Fraser's Affiliate Marketing Blog » UK Networks

Paid on Results Rebranding

Fraser — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:15:39 +0000

Just a short post to comment on the smart new look over at Paid On Results. Shame to see the back of POR man but it’s a nice fresh new design.

Clarke Duncan, Director and Shareholder, spoke about the company’s new identity:-

“This is an exciting time for Paid On Results as we continue to grow steadily and recruit additional staff in the face of the global recession. The rebranding reflects this excitement and optimism. The future for Paid On Results sees further growth aided by an increased emphasis on sales and marketing. Today Paid On Results can look to the future with confidence, largely because of its strong background in bringing to the fore innovative technology and in employing knowledgeable, friendly staff. We will continue to build our independent business based on these strong foundations. “

Thanks Trust William

Fraser — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:05:37 +0000

I’ve fallen well behind on my blogging but I’ve got a few bits and pieces to catch up with and the first is a thank you to Trust William and Azam Marketing for this lovely selection of goodies.

I recognised most of the obvious gifts but I’ll need to do some research about the benefits of Manuka Honey before I give it a try!

The program is available on Webgains with a healthy 20% commission.

Will Cooper no longer at Tradedoubler

Fraser — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:49:14 +0000

Just heard that Will Cooper has left Tradedoubler. Now I’m clearly around two months behind the times and it might just be me but there doesn’t seem to have been much reported about that change or comment from the new CEO? This in itself seems quite a turnaround from the days when TD was leading the UK market.

I can still remember standing outside a pub in London with Clarke Duncan arguing with Will over spyware sometime in the distant past. While I strongly disagreed with the stance TD were taking at the time I always had respect for Will and the part he played in the company.

Where have TD gone since then and how are things going for you? Does this tweet from Loquax ring true for you or is it a completely different story?

Commission Junction UK Blog

Fraser — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:43:32 +0000

I’ve been pleased to see CJ move forward and start blogging over the last few months. It’s a nice mix of news and opinion and it’s not too commercial or offers based.

You can check out the CJ blog at www.cjblog.co.uk

2009 Predictions from Carl White and Alison Guise have been interesting but there is plenty of randomness on there too. i.e. Dancing on the BBC

Mobile Ecommerce – Affiliate Opportunity or Threat?

Fraser — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 10:00:19 +0000

It’s been said every year for as long as I can remember but I think perhaps mobile is actually now genuienly on the verge of being “the next big thing”. Now that I’ve picked up an iPhone and started to experience browsing the web in an equivalent way to the desktop combined with unmetered 3G usage then buying online seems much more likely.

So is this one big opportunity? In one way I’m tempted to go with it and build mobile versions of my sites or a shopping directory of mobile enable sites etc but I’m concerned about potential tracking issues.

Most mobile browsers will handle cookies so that’s ok but what about when incognito mode makes it’s way on to the mobile browser as standard?

Well various networks have different backups in place but are these mobile proof? IP based tracking would look to be a lost cause as I assume my 3G connection could end up with a different IP address everytime I connect. Flash cookies could well be hindered by the lack of a proper Flash implementation on mobiles. Is Veracitag mobile proof?

I’m probably slightly lacking the technical knowledge to know for sure but I’d love to hear from networks about how their tracking will stand up to mobile use.

Affilinet For Sale

Fraser — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:42:38 +0000

Looks like Affilinet are for sale after United Internet put AdLink on the market according to NMA. I have to admit that affilinet have been quieter in the UK than I expected them to be after my podcast interview with Nicky Iapino. It seems that a deal would also include the domainers favourite website – Sedo

Interesting times in a year that has already seen new owners for both buy.at and affiliate future. By the end of 2008 it might be more of a case of which networks haven’t been bought rather than which networks have!

Well done dgm

Fraser — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:11:42 +0000

When I was doing my last quarterly accounts I had a bit of a rant about some things I was finding annoying. One of them was about dgm‘s payment process but Helen Southgate was good enough to post and let me know things should be changing.

Fast forward to this week and I received a paper invoice in the post which matches with the payment to my bank account and keeps everything nice and tidy Thanks!

Unfortunately the payment was only for £23.39 as I haven’t placed a new dgm link in years but I am starting to think that dgm really are beginning to turn things around again.

VAT & Accounts Day

Fraser — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:01:36 +0000

This day comes round once every quarter and I hate it! Here are my current complaints – bah humbug!

Why do DGM not provide one payment report that matches to the amount paid in – this one is due to hardly earning anything with them recently so a few months are rolled into one payment but then I have to match the monthly invoices to the total paid in to my account
Why does Adcenter insist on me installing Adobe Acrobat before it will even show me an invoice when I already have a perfectly good PDF reader installed?
Why do CJ pay me in £ direct to my bank account but then provide a UK VAT Invoice in $?

Any more payment complaints?

I’ll get into the Christmas spirit once I finish this!

3 Network Email Mistakes

Fraser — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:00:05 +0000

There are a few common faults with communications from network that we see time and time again. Communication is an important issue and I feel at times that merchants and networks should be working just a little harder on making sure they do things right.

It’s now become a standing joke amongst affiliates that on a Friday at 5pm there will be a rush of emails from the networks which all arrive at once and are generally then ignored by affiliates. The issue has been raised several times before but it still continues.

Note to merchants: Your account manager is not working in your best interests if your affiliate emails are sent on a Friday afternoon.

We’ve also all talked about this before but late emails about one day sales are no use either. I got the following email yesterday at 20:20

Dear Affiliate,

Today only, all day at the Apple Online Store!! FREE SHIPPING on everything in the Holiday Gift Guide.

Buy on 10/12/07 and get free shipping on all products in the Gift Guide from the Apple Online Store. Click here for the Apple Store Gift Guide:

http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects/ukstore?node=campaigns/holiday

snip

Note to merchants: Your account manager is not working in your best interests if time sensitive communication to affiliates is sent late.

Then there are the emails which have been written and sent without even a quick proof read

Hi Fraser,

As pet T&C released in the beginning of September, all publisher that have not generated 15 leads/3 months will be automatic ended next week on Monday

Please ignore this email if you have generated more that the minimum required of leads

Regards,

Campaigns Team

Note to merchants: Your account manager is not handling your program well if they send out unprofessional emails.

These are all things that can be easily avoided so if you are a merchant make sure that your network isn’t letting you down in this way. If you manage your program yourself then make sure you don’t make the same mistakes.

Buying A Network

Fraser — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 14:18:34 +0000

Here’s a quick starter for discussion. I keep hearing a lot of talk about consolidation in the industry and networks getting bought out but for the most part this hasn’t happened yet. Instead we see the opposite and even more networks are created and launched.

If you were running a business that wanted to get involved in the UK affiliate marketing industry which network would you look to buy and why?

The Text Link Challenge

Fraser — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 10:58:51 +0000

The humble text link is the basic essential for any affiliate site but some networks make life much easier than others. If you choose to accept the challenge then starting with your browser open to google.co.uk time how quickly you can pick up a text link from your networks and post the results.

Maybe by posting results here we can see which networks are doing well and which are making life more difficult than it needs to be. It might also show that there are quicker ways to collect links from your network than you are currently aware of.

So please go ahead and post any times and any tips for picking up links quicker!

What will Tradedoubler do with The IMW Group?

Fraser — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 14:19:08 +0000

In a press release from Tradedoubler on the 26th July they announced the acquisition of all shares in The IMW Group which includes The Search Works and The Technology Works. The Search Works was founded in 1999 and offers search engine marketing services throughout Europe. The Technology Works have a few different technical products including BidBuddy which is a paid search big management tool and Diallog which is an ROI tracking tool for telephone calls.

All in all that’s going to be an interesting combination. I suppose there is the obvious benefit of cross selling services to clients. The Search Works have around 100 clients who I bet will be getting the affiliate marketing sales pitch soon and the 1400 advertisers that Tradedoubler have can expect the same for SEO & PPC services.

The first reaction I know that some affiliates will have is that there could be a conflict of interests now that Tradedoubler will be operating as an affiliate network, SEO agency & PPC agency. Is this something that still concerns you as an affiliate? I know that dgm weren’t popular back when there seemed to be signs of them competing with their affiliates.

Beyond that initial reaction it’s interesting to consider what Tradedoubler will do with the new technology they have acquired. Diallog will no doubt be a useful addition to the existing td Talk product which is the pay-per-call network. I haven’t seen this open out to affiliates as much as I thought it would so I don’t actually know too much about it.

One interesting possibility would be if Tradedoubler started to combine the Bidbuddy technology and offered it to affiliates. Does this give them ultimate control of their PPC affiliates? Might it end up with TD affiliates running all their PPC through Bidbuddy so that it can all be supervised?

Anyone else got thoughts on the deal?

Affiliator – Sweden’s biggest affiliate network opening up in UK

Fraser — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 10:06:37 +0000

I’m grateful to Affiliator for their support of the blog & podcast and it’s good to get the chance to introduce them to some of the UK based readers

Affiliator, part of internet marketing company Getupdated, recently opened up in the UK. In less than 1.5 years Affiliator become the biggest affiliate network in Scandinavia!

Affiliator will be exhibiting at several internet marketing shows, such as Ad-tech London and A4U Expo. So if you want to meet the guys in person and have a chat with them, this is the time. Markus Jalmerot, Business Developer at Getupdated said that there will be some great offers during the shows for new advertisers.

Are you really the biggest affiliate network in Scandinavia?

Yes we are! In terms of advertisers, Affiliator has 134 affiliate programs to choose from; compared to 113 for our closest competitor Im sure you’re all familiar with – Tradedoubler.

Which advertisers can join?

We have a number of large brands such as Unibet and Betway advertising with us, but we are also open to small and medium sized businesses. To join as an advertiser, call Ronny Dunberg on 0207-849 31 59.

What kind of affiliates do you look for?

As you can imagine, we like targeted websites with a lot of traffic, but don’t despair if you arent a huge website owner. Give us a call (0207 849 3007) to discuss the opportunities or get in touch!

What verticals in affiliate marketing are most popular in Sweden?

In fact I think the verticals are pretty similar to the ones that are successful in the UK, with the exception that the finance and property sectors are so much bigger in the UK and London in particular.

Tooth whitening and contact lenses are doing really well. Otherwise it’s the usual suspects; betting, hotels and loans. Micro loans (£100-300) are a new product in Scandinavia, where people can get their money into their bank accounts in just 15 minutes. These programs have amazing conversion rates.

Sign-up for Affiliator

If you want to get the latest affiliate programs before anybody else, make sure to sign-up. We’ll be offering a lot of unique affiliate programs, not seen anywhere else. Our aim is to offer at least 50 new programmes by January 2008.

Remember, if you’ve got targetted traffic and are one of the first to advertise a certain company, you’ll have a high chance to earn a lot of money.

Affiliate Window Widgets

Fraser — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 13:20:32 +0000

Affiliate Window are beta testing a nice little tool to create widgets which are very easy to include on your site. I think this is the start of easy to use solutions that have come from the time and energy Affiliate Window have invested in standardising all their merchant data feeds.

It’s a 5 step process to create a widget

Choose Template – at the moment you can pick from 4 standard sizes. 3 of these match some of the more popular banner sizes and the 4th is more of a main content unit. This means it’s slightly restricted as to what space you can fill but it also means it’s very simple to get going
Add Products – Search through the whole product database by keyword to add products to the pool or get Affiliate Window to spider your site and suggest appropriate keywords.
Customise Template – Some basic choices to control the colours used
Name & Save – save the widget so that you can go back and edit it later
Get Code – pick up a little piece of javascript to include the content.

It took me just a few minutes to create this

all in all it’s very straightforward. It might be a little simple for some but it’s very early days and I think it’s a good starting point to build on.

Questions for Tradedoubler

Fraser — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 09:37:36 +0000

I’ll be recording an interview with Nick Roveta from Tradedoubler at some point next week and so I thought it might be interesting to have an open invitation for questions. Leave a question in the comments section and I’ll try and fit in as many as possible when I speak to Tradedoubler.