An Interview With Chris Clarkson - Sunshine.co.uk

Who hasn't heard of Sunshine.co.uk or Chris's previous company? Here we get to know a bit more about Chris Clarkson and the rest of the team behind one of the affiliate marketing industry's most receptive brands of the last few years.


In ten words or less, describe yourself

Daddy. Husband. Brother. Friend. Workaholic.

How did you get into affiliate marketing? Was Holiday Watchdog your first foray?

My first site was actually a shopping directory (the cashback/voucher code site of the time) but with a mobiles slant. I wasn't even looking at the travel sector until I hooked up with Chris Brown.


I know Lanky Git [ (Chris Brown) is into Touring Cars, but what do you do to get away from "work"?

I'd love to say something as exciting, the truth is with two kids there isn't much spare time. I try and get down to support my local rugby club and fit in a few games of golf. I think the lifestyle involved with this indutry means you're never really switched off from work, it's always there in one way or another.


Everyone knows you from your days co-founding Holiday Watchdog which you sold last year for a handy sum. Is that a millstone around your neck or do you look upon those days and the outcome favourably considering your current role at Sunshine.co.uk?

We're very happy with the outcome obviously, and don't consider it a millstone at all. When we were looking to launch sunshine.co.uk as an affiliate programme we knew exactly what affiliates needed having spent so many hours/days/weeks looking at travel agent websites as affiliates!


Some people would stop after the year you had last year, what keeps you going?

Basically I still enjoy it. sunshine.co.uk gave us a fresh start with something new and interesting, it's been good fun building the programme and the brand. Maybe if I was better at golf I might not still work so many hours!


I see that you're involved with a few non-travel projects such as Find The Fairways and Debt Watchdog via TitleTags, was this part are you involved in these projects for a bit of non-travel sanity or because you'll use the skills you've built up in any field, regardless of what it is?

The two sites are both "run" by other people with a passion for that area. We just provide the technical support required to let them get on with it. It is interesting to reach across other sectors and see what works and what doesn't in comparison to travel.


Who have been your biggest inspirations in the industry?

There are loads! Mostly the guys I used to hang with in the old A4u chatroom in the early days. In no particular order-

• John Lamerton
  
• Shane Robinson
  
• Clarke Duncan
  
• Jamie Harwood
  
• Matthew Wood
  

One of the cool things about our industry is that there's no barrier to relationships, it doesn't matter how small an affiliate you are or if you haven't even earned your first penny at it, get along to an event and you can talk to anyone. The guys at the top remember what it's like starting out and are always very approachable and helpful. Buying them a beer often helps too :)


How did you get from Holiday Watchdog to Sunshine.co.uk, to me it’s an unusual step, considering it's a trading name of Hays Travel. What is your role there?

We actually started putting sunshine together in late 2006, long before we sold HW. We were approached by a travel agency and thought it would be an interesting project. When the travel agency decided not to maintain their interest in it, we either had to find another travel agent to run it for us or do it ourselves. We hooked up with Hays Travel, who take care of all the contracts/ legal stuff, and let us get on with selling holidays. It's not entirely disimilar from an affiliate relationship, except we deal with all the customers.


I ducked out of the travel affiliate sphere because of the competition a few years ago and decided to focus on retail stuff (er, there was competition ere too). In that process I realised that regardless of the amount of competition, if you focus on a niche, play to your strengths and find a better way of doing things, you can definitely succeed. How does Sunshine.co.uk try and stand out from the crowds in a noisy travel market?

Cheap. In a word, we try and be the cheapest there is, by using several suppliers and keeping our margins and costs low. That only works if you get people to the site of course, so our organic SEO and word of mouth are our main traffic drivers alongside our affiliate programme.


It seems that you and the team are doing very well, having been highly commended in the e-consultancy Innovation Awards, are there any nice technical progresses for affiliates in the near future over and above what you already offer?

We're planning two new site releases this year, one of which will have an affiliate programme. The first site is due to be soft-launched in the next couple of weeks, it's got some pretty cool technical features that we're trying out there before moving them onto sunshine.co.uk . We'll then go back and have a look at sunPress again and see what we can improve/bug-fix. The second new site is the one we're really excited about as it's a new area for us and something quite unique too.


I'm a firm believer that affiliate incentives work. You've recently launched your "Win one of six places to Barbados Affiliate Incentive", you obviously agree that they work. But why do you think they do? Are affiliates primarily encouraged to get the kudos, the prize, beating their friends/competitors, because it makes your offering stand out from other travel merchants....?

As an affiliate, I wanted to go to Barbados (Still haven't made it yet!). It's a great prize and gets bigger and bigger every year, kudos to Pete and Affiliate Future. We're offering 6 tickets to give everyone an opportunity at getting there, no matter how big or small the affiliate, even if they aren't "travel affiliates" yet. Do we want to stand out from other travel merchants? Yes, you bet! There are more and more travel companies entering the affiliate arena every month, so we want to make sure we're on everyone's radar!


I'm working on my Cuba Holidays Blog and finding it a nightmare to find which merchants to promote (along with Sunshine.co.uk]. Do you have any advice for me and other affiliates to "separate the wheat from the chaff" in selecting travel merchants?

The affiliate4u forum is always a good place to start, if a programme isn't performing you'll generally hear about it there first. As affiliates we'd always look at a merchant's site from a customer's point of view and see how easy it is to find availability and complete a booking. Leakage is another issue to look out for, how hard are they pushing their telephone number, how many external links are on the site?


There are 18 of you in the company including, but who else is involved and what do they do?

We have a nice office in Fleet that houses our cutomer services/support, who deal with pre and post booking customer issues. Simon White and Kirsty Hills run these departments with Chris Brown as head honcho. Our content team all work from home either full or part time under the watchful eye of Bex Gill. Alan Gilmour is our techie, and also a director of the company. We'd be a bit lost without him!


You're on Twitter and so is Bex Gill, but are there any other Sunshiners on it?

Chris Brown

Simon White


With Sunshine and HWD in the same industry, but on the two different sides of it, are you looking at moving over the usefulness of reviews and the social media optimisation that you wrote about a couple of years ago?

The short story is we aren't allowed to go near UGC for a period of time as part of the sale conditions of HW. Social Media we're always looking at, but it's not really near a tipping point for B2C at the moment for us.


Voucher Codes are a hot topic, even after the AMC has tried to sort out rogue affiliates and build some consistency of approach. You've obviously thought of the issue with your Sunshine.co.uk discount codes page. What are your views relating to unshine.co.uk (may be too much of a hot topic to discuss generally)?

I think there are two sides to this. I can see the appeal as an affiliate, but it's all about how those sales are generated. Some voucher sites do add value to a programme, generating traffic, others will just optimise for brands whether or not they even have discount codes. As a content affiliate that would annoy me!


What are the plans for Sunshine.co.uk's future? Are there any interesting developments us affiliates should look out for?

We've got a few additions to bring to sunPress when we next do a release and we're keen for others to have a look at it and see where they can develop add-on plugins for it. We're still expanding the site and that's a never-ending job really. The next major development is handling multi-leg flights opening up a whole lot of new destinations for us.


Will there be any Sunshine.co.uk t-shirts given out in Barbados for your competition winners this year after the success of the HWD ones a few years ago? But could you
make them so they're not rippable please?

I'm sure we'll send something along, all suggestions welcome!