Web Affiliate Marketing Blog

As many of us affiliates know, today was the Official unveiling of the Top Christmas Toy Predictions for 2009. The announcements, made by British Toy & Hobby Association and Toy Retailers Association every year, are eagerly awaited by many as they form the basis of many marketing plans. Sadly someone forgot to tell the networks, agencies and merchants… Imagine if Santa was late?

I reminded a number of networks of this and even tried to help them further, by pointing them in the direction of the official website, suggesting they may want to prepare for it. As many affiliates have seasonal websites, it would have been both extremely useful, and beneficial to networks and affiliates alike, had someone taken this opportunity to shine. If a network had spared a few people, 2 hours each, an email could have been sent to a huge audience with deep-links to all the top ten toys.

I appreciate it’s not always the networks role, if for example, the merchant is “managed” by an agency… cough cough… But it just seems crazy that such a big annual event still goes almost unmarked, yet all other forms of media (news, print, TV) pickup on it, and report it.

During my own trawling  of merchants whilst creating deep-links for all 72 Christmas presents, I was disappointed to see that 95% of merchants still have no Christmas banners in place. In some cases, I’ve had to revert to using some from Christmas 2008 and even bank holiday banners just to get something in place!

Come on networks, agencies and merchants. Christmas is the same every year – get a bit more organised… please!?!?

If you still haven’t got your affiliate pages in place, you may want to take a look at Easy Content Units which takes the hard work of creating your own deep-links. Also available is the Official Press Release and my final observation… Take a look at John Lewis, who this year seem to be VERY competitively priced.

Not a single Argos link was required! Happy Days! :)

Having just got back from a mini road trip in Canada in which we covered close to 2000 miles (3219km or 0.95 x Mars radius for the clever people out there), once again I’m finding I’m loving the online tool Animoto.

I know I’ve blogged about it before, but I really can’t get enough of Animoto’s simplicity. It links directly to your Flickr account so creating a short video is an absolute breeze. It also spares my parents from sitting through what would otherwise be 4 hours of torture :)

Animoto has already been used for many commercial purposes, allowing photographs from business networking events to be brought together and presented in a professional yet fun way – maybe something for the A4UExpo that’s taking place? Some businesses have even used it to promote their services such as hotels and photographers.

If that’s not enough, you can download the video’s you’ve created and store them on your iPhone or iPod touch with the Animoto application from iTunes so you can share them with friends and family even if you don’t have an internet connection!

Simply love this little tool and know that ex CJ Heide is about to start using it. Looking forward to seeing some of her compositions :)

Whenever I’ve developed a new website, or had one developed for me, I’ve either left it to obtain traffic purely through search engines, cross promoted it via newsletter subscribers of my other websites or headed straight down the PPC route.

Over the coming weeks I’ll be launching three new websites that aim to do what they say on the tin, nothing more, nothing less – Buy Cheap Books. This time however, I am stumped as to how best to promote them and would welcome any suggestions people may have.

Had I been going to the A4U Expo this year, I would most certainly have posed this question to the Affiliate Doctors at their session on Day 1. I’ve still submitted it for possible inclusion via Keirons blog hoping that they may find time, or they may not have had many submissions.

Obviously I’ll be looking at swapping a few links and will most probably head down the route of writing a number of short articles which link back to my websites. This not only gives me links, but also gives friends/fellow affiliates a small piece of unique content for their website. Reciprocal “in content links” will, as always, be most welcome.

Due to taking far too many holidays this year, I couldn’t escape from work for the A4UExpo without my boss noticing. I’m sure had I been able to attend, I could have got all the answers to my questions. Hope all those attending enjoy it and look forward to catching up with some of you at next years Affiliate Summit in Vegas!<

Let’s presume you want to grab the attention and reward your hard working affiliates, yet at the same time, have them sell more of your goods or services.

Better still, how about motivating not only your top affiliates, but also the old, dormant affiliates – the ones who could suddenly turn out to be the NEXT BIG THING! How are YOU going to do it Mr Merchant?

The way you communicate your incentive, has to stand out from the 10′s of others we, as affiliates, receive on a daily basis. Be realistic as to who will be tempted by your incentive and who you are hoping to target in the first place.

A 2% increase in commissions is unlikely to tempt new or dormant affiliates, yet may gain extra exposure with existing, well performing ones.

In the past we’ve seen some merchants taking the decision to cull dormant affiliates when, in my opinion, opening up communication channels would have been mutually beneficial. I’m not suggesting every merchant should need to offer extravagant prizes or incentives, but a small cost (in money or time) could reap huge rewards.

One that recently caught my eye is being offered by DFDS Seaways. To promote their latest incentive, they aren’t relying on the usual email from a network, or a tweet or post on the A4U Forums grabbing my attention. They’ve actually gone and produced a video!

We also have the usual suspects who continually lead the way, ones that other merchants could learn a great deal from – and its not all about giving stuff away!

Prezzybox regularly offer great incentives and are this year planning on offering a “holiday or two” for their Christmas incentive and are open to other suggestions! As usual, they’re a step ahead most by already offering affiliates with the tools and seasonal support need for planning a Christmas site.

BuyAGift kick of their Q4 incentive that lasts for 3 months, meaning all affiliates have an opportunity of obtaining entry into the prize draw. With a possible jet set weekend to Monaco up for the offering, this is one most will want to win!

SunShine have in the past taken affiliates away to Barbados as part of Affiliate Futures annual networking event.

Red Letter Days have kicked off their Christmas Campaign, set to run for 3 months, with rewards for all affiliates at different tiers. Any affiliate that reaches a particular level is guaranteed a reward!

With such cracking incentives and rewards being offered already, it’ll be interesting to see what comes along in the next few weeks in order to tempt affiliates to promote one merchant over another. At this time of year, I’m greatful I’m an affiliate and not a merchant!

Who’s idea was it to make the last 1km of a 10km “fun run” a constant uphill struggle? I’m runner 6070 in the picture, just in case you didn’t recognise my contorted features.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who sponsored me, I managed to raise £590 online, £78 offline, and with the addition of £158 gift-aid, it brought my total to over £820 for @DiabetesUK smashing my £500 target.

Sadly with a finishing time of 1hr 10mins 46secs, I was nowhere near beating my Manchester 2008 target, but having said that Manchester is FLAT! At the 2km mark I felt my left quad screaming out, which I managed to run off by the 4km point.

At 7km my right knee kindly decided it was carrying more weight than what it was designed to carry and buckled sending me stumbling diagonally towards McDonald’s (I’m sure it looked like I was trying to go via their drive-thru!).

After running up a very steep hill I was so happy to see 2 mascots giving everyone High-5′s. Thinking I’d battled and won the uphill finish and expecting the finish line to be round the next corner, I gave each a hefty High-5 feeling very proud of myself. I then passed a sign saying 9km! Still 1km of uphill running to go… the little misleading bstards!

Afterward the run, I headed to Zizzi’s with Jane (she came with me as moral support, driver and chief medical advisor) and we met up with Shane for some grub – he was a little late arriving because of road diversions due to “damm runners”. No more than 2 minutes had passed from my ass hitting the seat to having a chilled Peroni in my hand and ordering fatty food in large portions. Well worth it!

Although I enjoyed it, I found this a real grueller and therefore won’t be taking part again. Got the medal now! Not sure which one to do next year….

Oh… Sorry to the small child I hit when throwing my water bottle!