Web Affiliate Marketing Blog

Despite loving and being passionate about this industry, I still treat Affiliate Marketing as a kind of hobby and have chosen to stay as a full-time employee due to enjoying my job and the challenges its brings. HOWEVER over the past few weeks, I have found that it’s becoming more and more difficult in juggling both full-time employment and a number of successful affiliate websites.

CONTACT
Firstly I ask that merchants and networks contact me by eMail or MSN first, purely because most of my day is spent in meetings or voice conferences and so I am not always available on my mobile phone. Its a lot easier to have a box pop up and flash, sitting there until I get a spare minute. Sure it may mean a 2 minute phone call changes to a 20 minute MSN conversation, but its less obtrusive.

Another problem is hours, something that Affiliate Bitch has already blogged about. Like many other affiliates, I only work on my sites in the evening or weekend, when most networks aren’t available. I’m not suggesting making staff work late into the night after working all day, but in the not too distant future, I think the network that introduces 24×7 support for affiliates and merchants alike, will become a force to be reckoned with.

Affiliates dont stop at 5pm! Online shoppers don’t stop at 5pm! Merchants websites don’t close at 5pm! So why do networks? Some networks I find are available late into the evening - namely Webgains, and a few others work past the 5pm hooter too. But as Lee’s post and comments demonstrate, Network are still blind to the REQUIREMENTS of some affiliates. Whether they choose to implement out of hours support or not is their call, but at least acknowledge there is a need.

NETWORKING
Recently I’ve been invited to DGM BBQ in Manchester, and to Affiliate Window‘s Nakata in London. Although I’d like to attend both, being an employee means I have a set number of days which I am allowed off per year. London therefore is usually out of the question unless the function is on a Friday, in which case I can travel home on a Saturday without using a days holiday.

If you take into account all the networking events that take place on an annual basis such as A4U Expo, A4U Awards, Buy.At Christmas Cracker, Affiliate Summit (depending on location ;) ), and now the A4U Roadshow(back to basics networking which I am chuffed to see return), you can see that working full-time AND being an active affiliate is getting more difficult.

EMAILS
I get loads!
Its a nightmare!
Everyday I struggle to keep on top of emails and try to filter out the usual non personalised ones (they go straight in the trash can). I do however get personal ones which I read, take notice of and think “I must reply”. Sadly unless I reply the same day, it often sinks down out of view and before you know it (usually 1 or 2 days) is completely forgotten about.

GENERAL STUFF
On top of all this I still have to update my websites, create new websites, monitor PPC campaigns, innovate, have a personal life, eat drink and sleep, wash and iron, read blogs (merchant, network, agency and affiliate), catch up on the forum and moan on my blog. With my full-time job, I sometimes have to work weekends, but also provide standby one week in every three, resulting in being woken up at 3am to fix something.

WHATS THE ANSWER?
I still have no intention of entering Affiliate Marketing full-time, but need more hours in the day. Not wanting to deprive myself with only 2 hours of sleep every night, does anyone have any suggestions?
Answers on a postcard… although I may not get time to read them all ;)

Yesterday Purple posted a comment against one of my blog entries that got me thinking. He’d done a mid year analysis of his affiliate activities, and found that his sales generated (or maybe its commission?) is up by 199% on two major networks and another has seen an increase of over 2000%! Those figures are brilliant to hear as I’m aware he’s been busier this year than ever before, and it’s always good to hear about other peoples success when they make the effort.

Purples effort and reward shows that given a bit of concentration and hard graft, increase can be achieved despite the ‘credit crunch’ no matter what size an affiliate you are :)

In the comments, Purple asked how my stats were shaping up. After a few simple calculations later, I was happy to find that for 7 out of the 8 major networks, my sales for the first 6 months of 2008 have already surpassed my TOTAL for 2007.

My projected 2008 increase is a simple x2 formula and doesn’t take into account Christmas which should hopefully push the increase higher still!

The second part of my “Meet The REAL” interviews comes from a Network perspective thanks to Hero Grigoraki. Hero, from Webgains, shares her thoughts on the industry as well as surprising us with her music tastes…

How did you first hear about Affiliate Marketing?
It was a cold and rainy day when my then director called me in his office to assign me my new task – I was pretty much thrown into the ocean without knowing how to swim

What has been your career track and did it help your prepare for your current role?
I have a degree in graphic design, which has been extremely helpful with AM – it has given me the skills for the technical aspect of the job as well as the marketing & advertising knowledge to get me started. Before moving in AM, I was employed in various online marketing positions, all of which have given me a very good insight in online marketing, helping me give valid advice to merchants. When I was assigned the affiliate task, I spent 6 months reading all the network manuals, any book I could lay my hands on and spent many nights reading the a4u threads. The mistakes I did back then, I’m still embarrassed about!

Would you ever consider moving over to the dark side and becoming an affiliate yourself one day?
No, it’s way too scary, I prefer the comfort of the network/merchant side.

Sat in a pub with your friends, how would you describe an average affiliate?
Oooh, a tough question. Hard-working, highly dedicated, self-motivated people, especially those with a day job. I can’t help admiring them for their persistence, especially when they start up when things are difficult. Although I prefer to not talk about work with my friends, mainly because they never understand what I do for a living.

What merchants do you manage personally?
I run the fashion, accessories & cosmetics verticals on the Webgains network.

What are the biggest changes you have seen since being involved in the industry?

• The UK industry uniting against spyware
• The continuous changes in search engine paid listings rules
• The shift towards different types of affiliates every couple of years (from price comparison to ppc to Cashback to vouchers to social networking sites)
• The growth and recognition of the industry: more merchants, affiliates & networks than ever before
• Network consolidation & changes in attitude/approach from pretty much all networks to put the affiliates more in the core of their business

In an ideal world with no boundaries, what issue would you address first in the affiliate marketing world?
Ethics – from all parties involved: affiliates, merchants, agencies, networks. Give the unscrupulous the boot!

How reliant is the internet on Google and is it a good thing?
The internet will rely on Google so long as the customers rely on it – let’s face it, Google is the only search engine that puts user experience higher up in their priorities than anyone else and that’s why so many people prefer it.

In 3 years time, how do you think the industry would have developed?
We will all love each other

Complete this sentence in no more than 25 words;
At the next A4U Expo I would….
like to talk to even more affiliates and finally put faces to even more names; so come down to the Webgains stand!

Now its time for some quick fire either or….

Wembley or Twickneham
Wembley – where’s Twickenham?

Risotto or Roghan Josh
Risotto – had to look this up, couldn’t you have said “curry”?

Hardcore or Winebar
Hardcore

Bill or Sergey
Tough choice, I go for Bill cause he’s now retiring, he can do no more harm, I think

Burn It or Recycle It
There’s a place for both

2 Wheels or 4 Wheels
2 feet

Hotel with Spa or Backpacking
Can I backpack to a spa hotel?

XBox or PlayStation
Neither nor!

Sun or Snow
Sun – I am Mediterranean after all

Frank Sinatra or Snoop Snoopity Doggity Dog
Neither, I’m a rock fan meself. If I really had to choose, I have a few Sinatra mp3s, but stay well clear of Snoop

Thanks Hero!

Webgains today announced the introduction of their much anticipated Voucher Code Tool which has been in development for a good couple of months. In summary their tool helps protect affiliates who have been provided with exclusive discount codes and now allows the opportunity of promoting them offline.

Why are exclusive codes available to only some affiliates?
Some merchants offer affiliates an exclusive discount code after proving their worth on a particular programme, or on past performances in similar verticals. In that respect its very similar to tiered structures, in that the more you do, the more you benefit. Other times, an affiliate will agree to take reduced level of commission in order to share the offset of the disconut code, with the merchant. This is very uncommon, and as you can imagine, isn’t ideal to any affiliate but can work in your favour depending on the initial commission structure, merchant, products available and sometimes season.

What Webgains have introduced, after months of development and discussion with affiliates, is a Voucher Tool that aims to resolves some issue that have been raised in the past year, and will further enhance the voucher sector in affiliate marketing. I am sure this will be controversial to some, and not to others, but I personally see it as bringing the Voucher Code market inline with Cashback sites and welcome this very bold move.

Their tool will provide;
•A overview of available vouchers with start & expiry dates, individual commission per voucher & all the promotional details
(now affiliates can, and should, list expiry dates for all vouchers without being requested to remove high ranking SEO pages)

•Voucher-based tracking as last referrer
(feel free to pinch or publish my codes anywhere – on you site, in forums or word of mouth)

•Product-specific voucher use & relevant commission attribution

•Reporting on voucher use for each order
(will be interesting to see what this will show)

•Offline marketing tracked & reported online based on voucher use
(presumably with a merchants agreement)

How will this affect other affiliates? How big will the implications be to cashback sites? There are still many areas that are left unanswered one of which (and I am sure will be mentioned in forum etc) are review websites and affiliates who say they provide “content”. Is it fair that AffiliateA who has written a review on ProductA and links to MerchantA may miss out to commissions if the visitor then goes and searches for a discount code?

My question is simple… is it any different to cashback sites?

Although I understand their argument, I don’t see any difference between discount and cashback sites. Either way AffiliateA may miss out on commissions despite spending massive amounts of time and effort creating content – but for some reason cashback sites were never challenged when they started appearing years ago!