A Day in the Life of Dave Bird, Managing Director of CPA Network Monetise: Part One
Posted by Karen Clayton as Affiliate Marketing, Online Advertising
Since being rebranded earlier this year, UK cost per action network Monetise (formerly Profitistic) have achieved impressive growth with a host of new advertisers signing up and attracting a rapidly increasing base of affiliates.
We asked Managing Director Dave Bird to give us an insight into a typical day at the Monetise offices in Derby in the East Midlands.
7.15am: I wake up to the excited tones of Alfie, our two year old boy, who has a laser-targeted body clock. He is quite amazing in that he wakes up at almost exactly the same time every day, ready for his morning fix of cow-juice, ‘strawbaderries’, and Mr Tumble (those with nippers will know exactly who he is). We get up, have a play, and he drinks his milk.
I quickly skim through my emails to make sure the world hasn’t ended (because I am sure that somebody would email me if it had) and also check my text messages hoping there isn’t one of the dreaded ‘your website is down’ notifications from Pingdom – the life-saving website monitoring service.
7.45: Grabbing some tea and toast, I read through my Twitter feed and daily blog list using the iPad Flipboard app to see what’s new and exciting. I love this app, because it feels a bit like reading a newspaper without the need to spend time staring at advertisements for horoscope lines, non-slip bath mats and Stannah Stairlifts.
I also check the overnight website stats for Monetise to make sure everything is as it should be. Today, I notice a very sharp upturn in leads from an affiliate that I don’t recognise and fire a quick email to our affiliate manager Ricky, asking him to investigate. He’s already beaten me to it – he spotted the spike last night and has already checked things out.
I end up giving my toast to our two miniature wire-haired dachshunds before heading out the door.
8.30: In an attempt to lose some of my office-belly, I cycle the two miles to work. The route takes me down an old canal path that runs through Derby. Its a chilly day and I arrive at the office feeling suitably invigorated (half-frozen).
I briefly stop to admire the new internal door that has appeared less than 10 feet from my desk. We’re expanding into the office next door this week.
8.50: Having survived the draw to see who makes the coffee (using the Tea Round iPhone app) I check Google Calendar to refresh myself on the plans for the day and then get stuck into my first batch of emails.
Ignas, one of our two programmers, has kindly bought in some Lithuanian shortbread for us all to try so I set about undoing the good work of my cycling efforts earlier.
9.30: Meeting with James, our network manager, to go through a new image-hosting tool that Ignas and Adam (our other coding guru) have created which will help us to quickly build html email creatives for our advertisers and make them available to affiliates. The tool is really impressive and will save bucket-loads of time.
10.20: I call a short meeting with James, Joe and Ricky to catch up on the status of new advertisers coming onto the network and the new offers that are due to launch. James mentions a new US-based advertiser who is looking to drive traffic to their portfolio of UK dating websites. This sounds promising as Monetise already has some successful dating offers which perform very well.
10.50: Go through some financial bits with Sara, our accounts person. She reminds me for the umpteenth time that tickets are still available for her am-dram production of Hello Dolly. I politely remind her that I would rather eat my own head than listen to her sing. I feel that I may have been a tad harsh so I offer her one of her own chocolate biscuits.
11.15: Decide to tackle the second wave of emails clogging up my inbox including another message from a Nigerian gentleman saying that he has $25m stashed away in a Dutch bank account just waiting to be claimed. This is the third one this week and it makes me realise why Nigeria is struggling so much. I mean, constantly leaving money around like that is just careless.
12.05: SEO time! I meet with our internal SEO team members Alex, Nisha and Muz who give me an update on the status of client projects and link-building targets.
We also look through recent client proposals and chat about the need for a new tool that will help us to manage links in a more coherent way. I ask Ignas to come over and he listens to our very vague brief before stating, with a surprising degree of certainty, that the project will take 2-3 days to complete.
The meeting took a whole load longer than expected so, I grab a chilli-chicken sandwich for lunch and devour it in about 14 seconds. Unfortunately, it’s also a Thursday which means that I have to pay for everybody else’s lunch. I regret mentioning ‘Free-Food-Thursdays’ all those years ago when there were just three of us!
That concludes the ‘morning’ part of our Day in the Life of Dave Bird feature. Subscribe now to be notified when part two is published later this week and read about how Dave’s manic afternoon pans out!
Interested in trying the Monetise network for yourself? Click here to join as an affiliate or contact the Monetise team by email if you have any questions about signing-up as either an advertiser or affiliate: info [at] monetise.co.uk