Daniel is a long term geek. He was lucky enough to receive his first computer in 1993 and have a neighbor who could teach him many things about using DOS as well as Windows 3.11. Since then he never stopped geeking around in the tech sphere until finally while being in college (in the music sphere) decided to try and make money online. 8 years later and affiliate marketing is still what he does for a living.
Alex is a full time entrepreneur for more than 11 years now. He started his technological journey back in 1998, starting to learn about computers and software at the age of 13. He is completely self-taught in everything he knows about IT. Recently started learning PHP and JavaScript for the development of new features for FrankTrax.
1. Tell us a little bit about yourself. How old are you? Where are you from?
Daniel: I am 33 at the moment, I am from Sofia, Bulgaria and I enjoy music, internet marketing, partying with friends, trading stocks and cryptocurrencies, playing football and lately also yoga and spirituality.
Alex: I’m 34 years old, born and living in Sofia, Bulgaria. I love computers and technology in general, internet marketing is my passion. I like to travel, going out with friends and learning new things as much as possible.
2. How long have you been in affiliate marketing and how did you get involved?
Daniel: About 8 years now. I saw an ad about making money online and watched a course on mobile marketing, then off to the next thing and the next thing until I found something which works, then another thing which works so it goes. I found early enough that Alex (who I know since I was a kid) is also doing this and we teamed up to create something awesome and unique.
Alex: Back in 2008, I came across a sales page for an affiliate marketing course and I was immediately hooked up. I loved the idea of being my own boss, working whenever I want for as much as I want from wherever I want. I didn’t start making enough money with AM from the start, so I became a freelancer, Later on I started generating income with social media as an affiliate and some time after that I joined forces with Daniel to develop the FrankTrax network.
3. How long was it before you realized you could live off your affiliate income?
1-2 years.
Alex: I knew I could live off my affiliate income right from the first moment I saw that sales page for an AM course. However I achieved it a few years later.
4. What is the biggest mistake you made when you first started doing Affiliate Marketing?
The biggest mistake I’d say was after a while when things were doing well. We made some mistakes in terms of vision of the company which caused us to spend a lot of money unnecessary on programming things which we could just outsource as a finished product. Lesson learned.
Alex: Putting all my eggs in one basket. Affiliate marketing and internet marketing in general is an ever changing industry and things sometimes change in a matter of days. It is always good to diversify income sources and use multiple traffic sources and traffic generation techniques.
5. What was your biggest success to date?
Creating the Franktrax network and helping hundreds of beginner affiliates generate their first online income and become financially independent. For us Franktrax is not just an income source, it’s also a way to help people achieve the “Laptop lifestyle”.
6. Tell us a little bit about Franktrax and what you do over there?
Franktrax was created back in 2012. In the beginning we didn’t even have a platform of our own. We were approaching influencers and helping them generate their first online income by creating customized landing pages, sending visitors to an appropriate offer for them, based on their location and device. Few months later we hired a developer and started building franktrax from the ground up. During the years we have been always focused on optimization and creating new features in order to provide the best service and generate the maximum revenue from every single click sent our way.
7. There are already so many CPA affiliate networks out there. What makes Franktrax different?
The biggest thing which separates us from all the other performance based companies is that we are working with very small fishes in terms of marketers as well and we pay the same level of attention to everyone. We try to educate them, give them strategies and optimize for them. We build landing pages, algos and so much more in order to help our affiliates maximize their profits. We were also the first ever affiliate network to introduce a smart link 8 years ago. Now everyone is using it.
However our smartlink is still more special compared to others, because it does not only rotate offers, but also optimizes based on EPC, device type, location, amount of previous visits and conversions. All of the optimization is being done fully automatic, so there is no need for manual optimization (like it is with all of the other affiliate networks), thus eliminating any loss of earnings that usually occurs during non-working hours of the other affiliate networks (potential earnings are being lost during the waiting time for manual optimization).
8. What kind of offers is performing well on your network? What verticals do you specialize in?
We are specialized in adult dating, however we are constantly adding new offers from other verticals. Right now we are focused on Adult Dating, Sweepstakes, Financial, Gaming and Nutra.
9. Which traffic sources prove to be the most effective for your top earning affiliates - Push, Native, Facebook, Email, Search or any others?
Social Networks in general. Facebook being at the top.
11. For those who are interested in working with you and your affiliate network - What's the best way/time to reach you?
We try to be online as much as possible without having specific working hours. Sometimes we work late at night, sometimes during the day and we try to accomodate all time zones that way. Just write us on Skype or send us an email we will likely reply the same day.
12. What are the best places for the newbie to learn affiliate marketing? What advice would you give for them?
Read threads on forums and get active. Make a bunch of mistakes until you find something working. Alternatively contact us and we will help. We always give our best to teach our affiliates, how to start making money online and/or how to increase earnings from the same amount of visitors. We have created a few PDFs with strategies, methods and tips and tricks, specifically to help newbies get their feet wet with affiliate marketing and increase earnings afterwards.
13. In your experience, what are the three most critical elements of run a successful campaign?
- 1.Testing a lot of different creatives and landing pages
- 2.Testing different offers and conversion flows
- 3.Patience and constant optimization
14. What's the difference between a Super Affiliate and an Average Affiliate?
Profits generated through knowledge and experience.
15. What are the keys to building successful relationships between Affiliates and Affiliate Networks?
Good communication and understanding. Patience, desire and ability to help in teaching and optimization.
16. What do you think about where the industry is going in 2020? Where Franktrax may be going? What advice would you give to affiliates to keep up the pace.
Affiliate marketing is an ever growing industry and it’s only going to get bigger. Tracking software based on the blockchain technology will soon be a fact, which will eliminate the doubt that some affiliates have that networks are shaving. We’d love to use something like that in order to provide greater transparency for our business. Our advice for affiliates is to diversify. Always run multiple offers in multiple verticals with traffic from multiple sources. Declines have been always happening and will always do, however a decline in all verticals and traffic sources at once is much less likely.
19. What's your favorite movie and why?
I usually say ‘The Legend of 1900”, because I do love it, but in reality I do not have a favourite film.
Alex: I don’t have a favorite movie, but I have favorite sitcom - The Big Bang Theory. The reason is that every single episode makes me laugh a lot.
21. 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!
We would just like to thank you for asking us to do this interview as well as thank all the readers. If you got that far, it means you do show interest and we would love to get in contact with you or see you in person at any event around the globe!
.gif)
