Wickes – A Prize Worth Going For

Posted on 7 Jul 2008 in Agencies | 8 comments

Only minutes after writing a post about my trip to Barbados thanks to SunShine.co.uk and Affiliate Future, do I stumble across a thread over at A4U Forums detailing another affiliate incentive.

Again this is another beauty that’s well worth going for, and is achievable by everyone, not just ‘Super Affiliates’ or ‘Pretty Good Affiliates‘

The Prize
The prize is a brand new bathroom (fitting excluded as far as I can see) from Wickes. Obviously the merchant that’s offering the prize is Wickes themselves, managed by Equator via the Affiliate Window network.

How To Enter
All you have to do to gain entry to the prize draw is make a single Wickes bathroom sale over £200. Each affiliate can only have one entry, so once again the chances of winning are just as good for small new affiliates, as those larger more established ones.

My Enhanced Performance

Posted on 3 Jan 2008 in Agencies | 6 comments

My performance has improved significantly during 2007, and I am not talking about the type that requires a little blue pill!

During December I’ve pretty much been out of the country as many know. A proper barhumug having spent Christmas day doing a check dive before boarding a boat to dive in the Red Sea. Sadly I cant say that celebrating New Years Eve was as good, instead spending it in baggage reclaim at Manchester airport.

Still, it really taught me that as long as your hosting provider is stable, your websites will continue no matter which country you choose to plonk your desk/office as long as you can take an hour here or there to keep them updated (take not Kirsty Maca…. Oz here I come!).

Last year I concentrated on a few sites, taking a piece of my own advice by ensuring that seasonal sites were in place and indexed weeks before the actual day arrived. The difference has been a significant increase in sales and comissions which is great, but after some digging around I was a tad disappointed. Although my sales values increased by over 740% my comissions didn’t increase at the same rate. Had they have done, then I would certainly no longer be living in the UK!

The three networks with huge increases are AWin, DGM and Webgains which is mainly due to improved working relationships with these networks along with new merchants, or merchants switching from one network to another. It should also be ackowledged that agencies are working more closely with affiliates, no longer being a middleman that simply gets in the way. Worthy of mention are Equator (Fiona) and MediaVest (Sean) who again, fully understand the industry and are always willing to help wherever possible.

It does however worry me, that my comissions didn’t increase at the same rate as sales value and I do wonder if this is a sign of whats to be expected in the future. Paul Wheatley has recently blogged about the ever changing comissions of Dixons, however I am aware that they are not the only people who chop and change, especially over Christmas. Next were another culprit, changing their comission levels just before the Christmas spell began.

Fingers crossed we won’t see other merchants following in the same footsteps during 2008 – lets hope its a great year for the industry as a whole