2008 a4u Awards

Posted on May 8, 2008
Filed Under Affiliate Marketing | Leave a Comment

This years nominations have been announced. If you are a member of a4uForum you are eligible to vote. So, don’t delay, use your vote today, entries close on 28th May.

I have just cast my own vote as follows:

Affiliate Manager of 2008
Chris Bishop (Hotel Chocolat)

Chris has always been of great help when I’ve had problems or questions. He encourages affiliate involvement, particularly at certain times of the year with competitions and incentives from HotelChocolat.

Affiliate Marketing Agency of 2008
R.O.EYE

Affiliate Marketing Blog of 2008
Kirsty McCubbin

Always a great read, as are the other nominees. I like the style and format of Kirstys Blog. Very inspirational.

Publisher’s Choice Of Account Manager 2008
Julie Wood
Always there and willing to help. A very worthy nominee.

Publisher’s Choice Of Network 2008
Affiliate Window
Always coming up with new tools to help promote merchants. Just won it for me over a very close second for PaidOnResults.

Thumbs Up For GettingPersonal

Posted on April 6, 2008
Filed Under Affiliate Marketing | Leave a Comment

GettingPersonalI have recently started working on a Gift Site that offers gifts that can be personalised. One of the merchants to feature on the site is GettingPersonal. I’ve had a few sales through them in the last few weeks and their handling of these sales has prompted this post.

 Now, some merchants will sit on pending sales for a long time before validating them, two to three months isn’t unheard of. Not with these guys though. Each sale I have generated for them has been validated the same day, sometimes within a couple of hours. This is just such a refreshing way to deal with affiliates, we know where we are with commissions and what the expect at the end of the month. It’s this sort of programme management that gets a better and more prominent place on my sites.

Thanks GettingPersonal!

Sunshine.co.uk Competition - Win a MacBook Air

Posted on March 21, 2008
Filed Under Affiliate Marketing | Leave a Comment

Sunshine Affiliate Competition
The travel site Sunshine.co.uk are running an affiliate competition throughout March to win an impressive MacBook Air.

MacBook Air

In order to get an entry into this competition, you need to join the programme on AffiliateFuture, post a banner or link on your site(s). Making 5 sales will also get you an extra entry into the competition. So, what are you waiting for, get those links up today.

Sunshine.co.uk are a great travel site that offers holiday makers cheap hotels, holidays and flights.

This is more like it - An incentive

Posted on March 21, 2008
Filed Under Affiliate Marketing | Leave a Comment

Following on from my rant about being dropped from programmes because of inactivity, I have just received this email below. This is exactly the type of thing I was wanting to see and in my opinion is the right way to go.

Dear ********

I would like to increase your commission levels by 10%, in return for a small favour.

I see you have sent us 1 click via affiliate window over the last year, and would like to offer you 11% commission on all sales PERMANENTLY if you would be willing to promote us a little more on your site.

If you’re interested please email me at ***********, and i can offer you help in increasing your sales with us.

For example we can offer voucher codes for your customers to encourage sales, or suggest best selling products that may be suitable for your site.

I hope to hear back from you, and thanks for your time…

Kind Regards,

I will certainly be adding more Needapresent information and products on my new gift related sites from now on.

You are the weakest link - Goodbye

Posted on March 19, 2008
Filed Under Affiliate Marketing | Leave a Comment

It does make me mad! When I get an email from a merchant or network saying I’m being dropped from a programme for being inactive because the merchant wants to concentrate on active affiliates.

More often than not this will be the first communication I will have received about the programme after signing up. Merchants will know who is active and doing well on the programme already, so sure, make an extra effort with those people. However, instead of giving the rest the boot, why not send them a reminder of why the prorgamme is such a good one to promote, offer incentives to get active, special offers, anything but the goodbye email.

I assume merchants want the most sales possible from a programme, so dropping affiliates won’t achieve this will it. You need to get the number of active affiliates higher, not chop the programme down, therefore limiting sales.

OK, Rant over!

Datafeeds Offered via Network Interfaces

Posted on March 9, 2008
Filed Under Affiliate Marketing | 2 Comments

I’m dismayed a the level of datafeed function available at the different networks. I’m wanting to change an existing website to offer a smaller selection of goods but i’m also in the process of creating a new site to offer a similar range. The first is JustUndies which currently offer a mix of mens and womens underwear and lingerie. I want to make this just a mens only site allowing me to create a new womens only site at LingerieLocker.

So, to help populate these sites I will be needing a datafeed of merchant goods to offer my visitors. My first choice was to have the datafeeds from JustHom and DeadGoodUndies for JustUndies. The ladies will be getting a selection from BeCheeky or FigLeaves.

So, firstly all of these merchants offer the datafeed facility through the networks. Brilliant I thought. Not so…

The Figleaves datafeed is currently about seven months out-of-date on TradeDoubler. Not a good start is it? BeCheeky offer a feed through DGMPro and AffiliateWindow. They don’t have the same number of products as each other which I would have exprected. The offering from AffiliateWindow has about 300 less products. That offered from DGMPro has errors in. I’m told that the affiliate manager of Figleaves will email an up-to-date version of the feed when updates are necessary, but isn’t this missing the whole point of offering these throught the network interface?

Anyway, when I get a solution sorted I’ll post again.

Linkshare Launch New Interface - Publisher Dashboard

Posted on March 3, 2008
Filed Under Affiliate Networks | Leave a Comment

Linkshare UK Launch New InterfaceI have been a member of the Linkshare Network for a few years now. The user interface during that time hasn’t really changed a great deal and to be honest it isn’t one of my favorite interfaces. Linkshare UK started getting the ball rolling only in the last year. They have started to get some really good merchants on board. We are seeing the likes of Laura Ashley, Figleaves and the LEGO Company to name just three.

So, onto the new interface. All I can say is Wow, what a really vast improvement over the old one. The first thing that you notice is that you are presented with a snapshot of your account in the center of the sceen. This shows a months summary in terms of Clicks, Impressions Orders and Sales etc. Unfortunately this is displayed in US$ even for UK based figures. I hope this can me changed in a later enhancement. Also on the right you have a list of the latest communications from merchants. Just above the message summary you have a new box that displays your ‘Things to do’. This will be a useful feature I’m sure.

Onto the next tab along the top, the Programs tab. In this section you have the standard list of areas within each merchant can be found. There are also sections that show New Advertisers, Premium Advertisers, Advertisers you have already joined and lastly and Private Offers you may be invited to join or are already participating in. All pretty standard stuff really, but nicely and clearly laid out and easy to use.

The Links tab is the next one. Here you find a list of advertisers you are a member of. Hover your mouse pointer over the advertiser name and you get a list of link types available. (Text/email, banners/images, Dynamic Rich Media etc.) Getting the link code is very easy and you’re told when the link is valid from and when it expires. I’m afraid I don’t have tokens for either the data feeds and web services so I can’t use these and so can’t comment on these at this time.

All in all I think this is one of the successful revamps of a network redign, they haven’t all been an initial success on other networks in the last couple of years. So well done to the team at LinkShare for a job well done.

Wordpress is ACE!

Posted on February 25, 2008
Filed Under Affiliate Marketing | 1 Comment

Just over a week ago I decided to make myself a Blog (this one). I had attempted this about a year ago but that time I used Blogger. I didn’t keep up with it for too long and it soon fizzled out and I gave up.

 This time I have decided to use Workpress. It’s far easier to use and customise. I realised that my hosting has Fantastico De Luxe installed. Through this I installed Wordpress. This took about 10 minutes to do, so far so good. I then looked about for a new theme as these are apparently easy to install. I found one I liked, unzipped it and uploaded to my webserver. Within the Wordpress administration area you then see the new theme. Simply by clicking the activate link and your new theme is there for all to see! (wow).

I have been so impressed with this that I have held up developing a few gift sites I have domains for and today setup another site using Wordpress instead of designing the site myself. PersonaliseYaGifts is the result in a few hours. We’ll see how it goes in the next few days and weeks.

Wickes Pressure Washer

Posted on February 16, 2008
Filed Under Product Reviews | Leave a Comment

Product: 120bar Pressure Washer
Merchant: Wickes

Wickes 120Bar Pressure WasherI received this Pressure Washer from the Wickes affiliate programme as a free gift for being one of a number of people to join the programme and get a link up on one of my sites. Fiona MacPherson, the programme manager, is an extremely helpful and plesant person. She sends out emails regularly with offers and codes to promote. Suprisingly, this is something you don’t always get from a lot of programmes. (That’s another story for later!)

So, getting onto the pressure washer itself. It arrived ready to be assembled. This consisted of putting the handle on, connecting the high pressure hose and finally putting the wheels on. It took little more than 20 minutes, brilliant!

The pressure washer was ready to go, and go it went. Connect to a standard tap or the end of a hose and you’re ready to go. The unit is compact and readdy quite powerful. It gets the green from patio stones, mud off the car with ease and with the cold weather and salt on the roads, it’s quick and easy to rinse off you car when you get home. It’s only downside for me is the length of the electrical cable, as with most goods you buy, they never seem to give you enough. Apart from this little niggle, I would recommend this pressure washer as a good middle of the road costing unit.

It had to happen!

Posted on February 15, 2008
Filed Under General Interest | Leave a Comment

Well, as I said, it had to happen eventually didn’t it?

I’ve decided to get myself a blog. Why? Well, I think I need one to express and share my views and news on Affiliate Marketing and life in general.

I won’t make any promises about the topics and frequency of posts that I’ll make, but I will try to post at least once a week.

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