reading just stick to the blogs like mr.green, shoemoney, volk etc etc. 15. In your experience, what are the three most critical elements of running a successful campaign. Tracking, Demographics and Creativity. We all live or die by tracking if you dont have the right set up your going to be throwing money out the window. Demographics is a huge one, this alone can dictate your click prices, your conversions, pretty much everything. You need to do a ton of research of who is going to buy your product or fill out that form and get as tight as you can with your demographic groups, im talking about micro campaigns i have gone as far as targeting 2 year gaps for the hell of it. Lastly creativity is crucial, dont expect to just completely rip someones campaign, turn a switch and have it be profitable that is very rare. The affiliates who really hit it big in this industry are the ones that think out of the box and are not afraid to try new things. 16. What's the difference between a Super Affiliate and an Average Affiliate? A super affiliate to me is one who can consistently put up big numbers every week, doesn't need much guidance and has been in the game for a long time. My favorite thing to do is watch average affiliates turn into super affiliates. 17. If you could change one thing about the affiliate industry, what would it be? The amount of fraud going on. Its crazy how much fraud i would say 85% of sign ups are fraud, affiliates need to be more honest with how they plan to promote offers. If everyone would be more transparent and maintain good quality the industry would be a better place for all of us. 18. What are your goals in 2010? To make Affillion the number 1 network out there, my partner and i want to really provide a great community for affiliates to come and know they are working with the top network out there. We are all looking forward to throwing the "Affillionaire" contest either at the end of 2010 or the beginning of 2011. 19. What are your hobbies/interests/passions? What's your favorite movie and why? Besides internet marketing and business i am a gym and health junkie, i lift weights at least 4 times per week and my other passion is Mixed Martial Arts. I am a HUGE UFC junkie and wish i could make it out to vegas more often to see some fights, i have been training brazilian jiu-jitsu for over 6 years on and off and i think its a great mental escape from the daily stress's of running a network. I just want to thank everyone for taking the time to read this interview, and want to thank affiliate paying for giving me the opportunity to share my story and talk about our network. Many thanks to Jared for allowing this interview! If you have any experience with Affillion.com Affiliate Network, please write a review for them on the Affillion review page. Ps. If you are an affiliate marketer, AM or Network owner and are interested in answering a few questions about you, your network and affiliate marketing, please drop us a message.