Web Affiliate Marketing Blog

Sadly my entry didn’t make the shortlist for the A4U Awards (wish the comments had counted towards the votes!). Having said that, I’m sure I would have faced extremely touch competition especially from the two most notable entries – ECU and Skimlinks. I’ve seen their innovations and think they truely deserve to be in the running!

Anyway, the full list has been posted on the A4 Awards blog, and as usual, a few surprises have come out. Congratulations to all those that made it and look forward to having a few jars with you all in 2 weeks time!

I guess my innovation was a little ahead of its time ;)

After a long time in the making, an idea of mine has finally come to fruition, is downloadable from the Microsoft website, meets all IAB guidelines, and as far as I’m aware is completely new to Affiliate Marketing.

I’m sure in the coming weeks and months, we’ll see a lot of similar inventions appearing, but have I been truly innovative I wonder…

What is it?
It’s a Vista Gadget! Anyone who uses Windows Vista, may already know about the Vista Sidebar and how useful it can be. You can add Gadgets to your desktop that interact and update automatically via the internet such as Weather Forecasts, BBC News and Currency Rates.

What does my gadget do?
The Discount Codes gadget allows people to see the latest discounts, sales and special offers available to the UK consumer. There’s no need to visit any website as the Gadget updates itself every 15 minutes based on an RSS feed. See a video clip here.

Additional functionality
I’ve also built in a search funtion that directs users to my website, with the result of their search term.Built in is a search function, which will direct users to my Discount Codes website.

Finally, there is room for merchants who want an extra push, to appear in a small banner at the bottom. This banner is also controlled dynamically allowing me to push new merchants to people who, for instance, downloaded the gadget months previously. These banners, limited to 6 different merchants, again rotate every 15 minutes.

Where can you get it?
Well, as its been officially accepted by Microsoft, you can actually download it from Microsofts Live website by clicking here.

Does it qualify for an A4U Award?
This gadget was developed over a long period of time, making sure I didn’t break any IAB guidelines and making sure it ran smoothly as anticipated. I’ve already pinged a few people about this asking what they thought at which point Matt Wood asked whether this was being entered into the A4U Awards.

I hadn’t really thought about it, but when Matt pointed out the two categories it could fall under, I am now wondering whether the judges will see it as a possible entry…

Best Use of Technology within Affiliate Marketing
Judges are for this award looking for well executed implementation or use of new technology within Affiliate Marketing, either as an affiliate, merchant, or network.

Innovative Affiliate of the Year
As an affiliate have you developed and published a unique or innovative site, campaign, service, application or tool that fully embraces the concepts behind the many facets of Affiliate Marketing.

Not sure I will be a winner, but certainly think it could be worth an entry. It’s definately something new to the Affiliate Marketing Industry.

I survived another A4U Expo, slightly tired, but all intact.

Again, a fantasticly organised event represented by the key players in the industry from all corners which was well worth attending whether you were new to the industry or not. I even managed to track down the mystery person from the A4U Awards and was surprised that it was Darren from Linkshare.

The food was great and alcohol flowed as per usual, resulting in the A4UExpo Rap seen below. Be warned, some of the language is… well… expected from a rapper.

The usual suspects were there such as Kieron, Shane, Shak, Jason, John, Doug, Zak, Graham and a whole host of others, giving new affiliates the perfect opportunity to bleed them of their knowledge of the industry.

Sadly I didn’t manage to attend many sessions due to arriving late Tuesday afternoon, but from those I did attend, the quality of speakers was once again of a high calibre. The session I was involved in was full, with Hero from Webgains presenting and James Little (Affiliate Future), Duncan Jennings (eConversions), Richard Clark (Dxions) and myself making up the panel, sharing our views and trying to answer peoples questions. People had to stand due to lack of space which proves how hot a topic Voucher Codes are. Unfortuantely we ran out of time and were unable to give attendees the opportunity of asking many questions.

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!

After a cracking night at the A4U Awards, I awoke to vague memories of my name being read out asking me to go up on stage to accept something or other. I think it was some kind of thankyou/recognition thing, and along with Shane, Elaine, Kieron and Naomi, I was the happy recipient of a bottle of Veuve Clicquot 1996.

It was completely unexpected yet welcome all the same, but what was the score with the crazy lady who did an acceptance speech? After 5 minutes she was thanking her cat for not eating her goldfish or something!

Other award winners worthy of mention include Prezzybox for Best Use Of Creative and Best Merchant Innovation, Chris Clarkson from Sunshine.co.uk for Affiliate Manager of 2008 and Affiliate Window taking the most coverted title of Publisher’s Choice Of Network. A full list can be seen here and some official A4U photo’s have been uploaded to flickr.

A big thankyou to Matt, Chris and Claire (and the rest of Existem) for organising such a wonderful evening. To have NMA there covering the awards speaks volume as to how much our industry has grown (that reminds me, I must get my free subscription sorted…) and already people are looking forward to the A4UExpo in October. Existem have extended the A4U £100 discount until end of June – so for those who haven’t yet booked a place, pop along now and get a 1/3 off your official registration.

After the Awards took place, many of us moved to the Oxygen bar, where I was approached by someone asking if I was, or had seen, “Chris xxxxx”. After a few beers and the loud music, I didn’t think they were looking for me, so said no. Transpires the person did say my name, yet I told them I wasn’t me! :(

Apologies if that was you – please do give me a shout on the forums where I wont be so rude ;) Oh and if anyone does stumble across a bottle of Veuve Clicquot 1996, would you be so good as to pop it in the post to me?