Interview: Mike Krongel (COPEAC)

We're very excited to present our 8th interview with Mike Krongel of COPEAC. Mike Krongel has over 11 years of experience pioneering and shaping the performance marketing landscape. As founder and chief architect of award-winning, interactive advertising firm, Intermark Media, and its ad network, COPEAC, he is one of the leading experts in digital advertising. Mike is a driven and well respected leader and entrepreneur, known for his creative and cutting-edge digital marketing strategies. His passion, complete-affiliate-support philosophy and ground-breaking creative approach have made him an influential figure in the online marketing community.

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

I am 33 and was born and raised in NY. I went to high school in Brooklyn and after graduating moved to long island where I reside now.

2. How long have you been in affiliate marketing and how did you get involved?

I got involved in affiliate marketing in 1997 generating debt leads for a company I worked for. In 1999 I started Intermark as the amount of leads we were getting was bigger than what the company I worked for could handle, starting Intermark allowed me to expand what I was good at without being limited by my employer.

3. What are the best places for the newbie to learn affiliate marketing? What advice would you give for them?

The various forums out there give great info for newbies, some forums are tougher than others but that’s because the knowledge is greater and it’s not given out for free. Usually free knowledge or those peddling how to make money schemes online never really made money doing affiliate marketing.

4. What's the difference between a Super affiliate and an Average affiliate?

A super affiliate is really a great media buyer who can run multiple traffic sources/campaigns at once. They know where to buy media, how to buy and how to arbitrage their CPM/CPC buys in to good CPA revenue. They find success in multiple niches. An average affiliate probably has one offer/traffic source and has difficulty finding success again.

5. Tell us a little bit about COPEAC and what you do over there?

Copeac is a performance based ad network that Intermark Media started in 2005. Copeac for those who don’t know is one of the leading networks out there. We have over 45K affiliates who have applied with us but are selective in who we work with. Our criteria is not based on earnings but rather skill and your ability to market within the guidelines set forth by the network and advertisers. We drive significant sales volume to over 200 advertisers each month. Intermark Media has been recognized as an inc 500 fastest growing company 3 years in a row. I am a founder and president of the company and oversee our strategic vision.

6. I see you are using DirectTrack as your affiliate network platform. What made you pick them instead of choosing LinkTrust, HasOffers and HitPath, etc? Do you have a plan to create your own tracking system?

As of Sept 15th we are moving away from direct track to our own custom built platform that we spent the past year developing. We feel our platform is unlike any software out there. For publishers we have streamlined the typical interface and provide snapshot reporting on the home screen when you log in, with links to reports you have saved (You can run a report and save it so next time all you do is click a link, you can also have our system send that report to you each day so you don’t need to log in). We provide customization features within the system so you can create links to your commonly used sections of the system such as our pixel manager (Place your own pixels on any offer you want, and you can also view what pixels are placed on what offers), or specific offer page to monitor the offers EPC . We built EPC reporting on the campaigns around the affiliate. If you are a search publisher you will only see EPC values of other search pubs, no CPV traffic throwing the EPC’s off, also we provide 3 EPC values, a low value (The bottom 10%) a mid value (Everyone) and a high value (The top 10%). So you can get more insight in to a campaigns actual performance, these EPC values are on all campaigns, creatives and landing pages in our system. We also provide a volume measurement on creatives and landing pages. You will see what the most used creatives by all the pubs in the network are. Also in regards to EPC we have set EPC alerts, you can have the system alert you if your EPC on an offer drops below a certain value. Reporting on Sub ID by hour too. Also accounting and payments are linked to the system, you’ll see how much was sent, when it was sent and for what time periods the moment we send it out. There are a lot more features but if I keep going we can be here for hours. Check out the system when it launches to the public by Mid Oct.

7. There are already so many CPA affiliate networks out there. What makes COPEAC different?

We listen to our affiliates and advertisers. Our new system was a direct wish list from affiliates we spoke to over the years. I think our AM’s are some of the more knowledgeable out there and we really all care about everyone’s success. We are tough on fraud and blackhat and do not allow pubs to take advantage of our advertisers. A big part of our system is our compliance monitoring which looks for common fraud patterns in click and sale data.

8. Which offers are performing well on your network?

The diet space is still doing well as is lead gen in insurance, finance, EDU, dating, and social coupon sites. We also have seen a big increase in penny stock offers and penny auction offers.

9. Which traffic sources prove to be the most effective for your top earning affiliates - PPC, PPV, Facebook, Media buys or any others?

All of them do well.

10. What are the criteria for a marketer to be accepted at COPEAC?

Be honest with us during the application process. Don’t apply if you intend to do fraud to our advertisers.

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

Affiliates should go to http://www.copeac.com/signup/index.asp and follow the instructions on how to apply. Advertisers can call us at 877-COPEAC-1

12. What are the keys to building successful relationships between Affiliates and Affiliate Networks? What are some of the challenges of being an Affiliate Manager/Owner?

The biggest key is having an open dialogue with your affiliates and the affiliates with the network they work with. Don’t be just a number.

13. If you could change one thing about the affiliate industry, what would it be?

I think our space needs to mature, people don’t realize how big performance marketing can be but you have a lot of people in it for a quick buck and don’t realize the long term value of what we all create each day. I would hope that people mature and evolve in our space and work to provide better value throughout the chain instead of slinging the berries.

14. What do you think about where the industry is going? Where COPEAC may be going? What advice would you give to affiliates to keep up the pace.

I think the space will continue to see consolidation. Consolidation of networks, consolidation of affiliates. Consolidation can just be survival of the fittest not always a merging of two or three companies. Copeac plans to continue to innovate and blaze new trails.

15. What's your favorite movie and why?

I have two favorites, Boiler Room and Goodfella’s both great stories in my opinion.

Many thanks to Mike Krongel for allowing this interview! If you have any experience with Mike's COPEAC affiliate network, please write a review for them on the COPEAC 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.