Interview: Peter Adams, Affiliate Manager at One Better Network

We're very excited to present our 64th interview with Peter Adams of One Better Network.   Peter Adams is the Affiliate Manager at One Better Network - a small and honest network with great ideals. He has a passion for everything he does, including Affiliate Management and is eager to help anyone. He's still a geek at the age of 29 just as he was at the age of 10. Born and raised in Montana, currently traveling all around the globe.  

1. How did you get involved in affiliate marketing? What/Who inspired you to enter it?

I honestly got involved by accident. A close friend of mine had the idea of an affiliate network and I just decided to go on board with him. The rest is history :)  

2. What advice would you offer to an affiliate who is looking to make some serious cash in the affiliate marketing industry?

1). Promote what YOU are interested in. Find your own specific, exclusive niche. There are offers for everything on the market nowadays. Make sure you pick the ones you're personally interested in so you don't lose your ground and passion.

2). Be creative. Ask the networks you're working with if you can alter the creatives or ask them to do it for you. It will most certainly help your promotion. NEVER use annoying ads or you risk losing a lot of people (unless you're going hard incent, then it's forgiven.)

3). Target wisely. That's the simplest thing and yet - so profitable you just can't imagine. See which of your site's pages are most visited, check what countries you're getting visitors from and so on. Target your audience and do your best to keep in touch with them constantly, asking them what they want, not just sending them offers you'd like them to fill for you. Doesn't work that way. Have a 'Suggestions' section, a chat, a newsletter or anything you can think of in which regularly ask what are your visitors generally interested in, so you can keep their attention and offer them something they are really looking for.

4). Strive to test every offer you're placing on your site yourself. That way you can have an article about it if it's a free trial product or a game or pretty much anything. Don't lie to your visitors by offering them random offers not caring what their interests are.

5). Start incent. Seriously, you won't regret it.  

3. There are so many CPA affiliate networks out in the industry. What makes One Better Network unique?

We genuinely care, that's it I guess. We want to keep both publishers and advertisers happy. We've gone pretty international lately and added a lot of incentive offers so there's pretty much anything for everyone with us :) I also have a new quiz that I'm planning on releasing every month to ask the publishers how we can improve and we will improve the things they want us to, that's a promise. We've prepared many more surprises for them, but that would have to happen gradually.  

4. One way to keep affiliates happy is to pay them on time and faster. What steps has your network taken to ensure that your affiliates will be paid on time?

Like I said - we try to keep the advertisers happy and if they are - it's in their interest to pay on time, so we can pay on time.  

5. Do you offer bi-weekly, weekly or even daily payment? If so, how much does one have to make to qualify?

Yep, we do. I don't think it's 'how much' a person has to earn to get this payment method, but how many times they will be paid first. I can see leads today that will be scrubbed a week from now after the payment has already been processed and that's not working for us. So 2 months or at least 1 where the advertisers didn't have any complaints from the publisher, a good reference from another network and they'll be good to go (or switch in that case).  

6. What are the criteria for an affiliate to be accepted at One Better Network? How does One Better Network prevent and handle fraud?

There's no criteria, honestly (and yes, I realize how that sounds). The criteria is they shouldn't lie. I would accept any publisher from any part of the world, no matter their experience. Everyone has to start somewhere. We're on HasOffers so their integrated Profile Fraud Score gives me a pretty good idea if the person is lying, a quick check of the site and answers they've provided + a phone call is more than enough as well.  

7. What are the top converting verticals at One Better Network; Email submit, Dating, Mobile, Education, Financial/Insurance or Health/Diet?

Actually at the moment there are no top converting verticals. We have appropriate publishers for every vertical and campaigns in pretty much every vertical, so.. they're all doing well.  

8. Are there any plans to develop One Better Network further in the near future? Will there be any interesting changes/improvements made soon?

Hell yeah! We will add a chat or forum for the publishers so they can exchange knowledge and get in touch with me there as well. We're also planning on adding a specific payment description for every offer so if there's a potential problem, I'd be able to say 'Stop pushing traffic to that one, payment is pending until we clear things up' so they don't invest their money and effort into a black hole. I'd just like them to play it safe like we do. I think it's about time we give some prizes to our top affiliates as well, but that will maybe happen at the end of the year or the beginning of next year.  

9. What do you think the greatest challenges facing the industry are right now? And what would you do to solve them?

Incompetence. Seriously. Lots and lots of incompetence. All around.

1). Advertisers: A lot of networks/advertisers are integrating tools they don't know how to use and refuse to learn - I'm mostly talking about the fraud prevention/detection tools that filled the industry lately. The process usually goes something like this:

-1. publishers are working on an offer.

-2. the advertisers stop them.

-3. we ask why were they cut on this, because I'd love to actually give them a reason since I see nothing wrong with their traffic on our end.

-4. the answer we get: 'The tool is showing 12% probability of fraud. Cut them.'

-5. we: 'Probability? Can we please get a report with some detailed info?'

-6. they: 'No, sorry, that's all we see. These leads are scrubbed' When we actually get a report it seems really odd that for a few % probability of fraud shown in them the reason is 'Make sure you check this publisher over the phone or by email'. First, we have checked this publisher when he signed up. Second this is not a free trial offers, not a call center offer, but let's say an incentive offer that converts on download. If the final visitors that publishers is working with are actually downloading and using your product, why would you cut that traffic at all? I've seen this so many times by now and affiliates don't work on these offers again. Worst things is I myself can't give them a valid reason for the leads scrub and that's totally disrespectful in my opinion. I must say we monitor the publishers for fraudulent traffic, but I'm always building my own tools for this.

2). Affiliates: There are so many publishers in the industry who expect to get the big bucks by doing nothing. Or by pushing fraud. Both are unacceptable to us. I always try to advise those people how they can approve, what they can use, how they should really start at 0 and they can gradually get to the top. I genuinely try to help anyone who asks me, but they almost never listen. I'm on your side, guys. Marketing is a real job and a full-time job at first. You need to learn how to keep your money, not how to earn them once or think you've earned them, but your leads turn out fraudulent and you lose everything. Networks exchange info all the time and if you're on someone else's blacklist, you're on ours too. You can get lazy once you've hired other people to do your job for you or you've automated it to perfection. How would I solve this: As and advertiser: I would think first before I cut someone off for no reason. As an affiliate: I would think twice before I push fraud traffic, because I will know this may cut my chances of acceptance into every reliable network in the industry and instead I'd be accepted into scam networks who will rob me in no time. All in all, I would try to learn what I'm interested in and develop my own solutions to prevent such issues. There are plenty of free solutions for all kinds of traffic as well, so it's all about personal persistence and desire. As an AM: I would try to talk things through and find an appropriate solution for everyone. I would try to be honest as I've always been.  

10. What is the one thing you love about your job as an affiliate manager and what is the one thing you hate the most?

1). People.

2). People :) Don't even get me started...  

11. Thanks a lot for this interview. If there is anything else you would like to say to the readers of Affpaying.com now is the time!

First of - thank you all for reading this long interview, I appreciate it. Second, thank you Gao for taking the time to set this up. Third: Be real. Always. And don't give up. I know you can do it in this industry if you have the passion for it. And last, but not least - thank you all for your support. We would be nothing without you.  

Many thanks to Peter for sharing your time with us and for sharing some great insight tips here! What are your thoughts on the interview? Kindly share your thoughts in the comments section below. Also, if you have any experience with One Better Network, please write a review for them on the One Better Network review page. PS. If you are an affiliate marketer, affiliate manager or affiliate network CEO and are interested in answering a few questions about you, your network and affiliate marketing, please drop us a message.