Interview: Jeff Hall (OJQ.com)

We're very excited to present our 45th interview with Jeff Hall of OJQ. Jeff Hall has been an entrepreneur since age 11 when he started his first paper route. However, his paper boy dreams were soon absconded by computers, as he quickly realized the internet was the perfect profitable hobby for his entrepreneurial spirit. Today, Jeff is as excited about making money online as ever, and is proud to be the Co-Founder of Affiliate Marketing's Quality Network, OJQ.com. Jeff's time away from computers is spent playing dodge ball, golf, and hockey. He is a sport and finance enthusiast.

1. Tell us a little bit about yourself. How old are you? Where do you live?

I am 27 years old, living in Vancouver, BC. I love being part of the tech hub that is Vancouver, and try to be as active within the affiliate community as possible. However, I grew up in Calgary Alberta and still have a soft spot for the prairies. When I'm not working I like to try out new restaurants, play hockey, or get outside and golf. I'm also passionate about finance and like to keep an eye on the markets.

2. How long have you been working in this industry and how did you get involved? What/Who inspired you to enter it?

I started in the industry when I was in high school, essentially working online for beer money on weekends. I began mostly with a background in email marketing and later expanded into doing search marketing both organically and paid. By the time I was in university I was eager to expand into the advertiser side of the industry and started a program to collect education leads, and later shifted my focus to running a very successful sub-prime mortgage program. After the crash of the economy and the subsequent fall of the sub-prime business, I decided to shift focus and went back to school to take courses in programming and web design. I started a number of tube sites in 2007 and built up a network of sites which generated 30,000 unique hits daily, which I later sold. Upon reconvening with some old Affiliate Marketing partners we all decided to join our many years of experience in publishing and advertising and start OJQ in 2010.

3. How long was it before you realized you could live off your affiliate income?

As I said, my original experience with Affiliate Marketing was generating a supplemental income while I was in high school so I could still have fun on the weekends without best having to get a job. It was in my first year of University that I realized the potential that I had in front of me and I jumped all over creating an affiliate program.

4. What has been your biggest success to date?

As a business owner, it is always hard to judge the success of any current business that you are working on. It is inherent in our nature to strive to always grow the business. I feel like it's not until later on in life that you can look back and judge the success of your completed works. That being said, I am very proud of the work that has been completed thus far on OJQ.com and I believe that the principals in which we founded OJQ will drive us to be one of the most successful networks in the industry.

5. What was the biggest mistake you made when you first started doing Affiliate Marketing?

When I first started Affiliate Marketing, my largest mistake was that I did not scale my business and invest in myself. It was the wild west of internet marketing in the early 2000's and I sometimes feel like I missed a prime opportunity to grow my business in a time when competition and regulation was not as heavy as it is today. Then again, I was only 16 years old and I was just trying to have a good time!

6. Tell us a bit more about OJQ and what you do over there?

At OJQ we do three things: We work with quality advertisers, to match quality offers with quality Affiliates. We are as passionate about busting fraudsters as we are about making money. We believe our business is defined by the quality of our relationships, and we know that the best payouts come to the best quality traffic. By keeping consistent quality throughout every aspect, our network we can make sure that one affiliates production is never dragged down and degraded by Affiliates poor quality traffic.

7. Do you offer bi-weekly or weekly payouts? If so, how much does one have to make to qualify?

We offer both bi-weekly and weekly payouts to any Affiliate who provides high quality traffic.

8. What kinds of offers are doing well right now on your network?

Currently OJQ is doing well in a number of spaces including: - Payday - Bizopp - Credit - Dating - Insurance - Education

9. Which traffic sources prove to be the most effective for your top earning affiliates - E-mail, PPC, CPV, SEO, Social, Media Buying or any others?

Email is always the most productive traffic and tends to back out the best for advertisers however; we have many pubs doing display traffic in the banner, cpv, and social spaces that backs out quite well to.

10. I see you are using LinkTrust as your affiliate network platform. What made you build yourself, instead of choosing HasOffers, Cake Marketing, DirectTrack or HitPath, etc.?

We chose Linktrust as we believe it is the most reliable system out there and also has great reputation with Affiliates as being an honest and accurate tracking system.

11. Does OJQ accept Affiliates outside the US/Canada?

Of course. As long as their application is truthful and they pass our fraud test ;)

12. Does OJQ offer free training for newbie affiliates?

We currently don't have a specific training program. However, we do have the best AM’s in the field and are always happy to provide new Affiliates with educated advice and direction.

13. For those who are interested in working with you and your affiliate network - What's the best way/time to reach you?

We are located in Vancouver, and therefore operate on Pacific Standard Time. However, our Affiliates are more than welcome to reach out to us whenever they need anything, and we do our best to respond as promptly as possible.

14. In your opinion, what are the best places for a newbie affiliate to learn affiliate marketing? What tips/tricks would you give them to lift their performance?

My advice to newbie Affiliates would be to get out there and start testing campaigns. You learn from your mistakes, and no guru white paper is going to show you how to make millions. Hard work is the fastest road to success. My tips and tricks are simple: utilize your AM’s for their knowledge, know your target audience, and don't be lazy. Split testing works.

15. What are the differences between a Super Affiliate and an Average Affiliate?

Super Affiliates wear capes. In all honesty though, we do not like the term "Super Affiliate", however the thing that differentiates a great affiliate from an average affiliate is that they test everything and they invest in themselves heavily. Furthermore a great affiliate is always thinking outside of the box and putting themselves in there customer’s shoes.

16. How do you feel about the health of the Affiliate Industry overall? If you could change one thing about the Affiliate industry, what would it be?

Overall, I think we have seen a great influx of fraud and regulations introduced to the industry in the last few years. There is still a top half of the industry that is prospering largely, however some of the less upstanding Affiliates who mislead consumers and produce out and out fraud have watered down the lower half of the industry quite a bit. Many networks are now being extra careful to process and deal with fraud appropriately and I think you will only see this type of crack down continuing.

17. What do you think about where the industry is going? Where OJQ may be going? What advice would you give to Affiliates to keep up the pace.

As an Affiliate who wants to stay ahead of the curve, make sure you are putting your efforts into producing legitimate streams of income. Unless you are a line chaser, stay away from things which have a feeling of regulation being needed. Misleading advertising practices may work for a while, however if this is your only source of income when the regulations come, this will hit you fast and hard. Keep diversified.

18. What are OJQ's goals in 2011?

Our main goal is to continue growing our offer base, all the while supporting our core base of Affiliates to help them grow and increase their revenues.

19, What industry conferences do you usually attend, and which is your favorite?

- 1). Ad:Tech East & West - 2). Affiliate Summit East & West - 3). LeadsCon Affiliate Summit East in NY is my favorite.

20, What affiliate marketing blogs do you read regularly and why?

- Shoemoney - Jonathan Volk - Finch Sells - Zac Johnson - Affiliate.com Blog - John Chow - Technorati & Mashable

21, Give us a little glimpse into what a typical day in your life looks like.

Wake up, check stats, check the markets, respond to emails, hustle all day, work out at night, make or go out for a nice dinner, repeat.

Many thanks to Jeff for sharing your time with us and for sharing some great insight tips here! If you have any experience with OJQ, please write a review for them on the OJQ 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.