Over the last couple of years we’ve really put our attention on our flagship events; expanding the a4uexpo successfully into Germany and growing the a4uAwards by around 20% YOY.

Considering we’re not a huge publishing and events company such as Centaur or UBM but a passionate nimble SME, we can I hope be pretty proud of our achievements in helping to grow the Affiliate Marketing industry.

Since then as a company we’ve invested in technology, internal systems and have recruited a number of new key players to the team. This gives us the capacity and the ability to expand with new ventures whilst having the systems in place to ensure we don’t miss the pulse on our existing projects.

What’s unique with PerformanceIN is the fact it gives everyone a platform to connect on a very personal, relevant level.  Significantly this is without contractual barriers or politics.

Picking our first vertical was a challenge.  You need the big brands but equally you need a decent volume of long-tail publishers and bloggers. Thus Fashion seemed to be the natural choice, historically however difficult to crack (we don’t like to make things easy for ourselves)

The one day conference will have 12 sessions, a keynote by Wayne Hemingway MBE, a rather lovely BBQ lunch with a helping of lobster, networking throughout the day, a fair sprinkling of strawberries and cream, speed networking and finally networking drinks on the lawns of private members club.

In addition a brand showcase which gives around 15 brands an opportunity to engage with delegates.

Our decision no doubt will after the event be how we move forward. We’ve already pre-launched our PerformanceIN Travel event which will take place in November, but I wonder do we concentrate on specialism such as attribution or even something as generic as Mobile?

The jury is out.

If you want to follow our journey you can follow @performanceIN on twitter.

The reason? ‘A substantial increase in their own marketing efforts’ and ‘a significant increase in affiliate traffic and conversion to occur naturally’

As M&S reside on a network that offers product level commissions, why is this a blanket reduction? I would be more prepared to accept this if it were for sale items only; but everything?

Part of the game, or disrespectful?  Would this occur if M&S had a tangible sales force?

Highly regarded, these awards are decided by the community and therefore mean a great deal to the individuals and companies who win them.

Spending just a few minutes making your nominations  now could well make someone’s year!

Community Choice Awards

• Community choice (publisher)
• Affiliate Marketing Blog of 2010
• Publisher’s choice - account manager at a network
  
• Publisher’s choice - affiliate manager (in-house or at an agency)
  
• Publisher’s choice - affiliate network

Don’t forget we also have awards you can enter as an affiliate, agency, advertiser or network.  As these are more complex by nature they are judged by a panel from within and outside the industry.

Nominations close 19th February. The deadline for written submissions this year is the 1st March.

Good Luck and make your vote count!

Other blogs about the awards

Lammo

This year we’ll be giving huge amounts of exposure all year round on a4uawards.com and the new to be launched affiliates4u.com.

New Affiliate Opportunities & Strategies

If you are looking to get in to the world of affiliate marketing and become an affiliate for the first time, then you can’t afford to miss the tips, tricks and techniques specifically focused on affiliate marketing revealed by our experts. Designed to help you navigate through all the various affiliate programs and the inherent difficulties of being an affiliate, this session will cover everything from commissioned-based “click-through” programs to managing product feeds, how to choose a niche and optimising someone else’s content. Part art and part science, with affiliate marketing there are no products to develop, warehouse or ship; and no orders to process or refund. Sound too good to be true? Join us a learn what it takes to become a successful affiliate!

Moderator:
Dixon Jones, Managing Director, Receptional LTD

Speakers:
Judith Lewis, Search Director, i-level
Paul Reilly, Head of Search, Stickyeyes
Matthew Wood, Founder, a4uexpo

If you’re attending and would like the panel to cover something specific, just drop me a line or reply to the thread.

If you’ve not yet registered but are tempted, you can use the  SES Discount Code SPG for 20% off the delegate rate; that might just convince you.

What is Voucher Cloud?

In short it will give consumers the ability to download digital vouchers onto their mobile phone to redeem at restaurants, cinemas, bars and at their favourite high street stores.  Using GPS technology it will direct you to savings via map or category.

Thousands of outlets will be available on the app on launch including Majestic Wine, Bowlpex, Hotel Chocolat, Perfect Pizza and Dorothy Perkins.

The power of Voucher Cloud, what I’m going to call the paper voucher killer -is it’s direct marketing ability for local and national retailers to add discounts via the online interface and for them to be instantly pushed to consumers who have downloaded the app nationally.

With Voucher Cloud gone are the days of remembering to tear out and indeed bring along a paper voucher, you simply show your mobile to the server and you’ll bag your discount; and the best bit? It’s totally free for the majority of offers.

To aid the transition, a new voucher portal vouchercloud.com will also launch bridging affiliate marketing, the online voucher code, and printable voucher space with that of the future - the mobile.

I’ll keep you updated with progress on the blog; if you’re interested follow the teams progress on twitter.

Why? well it changes the way that advertisers and publishers can connect and enables advertisers to track sales through off-line and online media; including TV, radio, print and other off-line distribution channels.

This is something that’s been discussed at a4uexpo in recent years.

For high volume advertisers there could well be potential savings on override and gives an alternative to working with a traditional network. Especially if advertisers divided activity by channel i.e for paid search or voucher code activity using one solution, effectively taking the crème of current volume at low cost and then relying on other networks who offer value add solutions such as data feeds for other affiliate activity; this could be problematic!

This cost issue is compounded with networks who continue to have high account management or override fees.  This naturally depends on individual circumstances.

On the flip side I would imagine due to the competitiveness of the market some advertisers are already on surprisingly low overrides and Advertisers may continue to prefer the account management and safety belt a traditional network provides on such issues as brand management.

The decision however may well rest with the agency and whether they use the product as a tool to increase their margin, the affiliates or reduce the advertisers cost from Affiliate Marketing.

It’s a very interesting model which has a respected founding team including Per Petterson (founder of Commission Junction before selling out), Todd Crawford and Lisa Riolo.
The UK office will be headed up by Ricki Jones.

The big question is yet to be answered - Will this innovation be a network killer to those networks who have failed to innovate over the last couple of years, or will the two solutions live happily side by side? Interesting times ahead.

Firstly…Laura Ashley

“We wanted to let you know that you could earn an extra 2% commission during the Laura Ashley sale – that’s a whopping 8%!”

And now…Next

“Please note that the Next end of season sale is due to commence on the 26th December.

From x time and y time the VIP sale occurs. Within this period, Next will not be paying any commission for VIP sale items.”

Thoughts?

Great achievement folks! I know some sceptics were a little bemused when you won so many awards at this years Affiliate Marketing Awards - The fact the lions share of this revenue will be new to the performance based channel shows true innovation IMO, so well done!

Held at Old Billingsgate, a contender venue for a4uexpo, I’m speaking at a session entitled;

‘Perfect partners: Getting the most from your affiliate/operator relationship’

The first stage I guess is transparency – which is always going to be difficult in a vertical which is still burdened with mainstream black hat usage.

Be interesting to see how it goes, maybe see you there?

This will be the first Affiliate Summit where I’ve chosen to speak and I’m really looking forward to the panel where we’ll be discussing the UK and European Market; specifically ‘CPA Affiliate Marketing Opportunities in Europe’ You’ll find our session poses an intriguing description:

European affiliate marketing is a few years behind America in some areas, but ahead of it in others. This session will provide insight into the growth areas in Europe.

I’ll be alongside:

• Dush Ramachandran, Vice President, Sales Marketing & Business Development, ClickBank (Twitter @DushR) (Moderator)
• Jim Banks, CEO, Unanimis (Twitter @jimbanks)
• Lee Griffin, International Publisher Director, TradeDoubler
• James Little, Head of Affiliates, AffiliateFuture (Twitter @3wdl)
• Matthew Wood, Managing Director & Founder, existem / a4uexpo (Twitter @matthewwood)

Whilst you could say that were were behind in 2003 I can honestly say I don’t think America is ahead in any element of performance based marketing over established European markets such as the UK and Germany with one exception pure CPA / Lead generation.

We are ahead in a LOT of areas i.e the state of data feeds in America for instance is dismal.

What are your thoughts?

This should be an interesting session and I hope to keep our network rep’s James and Lee on their toes too!

There are a number of Brits heading out to Vegas, and if you’re tempted I have a special 20% OFF Affiliate Summit Discount Code I can give you.

Hope to see you there, you know you want to!