Web Affiliate Marketing Blog

Did you see it?

I’ve just been working while plonked in front of the TV when suddenly I heard my name, followed by Kieron’s, Naomi’s, Elaine’s and Keith come out of the surround sound Instantly I looked up to see a very bored looking Kevin from Affiliate Window then I realised what it was, and thanks to Sky+ quickly hit the rewind button

As many know, Olivia Lee (the lass from Balls Of Steel) gatecrashed the event and did a thank-you speech that continued for over 10 minutes from memory. It went on for so long, that Channel4 actually split it in two, and also deleted a whole chunk from the middle on the Comedy Labs programme.

Hopefully for those that missed it, Channel4 will make it available on their CatchUp Service or failing that, will have it along with the other Comedy Lab series on the 4 On Demand service. I’ve got it stored on my Sky+ so if you really wanna see it, then we’ll have to have an affiliate do at mine

What drunken muppets we were to put up with it for such a long time, before Claire and myself man-handled her off stage

I’ve finally got round to confirming my acceptance as a speaker at the A4U Expo being held at the London ExCeL in October. I am due to join 3 other’s representing all 4 corners of the affiliate industry, Hero Grigoraki (Client Services Director, Webgains), Richard Clark (Marketing Manager, DSG International PLC) and someone from the agency Equator I believe.

The topic is one that’s a bit of a hot potato at the moment, Effective Voucher Code Implementation, and I expect it to be quite full and generate a good discussion and Q&A following the initial presentation. The sessions is due to take place between 11:00 - 12:00 on Day 2, in the Platinum Rooms 5 & 6. I’m guessing that from the start times, I’ll have to curb my usual drinking habits to ensure I am in some fit state, turn up on time and don’t doze off halfway through

Get your rotten tomatoes and eggs at the ready!

I’ve just received a phonecall from Fiona over at Equator agency, and was informed that i’ve won another competition! Wickes (on the Affiliate Window network) ran a competition over the past few weeks where the prize up for grabs was a complete Avalon Bathroom worth over £1200!

Over 6 weeks affiliates had to send at least one sale to the Wickes bathroom site with a total order value of over £200 which was simply enough considering the average order value was over £500. The nice thing about this competition was that old and new affiliates stood an equal chance of winning the prize, as each affiliate was only be entered once, none of this 10 sales = 10 extra tickets we see so often.

The prize was an unsual one for sure, and makes a nice difference rather than the usual make 10 sales get and extra 2.5% commission. Its something that you actually see and use for all your hardwork and troubles.

Good timing? Well it couldn’t have been better having spent the past few weekends measuring up my bathroom trying to decided what to get and when to get it resulting in regular visits to Wickes, Homebase and B&Q. No more shopping for me

Thanks Wickes for putting up such a good and unusual prize, and thanks to Julia at Eqrt for pulling my name out of the hat!

Photo’s of me making use of the bath (with bubbles in stratgeic positions) to follow…

Merchant pays Network late = Network pays Affiliate late =

We’ve all been there and we know this is the business model adopted by some of the larger networks, the ones who can afford not to adopt this model surprisingly. But what options are available to us affiliates who month in, month out, get let down?

Incase you hadn’t guessed, I am grumbling about TradeDoubler. For starters they pay monthly despite saying for a very long time, that they will be introducing bi-monthly payments and improving their payment process. I appreciate TradeDoubler aren’t only UK based, and any changes to payment processes may affect other countries and regions and therefore take time. However, since TradeDoubler have been saying they are improving their payment process (over 2 years to me), we have seen other networks introduce bi-monthly or even weekly payments, some of which operate in more than one country, so that excuse no longer stands.

What about the merchant? Should the merchants who constantly pay invoices late be penalised? To them it makes sense to keep hold of the money as long as possible, and if TradeDoubler don’t implement any penalties then what incentives is there for a merchant to pay on time?

There is no denying it that when it comes to linking to a merchant, payment does influence my decision. Wherever possible I move links to a network who pays bi-monthly, visibly and successfuly chases payment and pays affiliates whether or not the merchant has paid. However this isn’t always possible as some merchants are with a single network and therefore you have to sit and wait to be paid.

What can we do? Can we start charging interest on invoices that are outstanding where we should have received the monies owed? I don’t mind if it’s £10 here or there, but when you are talking over £1500, to a sole trader like myself, this is quite a sum of money that could have been heading off for re-investment in time for Christmas.

Would appreciate comments from those in the know, as to which networks offer what;

• Network Name
  (i.e. GoodNetwork)
• Payment
  (i.e. Bi-Monthly £50 minimum threshold)
• Invoicing
  (i.e. Payment not dependant on merchant paying invoices)

What tablets have Pixmania taken?
Which silly billy’s have been “advising” them?

For those that aren’t aware, I am referring to a recent email from Pixmania in which they have issued a whole load of discount codes for use when people purchase sepcific goods, or goods that come to a specific value. Their email reads;

OFFER IN BRIEF:
Pixmania are offering fantastic new codes on appliances and they have extended the expiry date for one TV code! Pixmania are also offering exciting generic codes for all affiliates, except vouchercode sites, and they have a list of their top products for you to promote!

So they have “exciting discount codes” yet they are not allowed to promoted on discount code websites. I mean thats ludicrous! Firstly I don’t find the discount particularly exciting when comparing the prices to competitors especially as Pixmania are apparently “#1 UK electronics e-retailer“. It’s like offering discounts for their Top 10 DLR’s, but refusing any website that focuses on DLRs to feature them! I also wonder how they distinguish which sales have been made via a voucher code website.

I am in the process of moving all my links from websites, to a centralised domain, something similar to OpenAds. This will allow me to easily track clicks myself and compare them with what merchants and networks are recording. It will also mean administering any movement of a merchant from one network to another, quick, simple and a one off job across all my websites. Therefore Pixmania, along with others, will all originate from a centralised domain - so will I be penalised for clicks from NON discount code websites?

I am surprised that they have decided to take this stance, and even more so that the merchant hasn’t changed their mind, especially as it follows Affiliate Windows announcement of a voucher code tool. I notice that the exclusion doesn’t include cashback websites which I find even stranger and see that others are annoyed and bewlidered by this rash decision.

Affiliates listen up! Whether you’re new or old to this industry, you’ve no doubt read many an article where we hear a networks, agency’s or merchants opinion on the Affiliate Marketing industry, or see some pretty pie charts representing the general consensus. Well now is the turn of the Grubby Affiliate!

Affiliates4U have commissioned a questionnaire asking us lot how we think it’s moved on, where we’ve seen changes and what shape the future will take. Despite generating over £3bn on sales and revenue for the merchants, the industry continues to evolve and gain momentum and rumour has it that even the odd affiliate has evolved (yet to be proven).

Pop along to the Affiliate Marketing Evolution Survey and share your experiences with the rest of us - you could even win £100 of Amazon or High Street vouchers for your troubles!

Be quick as this survey is only open until Friday 1st August, and its for Affiliates Only!

A few months ago, Dixons offered me an incentive to increase my sales volume over a 30 day period. If I was successful, then I would be given a £200 voucher to spend on their website on anything I wanted, so immediately had visions of an XBox with Halo3. Although not a gaming person, I’ve seen Halo3 and think the multi-online player feature is simply fantastic, but never quite got round to buying one myself.

After the 30 day period had ended I quickly ran stats and found that I had surpassed my target and received notification that a £200 voucher would be heading my way. All excited I searched and earmarked the XBox system I was going to get and waited… Sadly days passed, followed by weeks without any word of the voucher code so I chased it up with Julia at Affiliate Window.

Did I get my XBox? No

Whilst waiting for my voucher I started to accept that I was never destined to have an XBox. I noticed files were becoming corrupt on my USB Flash drive followed by my electric razor breaking. I then decided I needed to stop eating cheese and eat more vegetables getting ready for my next 10k race and before you knew it, a steamer was added to the list of electrical items required. Finally, on the day I was told of my voucher code, my phone base station went on the blink meaning all the phones in my house were knocked out.

Not quite the same as an XBox but all in all, I’ve order a bundle of goodies which are on their way to me for a grand sum of £0.70 + postage;

• 8Gb SanDisk USB Flash Drive
• Philips Razor
• BT Cordless Home Phones
• Tefal Steamer
• Logik Internet Radio

Although disappointed that I still don’t own an XBox, I am extremely grateful to Dixons for the incentive in the first place, and deep down I am grateful I didn’t receive the voucher immediately. I would have had to buy all the above out of my own pocket so it couldn’t have come at a better time!

In the past I’ve agreed to push a merchant a little harder following the issue of an exclusive code, or an increase in commissions. Often I say yes and totally forget meaning the merchant is left a little bewildered and I don’t make extra £’s whilst the increased commission levels are in place - BAD TIMES!

In an attempt to manage all the requests I get for extra exposure I’ve created a Google Calendar making it easy and quick for myself, merchants or network to see when I can fit a merchant in - GOOD TIMES!

This will hopefully aid me and others, in the planning of gaining extra exposure, especially when discount codes and commission increases are for a limited time only. The calendar basically shows which merchant is getting extra exposure, for how long, and whether its in the form of a pop-up or a page peel.

If you want to expose yourself to 1000’s of unique visitors everyday, then get in touch with me direct or your account manager and either;

• send me some free stuff
• increase my commissions
• provide me with an exclusive discount code
• pay for tenancy of a spot for 3 months

PS - sorry about the picture

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE CURRENT SCHEDULE

Despite loving and being passionate about this industry, I still treat Affiliate Marketing as a kind of hobby and have chosen to stay as a full-time employee due to enjoying my job and the challenges its brings. HOWEVER over the past few weeks, I have found that it’s becoming more and more difficult in juggling both full-time employment and a number of successful affiliate websites.

CONTACT
Firstly I ask that merchants and networks contact me by eMail or MSN first, purely because most of my day is spent in meetings or voice conferences and so I am not always available on my mobile phone. Its a lot easier to have a box pop up and flash, sitting there until I get a spare minute. Sure it may mean a 2 minute phone call changes to a 20 minute MSN conversation, but its less obtrusive.

Another problem is hours, something that Affiliate Bitch has already blogged about. Like many other affiliates, I only work on my sites in the evening or weekend, when most networks aren’t available. I’m not suggesting making staff work late into the night after working all day, but in the not too distant future, I think the network that introduces 24×7 support for affiliates and merchants alike, will become a force to be reckoned with.

Affiliates dont stop at 5pm! Online shoppers don’t stop at 5pm! Merchants websites don’t close at 5pm! So why do networks? Some networks I find are available late into the evening - namely Webgains, and a few others work past the 5pm hooter too. But as Lee’s post and comments demonstrate, Network are still blind to the REQUIREMENTS of some affiliates. Whether they choose to implement out of hours support or not is their call, but at least acknowledge there is a need.

NETWORKING
Recently I’ve been invited to DGM BBQ in Manchester, and to Affiliate Window’s Nakata in London. Although I’d like to attend both, being an employee means I have a set number of days which I am allowed off per year. London therefore is usually out of the question unless the function is on a Friday, in which case I can travel home on a Saturday without using a days holiday.

If you take into account all the networking events that take place on an annual basis such as A4U Expo, A4U Awards, Buy.At Christmas Cracker, Affiliate Summit (depending on location ), and now the A4U Roadshow(back to basics networking which I am chuffed to see return), you can see that working full-time AND being an active affiliate is getting more difficult.

EMAILS
I get loads!
Its a nightmare!
Everyday I struggle to keep on top of emails and try to filter out the usual non personalised ones (they go straight in the trash can). I do however get personal ones which I read, take notice of and think “I must reply”. Sadly unless I reply the same day, it often sinks down out of view and before you know it (usually 1 or 2 days) is completely forgotten about.

GENERAL STUFF
On top of all this I still have to update my websites, create new websites, monitor PPC campaigns, innovate, have a personal life, eat drink and sleep, wash and iron, read blogs (merchant, network, agency and affiliate), catch up on the forum and moan on my blog. With my full-time job, I sometimes have to work weekends, but also provide standby one week in every three, resulting in being woken up at 3am to fix something.

WHATS THE ANSWER?
I still have no intention of entering Affiliate Marketing full-time, but need more hours in the day. Not wanting to deprive myself with only 2 hours of sleep every night, does anyone have any suggestions?
Answers on a postcard… although I may not get time to read them all

Yesterday Purple posted a comment against one of my blog entries that got me thinking. He’d done a mid year analysis of his affiliate activities, and found that his sales generated (or maybe its commission?) is up by 199% on two major networks and another has seen an increase of over 2000%! Those figures are brilliant to hear as I’m aware he’s been busier this year than ever before, and it’s always good to hear about other peoples success when they make the effort.

Purples effort and reward shows that given a bit of concentration and hard graft, increase can be achieved despite the ‘credit crunch’ no matter what size an affiliate you are

In the comments, Purple asked how my stats were shaping up. After a few simple calculations later, I was happy to find that for 7 out of the 8 major networks, my sales for the first 6 months of 2008 have already surpassed my TOTAL for 2007.

My projected 2008 increase is a simple x2 formula and doesn’t take into account Christmas which should hopefully push the increase higher still!