Interview with Carl Deveraux Small Business UK Affiliate

[jess1]

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Thought Id post this on the forum as there are some nice comments re some of the other forum members. Rock on Carl, respect!

Interview with Carl Deveraux Small Business UK Affiliate
Name: Carl Deveraux
Contact: carl at freebieholics.co.uk
Website: Freebieholics - UK Free Stuff

What did you do before affiliate marketing?
Lol, what haven’t I done! I’ve always been self employed, and I’ve dabbled with everything from leaflet production and distribution, carpet cleaning, double glazing sales to IT support - not necessarily one at a time! However, before 2002, most of my income came from IT related services.

How did you hear about affiliate marketing?
I heard about affiliate marketing once Id had a personal site up and running for around 6 months. The site was about me and the family, but had links to anything I found interesting, or I thought friends might find interesting - especially freebies. Then one day a freebie site owner emailed me and asked me if I realised I could earn money sending people to the same sites, i just needed to change my links. He pointed me in the direction of Affiliate Window. This was in 2002.

What made you get into this industry?
Within weeks of getting the advice mentioned above, I’d earned enough at Affiliate Window to be due a cheque. I quickly realised that if friends and family could make the pennies add up that fast, then bringing the general public to the site could be very profitable indeed. Never one to ignore a chance, I bought the Freebieholics - UK Free Stuff domain, I changed from free hosting to a better service, and started putting in much more effort. I’ve been an affiliate for coming up 6 years, although the first 6 months of that I wasn’t doing so full time.

Who in the industry influenced you when you first started out, can you remember any resources you used?
I’d have to put the freebie site owner above at the front of the list, this was John from gb3b.com, that first push in the right direction was the most important of all. For some time I was only using 3 affiliate networks - AWIN, DGM and TD. I got lots of help from people within these networks, but 2 stand out from the crowd, the first being yourself Jess (AWIN), and the other being John Maher (DGM). Sorry if the name’s spelt wrong John! As for resources, I’ve used many, but only one stands out. That has to be Affiliates4u - now www.a4uforum.com

Who in the industry influences you now?
The people who influence me in the industry now are the same people who influenced me in the early days - but they probably don’t realise it. These people influenced me early on because I was starting out in a sector they were already established in - freebies, competitions, bargains etc. Clarke Duncan (www.freeukstuff.com), John Lamerton (www.netfreestuff.co.uk) and Jason Dale (www.loquax.co.uk) I guess would be the main three. It’s just a pity I couldn’t keep up!

How has affiliate marketing changed for you since coming into the industry?
There’s 2 changes that have affected me more than any other. 2003/2004 were my most profitable years, and during this time when I was writing good figures for key programs I was treated as a ’super affiliate’ - I would have access to many private merchants, was asked to promote merchants before official release on a network, and was often getting far in excess of the standard rates. When two of the programs I did best with shut down, it left a big hole - and there were no other similar merchants I could use to send the traffic I had built up. Once my figures started to drop for those networks iI quickly found that the attitudes changed, and less was open to me.

The second change is one of attitude within the industry, but the change is natural, so it was seen coming. The industry has grown up over the last 5 years, there’s more people involved, it’s more competitive, and it’s much more serious. Back then people didn’t hold their cards so close to their chests, and the sharing of information was much more frequent. Several times I made worth while amounts of money due to a public tip being left on A4U, and several times done the same back. Basic stuff like ‘1000 clicks sent, 300 leads, 25p per click earned, worth giving a push’. I’ve not seen that for some time lol.

At what point did you realise that you would have to give up affiliate marketing as a full time job? What was that defining moment? What support from the industry do you think would have helped but was not available at that time?
I realised around 12 months ago that things were slipping, and obviously tried hard to increase the earnings back to a reasonable level. I made one big mistake though, and its a mistake I’ve made again and again, instead of working hard at diversifying, I worked hard trying to rebuild income from the same basket it’s always come from. It took me 6 months to realise that id been putting the effort into the wrong place, and by that time it was too late, it was time to go get a ‘real job’ to fill the gaps.

You want to get back to affiliate marketing full time, what are the challenges you face today?
Yes I do want to get back into the industry full time, and I will, but it won’t be easy. I can’t afford to give up the day job, so I’m limited to evenings and weekends - times when I’m already feeling the brunt from a full day at work. It’s reasonably easy to keep what I have left online up to date in that time, but to try to move into new sectors, and compete with those already established is a full time job - especially when I have to rely on natural traffic for any new ventures as I don’t have the spare cash to start throwing money at PPC.

One thing you hate about affiliate marketing?
Working from home, same four walls day after day. Can be very unsociable.

One thing you love about affiliate marketing?
A good business can be built, and a good income earned for very little outgoings. As mentioned above I’ve always been self employed, but never before have I found an industry where hard work and perseverance alone can build so much - it always takes both those things AND cash in abundance!

One message you have for merchants?
One thing I’ve always wanted from merchants is their user demographics. Most companies that start an affiliate program already know the types of people their site converts best. It would be great to have this information available when scrolling down long lists of merchants deciding who you’re going to give a push next. If I was now trying to find a partner to send me traffic I would be looking for sites where the average user was female between the age of 25 and 40 - because that’s what’s going to convert for me. Yes I can guess at which merchants are looking for the user base I have, but it would be nice to KNOW there’s a match before putting the work in.

One message you have for Affiliate Networks?
More emails! I have no idea how many emails I get a week, it’s a lot, but it’s not enough. I may be the odd one out here, but I work from my emails each day before I log into networks. Sometimes it may be a while between getting the time to browse through all the networks for news, new deals, new merchants, closed merchants etc. Yet when I do get the time I’m always finding stuff id not found out from my email. Id like to know when a new merchant starts a program on the day, not when the next weekly or bi-monthly newsletter is sent out to affiliates. The quicker I get this information, the quicker I can use it - and that’s one of my strong points, from getting the information myself, to getting it in front of my members can be a matter of hours, not days or weeks…


Which future affiliate networking event can we see you at?
Erm, good question! It’s been a while since I’ve been to any of the events. I’m short of time, I’m short of funds, but I realise these networking events can make all the difference if used correctly - no Guinness for me! The next 6 to 8 weeks i have my work cut out, but after that you could try keeping me away - but you wouldn’t succeed!

[purple]

Great interview, it is good to read about a blast from the past. I remember meeting carl way back at the first roof garden party back in the day.

I hope you can turn things around Carl I know you will be able to.

[mallyord]

A nice honest interview, thanksvery much for sharing it

[Freebie]

Thank you Jess x

Hi ya Purple, i remember you too Thanks for the vote of confidence.

Will be around lots more from now on, worked out what my password was here - only took 10 minutes lol.

Carl

[jess1]

Carl re a4uExpo, APA will cover your ticket, so no excuse!

[Fraser]

nice interview - well done to you both

Great to see you back here Carl - been wondering what happened to you! All the best for the future