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Pepperjam's Kris Jones On Search Arbitrage
By: Joe Whyte 2007-09-25 This is our last interview in the SES series and is with Kris Jones, President and CEO of Pepperjam. Kris is a powerhouse of an Internet marketer and Pepperjam... ...has been named (for the 2nd straight year) as one of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the US. With a reputation as a great place to work, the Pepperplex boasts unending supplies of a leading energy drink for its employees. Kris talks about ping-pong on the job, search arbitrage, and other dilemmas with Joe in San Jose. Thanks again to everyone who took time out of their busy conference schedule to answer some of Joes questions. SMS: Hi Kris. Were actually at YOUR booth. Thanks a lot for having me here. Just recently you did an episode with The Next Internet Millionaire. How did that go for you? Kris: Actually, they just put out their first episode. Im going to be in episode number 7. I cant talk about exactly what my role was, but it was sort of like a hybrid co-host/judge. It was fun. And I will disclose that one of the reasons I was invited on the episode was to focus on Pepperjams work environment less so than to stand up in front of the contestants and say heres how to effectively market your website through search. Instead, what they wanted me to focus on was how do you build a business that is fun to work at. So thats what you are going to see on Next Internet Millionaire on episode 7. So its probably like on in mid-to-late September. SMS: Thats really interesting that you mention that because you do really have a fun working environment. I watch all your employee videos on your blog. In order to grow a business, the way that you have right now, its hard to find people to do the work who are dedicated to the craft and to have fun doing it. What kind of advice would you give people looking to hire somebody? Kris: The approach that we took when we were at two employees " myself and our Chief Operating Officer " was we said we want to find the smartest people we can find that will fit within a fun work culture. Were not looking for suit and ties. Were looking for young, smart, creative people who are going to set their own standards. So my advice would be that sometimes you get wrapped up in how much do you pay the employee and everything. We pay all of our employees very well, but what I think the value of working at a company like Pepperjam is not in I make X number of dollars but this is a fun place to work. We give everyone on our staff the ability to play ping-pong and to play Nintendo Wii. Were actually sponsored by an energy drink company so we always have an unlimited supply of energy drinks. Ive never walked up to anyone who has seemed like theyve been playing ping-pong a little bit too long and called them out on it. Because the way I look at it is that you create a work environment where people want to be there and they know that other people are standing right behind them if they dont perform. So for that guy or that woman who is playing ping-pong too long, they still have to manage their performance. And if theyre not performing, theyre not going to last at a company like Pepperjam. So my advice is to focus on what environment you put your employees in and invest in it. Spend money. Dont count the pennies; instead, spend money to make sure that everybody wants to come to work. SMS: Thats very important. I appreciate your sharing that with us. Lets kind of shift a little bit to search arbitrage and PPC arbitrage. I see a lot of companies are still in their infancy and having to do something like this to generate income to help supplement their spending. Can you give a little bit of advice maybe on how we could use that or anybody could use that? Kris: When I got involved in affiliate marketing back in 1999, thats what I did. I bought PPC ads and sent them through landing pages or direct linked and the profit was the difference between what I put up and what I was getting paid by any of my merchant partners. Honestly and sincerely, that was the seed money that I used to fund the company that I now run. So I went from being solely a search arbitrager to having 100 employees in one of the fastest-growing companies in the US. So how do you do it? Thats what I typically talk about at these conferences. My focus is on scale. So some search arbitragers will say to focus on one or two or three different merchants and just blow out as many keyword lists and everything as you can. My focus is a little bit different. I try to make $50-$100 profit a month with as many merchants as you could possibly make that kind of profit with. SMS: Sounds like a lot to manage though. Kris: It is a lot to manage. And you cant just launch 2,000 campaigns a week. You have to start focused. And what I say is, find something that works. You replicate it and then you scale it. So something as simple as trademarks " thats really something you could make $50 to $100 profit on per merchant. One other thing I was going to say is when I was speaking at Affiliate Summit, I put out an idea. And I dont know if anybody took my advice because Im not doing it " but, be the typo guy. In search arbitrage, your profit margins are everything and staying focused is key to your success. So why not create campaigns around typos " trademark typos. Ive never met anyone " Im serious " Ive never met anyone who came up to me and said Im the typo guy, but somebody is going to and theyre going to be making $100,000, $200,000, $300,000 a month. So be the typo guy. Thats what I thought. SMS: Its a good idea. Actually, whenever I do PPC, Ill always do typos. But thats a really great idea. Kris: The idea is to focus on it. Because, as you said, how do you manage it? Well, one way to manage it is to stay focused. Because its not just about putting on every keyword you can find. Some people take that approach " ShoeMoney for instance. I call him the nickel-click guy. He wants to buy as many keywords as possible and pay the minimum. SMS: Right. Kris: Hes made an awful lot of money doing that. But thats his approach. My approach is more about finding something that works and replicating it and scaling it. So trademark bidding for me in the early days was one way that made a lot of money. You could do typos. You could do branding. Theres a whole number of different things. But one other thing Ill say is that theres a tool called KeyCompete.com. And what it does is it scrapes Google AdWords for the keywords that any given advertiser is bidding on. So you could type in, say hypothetically, Target.com into KeyCompete and theyll offer you the ability to download the keywords that Target is actually bidding on. So as an affiliate marketer, the bell goes off and the lights go off in your head (laughs) and all you have to do is choose your favorite merchant, download their keywords, direct link, or build yourself some landing pages. Honestly, if youre doing search arbitrage and youre not making at least $25K a month profit, youre going have to suck it up. SMS: Youre not doing it right? Kris: Yeah. SMS: I appreciate you taking some time to speak to us today, Kris. Thank you very much. Comments Tag: SEO, SEM, SMS Add to  Del.icio.us |  Digg |  Reddit |  Furl Have a bookmark! -  About the Author: Joe Whyte is a regular contributor to Search Marketing Standard Magazine blog and is the owner of HybridSEM.com. Joe has been doing SEO, SEM and online marketing for over 5 years, helping Fortune 1000 companies improve their traction, conversion and search engine placement online. Joe-whyte.com | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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