Articles About Affiliate Industry News

04/11/08 - How To Run The Perfect Affiliate Program (From An Affiliate Perspective)

The credit crunch seems to be taking it's toll as some merchants re-evaluate whether the affiliate revenue stream is adding value and is cost effective.

There's more and more merchants leaving the affiliate space at the moment for various reasons, some publicly discussed, others not.

Having worked as a full time affiliate marketeer (not musketeer) for 2 years, I've dealt with many a merchant and many an affiliate program, ranging right through the broad spectrum of good to bad. It's this experience I draw from in this post when I attempt to concoct the perfect affiliate program. More

09/10/08 - Could You Be Successful Again?

Kieron's scouting for questions for super affiliates and Jason posed this one:

If you were starting out in affiliate marketing today from scratch do you think you’d be as successful as you have been and would you want to get involved in AM now as a newbie today?
Very eloquently put. It's the first part that intrigued me and whilst I'm not a super affiliate, I'd like to offer my 2p worth. More

07/08/08 - UK Affiliate Marketing Magazine

I love magazines but I've yet to come across one that fits my affiliate marketing lifestyle. I've tried NMA a couple of times but it's too generic for my liking, failing to cover topics that are important to me.

What I would like is a monthly magazine just for the UK affiliate marketing scene. I don't think this is out of the realms of possibility but perhaps there isn't enough demand for it.

Here's what I'd like to see in it. More

29/07/08 - Quidco vs Affiliate Window. What It Means For Most Affiliates

Unless you've been hiding under a substantially sized rock recently, you'll have heard that Quidco in a roundabout way announced it was leaving Affiliate Window (AW). It's a bizarre case of twists and turns.

From what I understood, Quidco's SureShop agreement was the primary reason why they were leaving as AW didn't sign up to it. But it turned out not to be that simple.

Here's my comments on some of the more important allegations that were revealed in the last week. More

14/07/08 - Updated Affiliate Marketing Feed

I've had a spring clean over at UK Affiliate Marketing Blogs RSS Feed, removing feeds that haven't been updated since Christmas and crediting those that have been added since.

I've got 23 UK affiliate related feeds that are compressed into one handy RSS feed taking up less space on my Firefox toolbar ;-) More

06/06/08 - What I Would Like As Incentive Prizes

Be Cheeky posted a question on the forums earlier this week: what do affiliates want as incentives?

I think the best thing merchants could offer is a set of gift vouchers. Why? More

22/05/08 - 5 Easy Ways To Win The A4U Affiliate Marketing Blog Of The Year Award

First off, congratulations to Kieron, Jason, Kirsty, Lee and Paul for being nominated. Last year I voted for Kieron as his blog was top notch. This year it’s slipped a little, with more focus on cars than affiliate marketing. It’s his blog and he can do with it what he likes but I fear he is digressing too far. I’ve suggested a dedicated car blog to feed his addiction and time will tell whether he takes advantage of the suggestion.

This year’s vote went to Jason who has been very vocal in the affiliate advice arena. Kirsty almost certainly gets my vote next year.

Anyhow, the question we all want to know is what do we have to do to get nominated and subsequently win the award? Here’s my interpretation. 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

06/11/07 - From Affiliate To Merchant

I've just launched an affiliate program for Price Tapestry Templates. As it's a unique sort of product, it's payout is 20% of each sale. More

05/11/07 - Amazon Launch Amazon Prime

This is the first time I've seen this on the Amazon site so I presume it's fairly new.

With Amazon Prime, you pay an annual subscription fee but then get some good perks. Here's a run-down of what you would get. More

30/10/07 - Fastest Delivery I've Ever Seen!

I placed an order with Find Me a Gift yesterday at 3:30pm yesterday. I received an email from them at 3:45pm saying it had been despatched. I've used Google Checkout as a merchant so I know that you can do this to tidy up your interface so I just assumed it would be despatched today.

I was truly amazed at 11:30am today when the postie handed over the parcel from them! More

09/10/07 - Innovative Affiliate Based Payment Service

Remember a while ago, free iPod sites exploded. They quickly lost their buzz in favour of the million dollar homepage style sites which, in turn have lost their buzz to cashback sites.

Well, there's a new payment gateway based upon the free iPod concept. More

08/10/07 - Could Tesco Compete With Royal Mail? Could Stelios?

On the 20th September I wrote about how the Royal Mail could be killing e-commerce. According to a comment on Boyd's website, they are but he's come up with an ingenious idea.

I pulled out my artbox and came up with this (can you guess what it is yet?):

Tesco Mail More

20/09/07 - Is Royal Mail And The CWU Killing E-Commerce?

For those who don’t know, Royal Mail employees want a fair pay rise and Royal Mail won’t give them 100% of what they are asking for. The Communications Workers Union has instigated several one day strikes, then last month it moved onto rolling strikes in an attempt to slow the whole postal network down.

They have now just issued a 5 day strike. More

22/08/07 - Would You Trust BT To Run Your PPC Campaign?

I've logged into my Tradedoubler account and noticed a new program (that doesn't seem to be set up properly) called BT Web Clicks. Intrigued, I followed the links to here, BT's answer to all your PPC woes.

This really does raise some interesting questions. More

22/08/07 - A Brand New TomTom One GB For £50!

Just a heads up to this offer I'm pushing over at Compare Sat Nav. Thought it may interest a few others.

If you buy Tesco Car Insurance before mid September, they'll give you £100 off a TomTom sat nav system. More

21/08/07 - ChoicesUK Call In Administrators

This story (ChoicesUK have called in the administrators) has been picked up by all the major news outlets but thought it was worth blogging. Plus, whilst I was on the BBC's website, I've noticed a set of social bookmarking links at the bottom of the post! The Beeb's gone all Web 2.0! More

21/08/07 - Networks, Let Me See Your Client List!

Over the past few months, new affiliate networks have popped up.

Fraser has highlighted a Swedish network targeting the UK called Affiliator (apparently bigger than Tradedoubler though I suggest not - and I don't seem to be the only one.)

I popped over to Affiliator to see what clients they have. This is where my question comes from! More

24/07/07 - The New Search Engine - Just Add 21,900 Friends

I've just heard about iRazoo. Not only is it a human edited search engine but it's also a points make prizes site!

iRazoo More

19/07/07 - Free Laptop

Yesterday I saw an advert for a free laptop at PC World and today I've seen a free laptop at Carphone Warehouse. What's interesting about the Carphone Warehouse offer is that you have to sign up for AOL. Seems weird being that CPWH are the same group as Talk Talk! More

17/07/07 - Contextual Ads Demo

Just logged into Tradedoubler and found a link to contextual ads.

Here's an example set to show adverts relating to fridges: More

13/07/07 - Arghhh - Why Oh Why?

July 10th and I wrote a piece about How Not To Close An Affiliate Program.

I took down my links as requested. Job done I though.

I have just received an email saying the program is still live - arghhhhh! More

10/07/07 - How Not To Close A Program

I wrote 15 days ago about how Affiliate Window emailed me in a poaching manner with regards to the Pixmania program.

Anthony Clements commented on the post, clearing up the issue, namely saying Tradedoubler had been informed of the program closure.

So why is it only today Tradedoubler are emailing me and telling me Pixmania closes tomorrow? More

25/06/07 - Unethical Network?

I received a personalised (i.e. Dear Dave) email today from a Ross Truesdale of Affiliate Window. Not that bizarre until you realise a) I'm not a member of Affiliate Window and b) it is addressed to my Tradedoubler email address (tradedoubler@...)

It seemingly turns out Affiliate Window are trying to poach publishers from Tradedoubler. More

20/06/07 - Win a Phone In A Linking Competition

Hats off to Kieron Donoghue who is running a competition for his online bingo website www.bingo.org.uk More

01/06/07 - Same Day Response? I Don't Think So!

Tradedoubler recently announced that they would respond to all publisher support requests on the same day so long as they were submitted before 4pm.

It's now 1743hrs and my request at 1500hrs met the 1600hrs deadline. Still no response. More

25/05/07 - Rich Jerk News

A few people have covered this story but here's a roundup of what's going on for those not yet in the know.

Allegedly, the Rich Jerk empire is up for sale. Allegedly, this is down to financial issues. Allegedly. More

14/05/07 - What Do Affiliates Have To Do To Get Some Decent Industry Standards?

In the Internet world, many major retailers have grasped the fact that having affiliates on board (and on their side) is a beneficial thing to all concerned. Affiliates can earn money from the merchants, who in turn proportionately earn more again from each sale.

But surely it's time to have some standards. So what do we have to do to get some industry standards in place?

What do I have in mind? More

02/05/07 - Dixons Group To Leave Tradedoubler

The Dixons Group (DSGi) are to leave Tradedoubler in favour of Affiliate Window. The move follows Comet's decision to leave DGM Pro for Affiliate Window. More

26/02/07 - ebuyer 0.1% Commission

Last week ebuyer announced they would be leaving Tradedoubler and said on 24th March 2007 their commission would be reduced to 0.1%.

It turns out someone typed March instead of February. More

12/02/07 - Watford Electronics (SavaStore) Gone Into Administration

I received an email just now that is worth sharing:

"As of last week, Watford Electronics Ltd has gone into administration. Its Savastore affiliate programme has been suspended with immediate affect. " More