Eagle Web Assets Blog

History in The Making

The Strong Survive

Over the past several months there has been a lot of restructuring at Eagle Web Assets and several promotions that never went officially announced. The team that our company has created astonishes me, I honestly cannot believe the level of dedication that we have within our company. I have said it before and I will say it again: without our employees we would have never reached the heights of success that we have now. The hours are long, the work is tough and we demand the highest degree of ethics at our company.  People work at Eagle Web Assets because we truly give them the opportunity to grow. Working at one of our companies is never a dead end like our competitors because of our massive growth, primarily within our angel investment division. We have hired people and within three months they were running entire brands of ours. Affiliates that make thousands of dollars a day even want to align themselves with the Eagle Web Assets team because even they see the opportunity within our company. Below is a list of the bigger promotions over the past several months:

Mike Everhart, promoted to Vice President of Engineering. Mike been with the team for less than a year and stood entire true to what he told me in the beginning, “My goal is to make myself in-disposable.” To say the least, he did just that and proved it time after time with a stronger work ethic than I’ve ever seen.

 

David Clapp, promoted to Vice President of System Technology. David has grown single-handily grown our IT infrascture to be comparable to some of the biggest adserving technologies out there. David has successfully optimized and secured BLAM Ads, a company that is already serving millions of impressions an hour.

 

Chad King, promoted to Senior Account Manager. Chad has been with us as an account manager at EWA Private Network since the beginning and to say the least: he earned his seniority here. Chad is the glue that holds our company together, and always has been more than willing to help out anyone that has a question.

 

Corey McCutchen, promoted to Senior Business Development. Corey works harder than almost any employee at our company and has successfully build exclusive relationships with some of the largest brands in the industry. Because of him and his dedication to Eagle Web Assets, we’ve successfully grow hundreds of real relationships that reap huge benefits to our clients.

 

Saul Treger, promoted to Head of European Business Development. Saul is one of the best business developers out there and helped both BLAM Ads and EWA Network grow stronger direct relationships with dozens of European merchants. We’ve nick-named him the network killer, because has has  been killing our competition one by one.

 

Jennifer Strom, promoted to Approval Compliance Manager. Jennifer started working for us just a few months ago but from the beginning displayed a level of honesty that was refreshing to our company. We did some massive restructuring in that division and put her in the lead to remake the workflows and processes. She has turned her division into a breathing machine that outputs more in less time. Jennifer has successfully saved Eagle Web Assets thousands in overhead while increasing output drastically.

 

George Dades, hired on as a copywriter, then moved to approvals, then back to copywriting, then into tech and eventually landed a positon under Harrison in business development. He’s quickly become one of the most skilled business development employees that we have already bringing on dozens of merchants.

 

Dane Penovich, A legend to the company – he’s been around since the beginning and has been a vital asset that’s kept our company alive. He originally started in the tech division and quickly became an invaluable asset. His level of dedication is far beyond and it was clear that he needed a more suitable job. Dane was just transferred to the business development division and now actively manages dozens of merchant relationships. He has a very promising future with our company to say the least.

 

Ameer Ul Islam, hired on our team originally as a contracter to manage a small scale advertising project. He reached out to me on his own will and accord saying that he could help scale and fully manage that project. Ameer managed that project and exceeded all expectations, so the option of transferring certain divisons internationally became a viable option. With Ameer we opened an office an Bangladesh and hired over twenty employees, saving thousands a year.

Last edited by Ryan Eagle on March 5, 2012
Posted in Promotions |

EWA Network Celebrates Three Years Strong

Three years ago Harrison Gevirtz developed a partnership with me and together we focused all our efforts on developing a new affiliate network, EWA Private Network. We dreamed of owning an affiliate network together for ages and it was long overdue. We may be a bit biased writing this article, but EWA Network truly revolutionized the industry and brought a new standard that other affiliate networks simply could not compete with. EWA’s mission was simple: Pay weekly to all publishers without thresholds, beat any networks payout, get any deal and most importantly we were committed to providing better affiliate management and support.

The growth was astonishing and continues strong to this day. We still stand by our mission statement and EWA continues to go above and beyond in every aspect to provide a better solution. Since launching our affiliate network, some of our largest competitors have since gone out of business while others completely stagnated. To celebrate our three year anniversary we are running four contests (we love being able to have fun with our job):

Last edited by Ryan Eagle on February 8, 2012
Posted in Growth | Tagged

We Love This

What a great start to the first quarter – it’s exciting to break into a new year with business growing. Historically, our companies have had successful January’s and this year that stands true once again. We are extremely grateful for the growth and stability year after year, and to say the least – our entire team works hard for that. Over the past several months we have done a lot of self-inventory and restructuring and it’s already showing huge results. It’s quite clear to us that continuous self-appraisal is of the utmost importance to continue our safe expansion. Paying close attention to all divisions, employees and workflows allows our company to operate efficiently while getting maximum output.

Our company as a whole has grown to over 150 employees in United States, Canada, and United Kingdom. We just opened a satellite office in Dhaka, Bangladesh this month adding on another twenty around the clock employees, saving us hundreds of thousands of dollars in overhead while increasing the overall output. It’s funny, when Eagle Web Assets started years back we relied entirely on international employees throughout India Bangladesh, then transferred entirely domestic, and now grew to such a size that transferring back became a viable option again! The greatest thing about transferring employee jobs international is that we have not had to layoff a single domestic employee, we just transferred employees into divisions like Accounting, Business Development and various Management sections that require domestic employees.

Over the next two quarters we will be opening offices in France, Germany, Singapore, Russia, Netherlands, and Brazil to accommodate growth in new international regions. Our internet advertising brands, both public and private, feel that putting a face to a name is important. Having a localized presence in emerging countries will give us the competitive advantage that we need to soar above the competition. I’m confident that our existing clients will be astonished to see the new international reach that we will be able to further manage for them. Since the beginning, we’ve made most of our money internationally so having an employee presence there is now necessary.

We hired dozens of employees over the past several months that all deserve their own honorable mention, but today I would like to highlight two new hires that will bemanaging the “front end” of our brands. To start, over at BLAM Ads Content Locking  we hired a new loyal affiliate that has been with us since the beginning to be an account manager and to say the least – I’m already grateful for having him part of our team. Every new person we bring on has an individual opinion that all the executives value seriously, and Goutham Vipparthi has already shown that he deserves to be part of our circle. Goutham will be representing our brands in the upcoming ad:tech New Dehli conference and expanding our presence in India, one of the fastest growing markets we emerged into. If anyone would like to meet him feel free to chat inside of our BLAM Revolution Community, he’s quite active there and posting tips all the time!

Over at EWA Private Network, we also have a new hire that has been putting up some crazy Ryan Eagle hours already working deep into the night to establish strong relationships with our loyal publishers. I’m happy to announce the hiring of Leo Goykhman – a true hustler born to be in the ranks of the EWA affiliate management. I’m truly grateful to have met someone like this and I’m confident that he is the absolute best representative that EWA could have. As he says, “The only way to reach true success in life is through perseverance and a killer work ethic. No two ways about it.” – and it’s already displaying. If you would like to meet him just drop him a  message inside the United Republic of EWA Community, he’s been active there and helping affiliates out. He’s also amazing at adcopy, so if any of our publishers need some help don’t hesitate to contact him – he will make you profitable.

Looking for a great job with great people in a great company? Joining the Eagle Web Assets team is not a job, it’s a lifestyle. If you have something special to offer, fill out a job application. We’re willing to create positions for exceptional people with experience in affiliate marketing.

Last edited by Ryan Eagle on January 31, 2012
Posted in Growth |

Thank You From EWA Network

I want to personally thank everyone part of EWA Private Network for making us the leading affiliate network in the industry. Our affiliates proved that we didn’t need to work with everyone, just the best, to make the strongest network. Believe it or not, EWA is less than three years old and we’ve risen to this status by partnering with our publishers and vowing to build long-term relationships with you. It’s because of you we’ve gotten here, our team simply guides you in the right direction. We’ve been able to have the privilege to work with individual publishers for years, and business relationships have turned into friendships over time. 2011 was our largest year yet, and I promise that our team has put our lives into making this network for you. Harrison and I still work just as hard as we always did, and the team that we have built work harder than I would have ever expected. To our employees, working at EWA is not a career – it’s a lifestyle.

Running EWA Network is truly one of the most important things in my life, and I truly thank everyone of you for being part of our community. I reflect how far we’ve come, the criticism that we’ve overcome, and I laugh because I always knew that all the hard work would pay off. I reviewed every aspect of every affiliate network and spent my time trying to outdo the competition. This year, I can honestly say that the only person I need to outdo is myself – and that’s turned into a full time job. I’m writing this newsletter at 1:45am and I feel invigorated for the new year. I’m confident that our publishers will make more than they ever have before with what we have planned to release: new tracking technology, new types of offers, mobile innovation, and much more. I fully realize that in order to grow we must build more. I’m never content: it’s a double edged sword that keeps me working deep into the nights, plotting against the competition and innovating to bring EWA publishers more.

EWA Network is my baby and will always remain that way. I respect my affiliates like they are family, and you have my full commitment that I will do everything in my power to make you more money this year. The amount of happiness that this company has brought me cannot be put into words, and the community that we created in 2011 went far beyond what I even expected. As you can tell, I’m a pretty long-winded person so I’ll refrain from anymore. Once again, thank you for your business and baring with me throughout the year (that, in itself, is an accomplishment).

Last edited by Ryan Eagle on January 1, 2012
Posted in Culture |

A Merry Christmas to One Family

Sometimes the best donation isn’t just financial, it’s time spent with less fortunate individuals. This year we took it upon ourselves to adopt several families and intimately involve ourselves with the process. One such family opted into providing some pictures of the gifts and how we actually made a Christmas happen for them. Seeing these pictures truly gave more meaning to our holiday, and we are grateful for being fortunate enough to help out. Below are some of the pictures from their holiday, for a full collection check out our Facebook Page.

If you have any philanthropic causes that you’d like financial donation or volunteering, contact Marissa Thoman, VP Human Resources. If you do not give, you do not receive.

Last edited by Ryan Eagle on December 28, 2011
Posted in Philanthropy |

United Republic of EWA

It has been absolutely astonishing for us to see the massive explosion of interaction throughout our affiliate community.  Several months ago EWA Network decided to step out of the norm and utilize Facebook’s new group technology to create a true sense of community. Unlike the other networks that poorly used social media, we decided it was time to spearhead this form of communication. We were, once again, the first affiliate network to experiment with this model and our publishers latched on to the concept of it. Keeping our publishers informed is something that we pride ourselves on: the first network to use twitter, the first network to send useful newsletters, the first network to send detailed guides, the first network to share our internal data, the first network to provide campaign guides, and the list goes on and on. EWA reached the heights of success by innovating, not duplicating like our competitors have poorly done.

Being a private network, the risk was huge for our company to create a social environment for people to communicate under their real names. At first, we were going to create the group as a closed private community but after hours of contemplation, we decided it was worth the risk to go public. We feel that knowledge should be shared freely to our publishers. The inner workings of what makes EWA Network so successful are very shielded from the public view, and we felt this was a chance to actually show publishers out there what they should receive. Unlike twitter, our team could actually post detailed analytics and data in-between newsletters. Because the affiliate industry moves so fast, the quicker speed of knowledge and data the more success our publishers could have.

Upon launching, I personally put massive efforts into building the community into something real and worthwhile to be part of. My team and I spent time throughout the day to build in exclusive content, detailed guides, metrics, new traffic sources, proposed questions, and from there the community exploded. Within days thousands of publishers asked to join our community, most of which had heard of EWA but known little about it. The group quickly turned into an open, live forum with hundreds of active members posting daily. Instead of just questions, our publishers began posting tips of their own because they gained knowledge the helped them succeed.

Within months our groups membership grew over 7,000 users with hundreds of posts daily. Affiliates now get live access to happenings in the industry; when traffic sources go down, new trends, traffic sources, bidding strategies, and live campaign support. This knowledge and sense of community has allowed publishers to spearhead their campaigns, solve issues immediately, get peer support and get the support of all our affiliate managers real time. Success stories of publishers hitting their first profitable days or new records are posted frequently; this motivates our team more than anything.

EWA reached it’s success by creating a superior network: faster terms, better support, more offers, higher payouts. The law of efficient markets proves true with us, and publishers have all the choice they want out there to run traffic. Even with the public sharing of information, our publishers have not left our network. They have been repeatedly solicited, with no success – that further proves that we truly created the best solution.

I am truly grateful for our loyal publishers, and for all the help and knowledge that you have shared to make our community what it is today. Nobody in our team could have ever expected what we created with The United Republic of EWA Community, but our publishers made something unimaginable even to me. Thank you for keeping me motivated deep into the night, you have the full commitment of the entire Eagle Web Assets team that we will continue innovating to bring you the best solution for your traffic.

Last edited by Ryan Eagle on November 2, 2011
Posted in Growth |

Self Review

October is the month of self-revenue and inventory taking. Our main objective this month was focusing not only on growing our team, but more importantly organizing workflows that make sure our team coordinates and operates in an efficient way. On the affiliate network level, we have focused on growing our business development team to add more relationship management level employees. Our companies combined actively work with over 1200 merchants and giving them the service they need was a main objective throughout 2011. Earlier this year we promoted Ben Okumura to EVP of Business Development operations and he has been able to develop proficient workflows that allow free communication with strong accountability that has allowed us to finally give our valued merchants the support they need to succeed. Our primary brands have a very reputable reputation of offering the best customer service to affiliates, and we vow to carry that customer service to our merchants. We have been able to successfully create several different levels of employees that streamline the entire process of getting merchants into the network, managing the relationship, insuring quality and working fully within their parameters.

One of the biggest hurdles we are tackling is developing a stronger inter-department line of communication. We realized earlier this year that transparent communication between all our departments is necessary to create  fluid working environment so everyone can fully succeed. Through trial and error, we have been making progress on this but we have a long road ahead of us. As our several new team members get fully integrated in the business development division, we plan to continue developing stronger business models for easier streamlined communication.

CalculatorEarlier this month, our accounting department also got a full 25 point workflow change that will positively effect our company as a whole. We transferred three employees to help assist with the massive influx of support questions, developed a stronger invoicing model and we are in the process of integrating advanced accounting features into our BLAM4 affiliate technology, developing more automation so there is less human error. In addition to the changes inside our core accounting division, we added a second level of accounting that will be operating entirely independently to cross-check all work done within our core branches. Between all our companies, we work with tens of thousands of clients and this new model will not only improve their service, but strengthen the long-term security of Eagle Web Assets.

In addition, our tech division has gone through some drastic changes in workforce allowing us to effectively get upwards of seven times the output for the same cost that we have been previously paying. One of the most costly divisions of our company was the tech division; managing everything from setting up offers, to tweaking optimization parameters to monitoring conversion rates and reviewing campaign data. This change is a major breakthrough for our company and will mean more for our clients, quicker.

We have built the strongest team in the industry. Without the hard work of all our employees, we would have never reached the heights of success that we have today. The executives and owners keep open communication with every level of employee and we truly care about their success in both business and personal life. Innovation is well rewarded and recognized; and our employee turnover is virtually non-existent and incomparable to industry norms.

Last edited by Ryan Eagle on October 22, 2011
Posted in Culture |

Strengthening Infrastructure

Upward and OnwardOver the past several months Eagle Web Assets has been focusing more on growing the properties that we currently own rather than expanding into more projects. Understanding our limitations and servicing our assets is of the utmost importance and necessary for their success. Over-expansion has been the death of many companies throughout the years and we always learn from other companies mistakes. We launched our angel investment division in November 2009 and since it’s creation we have seen explosive growth in profits from it. As we added more companies to our portfolio, the success continued in an upward spiral.

Earlier this year our corporate position was focused on developing new partnerships, investing into more companies and buying entities that worked into our business model. After adding several new assets throughout year we realized that it was time to halt further expansion and put our focus on making our newly acquired assets successful. We understood that a company cannot be successful simply by adding on assets, but rather putting our creative and financial force behind these companies. It’s been proven before: it’s better to have one hotel rather than ten slum houses.

After making the transition from expansion to internal growth we saw almost immediate positive effects. We increased the budgets for employees, advertising, training and technology which all equivocated to stronger brands. By focusing on improving the companies, we successfully reduced overhead because our both our employees and technology were far stronger. Maintaining low overhead is something that we prided ourselves on since the beginning and it’s given us a huge competitive edge throughout the years.

Even though we have made major progress, there is a lot more work to be done. We plan to continue the internal growth model throughout Q4 and Q1 2012 because it has proven to be so profitable for our company. In the coming weeks we have some major technology releases for our front-end brands that will be taking up a large amount of our companies attention. With any technology release, there will be more obstacles to overcome but with the leadership and strong team that we’ve developed, Eagle Web Assets will break through and rise up on top.

Last edited by Ryan Eagle on September 27, 2011
Posted in Acquisitions |

As The Dust Settles

As the dust finally settles from Affiliate Summit East, we can all agree that the conference was one of the most successful yet. Throughout the past several months the industry has changed rapidly with many of our primary competitors experiencing massive damages to their business. EWA, BLAM Ads and all our private companies operate with a “slow and steady wins the race” model. We learned in the beginning that it was easy to take on unacceptable risks for quick profits, and thankfully we also learned our lesson early. As our companies continue to grow, controlling the cash-flow becomes more difficult. Because we understand risk-analysis well, we decided to make changes in early February that are now allowing our companies to flourish during these last several months as competitors begin to default on their loans.

Eagle Web Assets is a debt-free corporation that prides itself on operating with ultra-low overhead. These points give us huge advantages over our primary competitors because it allows us to operate much lighter than the others. Our primary brands are one of the few companies out there that are actually paying our clients on time, and when the fog clears publishers will go to the network that stood by their business statement and actually paid out. We’ve seen expansive growth in revenues over the past two months as more publishers trust all their revenue with our companies rather than working with several companies. We pledge that we will continue to operate safe, never extending more than we have to personally finance.

On August 14th, we released a beta version of our proprietary tracking platform for BLAM Ads for a small base of publishers to test and harden. We are currently in the process of working out all the final bugs and hardening the code before releasing it for our entire base of publishers. This technology is far more flexible and nimble, allowing us to fully throttle BLAM Ads into our full vision. BLAM Ads is currently serving several million impressions daily on technology that is near it’s breaking point, timing is perfect for us to release this new version. This custom software will finally allow us to implement the ideas that we have without restriction, giving us a massive technology advantage over the competitors we have.

In early September, we opened up the beta to a larger group of 100 publishers at BLAM Ads and the results were far beyond what we ever expected as a company. Across the board statistics were upwards of 30-45% higher than our previous platform due to stronger tracking and a far more advanced optimization algorithm. In the next two weeks hardening will be completed and we will slowly release it to more publishers as the month continues on. We hope to completely phase out our old tracking by the end of September, as we move forward we begin to gather more data and bugs that we fix as we find them. Even though this version is far superior than any competitors technology, we’ve already begun development of our next update due out mid-quarter with 75 new features and additions added onto it. It’s our companies position that we must continuously advance our technology in order to continue growing, and with the initial tests of our hard work coming back so positive it further reenforces that concept.

Projections for Q4 are being revised with the recent growth experienced and the new technology soon the be released publicly. We plan to continue focus on our current assets rather than expanding into more ventures because we are confident that we will continue to take more market share as 2011 ends. With the strong team we’ve developed, recent executive promotions and new employees working around the clock Eagle Web Assets is destined for even brighter horizons.

Last edited by Ryan Eagle on September 8, 2011
Posted in Quarterly Reports | Tagged , , ,

Benefits Come First

Eagle Web Assets continues to grow quarter to quarter due to strong client loyalty, low overhead, and perfect cash-flow management. As of recently several of our competitors began switching their affiliate publishers to monthly, defaulting entirely, or putting their clients on a waiting list. Our pinpoint accurate financial controlling while maintaining low overhead has allowed our affiliate networks to truly set themselves ahead of the competition. Being a privately held debt-free corporation gives us massive advantages over our competitors that rely on bank loans and investors. In order to sustain the growth of our companies we’ve grown our team in order to sustain our upward trend.

Over the past several years Eagle Web Assets changed from a one man operation to a corporation with over 125 domestic employees behind several companies both publicly and privately owned. With the growth comes growing pains; ensuring that our employees have an enjoyable workplace with benefits, managing overhead, traveling costs and several other aspects was a responsibility that needed to be taken care of. One of our oldest employees, Marissa Thoman, took a lead role in that position by developing a structure for our employees, healthcare, and saving our company hundreds of thousands of dollars a year through intensive negotiations and research.

Marissa developed an organized system for our employees to get clear-cut and competitive vacation time, PTO’s, insurance, and several other aspects that has drastically improved the workplace. Creating a standardized system with these structures written out for our employees allows everyone to be on the same page, while giving them more reasons to work for our company. We are grateful for Marissa’s dedication to improving Eagle Web Assets while saving costs where possible, she is a valuable employee to the company as has been awarded the position of Vice President of Human Resources. Her countless hours of work while juggling a college degree is something that few can do, and we’re lucky to have her on our side!

We strongly feel as a company that we need to take care of our employees, going above and beyond the norm in every aspect possible. Our employees are what powers our company. Eagle Web Assets has virtually no turnover since opening, and that alone shows that we have something special here. In the coming months we are releasing several more benefits for our employees including vacation rewards, 401k program, and many other benefits that gives our team more reasons to stick with us for the long-term. One of the most important ways to achieve a positive and enjoyable workplace is to actually listen to our employees wants and needs; and most actually taking action on those suggestions.

Last edited by Ryan Eagle on August 4, 2011
Posted in Culture, Promotions | Tagged ,