A Week Long Crash Course at Monetise

I’ve just completed a week of work experience at the Monetise office, nestled in the beautiful village of Melbourne, Derbyshire. As a year 10 student with no prior interest in marketing, I originally came here to experience a stereotypical workplace environment. But I have come away with a comprehensive understanding of affiliate networking, and a desire to possibly work in this business one day!

After securing my place at Monetise, I did a small portion of research into the company, which didn’t help at all; my 15 year old brain couldn’t wrap its head around the concept of Cost Per Lead, or what an offer entailed. I had a million questions on my mind as I received my first introduction; bright and early on a Monday morning. Luckily, every single one of the amazing employees were so helpful and patient with me, as I asked them trivial questions about the state-of-the-art software the company uses to connect advertisers and affiliates. After I was given a small tutorial of the software, I set out on my own into the deadly world of analytics. Thankfully, I didn’t have to deal with the large figures; only some invented numbers to practice with.

After securing my basic knowledge of marketing software, I was still at a loss as to digital marketing, and the terminology barrier between me and my expert co-workers, who were still enthusiastic to my questioning. To create a basic platform of understanding, one of the advertising managers, set me off on Google Garage, specifically ‘The Fundamentals Of Digital Marketing’ course. Only certain, key modules, of course, as you will find the certification to be listed as 40 hours long! Although I say this, I ended up completing the entire course on my first evening! I’m glad I did, because the next day I would’ve been completely lost!

I learned how to create a new offer, how to liaise with advertisers and affiliates, and how to find the right partnership for clients. Writing this, it sounds simple, but there are so many tiny details you must take into account in order to facilitate a positive relationship between advertiser and publisher, I don’t envy the account managers at all! I was thankful for my lunch break, the breath-taking views of the countryside from the nearby lake were definitely worth it!

The next day, we had an in depth look into how software can streamline everyone’s work day with a focus on Trello and Cake. Trello, they use to organise tasks and monitoring and ensuring high traffic for advertisers; Cake, to track leads, revenue, profit and new offers that publishers can host. Cake, in particular, is so layered and complex in the best way. Understanding the basics of it was a tall task, but I can see that if one can navigate it efficiently, it is the perfect tool for an affiliate network.

The day after I spent some time with the publisher managers to learn about TikTok advertising and landing pages. I started with a generic landing page for a casino using Instapage, then for an actual client. Of course it was later edited before being sent off, but some of my ideas were actually used in the final imaging of the landing page, which I found really cool, that an idea of mine was up to market standard. After a quick meal deal at Sainsburys, I, almost entirely independently, made a TikTok campaign to generate leads. After being shown an example, I edited the video, chose the text voiceover, and even had an input in how the text was displayed! I really enjoyed this task, as well as creating the landing pages. That evening, I reviewed all I had achieved, and how much I loved the experience. I was disappointed it would all end tomorrow.

Another 9am start to round out my amazing week. I had planned to buy everyone in the office a cake from Birds as a thank you. Even after working with Cake software all the time, I think everyone appreciated the cakes from the local bakery more in the Friday heat!

One of my last projects was to create a model of how the company actually operates, to consolidate my learning of the week. It felt great that I finally understood how affiliate marketing worked, after knowing nothing a week ago.

I also looked at billables, how to extrapolate data from lead reports to ensure you are sending invoices with the correct campaign costs in the right currency, in return for the right number of leads. Complicated stuff!

I rounded out this Friday by writing this blog. I just want to close out this little overview by saying a massive thank you to all the staff at Monetise. You are all wonderful, incredibly helpful and lovely people and I’m glad I spent my week with you all- thank you for accommodating me.

Chloe Kirkley