Web Affiliate Marketing Blog

Affiliate Future has just announced that once again, they will be holding a ‘networking trip’ to Barbados! Places on this once in a lifetime networking event, are won by affiliates who hit certain targets. However, the nice thing with Affiliate Future is that they don’t always give the prizes to the biggest affiliates. Every time you hit a target, a ticket with your name on, goes into a hat, and the winner is selected randomly from all the entries.

Having been lucky enough to win a ticket in 2006, I would encourage anyone to push a little bit extra when it comes to merchants that you already advertise via Affiliate Future or even look at swapping links from one network to another. The trip itself was worth it just to see James Little win a dance off to one Michael Jackson’s songs!

The partying aside, although it is a big part of the week, I went along only knowing 2 people, and even then, not particularly well. After the week, I can honestly say that it was the best networking event I have ever attended and got to know most people very well, making a lot of friends. There was almost a comradery that reminded me of my rugby days… ‘What happens on tour, stays on tour!‘

In the past, I used to see a lot of incentives offered by merchants or by networks, but they always seem to be based on £’s or number of sales. More increasingly, the way they are being judged is making it a level playing field for old and new affiliates a like. Last year saw Astrobingo offer up hotel, flights and Affiliate Summit passes to one lucky winner.

The latest big incentive was offered by Buy.At at the end of 2006. The competition was was a trip for 2 people to win a luxury 7 day break in Tokyo! The rules were pretty straight fowards, as affiliates simply had to earn £200 commission in October, and then the winner will be drawn out of a hat, where entries are based on the top 20 who improved the most from October until the end of December.

This was enough to make me focus in the run up to Christmas, to getting my backside into gear and PPC’ing some merchants, quite successfully. I am hoping, fingers crossed, that I am still in with a shout but haven’t heard anything as of yet, as Buy.At are validating sales before announcing the winner, which I guess is only fair.

The next big affiliate incentive is a free trip, acoomodation and entrance to Affiliate Summit East 2007, hosted in Miami, all courtesy of Affiliate Program Advice. This time, just a simple registration to their newsletter (which is extremely informative) is required to be in with a shout.