Anybody knoow the most successful online marketer?

I doubt you are going to get any consensus on that one.

My pick as to go to the late Corey Rudl. Without him...online marketing wouldn't have been what it is today. He was a true pioneer.


Cheers
Reinhardt

Chia? for a quick and short answer

Everyone will have a different view on who the most successful online marketer is - unless of course you tabulate the names and see who gets the majority vote and that will be your must successful online marketer.

For me, I am with RGallowitz on this - the late Corey Rudl created an Internet Marketing revolution for which I am eternally thankful.

Shaleniie Devi

Guys. Thanks for the replies so far. I also googled this and landed on an Amazon page. The book called Online Marketer Heroes has this list:

• Joan Holman Joan Holman Productions
• Greg Hartnett Best of the Web, Hotel Hotline
• Jacob Hawkins Overstock.com
• Mark Oldani Circuit City Direct
• Jeffrey Glueck Travelocity
• Lauren Freedman the e-tailing group, inc.
• Tamara Adlin adlin, inc.
• Steve Rubel Edelman
• Greg Jarboe SEO-PR
• Eric Ward Link Marketing Consultant
• Jordan Gold Freedom
• Heather Lloyd-Martin SuccessWorks
• Chris Baggott Compendium Software
• Ed Shull NetResults
• Brian Lusk Southwest Airlines
• Lee Odden TopRank Online Marketing
• Jill Whalen High Rankings
• Liana Evans KeyRelevance
• Perry Marshall Perry S. Marshall & Associates
• Kevin Lee Didit
• Paul O'Brien Zvents
• Ron Belanger Yahoo!
• David Fischer Google
• Phil Terry Creative Good
• Patrick Duparcq Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

I thought it was Bill Gates.

I guess we need to define "successful" first

I think for John Reese to make a million dollars in 24 hours using the same methods, products, and relationships that we have access to right here is amazing.

From video store clerk to having Tony Robbins interviewing him as a success story would qualify for me.

Matt

In my opine, look in the mirror!
All you Worriers are rock stars to me!
And again, im still kinda new in this neck-a-da woods.
Tommy

I'll vote for Google. It's hard enough to even define what an online marketer is. Or what success means.

You could just consider this forum, how the owner gets paid, and whether he needs to babysit it 24x7.

Barack Obama followed closely by Frank Kern or Joseph Mercola.

Ewen Chia came from nothing in a little place called singapore and now. well now he is THE super affiliate

-WD

Bill Gates wins that by any objective measurement.

Most of these submissions seem pretty tongue in cheek. Am I missing a joke here?

But you are joking; right?

How can you compare Ewen Chia to Bill Gates? Or Sergey Brin?

He's not even in the same class. He's not even in the class below the class the OP asked about. He's not even in the class below that or below that.

What am I missing with these joke entries?

John Reese and Kern - both lovely guys.

The OP didn't ask for "lovely guys." They asked for the most successful online marketer.

Those two wouldn't even be in the top ten thousand.

Why is everyone listing super small time players? What's the joke?

Why are the online marketers responsible for the top 10 online businesses not mentioned? I don't get it.

You can argue about Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, Jeff Bezos.

You could even drop to the 2nd tier and talk about Zuckerberg or Craig Newmark although you would have to offer justification for why you think they are more successful than those with objectively more successful accomplishments online.

But how do you jump down to the 5th and 6th tier ignoring the objectively more successful online marketers with no explanation?

Is this a little bubble where nobody has visited the outside world or this site in the last two decades and never heard of Microsoft or Google or Amazon?

My picks:
Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Google)
Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson (MySpace)
Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)

Yes Bill Gates is the most successful businessman, but I'd venture to say most of his success wasn't derived from the internet.

If by successful you mean made lots of money and has a sense on hummer then Frank Kern wins hands down.

But I think Eben Pagan although not talked about as much has made some ridiculous amount of money apparently he makes 20 Million USD a year from online marketing.

Eben Pagan From $ 0 to $ 20 Million Per Year in Six years | DotComPreneur

John Reese is the man!

Kirsti:

For one thing you don't know it all. Bill Gates as you continued to go on about runs a physical corporation and made his money from a physical product called ms dos and turned into windows 3.1 and so on.

You are not being very participatory in a community thread trying to make everyone feel stupid because they did not say Bill Gates. He also is responsible for some awful shady business dealings early on. so way to go for showing us who you think is tops.

Ewen Chia is not only in a class by himself he is someone who has also helped make a ton of successful marketers. Frank Kern is definitely one of the best known and with proven success tactics etc. Bill gates on the other hand is known as one of the richest men in the world NOT as an Internet hero. and certainly not a hero in my eyes
-WD

Depends how you define success.

Some might equate it with money, sales

But if that persons homelife is in a wreck because of their business, I wouldn't call that success

How about Mike Filsaime or Rich Jerk?

Having said that, I do believe that there are several underground affiliate marketers who are raking in millions of dollars without anyone knowing about them.

How's that for a conspiracy theory? ;-)

WD,

If you feel stupid, that's your problem.

The last time I checked, Microsoft is a SOFTware company and almost their entire product line is digital products.

The OP didn't say anything about digital product or downloadable products or anything else about the types of products or services offered. They asked about the most successful online marketer.

You can argue about success metrics and maybe it's Bill Gates. Maybe it's Jeff Bezos.

You can say Bill was born with a lot of money so he doesn't count. It has to be Rags to riches. OK. What about Sergey Brin or Zuckerman?

The fact is that there are a LOT of Billionaire or near Billionaire online marketers.

Dipping into the 100 millionaire ranks because you disqualify this guy or that guy who is a Billionaire online marketer might make sense, but we aren't talking about 100 millionaires or even 10 millionaires. I lot of the guys listed are barely millionaires and a few are just six figure guys.

There are literally tens of thousands of people you have to disqualify to start talking about this 5th tier. Why are they being disqualified?

Throw away Bill Gates because you don't like his early business practices. Fine. I don't see how that disqualifies him, but if that's your thing. OK. So now you go to the 2nd tier. What makes them all disqualified? And the 3rd tier and the 4th tier. Why is everything ignoring the 10,000 most successful online marketers and naming people who aren't even close to being close to being close to being the most successful online marketer in a thread asking about THE most successful online marketer?

It doesn't make any sense. It must be a joke or something. I just want in on the punch line.

Bill Gates didn't incorporate until WAY after MS-DOS and Windows 3.1. He still thinks it was a big mistake that his investment lawyers talked him into.

Ewen Chia does run a big corporation.

I don't see how the business entity chosen by a successful online marketer could disqualify him.

And there are simply NO successful online marketers in today's litigious environment outside of a corporate or at least an LLC structure. Just try to make a million dollars without a corporation and see how long you keep it before you have to give it away to random frivolous law suits.

All of the names listed run big corporations. Frank Kern. Ewen Chia. Tony Robbins. John Reese. None of them would advocate bypassing corporate protection.

How does using a corporate structure make you unsuccessful? And if so, you now have to talk about a tiny minority of basically idiots who don't use a corporate structure, but haven't made enough to make themselves targets yet. So we have to talk about people making between $50K and $700K or so per year. Most of the names mentioned are slightly above that point and DO use corporate structures and have used corporate structures since long before they made their first $100K.

I showed this thread to our VP of marketing (I have some of the officers from my company on our cay for the week for a new year planning session).

He made me understand. It's like the special olympics. You don't want the actual most successful online marketer. The overall industry and personal asset valuation of those people determine who that is (and he agreed it would be Bill Gates or Warren Buffett among Americans and named the obvious names if the whole world is involved in the contest).

This is more like the special olympics. You want the people who try really hard and make a name for themselves by being the best among those who don't really have the ability to compete in the real olympics for whatever reason.

Why didn't you just say so? What is the criteria for this special olympics of online marketing? What handicaps must a person have to be considerable for this post?

More interesting though is that some of the names mentioned don't seem to have any handicaps to me. I think with time, they will start doing business with the same kind of accumen as those who actually hold the title of "most successful marketers" today. I'm interested to see if you will reject these guys when they start achieving real success. Will you?

John Reese and Frank Kern are hanging out with Tony Robbins now who has a name out there in the real world. They are probably learning a lot from him and making changes to their businesses.

When your next door neighbor knows who John Reese and Frank Kern are (or Ewen Chia) and they are actually competing with the real third or second tier people... will you reject them from this contest?

If so, why?

Aren't you concerned that you may be limiting your own potential by consistently rejecting those outside the special olympics of marketing and only considering those within a very narrow band of success? Aren't you defining yourself as "special olymics" material instead of real olympic gold medal material when you do that?

John Reese
Frank Kern
Eben Pagan

Chris Hughes FTW!

How Chris Hughes Helped Launch Facebook and the Barack Obama Campaign | Fast Company

.

I would say John Reese, Ewen Chia,

thanks
andy

Thats easy------Me!

Kristi -- it's just a simple question. The OP has his/her own reasons for the parameters.

And besides, every answer here is just an OPINION. The posters don't win prizes for the best answers. Those mentioned in this thread don't win prizes for being "nominated."

It's like if I posted a question and said, "what is the best car?"

Maybe you'd list the high-price cars like Ferrari, Lamborghini, etc... because high price and performance are the qualities you want in a car.

Maybe someone else mentions the Prius, because conserving energy is what he looks for in a car.

Maybe someone else mentions a split-window Corvette, because of the classic style.

And someone else mentions an SUV, because of the room and off road capability.

Point is, the question is open to interpretation. "Most successful" could mean most money, fastest growing business, biggest "rags to riches," marketer who gives the most to charity, marketer who has the most free time, marketer in the IM field, current or former WF marketer... and on and on.

The answers are opinions. No need to suggest that anyone's opinion is wrong just because you interpreted the question differently than others.

Why so angry? And why so OT from the OP's question about the Special Olympics of Online Marketing?

I'm not being combative.

Everyone named has a large corporation though. You can't become a successful marketer in today's litigeous environment without corporate protection. That is NOT the criteria that is making some people name 1st tier successful online marketers like Bill Gates and Sergey Brin and other people name 5th tier successful online marketers like Ewen Chia and John Reese.

Bill Gates and Sergey Brin both started without corporate protection. Since both Ewen and John have specifically talked about corporate protection and both used corporate protection long before I ever heard of either one, that is NOT the unspoken criteria being used between the 1st tier and the 5th tier posters here. ALL of the names listed currently have large corporations.

I understand now why so many people are mixing in names of fourth and fifth tier names. Unfortunately they aren't joking. That is just their mindset. Nothing above that is possible so those are the only people they can even aspire to be like.

It is nice that the Warrior forum has a mindset sub-forum so those people have a place to throw that switch when they are ready.

Once I figured out there wasn't a joke being played, this may be the most instructive thread I have read on the Warrior forum in many days.

As for "opinions", I know some people like to give their opinions about factual matters, but I have never seen the point. Opinions are for questions like "Do you like blonde hair or black hair better?" You don't ask whether someone's hair is blonde or black and then start offering opinions about it. It is either blonde or it is black in that case.

The OP asked for the most successful online marketer. They didn't ask which online marketer you like the most or anything else where opinions have any value at all. It is a question of fact with the only room for "opinion" being how you might measure success. Do you tell the IRS that it is your opinion that you don't owe any taxes? Do you tell your banker that it is your opinion that you aren't overdrawn?

How far does that get you?

Anger is your projection. I'm not angry at all. If you perceive anger then you need to ask yourself why you are angry and projecting in on me. I'm not angry. I'm actually sitting by an infinity pool sipping sweet tea right now and have found this thread very enlightening. I just said so.

Why are you so angry?

I don't smooze with anyone. I invited the VP of Marketing and the other officers to use my side of our cay for a planning meeting they are having. I'm also personal friends with the VP of marketing and so I asked him to look at this thread to see if there was a marketing joke I didn't understand since his specialty is marketing.

As I mentioned, EVERYONE mentioned here uses corporate protection. If you don't like the corporate mentality, then you will after your first couple times in court and losing your personal house and car a few times.

You don't get to own half an island and keep it without corporate protection. You don't even get to be one of the fourth and fifth tier online marketers here without corporate protection.

Ewen Chia, John Reese and Frank Kern all use and advocate corporate protection. Corporate protection is not the issue here.

Kristi - you just seem it, sorry if I was wrong - look how much you wrote in this thread. Quite a few people seem to think you are being aggressive - you can choose to see that as cue to modify your behaviour or blame others. I guess it's the same mindset issue you mentioned.

BTW - do you mean Cay as in islet?

I didn't say I wasn't being aggresive. I am always pretty agressive. That is part of my personality.

The poster above claimed I was angry. I would describe my mood currently as "content" having just had a nice lunch and swim and visiting with friends by our infinity pool and sipping ice tea.

Being aggressive and being angry are two very, very different things. All successful people I have ever met are usually very aggressive. Hardly any successful people I know are fast to anger.

When someone accuses you of being angry when you know you aren't, that is usually a clue that they are getting angry for some reason.

I agree that Sergey Brin and Larry Page are the best IMarketers in my opinion

Here are my two cents and yes a woman is among them. Go girl go.

www.invesp.com

Top 10 Most influential marketers of 2008

10. Avinash Kaushik
9. DarrenRowse
8. Jackie Huba
7. Aaron Wall
6. PeteCashmore
5. Rand Fishkin
4. MichaelArrington
3. Brian Clark
2. Guy Kawasaki
1. Online Marketer of the Year: Chris Hughes

Brian, there are big fish - but the OP stated no big fish - I think that's why people are mentioning Eben Pagan etc.. Ignoring the questions - you are right - but surely the question loses value as any company online becomes eligible and the marketing aspect may play a dimished role.

For instance - Amazon - very innovative in their marketing - probably ahead of Walmart (in online terms) but their revenue dwarfs Amazon. So by default we have to drop to the Waltons or their current marketing person to find the most successful as I mentioned earlier.

The definition becomes so lose as to provide little focus for us to model on, in a useful way.
I agree about looking at the bigger picture, but that wasn't what was asked.

Your quite right, there is a whole world of marketing out there!

This is gold though:

In my opinion, this is something a lot of IMers could really benefit from. There are some bizarre, out of the way niches out there, just full of cash.

The market decides who is a 1st tier or a 5th tier. If you are only looking at tiers you, can probably just look at yearly revenue or assets or something like that.

In loose terms, a 1st tier would then be someone with $1 billion or more in income.
A 2nd tier could be $100 million.
A 3rd tier could be $10 million (about where I would fit along with a couple of the names mentioned).
A 4th tier would be $1 million/year (where some of the other names fit which is why I asked why people were mixing 4th and 5th tier people with 1st tier like Bill Gates)
A 5th tier would be $100K/year (where some of the other names fit)

Tiers are obviously not precise and we don't have exact numbers on most of the names mentioned. But we know about where they fit. Bill Gates just doesn't fit in the same tier as John Reese.

John Reese might be very successful as compared to your own success, but he's just not even close be compared with Bill Gates or Warren Buffet. Seeing some people listed in what I might think of as the 2nd tier wouldn't be surprising. Different people have different facts. Some people might be thinking about yearly income. Others assets. Others growth rate and where they came from. Still others quality of life.

But no matter what factors you are considering, you just can't pretend that John Reese (as an example; not picking on him) can possibly be considered as a more successful online marketer than Bill Gates. It's just silly.

Or more tragically, it actually isn't silly. I think most of those who mentioned 4th and 5th tier names weren't being silly at all. Once they have the ephiphany that those who argued for 1st tier names have already posted about, they will see their businesses really soar!

And sorry for picking on John Reese. I have a lot of respect for him. I am very, very sure that he would chuckle about being compared favorably in terms of success with Bill Gates.

And I suspect he has the mindset to some day be comparable... or the mindset to be focusing on trying to change his mindset to be more like those people. Otherwise we wouldn't have recently seen him talking to Tony Robbins who is also at least a tier ahead of John.

Unfortunately I still do corporate meetings. But only for one hour once a quarter.

I tried to get an acting COB, but it just doesn't work.

I know Bill Gates and Warren Buffet also hate corporate meetings, but they still attend their director meetings so I don't feel a ton of pressure to stop attending my own.

I'm not attending the planning session that is going on. I am just letting my officers use my side of the island for both relaxation and their meetings. I don't even know where they are meeting. I only see the ones I am also friends with during their relaxation time.

I'm leaving tomorrow for a pleasure trip and wedding. They are staying and continuing their meetings through Friday. I hate corporate meetings as much as the next person.

But ruling out a corporation makes your special olympics group even smaller than even the lowest tier person mentioned. EVERY person mentioned is using a corporation for their online marketing.

Joe Kumar ?

Kristi you are being a ridiculous person on here.

You so hung up on Bill Gates who is now RETIRED for crying out loud. going on and on and on and on and on literally more posts than any other person all adamantly declaring you are right. what a whiner you are being.Referrring to a question as now a special olympics you could touch None of the people mentioned so stop acting like they are your best friend.

Who do you think you are anyway? You don't like what others have to say but they must listen to you????? Not likely and the fact you said I showed it to whoever. shows you still work for someone else and not yourself yeah I want to listen what success is and who is tops from you for sure how silly of me not to. I answer to one boss ME. Now I say one more time Ewen Chia is known around the world as The Super Affiliate he has a mailing list of over 439000 people he has come from bugger all in a country that offered him bugger all you go live there and tell me how easy it would be.

he is a man I respect and moreover He is a man who wouldn't take it anymore. forget Bill Gates if you wanted to be very technical the internet is a marketplace and Google runs it. not one or two guys they are not getting the credit from me they get the credit for founding it when they have all sorts of people that work for them implement their suggestions that is what turned Google into Google. I notice you didn't mention Jerry yang or David filo of YAHOO which arrived in 1995 Before Google arrived in 1996 and is still here.So maybe they are the most successful and I should adamantly disagree and belittle anyone who thinks they are not eh?

I never said I feel stupid kristi I don't and a person like you could never make me feel that way however it is your belittling downright bull**** remarks that are
Kristi Daniels you are the weakest link-Goodbye
-WD

Brian, the op defined it as no big corporations or something so I'm not sure that my definition counts, even if I had one!

Sam Walton started off small - Facebook is a great example to us onliners.

There is also that Beautiful People website, that "banned" a load of people that were too fat. How that got on CNN I will never know. It screamed unaltered press release - I hope others saw it for what it was, a bad marketing attempt that due to exposure will generate lots of business.

Good question, good answers, lots of variety, lots of opinions but no real answer and understandably so.

Dullspace... Definitely Dullspace.