Web Affiliate Marketing Blog

Just a quick post to say a huge THANK YOU to Thorntons for the unexpected lovely surprise I had waiting for me when I got home tonight.

I didn’t realise that chocolate hampers came in this size! There’s 10 chocolate goodies that make up the “I Love Chocolate” hamper;

• Continental Chocs
• Original Toffi Chocs
• Milk Chocolate Smothered Vanilla Fudge - DEMOLISHED ALREADY!
• Continental Belgian Bag
• Continental Praline Bag
• Choc Chip Choccies
• Milk Dark and White Classics
• Dark Chocolate Bar
• Milk Chocolate Bar
• White Chocolate Bar

You don’t realise that this couldn’t have come at a better time, chilling me out a little and putting a smile (albeit it chocolate covered one) back on my face :) Enclosed was a gift card that read;

We’re looking forward to working with you at Christmas and throughout 2009. Hope you enjoy the hamper. Best wishes from the Thorntons team.

You and me both… Thank you very much!

For those of you wanting one of these hampers next year, the Thorntons programme is on the Buy.At network and pays 8% over a 7 day cookie.

After some negotiation with both network and merchant, I was issued with an Exclusive discount code for Wilkinsons via the DGM network. In order to obtain the code, I have agreed to extra exposure such as giving them space on my Page Peel and in my Newsletter, in order to drive sales during the 2 week offer.

When I was given the code on Friday afternoon, I questioned as to how long it would remain exclusive and sadly it wasn’t even 24 hours before VoucherCodes.com, a persistant code pincher, had decided to publish it on their website. Its not hard to see it’s Exclusive as it has a blue EXCLUSIVE TO US image next to it and even has EXCLUSIVE in the title of the offer, so no playing dumb on this one.

This site was actually listed as an affiliate site that rocks despite their constant lifting of codes from others. Refrained from commenting on that post, as I thought Kieron may have been ill whilst writing that post

VoucherCodes.com even have the wrong information, publishing it as £5 off £35 spend when it is infact £5 off £39.95 and there is no mention of any end date.

I’ve written to VoucherCodes.com and DGM asking that the code be removed immediately and that any commissions made with my exclusive code, either given to me, or at the least removed from VoucherCodes.com. They, like the rest of us, should respect exclusive codes, which some affiliates have worked hard to obtain and not just profit from other peoples hard work.

Recently Tesco and Figleaves have been clamping down on codes that are issued outside of the affiliate channel, whereby any sale made, no commission is given to the affiliate. Surely the next step is to protect affiliates who have been issued with an exclusive code, and if used by another code site, the same rule applies. This is something Webgains introduced last year and you hardly ever see an exclusive code being pinched for one of their merchants.

Sadly I am now in the position of contemplating whether to remove the Wilkinson Page Peel and not feature them in my newsletter, as the offer is no longer “exclusive”. I am tempted to get back in touch with some Webgains Merchants and offer them the space in return of an exclusive code, as long as it can be tracked so any misuse isn’t rewarded.

Time for merchants and networks to spank persistant offenders, similarly to how they insist that discount codes outside the affiliate marketing channel, aren’t used.

Over the past few weeks, I have fun (albeit expensive fun) playing around with Aquanakes domain cathcing service over at Caught.co.uk. I’ve caught a few domains, some of which are questionable, others however I believe have potentional if I get the time to develop.

One domain I caught should be great as an Eco Friendly niche website that I hope will grow inline with consumers opinions and shopping habits over the next 12 to 18 months. It’s based on Wordpress (surprise surprise) but the design was taken from a CSS template, and cut and pasted back together with all of wordpress tags by yours truely - my first attempt

I’ve already implemented a newsletter (although don’t expect the first one to be sent until 2009) which is seeing a trickle of people subscribe. I’ve also implemented Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan’s WP-Email pluggin which allows people to send articles to friends and family, hopefully spreading the word further.

All the pretty green eco friendly images were bought from iStockPhoto which is fantastic resource for affiliates, offering images for website developement and very reasonable prices.

BuyEco will also be my very first attempt at swapping links with similar websites, but this time with a twist. I’ve been following John Lamerton’s blog with interest recently, as he’s written a fair amount about link building, website content and most recently links within content.

No more building a simple links page, adding a whole load of websites in a uniformed list! Its time to link a handful of website in who load of eco friendly articles that will be added over the next few days. Now I just need to make contact with similarly themed websites and get the links in place.

If you’re interested in swapping links or have any suggestions of how to improve the look, feel or functionality of the site, then please get in touch.

I’ve been using Spotify for nearly a month, trying to pick faults with something that is still official in BETA mode, and being honest, it’s proving to be a VERY hard job!

The service / gui / website is simlpy fantastic. If you’ve ever used iTunes then it should take you no more 0.0214 seconds to understand the menu and navigation. The streaming of music is seemless and I mean seamless! Not even the slightest flicker or pause in the middle or end of any tracks, and the adverts (on the free version only) aren’t obtrusive and are surprisingly short in length.

Lets be realistic, this service was only launched official on 10th October (by a team who previously worked for TradeDoubler) and therefore is still in BETA mode as their website explains. However two improvements I would suggest are;

1. Better filtering.
   On occasions there are number duplicate (show in red), and in the above example there is a whole album that appears to be duplicated (Kaiser Chiefs - Off With Their Heads).
2. Add a year field.
   By adding a Year column showing the release date would help locate a bands latest album/single which is extremely useful if you haven’t managed to catch the name on radio.

Thats it! I know my points are a little petty, but I am hoping the feedback will be welcome. All in all its a cracking service.

If anyone hasn’t yet tried it, and want’s to do so, drop me a mail and I will give them out on a first come first serve basis! Sorry, all invites now used up

A number of months ago I had a dream, an idea, a vision… call it what you will. It was one of my “must do” items this year, and as we enter November I’m aware that my dream still hasn’t materialised. Sadly it’s not because my dream is unrealistic nor is it due to lack of funds. My dream hasn’t been implemented yet simply because I’ve been let down on more occasions than I wish to recall, by so-called professional developers.

What Am I After?
Well, I am on the search of a developer who has good PHP and design skills for a quick, simple little project. I know from my own PHP skills that it’s nothing too hard and nothing that shouldn’t take more than 1 or 2 nights of work. Sadly my brain is full and can’t take any more on board, so it’s out of my reach otherwise I would have done it a long time ago.

Are you handy with PHP? Have some spare time to knock something up quickly? Have good design skills so things look pretty? Want to earn a couple of extra £? If so, or if you know someone, then grab me on MSN or email me.

It’s that special time of the year again and my Christmas website, xmaselves.co.uk always ranks well in Google with a huge increase in visitors seen in November and December. XmasElves.co.uk is now listed #1 on Google for many a search term such as Top Ten Presents 2008 and has 6 SiteLinks for the popular term TOP CHRISTMAS PRESENTS.

With the 2008 “Dream Toys” having been announced, the site is getting a massive amount of traffic which will only get bigger in the run up to Christmas.

With that in mind I am offering 1 x sponsorship slot on each category page, of which one has already been reserved. The position is on the right of every page and can be up to 300 width - see PrezzyBox example below or on the homepage. The price’s are set at £299 + vat per month or £500 + vat from now until the end of January 2009.

The pages available for tennancy are;

• Homepage 
• 2008 Top Christmas Presents
• Christmas Presents For Boys
• Boyfriend Christmas Presents 
• Christmas Presents For Girls
• Girlfriend Christmas Presents 
• Creative Christmas Presents
• Christmas Games
• Hip n Kool Presents
• Christmas Presents For Pre-school

If you are interested in getting some extra exposure for your toy/gift/gadget site in the “Golden Quarter” then please get in touch quickly.

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.

With the financial mess the world is finding itself in, it’s hard to decide where to put your money other than stuffing it under the matress - not the best idea in Scouseland!

Over the past few weeks I’ve been reading more and more about investing in Gold and after a bit of last minute research, stuck a Gorilla (two monkeys or a bag of sand) into BullionVault.com.

I don’t actually have a lump of the stuff in my pocket, nor do I have a secure deposit box in some foreign country where I keep it. Its all managed by BullionVault who own the bars as bars are usually 12.4kg each and the professional market doesn’t allow you to own part of a bar. Obviously, having enough money to buy a whole bar is something only SuperAffiliates could do, but even then you still need that relationship with a formally recognized vault to look after the gold while you own it.

So is it a safer option in the current climate? Who knows! The graph above shows how the price has changed over the past 30 years, but it seems to be a bit of a safer investment (long term) than gambling with shares in companies that were once thought to be secure. The return can be just as good too, if not better! My £1,000 investment is now worth £1,071 which is a better return in 48 hours than any savings account.

Free Gold
I chose BullionVault after seeing an article on the BBC website that offered any new account holder a small amount of free gold and cash. This was before any financial details were asked of me, allowing me to see how the buying and selling of Gold works via their website. Well worth a punt if you have a few quid spare and even if you don’t you can play the REAL gold market without spending a penny!

Abel and Cole are the latest merchant that appears to be suffering from MTV (merchants tunnel vision). Having applied to their programme via DGM, I received an emailing saying my application had been declined - the first in over 2 years from memory! The response didn’t come as too much of a shock as I was given a heads up by the lovely Jess at DGM that this was likely to be the case.

The reason is that Abel and Cole don’t want to be advertised on Discount Code or Voucher Code websites, which is fine and totally within their right. However, it appears that some merchants presume that if an affiliate owns a discount code website, then that’s all they own and are therefore refused to promote them anywhere else. Sadly Discount Codes don’t make me enough money to the point where I don’t have to venture out into alternative verticals such as beauty, valentines, flowers, holidays and of course Christmas.

The major annoyance is there appears to be one rule for one affiliate, and another rule for others. I notice that anyone who has a discount code website via iCodes, which is a type of white label discount website, is able to promote Abel and Cole - see here. So why do they choose to be selective? Is it just an oversight?

Despite the selective approval, I think sometime merchants should remember that affiliates have their hands in many pies. If you don’t want to feature on a discount code website then that’s fine and totally acceptable (even if it doesn’t make complete sense) but enforce your rules on everyone and make it clear. At the same time it’s worth realising that a discount code website isn’t always the only website an affiliate owns!

Last year I blogged about how important it was to plan and build new websites for different seasons such as Valentines and Christmas. Sadly I forgot to heed my own advice and have left it very late to start planning my Christmas 2008 website and am now in a hurry to get content in place ready for the Christmas rush (hopefully).

Thankfully after checking a few key phrases I am still featuring #1 in Google despite my Christmas website being orientated to 2007 until today. I am therefore hoping that the update should be relatively pain free and still earn me a few £’s here and there considering the number of visitors I am seeing increase over the past 7 days.

Due to time restraints I’ve had to change things around a little and use a different backend. Previously the backend was Affilistore which I use for a number of other websites such as my makeup website, but this year I’m once again relying on a good old Wordpress blog. A tweak here and there to a free wordpress template obtained from BlogOhBlog and an image or two downloaded from iStockPhoto and we are ready to rock and roll!

I plan to make more use of content units this year, opposed to feeds last year just to help get content up and running quickly with the minimum effort and as usual am looking for any links swaps. This year I’ll once again be making use of the BuyAGift Landing Page created by Paul last year just to drive a few additional sales in the hope to win the Affiliate Road Trip incentive they have introduced.