Speaking at EGRLive – Perfect Partners
Today, I’m going to be speaking at EGRLive, a new iGaming event which incorporates a Power Affiliates stream.
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?
Read full articleEuropean Affiliate Marketing is a few years behind America?
Well, I’ve finally booked my flights and I’m all set for Affiliate Summit in Vegas.
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!
Read full articleclick here? er, no thanks.
What a knob.
Anyone else really tired of seeing rubbish like the ‘Automated Income Stream System’ by Chris Cobb?
Now back to reading Dave Naylors excellent blog!
Read full articlereviews.argos.co.uk and New Fusepump Feeds
Anyone seen the increase in advertisers utilising reviews and getting them spidered within the SERPS?
Some examples;
Some may view these sub domain sites as extra competition in traditional affiliate territory (i.e model numbers) however as a leveller it’s also good to see that these reviews appear to be available on the new product feeds that have been managed by Fusepump for Argos at Commission Junction.
Data Feeds are often plagued by inconsistencies and poor structure so this is a great step forward and these new feeds appear to even surpass the excellent Shop Window feed in some areas.
New Features Include
- Addition of Manufacturer Brands
- Additional Product Features
- Better Pricing Structure
- Improved Promotional Messaging
- Product Alternatives
- Customer Reviews
However nothing can currently beat the universal category structure that Shop Window presents, and this is something that Fusepump should work on otherwise publishers will need to integrate each feed individually.
We’ll be implementing them shortly on a new site so we’ll let you know how we get on.
Read full articleRe-targeting to the detriment of Affiliates?
Before our summer holiday my Wife was speaking about how comfortable Havianna flip flops were and recommended a pair - having scouted around for the best price and visiting a number of retailers including Office - I eventually purchased a pair from Stand Out.
And for those who are vaguely interested they are very comfortable! - Stay with me - now as I was watching Liverpoool get thrashed at home for the first time in two years in the league - I was intrigued by the banner placement on Digg.
Re-targeting banners on digg.com
Now it gets serious - This re-targeting of said Havaianas for Office is enabled by a company called Criteo - and its something I’ve been observing for a while now on a number of websites and with a number of merchants.
To the marketeer its a great idea, serve banners to the user with similar products to the last pages viewed on the clients site, even offer a voucher code to those basked abandoner’s.
However what does concern me with the uptake of such technology is whether Affiliates who first introduced the consumer to the product or brand are losing out on valuable commissions.
This naturally depends on the retailers de-duplication policy against other marketing channels and the sophistication of tracking and analysis employed by the merchant.
This is one element of the merchant transparency which ultimately affects conversion is something that the IAB Affiliate Council has been highlighting recently - indeed their recent ethical merchant charter includes the following statement:
“Deduplication
Many merchants will deduplicate between affiliate networks and/or other online sales channels, eg PPC, SEO, display, direct partnerships. Providing information to affiliates on which channels you deduplicate against and the logic that is involved (eg last click wins) is a good idea as it enables affiliates to optimise their campaigns accordingly”
Whilst a good start Id say, it’s more than a good idea - it’s a must.
This all raises more questions about the commission strategy employed by each merchant and the possible allocation of commissions to those who have influenced the sale along the purchasers journey - whilst this could have a negative affect for some channels in Affiliate Marketing who are closer to the end of the sales journey it could boost affiliate revenue who are nearer the start - is that fairer?
If merchants de-dupe affiliates against what is effectively an elaborate CPC method of re-targeting - is that fair on the affiliate or indeed other marketing activity? especially when some research suggests that 90% of re-targeted traffic should be credited to other channels.
I can foresee the arguments that the affiliate failed to convert in the first instance, that last click should always win - that its not just affiliates who are part of the sales journey - so rewarding just the affiliate would be difficult to justify.
Personally I feel all of this needs discussion as evolution occurs and its a key factor in the future of Affiliate Marketing and finally we should also debate whether affiliates should be able to retarget using affiliate links!
Read full articleThe emergence of the Maximising Consumer as Voucher Codes usage Surges
An interesting week for the world of voucher codes it seems. After reading a piece in the Sunday times about Mark Pearson, who has built a £30m personal fortune from his site myvouchercodes, Hitwise have just released some fascinating facts and figures about voucher code usage online - something that Internet Retailing is calling the emergence of the ‘maximising consumer’ - I quite like this as it shows consumers are not just looking for the cheapest price from often biased shopping comparison search engines but taking longer to look around.
This trend will certainly have implications on Affiliate Marketing as more cookies are dropped along a shoppers journey to the basket and adds to the debate on both de-duplication and allocation of commission.
It also rightly does point out that the market is still a little murky, due to some historical and present spammy and rather volitile methods used by some sites to acquire traffic over user experience - something I think Google will take action on at some stage.
Despite the mass of voucher codes sites in existence and I’m talking over 200 - I can see a core handful of companies taking this channel by the horns followed by a number of syndicated and white label offerings and thankfully a total clean up of this internal channel.
Also good news for our wee’ project Restaurant Vouchers though, as the report states that searches for the term have increased by 226.3% over the last 12 months.
More stories from Google News.
Read full article
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