The affiliate network “Where is the Elephant?” Unites online stores and themed sites
The Internet project “Where is the Elephant?” Promises to become a new way to monetize sites for its partners and a means of increasing sales in online stores. To understand what the newly opened partner network is better than others, and get to know the project better, we will be helped by the commercial director Alexander Polyakov and the project manager, Sergey Gershun.
- Alexander, How did the idea of your own Internet project come to you?
Alexander: A year ago, Sergei stumbled upon Jeremy Shoemaker’s book on Internet marketing. A whole chapter in it was devoted to what in the west is called affiliate marketing. After discussing everything thoroughly, analyzing the Russian market and communicating with the masters of online trading, we realized that we could bring something new to the Internet commerce of Runet. Since then, this idea has firmly lodged in our heads and, as a result, has become the affiliate network “Where is the Elephant?”.
- The business model of most Internet projects is based on the "weaning" of money from end users. Your project is intermediary, in fact it is an exchange of supply and demand. Do you think this structure is more promising?
Sergey: Yes, in our business model, making a deal is beneficial to all three parties. The store sells its goods, the partner receives his commission, the buyer acquires exactly what he needs.
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- There is also the fourth side - your affiliate network :). What is your personal interest in the project, besides, of course, making money?
Alexander: This is a really interesting question, thank you. This project is special, at least in terms of coverage, and we invest a lot in it, besides money [laughs]. Is he “his”, he has a soul in the face of Bax [for more details about Baks, see below]. Me and the team really like it, it's like if not love, then sympathy at first sight.
- You started the project in a difficult post-crisis time, when most Internet startups were frozen. How did you manage to launch the project?
Alexander: The crisis is the time to start new projects, someone hasn’t come up, someone is licking their wounds. We know what to expect and are focused on meeting the needs of our users, and not on achieving some transcendental goals. We saw a free niche, proved to investors that it was promising and began to work. Perhaps the uniqueness of our startup, if you will, is that its very essence is monetization. It's like a bank - only the one that multiplies the capital of the investor and gives guarantees is good. We do the same for our stores and partners.
- Most of the good ideas in the RuNet come from the West? And yours too? How successful are such projects there? Is there data on turnover, number of participants?
Sergey: They are enough. ShareASale, ClickBank, ComissionJunction and others. But none of them works with Russia, which has always been a reason for frustration among Runet webmasters. It is now that the time has come for the rapid growth of affiliate programs, the projects are very successful, more than 30% of sales in American online stores are made thanks to affiliate networks, in Europe this percentage is lower, about 22%, as they started later.
- And yet, is there really a crisis in Runet with good ideas? There are almost no successful projects of the original, non-Western format.
Alexander: On the one hand, it is easier to copy the finished one than to invent your own. However, it’s not enough to copy a working idea. The difference is not only in the mentality, but in the development of the Internet market. And success is not guaranteed. We came out with our project just in time. After the crisis, many companies save on advertising and product promotion. And here our project with payment for the result came in very handy. Negotiations with online stores, potential participants in the project, we were only convinced of this. Interest in the project is big.
- Who are the potential users of your project?
Sergey: First of all, these are people and companies for whom financial success is important. On the one hand, these are online stores and other online merchants, which could be anyone. On the other - partners, which are divided into several groups.
The first group is large sites or portals that want to earn more on their solid traffic. We offer them not to count pennies, selling clicks, not to annoy their visitors with banners, not to spoil their search traffic, but to offer their visitors specific product offers that they will be interested in.
The second group is amateur and professional bloggers and owners of small sites with targeted traffic. For example, if someone is well versed in photography and he has a serious number of readers interested in the same - why not sell cameras and accessories to them? Of course, only those whom he himself trusts.
And finally, the third group is a huge number of users of social networks and just Internet users who want to profit from their hobby or even lifestyle - sitting on the Internet. By the way, in the US, private sellers are a huge proportion of users of partner networks, generating up to 40% of turnover. They can all make money by posting their links to products on social networks, forums, blogs.
- Links to forums? Not afraid to turn the project into a community of spammers?
Sergey: Of course not. Our task is to put a convenient and efficient tool in the hands of users, and those who abuse it will immediately turn off - we have the technical capability for such control in real time. Thanks to the completely white principles of the functioning of our partner network, we guarantee the absence of duplicate user accounts, i.e. if a person broke the rules once, we politely warn you that if this happens again, he will be denied access to the network forever.
- With what projects that already exist in RuNet will your affiliate network compete with?
Alexander: There are several major players in the market, for example Soloway, they exist longer than we do. Our main difference is that we concentrate on the sale of goods, in the terminology it is called payment for the purchase. We are not going to sell traffic or clicks - this is not interesting for our participating stores, partners, or ourselves. Our model is more difficult to build, but also more stable in the long term, so it seems to me more promising and, at the same time, more clear for all network participants.
- How do you see the direction of the project in the next six months, a year?
Alexander: The main task for the next year is to increase the number of offers from stores, to develop unique affiliate programs for partners, so that they would be interested and profitable to work in our network. And most importantly, to tune our network under the realities of Russian Internet commerce, so that it becomes the most efficient and user-friendly.
- Alexander, and where is the Elephant?
Alexander: And here he is! [holds out an elephant's plush toy - the symbol of an affiliate network]. An elephant is a talisman, our and our partners. His name is Mr. Bucks. [laughs] He is successful as all our partners and stores that work with us. He is a benchmark of confidence, reliability, wisdom and success. He does not care a straw. I myself would like to be like him. By the way, in Indian mythology, an elephant personifies wealth and prosperity, which is why I wish all our users on behalf of “Where is the elephant?”
- Alexander, How did the idea of your own Internet project come to you?
Alexander: A year ago, Sergei stumbled upon Jeremy Shoemaker’s book on Internet marketing. A whole chapter in it was devoted to what in the west is called affiliate marketing. After discussing everything thoroughly, analyzing the Russian market and communicating with the masters of online trading, we realized that we could bring something new to the Internet commerce of Runet. Since then, this idea has firmly lodged in our heads and, as a result, has become the affiliate network “Where is the Elephant?”.
- The business model of most Internet projects is based on the "weaning" of money from end users. Your project is intermediary, in fact it is an exchange of supply and demand. Do you think this structure is more promising?
Sergey: Yes, in our business model, making a deal is beneficial to all three parties. The store sells its goods, the partner receives his commission, the buyer acquires exactly what he needs.
')
- There is also the fourth side - your affiliate network :). What is your personal interest in the project, besides, of course, making money?
Alexander: This is a really interesting question, thank you. This project is special, at least in terms of coverage, and we invest a lot in it, besides money [laughs]. Is he “his”, he has a soul in the face of Bax [for more details about Baks, see below]. Me and the team really like it, it's like if not love, then sympathy at first sight.
- You started the project in a difficult post-crisis time, when most Internet startups were frozen. How did you manage to launch the project?
Alexander: The crisis is the time to start new projects, someone hasn’t come up, someone is licking their wounds. We know what to expect and are focused on meeting the needs of our users, and not on achieving some transcendental goals. We saw a free niche, proved to investors that it was promising and began to work. Perhaps the uniqueness of our startup, if you will, is that its very essence is monetization. It's like a bank - only the one that multiplies the capital of the investor and gives guarantees is good. We do the same for our stores and partners.
- Most of the good ideas in the RuNet come from the West? And yours too? How successful are such projects there? Is there data on turnover, number of participants?
Sergey: They are enough. ShareASale, ClickBank, ComissionJunction and others. But none of them works with Russia, which has always been a reason for frustration among Runet webmasters. It is now that the time has come for the rapid growth of affiliate programs, the projects are very successful, more than 30% of sales in American online stores are made thanks to affiliate networks, in Europe this percentage is lower, about 22%, as they started later.
- And yet, is there really a crisis in Runet with good ideas? There are almost no successful projects of the original, non-Western format.
Alexander: On the one hand, it is easier to copy the finished one than to invent your own. However, it’s not enough to copy a working idea. The difference is not only in the mentality, but in the development of the Internet market. And success is not guaranteed. We came out with our project just in time. After the crisis, many companies save on advertising and product promotion. And here our project with payment for the result came in very handy. Negotiations with online stores, potential participants in the project, we were only convinced of this. Interest in the project is big.
- Who are the potential users of your project?
Sergey: First of all, these are people and companies for whom financial success is important. On the one hand, these are online stores and other online merchants, which could be anyone. On the other - partners, which are divided into several groups.
The first group is large sites or portals that want to earn more on their solid traffic. We offer them not to count pennies, selling clicks, not to annoy their visitors with banners, not to spoil their search traffic, but to offer their visitors specific product offers that they will be interested in.
The second group is amateur and professional bloggers and owners of small sites with targeted traffic. For example, if someone is well versed in photography and he has a serious number of readers interested in the same - why not sell cameras and accessories to them? Of course, only those whom he himself trusts.
And finally, the third group is a huge number of users of social networks and just Internet users who want to profit from their hobby or even lifestyle - sitting on the Internet. By the way, in the US, private sellers are a huge proportion of users of partner networks, generating up to 40% of turnover. They can all make money by posting their links to products on social networks, forums, blogs.
- Links to forums? Not afraid to turn the project into a community of spammers?
Sergey: Of course not. Our task is to put a convenient and efficient tool in the hands of users, and those who abuse it will immediately turn off - we have the technical capability for such control in real time. Thanks to the completely white principles of the functioning of our partner network, we guarantee the absence of duplicate user accounts, i.e. if a person broke the rules once, we politely warn you that if this happens again, he will be denied access to the network forever.
- With what projects that already exist in RuNet will your affiliate network compete with?
Alexander: There are several major players in the market, for example Soloway, they exist longer than we do. Our main difference is that we concentrate on the sale of goods, in the terminology it is called payment for the purchase. We are not going to sell traffic or clicks - this is not interesting for our participating stores, partners, or ourselves. Our model is more difficult to build, but also more stable in the long term, so it seems to me more promising and, at the same time, more clear for all network participants.
- How do you see the direction of the project in the next six months, a year?
Alexander: The main task for the next year is to increase the number of offers from stores, to develop unique affiliate programs for partners, so that they would be interested and profitable to work in our network. And most importantly, to tune our network under the realities of Russian Internet commerce, so that it becomes the most efficient and user-friendly.
- Alexander, and where is the Elephant?
Alexander: And here he is! [holds out an elephant's plush toy - the symbol of an affiliate network]. An elephant is a talisman, our and our partners. His name is Mr. Bucks. [laughs] He is successful as all our partners and stores that work with us. He is a benchmark of confidence, reliability, wisdom and success. He does not care a straw. I myself would like to be like him. By the way, in Indian mythology, an elephant personifies wealth and prosperity, which is why I wish all our users on behalf of “Where is the elephant?”
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/107765/
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