In this interview, Victor Vallo, an experienced affiliate marketer, shares his thoughts on the current affiliate marketing scene in the U.S. With over 15 years in the game, Vik talks about the opportunities and challenges affiliates will face during the health insurance open enrollment period, along with how the 2024 presidential election might affect affiliate marketers. He also highlights new trends, like the importance of building your own platform and the potential of content creation and influencer marketing.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Let’s dive in!
Q: With the upcoming open enrollment period for health insurance in the USA, what strategies should affiliates employ to maximize their success during this crucial time?
Listen, this is the Super Bowl of affiliate marketing, right? It's a great opportunity for anybody in this industry to make millions of dollars. Be it with lead gen or pay per call. The fourth quarter is just phenomenal.
As affiliates, we need to know our role. Seeing people like us get opportunities like this is amazing. It's a hot market right now, and there’s a lot of potential. But we have to understand that we’re helping businesses that aren’t into digital marketing.
These businesses need people like us—those who can connect them with their customers through platforms like Facebook and Google. We’re the experts they rely on, especially now.
So remember, this is the Super Bowl of affiliate marketing! It’s a great chance for anyone in the industry to earn big.
Q: With the 2024 US presidential election just around the corner, featuring Trump and Kamala Harris as the main contenders, how can affiliates handle the impact on ad costs and stay ahead of the game?
The presidential election is a period of uncertainity for the affiliate marketing industry. You can make a lot of money, but you can also lose a lot if you're not prepared. As we've discussed in previous podcasts, geopolitical events like this can affect the way we do business.
During election season, the cost of ads on platforms like connected TV skyrockets. Advertisers from traditional television are now entering our domain – YouTube, Google, Facebook – and running ads, which drives up competition and prices.
This fourth quarter, which I consider the Super Bowl of affiliate marketing, is going to be dominated by political ads. You're going to see Trump bashing Kamala, Kamala bashing Trump, and people's attention will be more focused online than ever before.
To stay ahead of the game, you need to network with other people in the industry. Get your CPA networks, affiliate partners, and products lined up. Make sure you have your cavalry and artillery ready for the Q4 open enrollment period. You want to be working with the big players in the industry, like UnitedHealthcare and other publicly-traded, multi-billion dollar companies as your lead buyers.
This is the time to be in the affiliate marketing game, whether you're in ecom, dating, nutra, pay per call, or insurance. If you want to make serious money, this is the opportunity you've been waiting for. But you need to be ready for it.
So, get yourself set up, attend industry events, network with the right people, and be prepared to capitalize on the increased attention and traffic that the election season will bring. It's going to be a wild ride, but if you play your cards right, you could be looking at some serious profits.
Q: How do affiliates deal with ad costs going to go through the roof, due to the election? Open enrollment starts this month. What would you recommend to affiliates looking to jump on this opportunity but are still undecided due to the increased CPCs and CPMs?
First and foremost, you need to be attending events like Affiliate World. This is game time, folks. This is the Olympics of affiliate marketing. When I walk into an event, I feel like I'm entering a stadium, ready to play in the Super Bowl.
If you want to start somewhere, the obvious choice is to be here, at Affiliate World. If you couldn’t make it to AW Europe, you've got another chance in Bangkok this December. Open enrollment lasts for about 6 months, from October 2024 to the end of March 2025, so you want to position yourself in an environment where you're either a digital marketer or working with someone who can give you access to these opportunities.
Attending events like this allows you to network with top-tier professionals, the best of the best in their verticals. You want to connect with them and create a team of assassins, your starting lineup, and just go all in.
Now, let's say someone couldn't make it to this event. What can they do in the meantime to get ahead? Well, as they say, winter is also coming. Every November, you've got Black Friday and the holidays. We see a lot of big money in verticals like home improvement, solar, and home services. If you've got a bug problem, you need someone to come and fix it, right? It's a great business model and a fantastic opportunity.
I firmly believe that your network is your network. Word of mouth is okay, but your network is what's going to get you where you need to be. If you really want to know how to get started, reach out to me.
We're all about new money here, and I try to bring a realistic foundation to creating new opportunities and new beginnings. I'm not here to sell you a dream. I'm here to help you make it a reality.
So, if you want to see success in affiliate marketing during the election season and open enrollment, start by attending industry events, building your network, and staying informed. Identify the verticals that are thriving, like home services, health insurance and focus your effort there. Most importantly, don't be afraid to reach out to experts in the space and learn from their experiences. With the right strategy and mindset, you can come out on top, no matter how high the ad costs rise.
Q: Let's talk numbers You've been doing this for a while. What's the most you've ever seen someone do in terms of dollars, on open enrolment day?
A million in a day. And that's profit. I mean, the person that does that, of course, they're doing something at the $100 million level.
I'm not going to call them out, but it's obvious the opportunity is there. I don't need to sell the dream, you know what I'm saying? The proof is in the pudding. But for my personal accountability, $1 million a day.
Q: What is the importance of coming to trade shows like Affiliate World?
There are people who have been on that show who have done over $100 million in pay per call, a million dollars in Medicare. So the resources are out there for you to take. That's why it's so important - you find the resources and make it happen.
If I didn't come to these events, how would I ever meet great guys in the industry? That's what I'm saying. I want you guys to put it all together. Guys like us, we were nobodies. But we're hustling. So when you show up, show out, and ask questions - no, there are no stupid questions - if you come out and network, asking guys questions like, "Hey, I'm so and so. What do you do? How do you do it?" You'll get there.
Q: Let's talk about your popular concept of “ Becoming your own platform”. I know you're a big proponent of that. Tell the audience what you mean by that.
I call it the winner strategy. I don't know if people are familiar with the term "owned and operated."
Listen, why would you promote something you don't sell? At the end of the day, owning the product has the biggest benefit. Becoming your platform allows you to have your own setup, your stage, your environment, your stadium - what it is that you do.
I used to be an insurance affiliate marketer, but recently I launched an insurance company. I see it as an awesome opportunity to take the platform I've been creating and use it as a way to get traffic from these other platforms. Once I do that, I don't have to be knocking on their door, like, "Hey, I need your user. I need your data to be able to sell my product." That's not what you want to do. That's going backward.
In the next year or so, becoming your own platform will be the prominent and dominant way of thinking. And if you're an influencer, holler at me. I'm in Miami, behind the boards, I'm also a music producer. So holler at me, and I'll explain it to you.
It's basically just taking paid traffic from these platforms, running your own ads from TikTok, YouTube, and so forth, and just taking that audience and bringing it to your platform. And then just follow-ups - whether it be email, SMS, re-engagement, remarketing, all of that, a call center. Having more control at the end of the day, that's what having control is about.
When you're an affiliate, you have to rely on your lead buyers, or affiliate networks. When you become your own platform, you have more control. It's like being a homeowner. You can mow your lawn if you want to mow your lawn. Nobody can tell you that. That's what it comes down to.
Q: How do you stay ahead of the trends and what trends are out there at the moment?
Okay, so right now, first I stay international and look at different emerging markets. See, Brazil, it's pretty big. South Africa has millions of users, right? China, has billions of users. So emerging markets have open opportunities. You want to take what you're doing here and apply it in those environments. And one of the key starting points is Spanish traffic.
I could talk all day about it. I don't speak the language, but I will say that Spanish is where the next frontier of affiliate marketing is going. So that's one of the key trends. In America there is Spanish speaking people, in Latin America, Spain, there ain't no limits. There's money to be made.
And the second trend is just the world of entertainment. Your basketball players, your actors, your actresses, influencers - people that just have a brand. They don't even have to be celebrities. They could be a local celebrity. Them taking what we do, having their own media providers, selling their own ecom products, doing whatever it is that basically - like a Lil Wayne selling a product to his fan base.
So if you're an artist, you can sell your audience anything. As an affiliates, you can partner up with one of these people and set up this infrastructure for them or coach them to do it themselves or hepl them set up their teams.
In the future, I see guys like me coming into the space, coaching people in the world of entertainment. Coaching them on how to run paid ads. Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck, Will Smith, They all don't know how to do that but they have the audience who are potential buyers.
So when it comes to trends, those are the two. Emerging markets and then influencers, content creation.
Q: So let's talk about new money and content creation, what do you see in this space?
Atilla's son, Armen, a 14 year old is getting 700,000 views on TikTok, dude. He's 14. Think about where he's going to be when he's 19, 20. It's crazy, man. It's crazy.
You know, if you can have influence on that local influence group, he can dominate the Hungarian market, take that to Serbia, take this - boom, boom, boom. We call that money. That's what we've been talking about. We call that new money. That's a whole lot of new money. Whole lot, right?
I believe that the CPM is the new CPA. Viral content is a new advertising platform. So instead of just worrying about an acquisition call for your traffic, what about selling the person on the impression to your website, your platform? So basically, just being like a publisher. If Atilla's son could take 700,000 anything and bring it on his own platform, how can he monetize that? 100% CPM is the new CPA.
So if he's making us do this video right now and running ads, he's a publisher. He could be Dateline. He could be the NBC News. He could be whatever he wants with his own audience. And that's why I said, take the CPM, CPA, right? And that's video. The global video industry, advertising industry, is going to be - by 2027, it's going to be about a half a trillion dollar industry. By 2027.
Yeah, it'll be here soon. That's what I'm talking about. If all that money, if business is booming, is what I'm saying. So again, video advertisers, holler at me. Video publishers, holler at me. I believe that's a whole opportunity.
So in terms of what we do, digital marketing - get you an influencer too, on your platform and your network. And if they got that audience, maybe you can help them monetize their user base.
Q: So the last thing. We started off by talking about open enrollment. How should affiliates prepare for health insurance open enrollment? Now that we are in October, what steps would you take starting today or tomorrow to get yourself to a top position?
Okay, so first things first - go on YouTube. I tell everybody to start on YouTube, all right? That's simple. Search for "How to run ads on Facebook," or "How to run ads on Google," right? Then you want to join a CPA network - ClickDealer, MaxBounty. I'm just putting out names.
Get with them. Don't even think about it. Just focus on trying to get your account approved. Once you get your account approved, then you have access - I call it. Because then you have access to their 300 offers, 300 to 400 offers. Don't be sitting on the street sideline. Don't do that at all.
Find insurance-based lead gen offers - Medicare, ACA, health insurance, life insurance, final expense. I hear that's been popping. The final expense been popping. So once you have access to those offers, then you want to get with a tracker, prefer maybe Voluum or Redtrack.
They got guides, how to set up an ad campaign, all of that. And some of them are already connected with Facebook, Google, and TikTok and all of that. So all you're just doing is setting up links. They got guides for everything.
You start with YouTube, join the affiliate network, look at the guides from Voluum and Redtrack and just go in. You could go to Facebook Ads Library and then just start looking at ads.
And I always say imitation and then innovation is a great way to make money. So start there. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. Why? Cause, I'm not the only one doing this. There's hundreds of people right now trying to get what I just told you. They putting this with that and they getting into the money. So this is the Super Bowl. Like, you playing with some dragons. This is the House of Dragons, Game of Thrones. I keep using that analogy for a very good reason.
So get your platform, your castle, your imprint, your brand - get it set up. Using the tools and the technology. Start just running traffic. I'm not going to define how you make your money. I'm just giving you the tools to do it.
Conclusion
This is a fantastic way to wrap up. If you want more insights, connect with Vik Vallo. Check out his content at cellphonemillionaire.com and follow him on Instagram @cellphonemillionaire. He’s been sharing valuable tips at conferences in Dubai, Barcelona, and Bangkok, helping others achieve success in affiliate marketing.
