Interview With Steven Truong – Founder of Tracking202 PPC Tracking Application

By: Michael Dunlop     Topics: Entrepreneur Interviews

In this interview Steven tells us about his FREE PPC affiliate tracking software and offers some great advice on how you can earn more money online with PPC and affiliate marketing. He can’t emphasize enough the importance of tracking and explains why you should be tracking every click!

First off – can we have a little background information on you Steven – Where you live? How old you are? (if you don’t mind answering) What motivates you? What inspires you?

Sure, no problem Michael. I currently live in San Francisco, California and I’m 25 years old. However I am originally from Portland, OR and prior to moving to San Francisco, I lived in Seattle, WA for a brief moment in time. I have a very deep passion for learning and trying everything out and currently I’m working on building a company with my business partner Wes. Our most popular product is Tracking202 . At the current moment, what motivates me is to build out this company and see that it becomes a world class business as we always envisioned it to be. As for what inspires me, I guess loving what I do help tremendously.

1) Tell us about your main project, Tracking202 ? Why did you launch Tracking202 ? Where are you at now with Tracking202 ?

Wes and I were doing affiliate marketing and quickly realized there was no real good solution to tracking campaigns in the industry and as a result created a basic tracking tool that started out as nothing more than a pay-per-click (PPC) tracking system to help track cost data across multiple PPC accounts. We had a lot of friends asking us what we were doing so we decided to show 40-50 of our friends how to do PPC affiliate marketing. As a result, one day, someone asked if we ever thought about developing on the tool and selling it. We eventually decided to create the software for sale and turn it into a business.

On February of 2008, we released the first version of Tracking202 publicly for free, a decision we made last minute prior to launching, with absolute no idea on how we were going to monetize. We received a lot of negative reactions because many felt that there was a shady agenda behind why we made the tool free, in order to steal keywords. Of course we had no plans on doing anything like that but the affiliate marketing industry is often regarded as one of the shadiest business. As a result we spent a significant amount of time trying to rectify things and prove that we were truly interested in building a real company. We eventually released a self-hosted open source solution to Tracking202 called Prosper202 .

Nearly 1.5 years later and several different software solutions in the affiliate marketing industry from when we first started, we’re finally coming out with our new tracking platform called Tracking202 Pro. This will be our first monetization model and it is significantly better than the old tracking platform in many ways. This is where our current focus is at.

2) What advice would you give a young entrepreneur trying to make money online with affiliate marketing? How can they get a step up in the industry?

Patience is very important in life as well as affiliate marketing (as it is true with any other business). You can definitely learn everything you need to know for free through blogs, forums, etc… and gain plenty of knowledge and help through networking events such as MeetUp202 or conferences such as Affiliate Summit and Ad Tech. Tracking everything is of course crucial and testing constantly for working data is a must. Basically as long as you take the necessary precaution, learn what you need, and take action while allowing your campaigns to grow and collect data, you should be able to earn a profit and go from there. The best thing to do would be to get other and try it. There are plenty of free coupons people can use to fund their PPC expenses without breaking their own bank starting out as well. Research and just drive right in.

3) Why should affiliate marketers be using Tracking202 ? Is it important to track your PPC Marketers?

I can’t emphasize enough the importance of tracking. It’s like driving a car blindfolded if you don’t have tracking. It just won’t work. You need to know what’s converting and what isn’t, what your profit and loss are, and be able to optimize your campaign. These things you simply can’t do without tracking and Tracking202 simplifies this process and saves you both time and money.

4) I understand that Tracking202 is FREE, how you able to offer such a great service for FREE? Do you have any plans to monetize it in the future or launch new products?

Tracking202 will always remain free. We have a new tracking platform launching hopefully next month in March and we’re hoping to charge for it because this new tracking system is significantly better and we feel that it’s a much better value to the users than to charge for the old system itself.

5) You have been running Tracking202 for over a year and a half now, what has the biggest thing you have learnt from tracking your PPC Marketing?

That there is no right or wrong way to do affiliate marketing, only a better or worse way to approach it. I’ve seen different super affiliates do complete opposite things but still manage to both profit. Ideally you just need to find what works best for you. I also see a lot of affiliates who are not making money rehashing bad advice and thousands of other affiliates follow this and recycle these as facts only to make things worse for themselves and others. Honestly the best advice anyone can give any day of the week is to ultimately test everything and see if it works for them.

6) Do you think that entrepreneurialism is something that is in your blood? Or is it something that can be learned?

I believe entrepreneurialism is definitely a big part of me but I do believe people can learn to be entrepreneurs if they work hard enough at it. For some, it comes much easier, for others, it’s a struggle but nothing is impossible.

7) Is there anyone that you look up to and model yourself on? (You can name more than one)

Not that I can think of although I often reflect on great quotes I find, no one in particular though.

8) Do you have any favorite business related or entrepreneur related books that you can recommend to other entrepreneurs?

A few that I’ve read and really like include, but not limited to, The 4-Hour Workweek, Never Eat Alone, Good to Great, and The Perfect Store.

9) What is the best advice you have ever been given?

Life is a lot like a video game. You can learn the moves yourself or someone can teach you all the moves in the game but knowing all the moves does not automatically make you the best player. How you play the game is ultimately up to you and no one can teach you to do that. It’s something you must experience yourself and decide what works best for you.

10) What advice would you give to a Young Entrepreneur setting up their first business?

Do not rush into things but at the same time do not spend an eternity researching. Take action immediately but research what you’re doing and be patient. It took us 1.5 years to get where we are and through this time we have not monetized at all. We are not VC or Angel funded and we don’t have massive amounts of cash lying around either. We just work hard and believe in what we do and believe that all good things take time. If we can do it, anyone can with enough perseverance and hard work.

11) How many hours do you work daily and what are your daily tasks for your sites?

Average about 16-18 hours per day. The type of work depends on what needs to be done. We’re very much still a startup company and as a result don’t have a massive number of employees doing everything so the day to day operations are still done by Wes and I majority of the time. This can involve pretty much anything the business need to grow and succeed.

12) If the Internet had not existed – what do you think you would be doing?

Prior to affiliate marketing and 202, I’ve built other business both offline and online. Some of the businesses I’ve done that you could do offline include stocks and real estate. I probably would be opening up a local café if the internet did not exist but to be honest, that’s a wild guess. I really don’t know what I would actually do.

13) What do you like best about the Internet?

There is so much to love about the internet but mostly that it connects the world and allow people anywhere to connect with other people anytime.

14) What do you like least about the Internet?

Not exactly sure of this one. Nothing that I can think of at the moment.

15) Have you any plans (personal or business) that you can share with us about your future plans / goals / lifetime goals?

Nothing too extravagant. I just want to work on scaling this company up and helping out the community more and more. Hopefully we’ll change lives for the better and make a difference in the future. I also plan on doing a lot of non-profit work with a friend so we’ll see how that turns out. I honestly don’t have any ideas of what the future may hold and although I plan to a certain extent, things are always changing so I wouldn’t hold my breath on anything beyond 2 years. If you had asked me 2 years ago if I’d thought I’d be living in San Francisco, I’d probably say no without a doubt, and yet here I am. All I can say is I’m very passionate about what I do now and that won’t change anytime soon. Any other goals are secondary.

If you would like to ask Steve a question , you can do so on our forums.