Category: 
Thursday, 3 January 2008 @ 9:48 am (Chris Frost) 
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!
|
Sales Value 2006 |
Sales Value 2007 |
%age change |
|
|
Affiliate Future |
£20,375 |
£18,380 |
-9.8% |
|
Affiliate Window |
£25,390 |
£1,020,799 |
3920.5% |
|
Buy.At |
£114,620 |
£316,979 |
176.5% |
|
CJ |
£16,575 |
£174,675 |
953.8% |
|
DGM |
£1,171 |
£26,643 |
2175.2% |
|
POR |
£3,917 |
£22,745 |
480.7% |
|
TD |
£32,929 |
£211,931 |
543.6% |
|
Webgains |
£854 |
£22,256 |
2506.1% |
|
TOTAL SALES |
£215,831.00 |
£1,814,408.00 |
740.7% |
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 
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Horaayy..there are 5 comment(s) for me so far ;)
Well done on your performance in 2007, a real shame that commission rates cut so much though.
Looking at your TPAD I am already behind schedule. I found though for christmas I peaked too early !! I had everything in place got the rankings but then google struck and I lost my serps. I guess I need to work out how to cover my basis and spread my risk more.
Onward to 2008 hope yours is even better but with higher comm rate
Well done for a stellar sales performance, you must be very pleased with that? What are you putting the less than expected commissions down to?
Good work pal, glad we could play our little part in it.
I am new to the affiliate marketing world but think those figures are impressive how ever you look at them. Best Wishes for ‘08!
See you for cocktails and a barbie by the pool!