You want to get started in Affiliate Marketing want to make money with right ad network ? So I have someone very much experienced in Affiliate Marketing Ivan Carrillo Business Developer Director From Kimia . What a amazing opportunity to interview Ivan who will be sharing his journey of Affiliate Marketing and how to run various mobile CPA offers and get into the game of adult industry. So lets get started and see what he has to share about his amazing journey.
Kimia is one of the biggest and longest standing networks out there. Can you tell us a bit about the company?
Kimia was founded in 2006 by engineers from the mobile operator sector. The company started as a technology service provider for carriers and evolved into a mobile ad network specialized in mobile carrier traffic due to the experience and granular information acquired for mobile carrier identification. Today the company has grown to into a truly international business with 150 employees in 5 offices in Madrid, Barcelona, Mumbai, Singapore and Shanghai.
We continue to be very focused on mobile CPA offers and traffic but also have expanded considerably in CPI, CPL and CPS models, as well as desktop. Our main verticals apart from mobile content are Sweeps, Dating, Games, Nutra, Health and Beauty. Our platform processes more than 11M sales events per month and serves over 200 geos.
What part of the business is dedicated to Adult versus Mainstream?
Today we are about 70% Mainstream vs 30% Adult. It's not necessarily that the adult market is getting much smaller, although regulations have made it more difficult in key territories such as the UK, but mainstream opens up a much larger opportunity due to the multiple verticals available and the entry into regulated regions such as MENA that do not allow Adult.
I would say that as traffic sources can be targeted at a much more specific level and product quality tends to be at higher level, mainstream payouts and conversions are more attractive to Affiliates.
How did you entered into the affiliate marketing world? What were the hiccups you faced in the beginning of your journey?
Kimia was originally a technology company for mobile carrier services, then we evolved into a free standing technical product for third party paid mobile sites, and eventually into an affiliate network. Our transition happened quite naturally as were witnessing the importance of mobile advertising and how it was beginning to dominate the market. In 2011 we took a risk and converted into a mobile network leaving aside all of our direct product business.
Making a change like that is hard on the bottom line and forces the company to change gears very quickly. Due to a great team and their dedication we came out on top. We now work with advertisers and publishers for mobile and desktop globally.
Since you see the data in your network, are there some verticals/niches, that are showing the best performance now? For example games/antivirus/content download ... something that you think the new affiliates should definitely focus on, because it's hot right now?
Some of our trending niches at the moment are:
Sweeps - I would recommend affiliates to test this niche while it's hot as these types of offers may be more regulated at a future point in time.
Dating - Not as explosive as it was a year ago but a stable and profitable niche once you have established yourself.
Video Streaming - Netflix and Amazon style products for countries where it is not available. We are seeing good results in MENA with these types of products.
Mobile Content - Still a great performer and highly recommended niche.
Nutra/Health and Beauty - - We are seeing a great rise in these products and surprinsgly in tier 2 and 3 geos: Eastern Europe, Asia (Philipines, China, Taiwan..), as well as US. Cash on delivery has been a big driver in this market.
One of the critical decisions a newbie affiliate marketer has to make is choosing what product or service to promote. How do you do it. What is your process of selecting products or services to promote to have the greatest chance of success?
Obviously doing your research here is important in order to get an idea of what kind of verticals are doing best and which combination of formats, platforms and geos are trending. However, the real key is applying your own intuition, creativity and interest. Untapped markets are where there may be more risk, but also less competition and cheaper traffic.
Finding a vertical that interests you in some way is going to provide you with much more creative energy and success compared to something you can't relate to or are not interested in. Finding some "joy" in the madness is what is going to keep you coming back for more in those hard first days of finding the magic to a successful campaign.
What blogs do you read in Affiliates. Tell me about an article you recently read that stuck out to you?
STM Affiliate Fix IamAttila.com http://www.matuloo.com/bot-traffic-how-to-detect-fake-hits-and-what-to-do-about-it/This article touches the topic of fraudulent traffic which affects everyone in the affiliate market chain. Affiliates don't want to buy it, Advertisers don't want to receive it, and Networks many times end up paying the price. A joint strategy by all players to combat the dirty guys is always of interest.
Do you believe that social media platforms can be used to promote affiliate offers? Can you explain it in brief ?
I assume you are referring to Facebook here. The short answer to this is YES. however, due to strict rules in regards to affiliate marketing Facebook needs to be treated with tender loving care. Ads must adhere to their policies, landing pages and pre-landers and playing with White hat tactics.
Due to the level of targeting that Facebook provides, it has become the biggest traffic source to Affiliate Marketers today. However it is not the only game in town and we still see very large volumes of traffic from traditional traffic networks, especially in particular niches such as mobile content and adult.
Do people need to spend money (e.g., PPC, paid advertising, etc) to make money with affiliate marketing?
Unless you are have a domain with high volume traffic and a niche that allows for sale of a certain type of product, buying traffic is going to be in your future. Some of the traffic sources we recommend are: Popads / Adsterra .
Do Kimia sponsor lot of internet marketing events? How do you track your ROI from these events?
We attended 50 events in every corner of the globe in 2016! From Africa, to Asia to Latam, MENA and USA. We are a global company with local focus. To achieve this it requires a lot of travel to industry events as well as travel for investigation of territories, verticals, and market trends.
We measure our ROI as a global effort that requires finding the best products in the market, the highest converting traffic sources for our range of products, the most competitive technology to achieve our goals, and the most informed and proactive individuals working in the Kimia team. Without putting ourselves in local markets worldwide and meeting our partners,competitors, influencers and local consumers this would not be possible.
There is a lot of competition for marketers out there, especially established, quality marketers, how Kimia survive in this tough competition? What is your best strategy here for success?
Technology and people. Our Ad server is based in machine learning technology and has been making constant enhancements and improvements over the past 8 years to ensure audiences receive the best offers, maximizing results for both advertisers and publishers. This precise targeting also includes targeting by vertical, geo, city/zip code, device, browser, language, carrier, time of day, and operating system.
Additionally we are also are very focused on anti-fraude technology for both advertisers and publishers as well as anti-ad blocking solutions.
Basically, we include technology in everything we do. And behind great technology are great people. Our team is made up of approximately 150 people, many who have been with us since our inception. We are a diverse, dedicated group from all over the world who enjoy our work and take pride in our services. And I think that shows in our success.
What reason would you give an Affiliate to start working with Kimia?
Kimia provides worldwide offers in multiple verticals. We are the champions in mobile content but have expanded greatly over the past 2 years and have tested offers in multiple niches and blown those out, particularly in Sweeps, Dating, Nutra, Health & Beauty and CPI products. We test our offers with our internal media buying team first.
We get as local as local can get with native account reps and sales team globally. Your profit is our business - our tagline and company mantra. We are only as good as the partners we chose and we take extreme care in taking care of those relationships.
What tools do you provide that set you apart from other networks?
I think our smartlink technology is key to many of our affiliates success. Although many networks offer smartlink these days, Kimia's has been at it for over 8 years! As it is based in machine learning technology basis, that is a lot of data to help get that click to the absolute best offer possible.
We also share the information of the individual offers that convert from the smartlink, which allows affiliates to then launch specific campaigns based on data and really scale.
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