An affiliate marketing blog - a no nonsense guide to affiliate marketing. According to the Institute of Direct Marketing "[one of the] five most commonly quoted blogs in the UK" [cough]!
I'm sorry Hero and the guys at Webgains! I got my fantastic Virginia Hayward hamper on Wednesday just before I travelled down to the A4UExpo but forgot to mention it and have only got round to posting my thanks!
I was expecting a cease and desist letter via courier but was very much suprised to receive a great hamper full of fantastic Christmas goodies! I almost squirelled them away so Laura doesn't see them but my compulsive honesty got the better of me. So I'll be sharing the cake, wine biscuits etc with her and my family this Christmas (if they last that long!!!
Now its time for me to log in and see which merchants I haven't signed up to and get my backside in a Webgains gear!
p.s. congrats to Hero - there wasn't a disenting voice at the ceremony for your award - well deserved!
I was just trying to do the usual thing of registering a new client with the relevant directories. I obviously start with DMOZ (it's a habit thing) but was shocked at what I found.
My client offers mortgages in Cheshire, so I obviously try and find the relevant category. They don't have a county listing which is ok. But then when I try and find the one for the letter "D" I notice that the nice friendly (not so useful) Page Rank Toolbar is showing as blanked out.
I have a look at some other letter categories in the mortgage area and they're all pretty much blank or have 0 PR.
I don't have any history for the Page Rank for DMOZ in this industry but have they been assessed as "selling links"? Wouldn't DMOZ be immune from any assessment as such?
So I look further! If you start at the root there's an 8, as you go further into the UK's regional listing you get a 7. But as soon as you get into Business & Economy, bamm! it disappears!! Then onto "Personal Finance" - nope, none!
Is it just a glitch, or is it something more sinister?? And what implications does this have for the basics of link building?
I think it also goes some way to proving that Google doesn't issue algo changes, or penalties "carte blanche" but does try and understand that processes and practices differ by industry. But I think it also may go some way of proving that that they don't always get it right(?)
Well I missed a couple due to the amount of work I had on. But I thought I'd jot these two tips of the week down and see what you guys think.
I covers the three main areas I'm involved in, Affiliate Marketing, SEO and Social Media and is a great way to move up the SERPS, click throughs to merchant sites and then conversion rates.
Google, in my opinion, looks at bounce rates and how long people spend on your site when the they have come from a SERP. If someone rears out of the site quickly then they feel confident in assuming that the site isn't relevant for that query.
The important task that affiliates face is making sure that there is engaging content which informs users before they go on and select a merchant's link.
I've done some testing, and I know you can never test one ranking factor in isolation, but I'm confident that adding content such as YouTube product videos helps engage and inform and hence keeps them in the site longer.
The site I used to test was my Nokia N77 one. I created some content and got minimal links. I didn't overly monetise it or add Adsense or anything else. There's only one page, there's raw affiliate links, but there is YouTube content and fresh news sources.
In my mind, this level useful content has pushed the site up more overtly optimised sites and some that have been around for years and have built up a lot of trust.
I believe that many affiliates believe that they should be aiming to get the visitor in and out as quickly as possible. This may be true for PPC landing pages, but for SEO, I believe the tide has turned to favour true, informative, educational, engaging sites.
These sites are typically called Web 2.0 or social media sites. In my A4UExpo presentation I looked at ways of adding web 2.0 features but also gave the reasons why affiliates should be looking social media. I hope from that presentation that many didn't go away thinking that they should be following the extreme social media optimisation tactics that the Halloween costume guy did, but I feel that many affiliate sites can be relatively easily tweaked to include social media elements that will not only increase CTRs and conversion rates, but also natural search performance.
So, you could go down the route of adding YouTube videos, do what Holiday Watchdog does and get people to add their own direct into the site, get feeds of comments about the topic embeded, and relevant news, include useful photos etc etc. The options are endless.
I'd welcome some views on this strategy, especially if people have tried it for themselves.
Also, I'm not really interested in the mobile market, so if anyone wants to make me an offer on the n77.co.uk domain, feel free to email me.
Here's some resources you might like to check out:
After the presentation that I did at the A4U Expo many people asked for more information so I agreed to flesh out my views here. So here goes. I do give some of my "secrets" or competitive advantage away so I hope that you wouldn't directly compete with me on all of my sites using the methods I detail below ;-). If you wanted to download it as a pdf then you can here.
Slide 1:
To me the biggest opportunities that affiliates have when it comes to social media is the ability to quickly monetise "Buzz". My view of buzz is the ability to monetise new product launches such as the new iPhone or the Zune MP3 Player. You can also monetise sporting buzz such as the qualifying for the Euro 2008 tournament or the football world cup. You can even do stuff that is just generally in the news such as the Chikungunya Virus that was sweeping across the Indian Subcontinent, people such as Carlos Tevez.
Social media allows you to base a whole site around or add features to a long-standing affiliate site. It's also important to note that you don't always have to update your blogs (if you use that method) regularly - but it helps).
I often start sites a couple of years or a year before they will be come "mass-market" to see how they're picked up. If I don't think they'll earn sufficient returns from my input I'll reduce the amount I post to them.
Also social media isn't new. Affiliates have been using it since the start of affiliate marketing by using newsgroups, bulletin-boards and email.
But it's important to note that with so many "routes to market" for affiliates, e.g. PPC, SEO, Email, etc. It is just one that will compete for your time, attention and money.
Slide 2:
There are just so many types of social media. Wikipedia lists 15, but I couldn't see blogging! Why? I have no idea.
Slide 3:
Just because people are going nuts over social media, it doesn't mean you should do the same. By all means try things out, but try and be selective before you get into the testing phase of your approach.
You may like to ignore Virtual Worlds, creating news aggregation social networks or implement vidcasting into your site. It's up to you, but do that time, attention and money calculation before you get too involved.
Slide4:
My preferred method is blogging and I use social networks, social news sites and social bookmarking to promote them. You could use sites like Squidoo as an easier "route to market" but I prefer the flexibility and control that hosting my own blogs gives me.
Take a look around these sites and see which appeal the most.
Slide 5:
This is one of the most important slides. I feel there are many pressures in the industry at the moment which mean that affiliates should at least explore the opportunities that social media offers.
First off there are Google's PPC squeeze. We all know they don't like affiliates and are trying to take control of the affiliate "space". Social media gives you the opportunity to forget the AdWords rules they bring in such as only one ad per URL, the minimum bids based on your quality score and landing page criteria. With social media, it's up to you what you put on your blog or Squidoo page.
Secondly, Google are also squeezing affiliates when it comes to SEO. You can no longer upload 50,000 pages in a lunchtime and expect them to rank well and last for a good few months. You need to build long-term strategies that don't rely on cross linking between your sites. Blogging is ripe for link-baiting or just providing useful, relevant content that other people want to link to naturally.
Merchant squeeze is something I feel is important. We're constantly talking about merchants creating rules that just aren't helping either party. Merchants haven't started creating rules that prevent you using certain types of social media sites - so give them a try.
Competitive Squeeze - there are so many other affiliates around competing using traditional methods, so it would be wise to try and compete using other methods that'll take them a couple of years to catch up.
You've also got closed bidding groups that you can't get in and have affiliates with massive budgets that can just shut you out of some industries.
Slide: 6
There are so many other factors that makes social media a useful approach.
Consumers are getting blind to traditional advertising. They also seek out product reviews from their peers as they can see that there are so many product options out there that they need to get confirmation from "experts".
Also if you're a newbie that doesn't have a budget to complete with PPC affiliates or aren't great at design or social media then you have an option to succeed if you have sufficient creativity.
Also social media is great as you can easily appear to be an expert in your field with no actual experience as you can leverage the knowledge of others with Google News Alerts, News Now, Blog Search, and Technorati.
Slide 7:
This is pretty much the most important slide. Basically social media allows you to be an opinion former at the end of the buying-cycle. The important note is that perhaps you should look to promote merchants that don't offer brand bidding as Pete has pointed out that 75% of content cookies are being overwritten by brand affiliates. Perhaps content affiliates, and that means social media affiliates too, should look to ignore working on affiliates that allow brand bidding to just some?
Slide 8: I simply give an example of my Euro 2008 blog and how I use different monetising methods over the life-time of the site.
Slide 9:
This is a slide that brings a smile to my face. One of my competing sites had an image posted by a visitor which seemed to show the new England Football Kit before it was launched. I knew it to be a fake but thought I could get some good coverage by placing it in a post on my blog - that I did.
The first day I posted it got over 2,500 visits and loads of links across forums around the net. It helped deliver feed subscribers and seo benefit of those links.
So I think its wise for affiliates to think about Buzz and how they can created it about their sites at every opportunity.
Slide 10:
I mentioned in another post how important I feel adding "sticky content" to your affiliate sites to help in its SEO, but I feel its also great for increasing click-through-rates and also conversion rates.
Missy Ward was great, she allowed me to interview her about her and Shawn'sWeViews.tv site and how they use video content to keep users coming back and converting them into sales.
You can see from the slide that it doesn't take them long to get a video together, they're easy to promote using TubeMogal and does help in sales creation.
Slide 11:
Some were probably going into the presentation hoping to see some stuff about FaceBook Applications and I didn't want to disappoint.
I mentioned that it might not be appropriate for all, but if you've got a few weeks and a few grand to spend and a great idea then it may be a good route to go down. But the important point to note, as many of you know, there's no point building some ting and expecting the people to come. You have to promote your application well and do most of the research before you even start on your "spec document". I also pointed to Adonomics as a great place to start your research, but you should also look at Appsoholic.
Slide 12: Here I mentioned how I use a Facebook group to atract people to Pleo Toy blog and foster a community - it works well and should really be replicated by others. I've also created a "Pleo UK" Squidoo page to see how well it works! Now I've got the really difficult task of trying to built up traffic to my new site selling "tarot cards". The problem is that there's many retailers that are pretty much intrenched in the market and it'll be difficult building up links. The only way I can realistically do it is by writing fantastic content and hoping people will link to it because of that. Touch Wood, it'll go ok, but its not going to be easy!
Slide 13: I then recommended people that they think "outside of the box" and look at sites like ZiiTrend which is a social predicting site. If you think about it, this is perfect for "buzz" sites as you can create a prediction about future product launches an events and attache your blog's news to each prediction and drive traffic that way.
I did it with the Euro 2008 site and whether England would qualify. I did it as a test, but as their user base grows, it should prove to be a useful too.
Slide 14:
This was to be my "killer slide". I've come across so many "social media knockers" - people that think its just a fad. Just watch this YouTube video and you'll see how you can leverage social media to dominate the serps:
Slide 15:
This the final slide and I could feel the relief in the room. I wanted to put across a succinct list of reasons why affiliates should be looking at social media. Hopefully you're a little more inclined that you used to be ...
I hope you did find it useful and think the information will help improve your affiliate profits. You could consider saying thanks by buying me a cheap Christmas present from my Amazon wishlist :-) I'm sure I'd say thanks!!
[Apologies about the lack of links - I'm on the train, dipping into and out of connectivity]
The first session that I attended this morning was slightly hamperd by the extreme tiredness that seem to exude from every pore. It was entitled "The Search Universe" and was aimed at covering what's going on in the search engine "space" at the moment.
Mike Grehan rightly pointed out that Google et al are moving towards embedding "content" within the search results using AJAX so that users don't have to navigate away from the SERPS.
I've been saying this for at least 20 months when I commented on the A4U forum last year as well on this blog. It's a process of improving immediacy - getting people to the right content sooner.
Another element that I've been sure of for a while, but haven't really implemented in any great way as an affiliate, it the process of keeping visitors on your site as long as possible before they click the back button. As an affiliate I've always been consicous of moving visitors on to merchants as quickly as possible. On my content based sites I'll be looking at making sure I reduce the bounce-rates.
I'm convinced, as Mike is, that the speed at which people reverse out of your site back into Google not only has a direct response on your AdWords quality score, but also you natural results rankings.
It's just a hunch, no concrete evidence, but I'm pretty sure that it's true.
The second session I went to was about "Monetising Social Networks". It featured a site called WAYN.com which is a social networking site in the travel vertical. Jerome Touze is the guy behind the site and gave a candid view of the site's progression and how they're partnering with related merchants to monetise the site now they've surpassed their target registration size.
I was hoping the session would be a bit more general, but it was still very interesting.
The third session I attended was the one on "Widgets and Blidgets and how it affects affiliate marketing". This was another fascinating discussion by Vinny Lingham from Synthasite (a very useful tool) about how you can make your own widgets to display information on your sites from other sites. Also he intimated about the new version of the Synthasite service which appears to have some great features and will some great benefits to a wide range of affiliates.
The fourth session of the day (and boy was I getting even more tired) was about the MillionDollarHomepage.com and how the PR process helped turn it into the phenomenon that it was.
I work a lot in the PR area as it is, and especially in the online PR area and it was good to see some of the things that my colleagues recommend to their clients also being recommended to the huge hit that was Alex Tew.
The best session of the day was left to me ole mucker James Little of Altogether Digital fame. It alsways going to be an intersting session given the diversity of camps on offer.
There was David Hall from Affiliate Window with his "Big Network" hat on. There was Mark Kuhillow who I've known for years with his affiliate management hat on. Neil Hutchinson with his "Professional Affiliate & SEM" hat and James Little with his "Former-affiliate, agency and new network hat".
The question that was posed to the panel at the outset was "Will you need a network in 2008?". You can take this from a number of different angles:
1) Will affiliates need networks - Neil proved that if you're successful enough you can go direct to merchant. The benefits of this, I believe, would be that the affiliate secure higher commissions as well as get greater feedback on data, conversion rates etc.
2) Will merchant need networks - The debate surrounded around how the size of the merchant will impact on whether a merchant needed a large or small network. David Hall contended that larger networks added value in terms of their ability to protect the merchants from "unethical" affiliate actions such as spotting unrequired brand-bidding or spyware. This assertion met with great derision from James Little who argued that size isn't important (cough) when it comes to spotting unethical practices. His comments were met with applause and support from Clarke Duncan (who in my mind does a fantastic job with POR).
The value aspect of using a large network surrounded from the fact that large networks generally charge a greater set-up, monthly fee and/or overide. There was consensus that a merchant's choice of network depended on many more factors than their size, how much they spend on free booze at G2G's and the number of "brands" they already have as merchants.
In my mind, it is worth smaller merchants to contact the networks that are most suited to their needs, be it because they are more accomodating about their feeds, they know more about the industry or have the more appropriate tools for their industry.
3) Will agencies need networks - James Little (I believe) rightly said that many agencies are moving into the network space because they are under pressure to reduce their clients' customer acquisition costs as well as take greater control as to how their client's are marketed online.
Agencies are often derided in the affiliate marketing community. Some agencies place there feet firmly in their clients' camp. They don't try and build strategic relationships. R.O. Eye in my mind, actively try and work to improve both their clients' "lot" but also the affiliates. This came accross in Mark Kuhillow's approach to the discussion.
Just as my eyes were dropping due to the lack of sleep and not the lack of open and frank discussion, Neil commented that he can not understand why merchants prevent affiliates from doing "direct to merchant PPC". This is something is close to my heart too. I feel sometimes that merchants (or their agencies, most probably) can't see the benefit of affiliates putting their own cash in to find the most effecient ways of promoting the merchant.
Proffesional affiliates won't bid up to around 10-15% of the break even point of a campaign/keyword. Allowing affiliates to use generic terms, direct to the merchant, can only work towards creating a more efficient marketplace as well as allowing the marketing of their products react more quickly to new launches or opportunities. The sooner there is an opening up of D2M PPC the better.
And there we go! A thoroughly great event. If you didn't think it was worth it this year, I assure you, you won't regret paying next year.
I've come out of the A4UExpo and as part of the Extreme SEO session the discussion was opened up to the floor and as a result of one of the questions, a spectator revealed a conversation that she had with her AdWords account manager that having too many affiliate links on a landing page will adversly affect your quality score.
Why would they do it and what does it mean for the creation of landing pages?
The first is that they view affiliates as creaming off the top of online marketing and secondly it means that we've got to hide our tracking links.
A cracking event!! Great speakers, very well organised, fantastic conversation - both work-related and general banter.
It's been very good for business so far.
I spent the morning preparing for my speech about social media and had some very positive feedback (If you missed my presentation you can watch the spelling-mistake ridden version here).
The meet the super-dooper affiliates session was interesting and was followed by a review of some of Tradedoubler's gadget merchants which gave us the opportunity to break some toys.
I attended the IAB, Affiliate Marketing Council discussion about trying to get some standards agreed in the industry. I wasn't disappointed with the conduct of the meeting, but was very disappointed with the fact that I was the only affiliate that bothered to turn up. Thankfully we had a very frank and open discussion and am convinced that over the next year some serious headway can be made. I'm also disappointed that some networks have actively taken steps to kill the debate, but that's something I'm going to work on.
After that meeting I went on to the Extreme SEO session. It was a good one that went on to tactics surrounding link buying, bad neighbourhoods, linking to sites that are off topic, overt tactics to affect your competitors and the benefits of leveraging social media in your SEO campaigns.
It's certainly an going to be an interestingSES tomorrow. Here's what sessions I'll be attending:
1 - The Search Universe with Mike Grehan. I saw him at last year's SES New York and is very insightful and humorous. I'd recommend his session for everyone.
2 - Monetising Social Networks - I'm hoping this will step out of the networks niche and look at social media in general. If not I'll be looking at The Changing Nature of Search With Dixon Jones.
3 - Widgets, Blidgets and the Implications for Affiliate Marketing in the Long Term - Vinny Lingham. I'm sold on the title, but we'll see what the content is like.
4 - Will you need a network in 2008 - I'm great fans of Mark Kuhilow and James Little and have had the pleasure of meeting David Hall from Affiliate Window at our Affiliate Marketing Council. This will be a very important session.
I don't plan to see any after this as I've got a train to catch.
For all you that wanted to see the presentation but couldn't make it to the A4UExpo you can see it below. Hopefully you'll find it interesting. I've done some speakers notes here if you wanted more detail.
I came to realise that I don't really offer a great deal of information about who I am, what I do, where I've come from etc. So this post aims to inform people about all that personal and business stuff.
Background: I've been working in Web Design and SEO for ten years. I started building my first site in 1997 and it was called "McCoy's Financial Links" - a forerunner of MoneySupermarket. But the costs of maintaining it and running off with a young lady meant I couldn't look after it any more. But the good times were to come later.
I built my first client e-commerce site back in 1998 called "Rugs R Us". I moved away from Somerset up toWarrington in 2000 for personal reasons and took a Job with Top Jobs. I was managing their SEO and internet marketing and was responsible for an online budget of £60k a month, which I mostly spent very wisely on ppc with Google, Oveture etc as well as working with our Media Agency (MediaVest) to buy anchor tenancies and exposure across a wide range of niche recruitment sites.
Those were certainly my formative days. I learned a massive amount about white heatSEO. There were massive technology constraints given the site's architecture etc, but everyone was massively impressed. In fact during the downturn and the company being taken over by a German company there were 2 rounds of redundancies before I went in the last phase. I could get large amounts of very cheap traffic relatively quickly.
When the Germans sold the company off, I went and consulted. I was headhunted by a very large company down south and offered very stupid money, but I turned them down. I went on to consult for some very large plc's, Government agencies and small companies with pretty good success.
I then started to dabble in affiliate marketing thanks to some comments from my mother about some domain names. I bought some of the ones she suggested and built up some good niche sites in the financial and travel sectors.
I hit it big with some uber-seo and enjoyed a good few months earning £xx,xxx per month from work I did in just three days. I sat back and watched the cheques roll in. Thankfully I saved most of it.
Then came a few relationship issues that distracted me from work. I basically took 18 months off and just travelled and played cricket with my mates in the garden. Those were great days.
I decided that enough was enough and moved back up to Warrington, paid my ex-girlfriend several £k to get the house back in my name and started slowly back into work.
I was doing well with a few odds and sods sites, nothing that really brought a smile to my face, but they kept the bank manager happy.
I then started leveraging social media sites back in the beginning of 2006 during one of my six holidays that year :-). I was doing very nicely indeed with natural SEO and PPC as traffic drivers. Money was rolling in and the bank manager was still a happy boy.
Recently I got a call from an old chum from my TopJobs days asking me to help out at her PR company so, always wanting a challenge, I started consulting for them. I've brought those ten years of trying stuff out, putting my own money where my mouth is and making a great success of my growing list of clients.
I think it's really important for SEO-"professionals" to put their own money into what they're recommending. In fact, it's one question I'd recommend that all potential client's of marketing agencies ask: "Do you do affiliate marketing?" If they don't, then why should they expect you to back them?
My PPC bill isn't the largest in the world. At my height I was only spending around £11k a month - nothing serious compared to Keiron (hats off to ya), but I do put my own cash where my mouth is.
So that's where I'm up to now. Waiting to present about Social Media and how affiliates should be using it to the biggest affiliate gathering in the country.
So they question I've asked myself is: "Why?". Well I suppose it's because I know what I'm talking about and I do it passionately. As Fraser kindly commented on the Dfinitive site:
Original McCoy was trained in economics so obviously understands the way in which business works, although he also has detailed knowledge of SEO, Affiliate Marketing and Pay-Per-Click services. His forth right but friendly manner shines through in his posts, which cover the good, the bad and the ugly of the affiliate marketing.
So, apparently I know what I'm talking about so that be one reason. Another is that I'm as much friendly and open as I am forthright. The great Jess commented:
I came across Lee a few years back, he came to my attention as he started turning over some very nice sales for ASOS and went on to do the same for some of my clients when I started affiliateprogramadvice.com
As the years rolled on, my respect for Lee just keeps growing, he is in my mind a model affiliate. He represents everything you could ask for and what you look for in an affiliate.
He is loyal, intelligent, and innovative and has a good business head on his shoulders.
He is vocal on forums, his sense of humour...he may like to know that he has picked me up when the world seems to be closing in on me with his wit, and for the above, I thank him.
Maybe it's because I'm willing to help people, often for nothing, just for the satisfaction of seeing their business grow. Purple (equally as helpful) wrote:
[I] just want to say people like you make this industry great. I remember working with you back in the day when you were at AWIN. I was pleased to see you cheer up post for Lee, you have been supportive to me loads of the years and I am sure 100s of others would say the same
"Everyone tells me you're a great guy Lee, a real "Value Add" affiliate...and now you're getting out before we've had chance to work together!!!"
So I'm looking forward to the A4UExpo, I'm looking forward to meeting Jess and telling her about the past month since we last met up and I'm looking forward to putting my view about social media across. If anyone starts to snore, I'll get my brand-bidding slides out!
I'd like everyone to know that this is my personal blog. The views expressed here are not the views of anyone but myself.
I only want people reading this blog to use it for productive reasons. People should note that I reserve the right to block access based on IP address, IP range or any other method if I feel that you are not here to take part in a debate about SEO, PPC, Social Media, Affiliate Marketing etc.
So if you don't want to use the information contained here ethically or prefessionaly then be prepared to be at least blocked. And please note, I am perfectly entitled to to do this.
I look forward to a good chinwag with a few thousand people in the internet marketing, e-commerce and web design industry over the next few days. It's interesting times.
I do need to talk drop-shipping if anyone's got any experience? There's news in the offing ... :D
This weekend was a an interesting one. I relatively quick post about brand name bidding on Saturday morning whilst I was waiting for the missus to rouse did the same for another affiliate.
The issue that is being contended is different from my initial post. Keiron's view is that he is "sick of people saying the affiliate marketing industry is corrupt". I'm more concerned with the issue of whether the industry actually is corrupt. A significant difference.
I think for the industry to progress you have to have these debates, you have to listen to all sides and you can't simply brush the issue under the carpet because it doesn't suit you.
My question is: "What do you, or the industry have to gain from preserving the status-quo?" The status quo is that there is perception amongst some that some affiliates are unfairly prioritised due to a degree of mutual "back scratching".
My view is, Keiron, that if you're so convinced that nothing of the sort is occurring in our industry then you would welcome the opportunity to dispel the rumours. Simply telling someone to "shut up" because they have views contrary to yours simply doesn't support your position or progress the understanding of how the industry works.
I was disappointed by your comments, and frankly expected more. But it's your prerogative.
The issue is that if people see secrecy in certain aspects of how a network works, then it is obvious that affiliates will ask "what have they got to hide"?
When brand name bidding was allowed on a number of campaigns, I was doing it. I was doing shit loads. Then I was told to stop, whilst others could continue. How was I not selected over others? How were they chosen over me? What's the process? It's this lack of clarity that is fanning the flames of the view that the is some affiliate Illuminati where there is perception of collusion and underhand practices.
Keiron, I hope you read that last paragraph clearly. I am not saying the perception is in actual fact a reality, I am merely saying that there is a perception which the networks, through their secrecy, have unintentionally fostered.
So I leave it up to everyone to make their own mind up. But I wonder, if any network would be willing to open up to third-party, independent investigation to allay the fears of many affiliates and prove to industry commentators and merchants that there is no corruption? I doubt it.
Updates: Network Feedback 22/10/07
I would like to thank Kevin Edwards from Affiliate Window for sticking his head above the parrapit and making his views known. They're very much appreciated and I hope other networks will make comment on the percieved problem. I'm not asking for official statements, just some reassurance.
I would also like to thank Hero for her comments. I trust her implicitly and do support her views which are in-turn simmilar to mine in that (correct me if I've missunderstood) networks naturally gravitate to affiliates with good marks for past performance and sticking within the rules. Keiron did note that new affiliates can get into those closed groups on occassion.
I'd also like to thank Jamie, who was at the forefront of my initial frustration, for his views. It's very important that we hear the opinions of someone that is often seen as the one within the walled-garden.
We've also heard from Matt Bailey at dgm who have also given their stance on closed groups and how people are selected.
Network Feedback 23/10/07
Pete from Affiliate Future has given his views and match closely my own. I recommend you give them a read!!!
Greavsie from Link Share not only pointed out that I'd for got them off the list but has added their views. It's great to see some of the networks standing up and saying their piece!
Me ole' mucker Tyson has responded with his views on behalf of Buy.at. They also should be read and noted.
I think we're getting to a place where I wanted: The suspicion of corruption either being proved or dispelled. So far we've had word from:
But are still awaiting from (sorry - or maybe not, if I've missed you out):
Tradedoubler
CJ
Affiliate Future
Paid on Results
I'm sure your affiliates would like some reassurance that the process of choosing affiliates is based on past-performance or true goodwill and not for any nefarious reason.
I've been inspired by Jamie Harwood's (UK Web Media) comments in this week's NMA in the feature about affiliate marketing to go over some posts by Paul and Fraser.
My understanding is that they're saying that there is "corruption" in the affiliate market place regarding the allowing of certain affiliates to brand name bid, whilst others are refused or nor even offered.
Personally, I don't think "corruption" may be the right word. But it may in fact be totally accurate - it all depends how these affiliates are chosen.
From what I see, there's no "quality score" in the sense of Google's score for ranking ppc adverts based on both earnings and quality of creative. It appears to me that most networks and merchents are lazy. They can't be bothered to look at other affiliates as they'll go down the safe route and offer the opportunities to others.
Jamie said when asked "What are the issues surrounding brand bidding, when affiliates target specific keywords?" His response was:
You have brands bidding to get to the enough CPA to drive your generic sales, which seems a bit back to front at times. The other aspect is brand protection. You have your long-term keywords. Put your brand there with paid search, then you get a couple of other affiliates to control the space.
It's about everyone working together rather than the search company saying, "We don't want any more because our prices have gone up." It's about control in the group and not letting affiliates fight between themselves for the top spot.
This comment is so annoying. It's like saying "we're doing it for your good" but then not making it clear that you're only saying this to cream off vast commissions for simply bidding on brands. There's no seriously hard-work. All you've got to do is get on the right side of the networks (somehow) and make those easy sales.
If it was for the benefit of the merchant then why not have a not-for-profit organisation brought in by merchants to take up the slack? They could report back their costs and will be paid back at cost.
It's like an old communist system where only certain people are allowed to manufacture vodka and you cream off the massive profits.
The problem is that these affiliates in entrenched positions making huge profits don't want competition. They don't want others with better bidding or cpa-marketing strategies to come in and take "their commissions".
This sort of "corruption" is hindering other affiliates from growing their business, it's preventing merchant risk from being diversified and breading contempt with affiliates with certain networks who are just seen as "brand bidding networks" that offer no real value to the affiliate market or community.
There's so much money to be made by networks and 2,3,4 affiliates from brand bidding because these certain networks and brand-bidding affiliates spiel so much crap that the merhcants can't see the truth!
It's all because some networks don't want to take risks these days - but they expect ordinary affiliates to take risks everytime they start a new ppc campaign or affiliate site. Some networks should stop being so bloody lazy and think of the longevity and reputation of the industry.
So how much will it cost me to be an approved brand-bidder? What do I have to do? Do I need by some knee pads and mints? Or is it all above board, open and fair?
"I would also like to make it quite clear that I have never paid or given a back-hander and never would! I work hard trying to show this industry in a positive and professional light, and think that it is essential for the future of affiliate marketing that we all keep as “clean” as possible"
I have to take him on his word!
p.s. some day I'm going to learn to proof-read before I publish!
It's nice to get gifts. And it's even better when it's chocolate and even beterer ;-) when someone has put some thought into it. So thanks to Pazang for my Personalised Throntons Chocolate Truffles
As some of you know, I do online marketing consultancy for Pazang PR and their clients.
[edited because it was misconstrued and taken personally. It's interesting that competitors read this blog too. Perhaps they'd like to contribute?]
P.s. Royal Mail tried to deliver another parcel when I was out today! I wonder what it is and who it's from????!! :D It was from dgm (Helen in fact) and was a lovely Norwich City FC Mouse!
Is it me or is this bit of an email from the AA (via Buy.at) a load of &*($"?
Removal of AA from the affiliate display urls
* Use of the AA in sub domains is permitted (ie:www.affiliate.co.uk/TheAA)
Affiliates may use AA brand terms as a sub-directory of their site, but NOT as a sub-domain. ie www.yoursite.com/theAA is acceptable, but theAA.yoursite.com is not.
The say big is beautiful, but small can be an advantage too. Darren knows a lot about this as he taken his past affiliate network experience and has joined Search Logic. I've know Neil for a relatively short but intense while, and have only recently met Emma.
Search Logic are based in a nice office in Soho so it's handy for pub meetings. They've also got a nice relaxed office with a nice big couch which is great for more informal meetings, so let's meet Search Logic.
Everything you wanted to know about Search Logic, but were afraid to ask:
What makes Searchlogic different – SearchLogic believe that Affiliate Networks should be judged on results, which is why we charge no set up or monthly fees. We want to be recognized as a hard working proactive Network that people want to work for and want to work with. SearchLogic is also a Full Service Digital Agency, with our own in house SEO and PPC team, so we are able to co-ordinate an entire online budget through whatever channels our clients require.
What are your USP's
Apart from the lack of fees, we also only charge a 25% network override, and allow our clients access to the other parts of the SearchLogic company – web design, build and hosting, SEO, PPC, Affiliate Marketing, Campaign Management, CPM and CPC.
We like to think that we are a breath of friendly, proactive and professional fresh air in the industry!
As a departure from the normal "Meet the Team" rules, we've got a nice group shot. Darren is the one on the left, Emma - in the middle and Neil on the right.
Meet The Team:
Name: Neil Mitchell
Position In Company: Senior Business Development Consultant
What is your job role? I run the London office, so my day is divided up into recruiting Merchants and Affiliates, dealing with tracking enquiries, testing and building campaigns, making sure that paperwork is up to date, training and helping the rest of the team, and keeping our CEO in the loop with everything that is going on – I am better at some of these than others! I am also chief social networker, which is nice.
If you had to get a(nother) tattoo what would it be and where? I have an atom tattoed on my arm – it’s a symbol of energy, and kinda sums me up I think! [Ed: I saw no evidence of that on the footy pitch!]
Tell us an interesting fact about you: I am a classically trained concert pianist and have been signed to 4 different record labels.
If you were a cheese what would it be and why? Brie – Crumbly and a bit scary on the outside, soft and quidgy on the inside
Name: Darren Newmark
Position In Company: Business Development Consultant
What is your job role? To get as many merchants and affiliates onto the network and to keep them happy - and I sell SEO and PPC!
If you had to get a tattoo what would it be and where? It would be either ‘your name’ somewhere special or a big set of wings on my back – I’m really not ever going to get one though
Tell us an interesting fact about you: I got my head stuck between railings at the airport just before boarding to go on a family holiday and almost missed the flight.
There are somethings that really annoy me, one is my inability to spell and the other is the inability of online services to have up-to-date spell-checkers.
In my last Sphinn submission there were two words that it didn't understand when I did my spell-check. They were GOOGLE and ADWORDS! Like hello!
I expect most of the posts are about Google and many about Adwords - so why should they not be in the Sphinn dictionary?
Thankfully Blogger nolonger sees Google as a typo but it still sees Sphinn as such! How often are these online dictionaries updated to keep on top of current terminology?
Google is attacking affiliates, no denying it. They want listings to be full of useful information. They've been cracking down on paid links, spam and all kinds of crap.
They also attacked affiliates creating multiple ads to the same site. But they still let price comparison sites clogg up Adwords. Buyers don't want to see loads of price comparison sites showing them the same things over and over again.
I recall seeing somewhere on Google's own site or on Matt Cutt's site about people not wanting to see the same information and products being rehashed on affiliate sites - so they took action.
So why can't they penalise the repetitive crap that these sites (including arbritage sites) churn out? And why can't they give people that actually write useful, unique content that includes non-affiliate links a bit more of a leg up?
Google used to talk of immediacy, getting users to the relevant content/products quickly. PPC foder does not do this! Change your adwords quality score to penalise the dross that fills the paid section of your site and i don't care about the millions of ads these sites have that make you cash.
Let's look at the numbers of keywords these sites are using:
You thought from that headline that's I'd be doing a fantastically indepth analysis of the financial performance of Google and MSN. I'm afraid not. I don't have that amount of spare time!!
Thankfully Victor Cook does!! His post has got some amazing analysis in it (I can tell from the charts). I may have a degree in economics, but I don't have a lot of time at the moment. I've got to leave for a meeting now, so could someone read it and summarise it for me ;-)
Where else but on Youtube - this is a video presentation about Google from Google. I don't have time to watch it all as Top Gear is on and its a case of propriorites! It starts off well and the presenter is good.
It's probably a case of "Everything you wanted to know about Google but were afraid to ask!
I'm going to try and do a regular look at the the PPC situation for a number of different industries. At this stage I won't give away my sources as I don't want to throw my competitive advantage away - but I'm confident of the data.
So here goes - Mobile Phone PPC
1) How many sites are bidding on "mobile phones" in Google? In the UK - 113
2) How many keywords do the big players use?
Retailer
# Keywords
o2.co.uk/shop
82,656
t-mobile.co.uk
54,204
dialaphone.co.uk.co.uk
38,422
CarphoneWarehouse.com
91438
virginmedia.com
55137
Orange.co.uk/shop
52781
Three.co.uk
20517
mobileexpress.co.uk
17091
mobilephonesdirect.co.uk
3713
BuyMobilePhones.net
14200
Vodafone.co.uk
28354
thelink.co.uk
18713
ThePhoneSpot.com
13508
e2save.com
38791
Phones4U.co.uk
25172
littlewoodsdirect.com
192436
Unbeatable.co.uk
134909
Affiliate
# Keywords
O2.getcheaper.co.uk/
4667
Top10Shops.co.uk
115332
Top20List.net
22361
vodafone-offer.co.uk
123
tmobilesale.co.uk
338
3)What are some keywords that make you wonder what the heck they're doing/ "holograms for cell phones" - dialaphone.co.uk "samoa mobile phones" - t-mobile.co.uk "siman cowell", "11.8 x factor" - CarphoneWarehouse.com "tickets to the orange bowl" (the exact phrase) - organge.co.uk/shop "n 95 respirator" - three.co.uk/store "obsolete mobile phones" - thelink.co.uk "female phone" e2save.com (I won't ask!)
4) Any interesting insights? Well it looks like many use Hitwise and do gap analysis as an number seem to copy the same crap keywords into their campaigns.
5) How much international competition is there? In the uk there are 113 competitors for the "mobile phones" phrase, Canada - 26, Australia - 30, Ireland - 31 and South Africa 18.
6) Who do I think are running the best campaigns?Purely from a keyword standpoint it's a toss up between Vodafone and Phones4U.com.
Matt, please sort out hidden text, surely it can't be something too difficult to achieve with all those data munging servers working round the clock.
A simple search for "chocolate easter eggs" (I work a few months ahead of events) shows a site in tenth place that is blatantly taking the piss (I've highlighted the hidden text":
What's worse, there's 633 pages with hidden text and they're getting away with it.
The thing is, Google seems hell bent to cause havock with well-intentioned webmasters that work hard to create unique content, but because they don't link in the way you like, they get penalised!
This sort of tactic has been going on for at least 10 years and nothing seems to be done about, but some of my sites with a few too many "buys" in them are removed from the index! Tiz not right, and you know it. Now do something about.
Yours,
Pissed off from Warrington
P.s. Take a read of the Yack Yack blog for a carbon copy of my views about Google of today.
In that post Dan Jenson says "I don’t think it will take long for some clever peeps in the community to devise a way to hurt Google." You don't have to be that clever. All every webmaster (or the majority) has to do is robots.txt them out of their sites and there would be no Google. The results would be empty. At the moment, Wemasters are being foreced in to Google's desired incarnation of the web. You can so much as sneeze or link to your other sites ans you'll get hit with a penalty! It's just not cricket!
Is it me or is this a new feature? I was looking at the referers to this blog and saw this one.
The interesting thing is that there's a drop down to allow people to fine pages with certain degrees of freshness: 24hours, past week, past month, past two months etc.
And the results are actually effected by the filtering - has anyone else seen this? Or am I just blogging about something "old hat"?
Bloomberg is reporting that neither Google, Yahoo! or MSN could persuade Time Inc. to allow them to place their ad system on Time's collection of 15 sites which include CNNMoney and People.com.
The alleged reason that Quigo won the race is that they attract the bigger brands with higher CPC budgets than any of the three search engines. Ari Levy and Gillian Wee from Bloomberg reasoned:
Quigo targets better-known publishers such as Time, ESPN and Slate, arranging deals that let online advertisers specify which pages they want to appear on rather than taking what they get. While Google now offers a similar bid-by-page option, Quigo may have an edge as the model's pioneer.
With the reported slowing in the growth of ad sales for Google from 77 percent in the second quarter last year to 58 percent in the same quarter this year it may prove that Google are getting near capacity with their core Adwords products and have to move to offer other CPC/CPA avenues such as Adwords in YouTube videos or YouTube in Google Earth which I expect will be the next to be heavily monetised. Then you've got the proposed Google Phone which could aid the next growth phase in their ad sales?
So is this the end of the big online property owners love affair with Adsense? Time Inc. will only tell.
Lock me away in a dark room so I don't faff around with unimportant rubbish!
I've got merchants and networks on at me asking when I'm going to promote them. So it may be a quieter time on here until I get on top of all the niche sites and ppc that I'm supposed to be doing?
The thing is, can I really be bothered with my Santa Costumes site this year? Anybody want to take it off my hands? It did ok with some ppc last year but should do much better with some TLC!
News from PCPro is that Google are going to embed Youtube videos against geographical locations in Google Earth .
Now that's way cool and will be something to make me redownload it.
Now, is this another reason why eretailers should be leveraging YouTube as a marketing method?
You could have featured reviews of Rome by RomeHolidays.com, or sample video tours and the Rossetta language thingy sponsoring clips? The opportunities are endless.
But why are Google doing it? Michael Jones, chief technologist for Google Earth explains:
"Our vision here is all about the sense of place. Photos show the local view, but videos add the sense of life. The combination of Earth's 'where' with YouTube's 'what' makes the combined experience that much more complete and compelling."
The Business Magazine has an interesting article of the impact of social networking and e-commerce on traditional bricks and mortar outfits.
It talks about about the company that owns the Cosmo and Good Housekeeping brands buying the self-styled social shopping site Kaboodle for a relatively light £19m.
The site has grown from just 100,000 monthly unique visitors in October 2006 but last month has grown to 3 million.
It works by asking you to rate a variety of products and then joins you to groups of people with similar tastes. They've also got a social bookmarking feature that allows users to save "clips" of products they see on other sites from their toolbar (like Stumbleupon) and adds it to their profile.
So over time the Kaboodle site will get a better profile of the registrant - just think of the marketing opportunity that they'll give to advertisers!
They also mention StyleHive which works in much the same way. But it is Crowdstorm that is set to dominate in the UK. The new version of the site will be released in the next couple of weeks and aims to allow consumers to shop around the UK and whilst they browse the system will learn their browsing habits and automatically place them in groups (crowds) that it feels could help them make better buying decisions.
They're also set to offer an advanced advertising system that uses search data to pick up which brands people are searching for and which retailers and then offer advertising at a premium to competing brands. Good move!
The Business contends that:
"While [social shopping sites] focus on images makes it easier to browse and buy fashion and homeware, consumers of these kinds of products also want to touch and try, something the internet cannot offer. Social shopping sites will fill a valuable niche in the online shopping market, but the death of the salesman is still some way off."
My view is that its only a mater of time. But until then, affiliates should be using these sites for their own end. I'm not talking about hijacking and spamming them, but for market research - finding out which products have buzz and promoting them via the normal methods.
But what happens if they start to dominate the general shopping channels? How should retailers and affiliates respond? Affiliates will have to continue to add value to the buying process (see my What will Affiliate Marketing be like in 5 years post) and retailers will just have to see them as another advertising medium.
Eventually, these social, "we're learning exactly what you want"-type sites will dominate the end of the buying cycle. But how will Google respond to social shopping sites and truly intuitive sites like FetchBack? I think they've really missed a trick with the social type services. They had the opportunity to socialise Google Products but haven't. This is a mistake that could cost them millions billions.
I have a love / hate relationship with Google - most do. One thing I hate at the moment is their inability to let webmasters test things without being penalised.
But the one Google offering I do love is GoogleAnalytics. It's easy to use, I do have the occasional problem in IE transferring from one account to the other and it forgetting I've signed out. But generally it's got some good features.
But, what I'd like them to give me for Christmas is ...
1) The ability to chart search term depth by day - you can do it in Hitwise. It is important in SEO to see beyond the number of clicks but the distribution of search terms used to find your site. If you're SEO and content generation is truly working wonders you'll be able to see the quantity of keywords search for and deliver traffic grow over time - it would also show stability of the site.
Google Analytics already has the data so it shouldn't be too difficult to offer.
2) The ability to transpose site visit data on the charts. This would help me work out what causes in the fluctuation of site traffic is given that I know what changes I've made.
3) The percentage of traffic from the range of sources over time. You know those charts where you get the total traffic and then it's made up of different colours for the different types - oh Excel does them! I'd like to see if my traffic from natural is going up overtime whilst the traffic from other site referrals goes down.
4) I'd also like the ability to group sites into categories. For instance, I'd great a social bookmarking category and I'd put my traffic from Del.icio.us and StumbleUpon in there. I'd also categorise other sites in Blog categories etc etc. That'd be cool. Is it there already under "campaigns"?
5) I'd like it, when I change the date range, not to change the end date to the same date as the new start date. It's just plain annoying - surely that's just a quick fix!
6) Just thought of something else. Wouldn't it be great if you could refine the list of keywords by a search? This would work just like the AdWords keyword refining work. I'd like to find out what search terms my site attracts traffic with on a given theme. This would certainly solve this issue.
What else would you like to see if the next release of Analytics? Or are my ideas just rollocks?
The latest comScore qSearch 2.0 research shows that more an 37 billion searches worldwide were conducted on Google in August which accounts to 60% of all searches. Google has about 50% of the market in US and a lot less in China and South Korea.
Danny Sullivan takes the view that "Google isn't invincible and can be beaten in markets ... but it's going to be a challenge."* Danny - I think you slightly underplay the challenge as Google is getting more and more entrenched into people's everyday lives.
The data isn't robust, but what other data do determine our SEO focus? We can look at the share price but they're tainted by expectations and market news. Earnings are great, but that just proves a search engine's ability to monetise their traffic. I want to know real uptake - that matters to me.
But it's information we'll never have. Hitwise has good data but it's not totally pervasive. Search Engine Optimisers still have to do a degree of "pissing in the wind" when it comes to which search engines to target on foreign shores, but in the UK there's no real competition to worry about!
Until a couple of weeks ago I hadn't had a chat with Helen for a couple of years. She was one of the first people I got to know when I made the leap and actually went to a get2gether back in the affiliate dark ages. I'm sure I only ever see the smiling, jocular side of Helen whilst the rest in dgm see the serious, determined side. But I'm sure this is something that every network needs.
I met Matt for the first time (that I can remember) the other week at the pre-Affiliate Summit event and was shocked to see he's a Citeh fan. I'm sure I can put that to one side and start to work as closely with them as I do other networks.
Again I saw the "Meet the Network" posts as a way of us all getting to know the people behind the scenes at the networks and I haven't received any reward for posting about them - although if they offered "payment" in seeing Matt wear a Utd shirt I wouldn't say no! ;-)
dgm is the trading name of dealgroupmedia (UK) Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Deal Group Media plc. The company was founded in 1999 the UK's first affiliate network provider. In 2003 the company extended its portfolio of performance-based marketing products, launching its online advertising network and acquiring leading Search Engine Marketing specialist IBNet plc. This formed Deal Group Media plc. With offices in London, Sydney, Singapore, Delhi, Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Auckland, the group now has over 120 staff worldwide and over 250 clients. DGM is listed on the stock exchange (AIM)
dgmAffiliates was originally called UK Affiliates and was launched by CEO Adrian Moss, who pioneered affiliate marketing in the UK by setting up dgm as the first affiliate marketing network.
dgmAffiliates specialise in managing blue chip brands including existing Clients Vodafone, The AA, Virgin Media, Tiscali and Sea France.
The Client Account Management team is led by Matt Bailey. Matt has been at dgm since July 2006 and has recently been short listed for Account Manager of 2007 at this years A4U Awards. The Client team’s key focus is on being a strategic partner for our Clients and working with them to achieve their online objectives.
We also have a newly established Affiliate Management team led by Helen Southgate. Helen has over 5 ½ years experience in the affiliate industry and her key role is to make sure dgm provide affiliates with the highest level of service, support the Client account management team and create business development opportunities for all affiliates across the network.
Meet The Team:
Name: Dan Cohen
Position In Company: Affiliate Operations Director
What is your job role? I run the delivery of the network
What is your favourite sandwich?
Bacon & cream cheese
Tell us an interesting fact about you:
My dad played for the England Rugby Team (ok, only under 16's, but at least he can say that he played & beat Australia)
What is your job role? I head up the affiliate account management team who are responsible for all things affiliate.
What is your favourite sandwich? Mozzarella cheese, fresh basil, parma ham and sundried tomato in a huge jaw breaking ciabatta. No sandwich has come close but open to being proven otherwise.
Tell us an interesting fact about you: I failed my cycling proficiency test at the age of 12 after pulling a wheelie and crashing into the examiner.
What's your favourite website? www.eastcoastsurf.co.uk – No I’m not a surfer but this is my brother’s website and is great for checking out the “swell” anywhere from Cromer to Cornwall
What's your dgm Nickname? “Gareth” (after Gareth Southgate)
Name: Matt Bailey
Position: Client Director
Role: Manage the team of Account Managers
What is your favourite sandwich?
Brie, warm bacon, mayonnaise and cranberry sauce on a freshly cooked baguette.
Tell us an interesting fact about you: I only have four toes on my left foot
What's your favourite website? www.mcfc.co.uk - [ed: Do I really have to put that?]
What's your dgm Nickname? “Bailey”
Name: James Jackson
Position: Account Manager
Role: Managing a number of blue-chip accounts; many in the telecoms sector and responsible for management of a team of Account Execs and their acccounts.
What is your favourite sandwich? Bacon, of course!
Tell us an interesting fact about you: Captained the Great Britain 2-man luge team at the 1990 Junior inter Olympics in Helsinki.
Role: I specialise in broadband affiliate campaigns but I'm launching a very exciting retail client in the next few weeks in time for the Christmas rush - so watch this space!
What is your favourite sandwich? Crayfish from Padstow Harbour with chilli mayonnaise in a granary cob... mmmmm... reminds me of Summer!
Tell us an interesting fact about you: I studied in Canada for a year and lived near Niagara Falls.
I'm sorry Hero and the guys at Webgains! I got my fantastic Virginia Hayward hamper on Wednesday just before I travelled down to the A4UExpo but forgot to mention it and have only got round to posting my thanks!
I was just trying to do the usual thing of registering a new client with the relevant directories. I obviously start with DMOZ (it's a habit thing) but was shocked at what I found.
A cracking event!! Great speakers, very well organised, fantastic conversation - both work-related and general banter.
Website: 
Google is attacking affiliates, no denying it. They want listings to be full of useful information. They've been cracking down on paid links, spam and all kinds of crap.
Bollocks, balls and grrr!
Name: Dan Cohen
Name: Matt Bailey 
Name: James Jackson 
Name: Ben Cockburn
Name: Matt Swan
Name: Catherine Rudkin
Name: Kevin Sutton
Name: Jen Brain
Name: Sheenu Aggarwal 
