David Fiske A subtle blend of affiliate marketing and web development

December 2007 Archives

27/12/07 - Price Update 27/12/07

Compare Sat Nav has been updated with the January sale prices. There is some move in prices, with TomTom systems edging towards the sub-£100 mark! More

21/12/07 - Holiday Cooking

What do you do when you've had a few drinks this Christmas but feel hungry?

Supersize or get creative!

Here's a couple of foody websites that are top notch and worthy of five minutes of your time, even if you're not drunk! More

21/12/07 - Is It Wrong To Expect A Thanks?

I've just been reading Kieron's thank you list for Christmas presents from networks and merchants. Now he's turning over thousands of pounds and is a rock solid 'super affiliate'.

But what about us little people? I've had nothing this year. I've had one impersonal email saying "Seasons Greetings". No cards, no freebies, no presents. I'm not saying I expect anything but when my inbox is rammed full of commission change emails, it would be nice to have a "Merry Christmas David" email from someone. I'm not too bothered about presents. I had nothing last year, I have nothing this year and will probably not get anything for sometime.

But where's the festive love? More

19/12/07 - Want a Wii For Christmas?

You can have the world's most expensive Wii for Christmas though it'll set you back £5,000,100.00, and there's still 9 hours let to go!



This is a '5 minutes of fame' auction but take a look at how much this is going to kick the seller if eBay bill him before he can claim an unpaid item strike! More

19/12/07 - Price Update 19/12/07

The last price check before Christmas has been rolled out to Compare Sat Nav.

Some retailers are still offering pre-Christmas delivery but everything should now start winding down for a couple of days before an explosion of January sales. More

19/12/07 - Festive Update

Firstly, Merry Christmas to all my readers.

Secondly, I think this blog will go quiet now for a couple of weeks. As it's the festive season, I'm busy on other projects and tying up loose ends so I'm not sure I've got enough time.

Besides, I would rather not fill this blog with pointless posts that are just an excuse to publish. i would rather provide substantial quality articles in the new year. More

14/12/07 - Price Update 14/12/07 And A Pricing Lesson!

There are 11 days to Christmas, 6 weekdays, 2 weekends and for internet trading, about half a week to get your Christmas order in. Compare Sat Nav has been updated in time for the busy weeks ahead, with prices being pushed down again! More

13/12/07 - Halfords, What The Devil Are You Up To?

Halfords. One of those long standing brands with a reputation.

So why is it that in my email, I've received a garbled set of discount codes and why so many? More

13/12/07 - Bloggers - Don't Make It Difficult

If you run a blog and you enable comments, please don't lock the comment form behind a user login. I've come across a few recently where comments are enabled but I'd have to sign up to comment.

That's a sure fire way to make me not comment, and probably not return as sometimes the comments are as interesting / more intersting than the blog post itself. More

13/12/07 - Thanks Montezumas and Red Letter Days For My Chocolates!

I recently wrote about a great affiliate incentive affil.net ran a few weeks ago to get fresh Red Letter Day creative into the market, and the fruits (well, chocolates) of the incentive arrived today.

Here's some pictures of the chocolate box. More

12/12/07 - Designed To Adapt

Conscious that I'm submerged in another project and hence neglecting this site, I thought I would share a valuable lesson - something I've touched on before.

A lot of my sites now follow the same kind of design principles - so much so, I have built a standard template that can be adapted in half an hour to suit most of my sites.

Furthermore, scripts I use get recycled too. My current project architecture will be used on two sites. All I'll have to do is change a configuration file.

So in a nutshell, here's the benefits of recycling your websites. More

08/12/07 - Reciprocal Link Exchanges

Am I the only one that gets this? Isn't it polite and 'the done thing' to expect a reciprocal link if you agree to link to someone?

Perhaps it's just me but a company in Colchester seems to think they can have a one way link in a reciprocal link exchange.

Furthermore, when will people realise that if they want a link on the home page, they need to do the same and link back from their home page? More

07/12/07 - Sat Nav System For £59.99!

Carphone Warehouse has either bagged itself a misprint or a batch of incredibly priced Medion Gopal 205's, currently selling for £59.99.

I found this gem whilst updating Compare Sat Nav and it has earned the right to the cheapest sat nav of the week! More

06/12/07 - Affiliate Business Models

Not quite scantily clad models, more business models.

I'm looking to make more in 2008 than in 2007, which incidentally made more than 2006. For this, I'm going to have to change my business model.

Here's what I'm thinking of doing. More

06/12/07 - Use CSV or XML Files And Make Your Life Easier!

If you are designing a directory site such as my hotel room website, my breakdown cover site or my credit card site, it's much easier to either build in an admin interface or to use a simple script that can parse CSV / XML files.

Why? More

06/12/07 - Thanks For My Free £50 Red Letter Day Voucher

Red Letter Days and Affili.net recently ran the easiest affiliate promotion in the world. All you had t do was place a banner like the one below on a website and send them a link. They'd then issue you a £50 Red Letter Day Voucher. As with all my freebies, here's a thank you message and link back to your site!

In the process of spending my voucher, I realised that Red Letter Days is owned by Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis. More

06/12/07 - Tell Me Why Your Cancelling Commissions

It is 2007 and as of yet, some networks are incapable of actually passing information through to affiliates. Some have taken the bull by the horns and actually tell you why commission is cancelled. As far as I'm aware, Affiliate Future do as does Paid on Results. My bug bear is with DGM today. More

05/12/07 - Thanks To APA, Truffle Shuffle and to LoveHoney

Thank you to Jess of Affiliate Program Advice the team at Truffle Shuffle and to Richard Longhurst of LoveHoney for helping out with my request for surplus stock for a charity event.

The event raised around £1,000 and as far as I am aware, outstanding monies are being collected as we speak. More

04/12/07 - Do Reviews Work?

As far as I'm concerned, price (inc VAT and delivery)is the most important factor in a purchase. Availability sits up there quite high together with the reputation of the seller. This goes for standard web purchases, offline purchases and auction purchases.

When buying something for (say) more than £50, I usually dig around and read some reviews.

My question is this: do reviews work at delivering valid affiliate leads or do they require an element of price comparison too? More

04/12/07 - JPM Eco Logistics Ltd

Theo Paphitis and Deborah Meaden invested in an eco-friendly haulage company called JPM Eco Logistics Ltd on last night's Dragon's Den episode.

Logistics is what I have a degree in so this was certainly an interesting pitch. But was it a smart move by Theo and Deborah?

Nope, and I'll tell you why. More