David Fiske Affiliate Marketing & Web Development

December 2010 Archives

29/12/10 - New Year's Resolutions

Wow, that's another year down. In January I celebrate my 2nd wedding anniversary which is crazy as I'm sure it hasn't been that long we've been married!

Anyhow, with another notch on the wall, it's time for the annual set of good intentions. Perhaps this year I'll take note! More

23/12/10 - The Impact of Remarketing on Affiliates

I've not really had much to do with remarketing. For those not in the know, remarketing (in a nutshell) allows you to show ads to users who've previously visited your website as they browse other websites on the Interweb. Wikipedia has a nice rounded explanation of behavioural retargeting aka behavioural remarketing aka retargeting.

The example I remember seeing was a Firebox ad. I browsed the site and then somehow ended up reading an article on The Times website (back in the day when it was free!). As I read I noticed a great big advert saying that I had viewed ABC product and similar products include DEF and GHI. The banner was run by a remarketing company, the name of which I cannot recall.

Having been on the user side of things, I personally hate the intrusive feel of the ads shown on third party sites as the direct result of visiting a specific retailer. In fact I wrote an article about how to opt out of such ads being displayed - it's relatively simple to do but you need to chase a lot of ads through to find the privacy settings on the networks and then to opt-out.

The vast majority of visitors won't do this, especially the more casual web surfer, so remarketing is big business. So much so that Affiliate Window are now offering all their merchants a value added service called MasterTag. In a nutshell, merchants include a "Master Tag" in their sites that help with tracking, analytics, etc. and within this they can easily swap in and out remarketing code from remarketing companies without requiring any development work. It offers cost and time saving benefits to merchants and will undoubtedly be popular.

But where do affiliates stand in all of this? I interviewed Kevin Edwards, Strategy Director at Affiliate Window, to help answer this question and find out why there's so much buzz in the remarketing sector. More

16/12/10 - Thank You Paid on Results

Many thanks to Paid on Results for the bottle of Jack Daniels that was delivered yesterday, with a message from the courier saying "this will warm you up"!

I've done a lot more work with Paid on Results this year, having switched a lot of my links from another (nameless) network which has been dogged with payment problems. From the sounds of it I'm not the only one and even merchants have done the same. More

15/12/10 - It's Not What You Know But Who You Know

I was reflecting last night on what kind of year it has been for me. December is a busy time of year what with trying to tie up loose ends, make sure websites focus on Christmas traffic, etc. It's also the time when the inevitable New Year's Resolution lists appear mine being no exception.

This got me thinking on who I've met this year, who I've worked with and who I've had the occasional chat with this year. Without realising it I've surround myself with rather successful people (I can honestly say I hob nob with millionaires, which are all real down to earth folk), all of whom are an inspiration. I've chatted with and met fellow affiliates, account managers, merchants and even chit chat with a network Director ;-) mostly care of Twitter interaction. This then got me thinking what can I do to be as successful as them. Here's what I came up with. More

09/12/10 - Christmas Hamper From Red Letter Days

Ooh, my first Christmas present arrived today care of Red Letter Days. It's a festively green hamper full of yummy treats for Christmas.

Yet another reason why the Red Letter Days affiliate program is amazing! More