I thought it would be an interesting idea to try and get my Expo ticket competition winner to write up his experiences from the big event through the eyes of a novice. So without further ado, I’ll hand you over to Rich, newbie affiliate reporter extraordinaire!

What can I say that hasn’t already been said? The A4U Expo this year was such a highly anticipated event, and it certainly didn’t fail to impress. Well, that’s partly true for me. Thanks to Kirsty and Chris Clarkson from Sunshine.co.uk, I didn’t have time for the anticipation to build up! Having only found out that I was actually going to A4U Expo, just a week before it, meant that everything up to the starting evening was a mad panic.

Whilst on the train on the way down to London I had so many thoughts running through my head – what if people don’t talk to me because I’m a newbie? What if the networks don’t want to know as I don’t currently promote them? What if the content of the expo is way over my head? What if Kirsty and Duncan aren’t as nice as they seemed from the emails and Kirsty’s blog? Needless to say, none of those questions were an issue (ok, so maybe one was slightly, but more on that later!).

Ignite Party

Walking into the ignite party on the first night was impressive – there were a lot more people than I expected to see there, and the male-female ratio was much higher than I thought it would be too, but, I didn’t realise that most of the girls were from networks and agencies.

After a long night at the bar (everyone seems to have so much stamina!!), I finally headed off to bed at around 2am, pleased in the knowledge that I’d met a lot of new people, even if one of them had managed to convince me they needed a domain that I own (yes Ray, that’s you!).

One thing I did notice from my first night chatting to everyone was that most affiliates tend to have a very strong software development background, rather than a marketing one. Perhaps it’s a natural progression to go from a technical side of the web to a more creative side?

Day One

Day one of the exhibition started off badly for me – I somehow slept through my alarm (couldn’t possibly have been the late night and copious amounts of alcohol) and ended up getting to the first session just in time for it to start, rather than being there nice and early as I had planned!

The keynote session by Michael Nutley from New Media Age was, although interesting, slightly irrelevant I felt. Yes, perhaps for the networks and agencies it may have been, but for the general affiliate I felt that the keynote should have been by someone from Google (where were they??), or MSN.

The next session that I went to was the Wordpress SEO optimisation one, held by Joost De Valk. Although there wasn’t anything new as such here, mainly due to the fact that I read his blog on a regular basis, it did help by making a lot of the areas that he covers sink in. The plug-ins that he covered are incredibly useful, and often simply make common-sense!

Following Kirsty’s recommendation, I headed off to the SEO 101 session next, this time held by Judith Lewis. It was a great introduction to SEO, and helped me to understand what it was all about! The key thing that came from this session was that relevant, contextual links are very critical to getting ranked within search engines.

Obviously, attending “So You Don’t Do Travel?” by Chris Clarkson and Alan Gilmour was to be the next session, and wow, what a surprise they had in store! SunPress is their WordPress plug-in to enable their holiday information to be put directly into your WordPress site. I have already started researching domains for this fantastic tool to be put onto, so within a week or two I’ll have a couple up. This alone makes day 1 fascinating!

After the session had finished, I decided to wander around, and chat to some of the merchants, and networks, and see what they had to say. I decided to be honest with the networks and agencies and let them know that I was just getting started out in the world of affiliate marketing, to see how they judged me (and so I could report back on here!). Most of them were ok with that, but didn’t really want to spend much time chatting to me, but there was one that pretty much said that they can’t do anything for me. Kirsty knows who they are, and I’m pretty sure that most of you can guess too, but if you want to find out, simply leave a comment and we’ll tell you!

<editors rant>

Note from Kirsty - Don’t be so soft Rich, stick it to them!!!  It was CJ, and bloody well shame upon them for not wanting to take five minutes to have a wee chat with a new affiliate.  We all started somewhere, and for them to not have the foresight to actually realise that todays beginner could be tomorrows super affiliate (or even just a decent performer) is pathetic to say the least.  Imagine, just imagine how it would make anyone feel to have someone just walk away from them at a networking event like ours - “Nah sorry mate, you can’t do anything for us, so we’re not interested.”

Pathetic!!

</editors rant>

Unsure about which session to attend next, I took some advice from Kirsty and Duncan; get the traffic to your site before you start optimising! This in hindsight seemed to be common sense (pretty much like everything in affiliate marketing!), and so I headed off for the Extreme SEO session with the panel of SEOs. The session gave us an insight into what goes through their minds, although there was a lot of talk about negative SEO which I’m not too sure is much use for a beginner (well at least one who wants to stay to white-hat methods!). Still, it was a pretty entertaining session.

Following on from this I attended the link-building session at the end of the day, which, although informative, wasn’t as controversial as some of the other sessions!

The cruise along the Thames later on that evening aboard the Silver Sturgeon proved to be really enjoyable, and was a fantastic chance to network again (and to take advantage of the free bar!). This really seems to be the most rewarding part of the whole expo, with the chance to network with other affiliates and merchants.

Day Two

Day two was a bit of a late start for me after leaving the bar at 4am (it’s all Chris Clarkson’s fault!!), so I missed the first session on SEO and PPC which I really wanted to attend. After that, I headed off in search of the next session which was the Practical PPC strategies for better ROI one, with Mel Carson and Tor Crockatt from MSN, and Dixon Jones. Although it was entertaining, I feel that my time would have been better spent in the Effective Voucher Code session, as I gained very little from the PPC Strategies one, with it seeming to be aimed at more experienced PPC affiliates.

Al Carlton’s Million Dollar Blogging Strategies in session 3 was one that I was looking forward to, having spoken to him on the night before. I knew that he was not looking forward to it as he was very nervous, so to actually take something away from it that has stuck in my head must’ve meant he did a pretty good job. It’s amazing how much attention a WordPress blog can generate!

The final session that I went to was the Super Affiliates session (the same as almost every other affiliate it seems!). Although I didn’t gain much from this in terms of technical knowledge, it was great to get some quotes from the three guys, and to hear snippets of their stories. It definitely served as an inspiration, and shows that no matter where you are, there is always room for improvement.

The final night of the expo led us to the Fox @ Excel bar, where Sky had commandeered a section of the bar for their VIP room. Luckily I had the pleasure of gaining entry thanks to Teresa at Stream 20 (She promised me if I went back on Day 2 of the expo she’d give me a wristband, and true to her word, she did!). It was good to meet the celebrities (even if I had no idea who one of them was!), and certainly made for a different kind of evening.

I guess the 2 words that sum up the expo for me would have to be Links and Action! Links seem pretty much integral to getting anywhere in the search engines. Action is required to get anywhere within affiliate marketing, so just get out there and do it and not hesitate!

I owe so many thanks to Chris Clarkson from Sunshine.co.uk and Kirsty for this amazing opportunity. I know I’ve rambled on a bit, and I’ve missed out so much too, I could just go on for days telling you about every little part of the experience, but, if you didn’t go this year, then all I can say is that you missed out on so much! I know for sure that I will be going next year, if not to Amsterdam in the Spring!

Well guys and gals, I’m sat here in my jim jams absolutely knackered.  Another great conference from Matt and team has convinced both Duncan and myself that it was well worth delaying our Honeymoon to attend!

2 days of hugely informative conference sessions, networking and some truly amazing after parties have really been a testament to how hard the organisers have worked to better last years great event.  Like many others, I’d meant to post during the conference and give updates about what was going on.  Unfortunately, I was enjoying myself so much I just couldn’t rip myself away.

So the highlights…

The Conference

• Like just about anyone else with a single Iota of common sense I really, really enjoyed Joost De Valk’s great Wordpress Seo Strategies session.  There were some amazing resources and gems of information in there.  I’ve taken bags of notes so I will try to make a separate post listing some “must haves and must do’s” for all you Wordpress Groupies out there.
• Once again, the “Meet The Super Affiliates” session gave a fascinating insight into the mystic world of the big money guys.  As Kieron said, there were less questions than last year which was a bit of a shame. I think the late session time meant there were a lot of very jaded affiliate peeps in the session.  It’s quite intimidating asking a question in a packed room, so I suggest that next year we set up a system similar to that used by comedian Jack Dee…. let affiliates text in questions during the conference. Again, I have some notes from this session I’ll try to publish separately.
• I particularly enjoyed Affiliate Future’s “Pirate Hour” on the last day. Now I too can legitimately harp on about how great Mountgay Rum and Coke is.  It also gave me an opportunity to show off my extremely convincing “Yah-Har!!” Which I learned from the boaties at Airlie Beach, Australia, when I was hanging out there.  Alas, I didn’t win their excellent stand draw which was a trip to Barbados so I could impress them further
• Sunpress. What a great tool, you’d be mad not to use it!
• Generally, the networking and stands were great.  The Sky bar was a great idea, as were the various bits of booze, nibbles and general hospitality doled out by many.  My favourite one was, of course, Affiliate HQ - the Existem stand.  If you’re a merchant or network and you can’t find affiliates at the conference, this is the stand to hover near. Here’s a pic of me and some others hijacking their sofas to eat lunch on day two.  Now how many other agencies would really have affiliates hanging out with them like that?  Merchants with management requirements take note!!

The Networking Parties

• One thing I’d like to comment upon is just what a thoroughly nice chap Joost De Valk really is.  I bumped into him a couple of times and noticed that he spent a lot of time chatting to different people and was happily answering questions from many different people.  It’s nice to see someone with a profile like his taking the time to generally shoot the breeze with his many admirers.
• The Thames Cruise - whichever member of Matt’s team who thought that one up deserves a pay rise.  It was an absolutely stunning evening, and one I’ll take a long time to forget.  I’ve never seen London from that angle so it was a real pleasure.  Yeah, it was a bit sparse on the food (I’d eaten already though) but good old Mr Wood came charging to the rescue back at Novotel with a massive order of chips to fill those affiliate tums.
• The Hilarious Benny Hill Style Moment when hungry affiliates caught sight of a poor waitress laden with chips and quite literally chased her into a corner.  When she managed to duck around them she ended up dashing through the bar with Ray Theakston and Chris Frost in hot pursuit, yelling and waving their arms in a comedy fashion.  They were soon joined by a few others!
• Meeting a chap who was very friendly up until he worked out I was the girl who’d posted a picture of him falling asleep at the Buy.at do last year.  He soon got friendly again when I threatened to re-post it though, so yet another demonstration of “the power of the blogger”.
• The VIP Sky Bar on the last night was great.  Not least because of the large amount of champagne Duncan and I managed to consume.  Yummy. So well done to those guys at Stream 20 for organising that.  Alas, not being a sporty type, I’d no idea who their celebs were but loads of other people seemed really very excited.
• Finally, it wouldn’t be the Expo if someone didn’t manage to insult me in a comedy fashion. This year’s was very obtuse, but I was chatting to the lovely Dom Hodgson who told me he’d “Never heard of or seen my blog”.  Fair enough.  But when I explained I had moved to Australia he proclaimed “Oh, yeah… you’re that girl. I have seen your blog” He then went on to explain that a friend had showed him my blog remarking that Affiliate Marketing must be easy because “This Affiliate Cow has just moved to Australia”. What is it with me and people thinking I look a bit bovine?  I reckon the only solution is to stop wearing this bell and Moo-ing every time I want a drink?!
• Finally, finally I’ll leave you with a picture of my gorgeous husband taking his networking very seriously…

In our defence (i.e. the picture takers as opposed to just me and Dunc), I shall just point out we did make sure this chap had somewhere to sleep that night.  In his defence, it was 3am and it’d been a long hard conference with lots of free booze.

Thank You

To everyone who came to say hello.  It was great to meet loads of new people, and good to hear that my inane ramblings have helped people make sense of the affiliate business.

See You All In Amsterdam

Yep, Matt has it all arranged already.  Next up is a stonking great affiliate Jolly to The ‘Dam.  It’s on 28th & 29th April 2009 and we’ll be booking our hotel as soon as venue details are released.  We can’t wait, and love the fact that Affiliate Marketing is at last having these kind of events.

Right… I’m Off To Pack

I’m off to Singapore tomorrow and the removalists are arriving in an hour to grab our gear to ship to OZ.  I better go get dressed!!

I was intrigued by a recent A4U thread where a (rather irate) merchant, Blushing Buyer,  whom I’ve worked with for a few years announced they were: -

“closing the program as we really can’t be bothered with the scheming, thieving, lazy affiliates(I use the term affiliate reservedly, it should be reserved for those who actually do some work) who do nothing but steal existing customers, or the lazy and incompetent networks who are doing nothing to stop them.”

They have decided to dump their network, Affiliate Window. And take programme management in-house.

I must hasten to add this wasn’t a blanket statement about all affiliates, you can read the rest of the post and the discussion that followed afterwards here.

A Knee Jerk Reaction?

Many people felt that Blushing Buyer should really have taken more personal responsibility for managing these issues, and pointed out they’d have issues finding affiliates for an in-house offering. Personally, I was more interested in finding out what had gotten a quality merchant so thoroughly pissed off with a Network which has one of the best reputations in the industry. So I decided to ask Steve, the MD of Blushing Buyer, for some more comments to give a bit of insight into how merchants see our industry, the services they get from networks, and what had brought him to his decision.

1. Clearly you feel very strongly about the experience you’ve had as a merchant. What would it take for you to decide to maintain a network presence? i.e. What service do you feel you should be getting for the 30% override?

Kirsty, my comments on the forum are probably a little harsh, they were written quickly, by someone who was very angry. We’ve been running an affiliate program on Affiliate Window for about 7 years, we were one of their first merchants so I have a good understanding off how affiliate marketing should work, and how it doesn’t.

In that time I can count the number of time the network has called me on one hand, now I don’t expect to be called once a month, but some regular personal contact, along with some advice on running the program should be part and parcel of the service that they offer. The technical tracking, and paying the affilaites is important, but so is developing the program. We often felt that the network was in the way of us developing our program and communicating with our affiliates

Coming back to the final reason that we decided to end our program, dodgy affiliates. There have been dodgy affiliates around since affiliate marketing was invented. The industry seems to be very reluctant, or at best very slow to deal with these affiliates.

At the end of last month we noticed that two or three voucher code affiliates were breaking our terms and conditions by using pop unders while promoting a voucher code that didn’t exist. These affiliates were listed in google in 2 and 3 for a search on our brand name, so they were stealing a lot of commission. We suspended them, and rejected all their commission.

I waited for Affiliate Window to contact me and ask why, you would have thought that as we’d just declined about 30% of our monthly commisions that they would wonder why. No, not at all, silence. Those affiliates should be chucked out of Affiliate Window completely, and their names blacklisted across all the networks. The network stands to gain by retaining these affiliates, remember, they get 30% override on all commisions. The only party losing is the merchant. Well, until merchants wake up and realise that a large %age of sales through their affiliate channel are canibalised from their other marketing efforts. Once you realise this, and do the sums, it just doesn’t add up.

Today I noticed a PPC ad for our brand that I didn’t recognise, mainly as the spelling on it was awful. The ad was from an affiliate, one who we had paid a large amount of commission to over the past 2 to 3 months. This was the final straw. When I spoke to Affiliate Window, they didn’t seem surpirsed, or particularly concerned that an affiliate was stealing our money, infact, the affiliate was already suspected of doing the same to other merchants. If this was the case, why were they not stopped, would it be because the network was complicit in stealing our commision? They afterall get their 30% anyway.

The networks are making a LOT of money out of affiliate marketing, they need to police their affiliates effectively. It’s kinda like the banking situation at the moment. It’s OK making dodgy loans for a while, but in the end they come back and bite you. If the networks continue to allow dodgy affiliates to prosper, they may well find that in a few months/years it will come back and bite them.

2. Taking your programme in-house is a very big step. How important is Affiliate Marketing to your business at the moment. What future do you see for Blushing Buyer in the affiliate marketing sphere?
It is a big step, but for us affiliate marketing is only a very small part of our marketing mix, especially when we take the dodgy commisions out. we would rather have a handful of affiliates such as yourself, who can generate us genuine new customers, than 10000 affiliates who either do nothing, or worse steal from us.

I don’t ever see affiliate marketing becoming a major channel for us, but it is a great way of developing niches. There are genuine affiliates who do a great job, and we will continue to try to find those affiliates and try to work more closely with them. I can even see us working directly with voucher affiliates and cashback sites, but it needs to be done in a way where we see a proper return on our investment, and we retain an element of control. For example, if an affiliate can demonstrate that they can get our voucher code out to their 10000 strong mailing list, and we see some genuine sales from it, then I would be happy to work with them. Or if they use their SEO skills to promote a voucher for the products we sell, rather than using their SEO skills to leach customers who were going to buy from us anyway, then that helps us generate new business.

It’s about building relationships and trust, not something that is very prevelent within the network dominated market at present.

Well, our bags are (almost!) packed as are all the many boxes we’re shipping over to Australia at the end of next week.  As a result, my parents house looks like a Pickfords depot and we’re glad to be off out of it for a few days of affiliate fun!

I’ve Got Most Of My Sessions Picked Out…

I’ll be attending…

Day 1

• Joost De Valk’s Wordpress SEO & Optimisation strategies - essential IMHO.  After all my efforts to get back into the swing of the SEO thang this year I’d be mad if I didn’t!
• Internet Marketing Howlers Uncovered - it’s important to feel smug sometimes.  I’ve made lots of mistakes in the last 12 months, so this’ll be excellent motivation to help me see things aren’t alwsys that bad.
• So You Don’t Do Travel? Any affiliate worth their salt should be at this one… I mean come on.  It’s a secret, and we’re all dying to know. I actually know what it is, and I’m still going as it’s totally essential for me to hear about the nitty gritty.
• Extreme SEO Strategies for Affiliates OR Landing Page Optimisation Demystified - Hmmm. Still haven’t made my mind up there.  I’m hedging towards the SEO…. but landing pages are important too.  Arrkk!
• Internal & External Linking Strategies - Hoping to find out a few new tips as I’m thinking my knowledge on this may be a little out of date.  We’ll see how it pans out!

Day 2

• Practical PPC Strategies For Better ROI -  Again, I don’t want to fall into the trap of thinking I know it all!
• How To Increase Conversions, A New Approach Based on Psychological Methods - I’m fascinated by the way people think when they are in the online buying cycle.  I’m hoping this session will be right up my alley.
• Meet The Super Affiliates - Ah, you gotta attend this one really!  A hugely popular session from last year.

As per last year I’ll report back on sessions where I can and share nuggets of useful info for my blog readers.  An added bonus this year is that my competition winner Rich has agreed to be a roving reporter looking at things from a novice point of view.  He’ll be attending more of the basic info sessions and hopefully will be sharing his notes with you all!

Finally…

If you’re attending the Expo and you’ve never met me before do please come and say hello.  Last year there was a bit of an issue in that a lot of people didn’t seem to really know what I look like, lol. So in an effort to help identify myself….

Here’s what I look like all done up for the networking parties: -

And this is what I look like with my glasses on and my hair tied back which is how you’ll likely find me during the day.

Apparently there’s quite a difference and it confuses some people. Can’t see the issue myself, I always know who it is in the bathroom mirror whenever I take a wee peep.  Incidentally, the above is a picture of me finding out just how nice my Mini Moon courtesy of Kieron and Sunshine.co.uk was really going to be.  As you can see I was very happy!!

See you all there, and don’t forget that my favourite drink is Whisky and Coke. I am always delighted when people wander up and offer me alcohol.

What do you mean, “she’s finally lost it?”

No I haven’t!  Here’s the thing.  Affiliate Christmas is almost upon us, and silly season will start very, very soon.

It’s different from Christmas for everyone else.  Carols, nativity plays, mulled wine, tinsel, rushing around buying like crazy, wrapping gifts in frantic preparation for the climax. All for a single day of chaos, and chronic over indulgence in the food and drink department.

This is followed by an empty sensation around the bank account department and an inability to close your dustbin lid.

But Affiliate Christmas is A Little Different

Those of you whom Father Affiliate Christmas visits each and every year will be joining me in the excitement and anticipation of this year’s festive season.

“Woo hoo!!” You’ll be thinking. “Momma’s gonna buy me a new [Insert Appropriate Consumer Goods Here]”

Those of you who are new affiliates will be thinking.  “Pah!  Just how much better than normal can Christmas be?”

Well, as a guideline if you are targeting the right merchants your sales can rise by up to ten times (or more if you strike it lucky).  I have one merchant for whom I generate around 20 sales per day year round.  Come Affiliate Christmas, that total rises to around 200.  Obviously this isn’t a hard and fast rule and it depends on sector, this kind of stuff is difficult to quantify!

So Here’s What It Is Like When Father Affiliate Christmas Comes To Visit

• Rather than dashing around buying presents and getting excited, you’re most likely going to be found glued to your laptop pushing the refresh button on your favourite affiliate network and shouting “Woo Hoo!!” every now and again.
• You’ll be shocked and bewildered at times by just how much people spend at Christmas, and how panic about the perfect gift for Auntie Mavis will increase your conversion rates to dizzying heights.
• The excitement of Christmas you felt as a child returns.  But it’s not festive joy so much as it is fiscal joy.
• And the best bit, the very best bit is that as the dust settles on Christmas day you won’t be left with that “Oh F**k how will I pay for all this” feeling.  What you’re left with is the realisation that Affiliate Father Christmas has come down the chimney and filled up your bank account.  No January blues for the astute affiliate, oh no!

So to all you experienced affiliates…. happy festive season.  It really is the best part of the job, isn’t it?  I love the feeling that I’ve done my bit to help people find their pressies and that in doing so have gotten my own new year off to a topping start.

To all you aspiring affiliates just getting started - If this doesn’t serve as a motivator to get promoting some gift type merchants for the Christmas season… nothing will.  This is a great time of year to test the mettle of merchants and generally dip a toe in the waters.  There’s traffic a go-go and bargain hunting shoppers are about to pour online to get their pressies.

Good luck everyone, lets hope the Credit Crunch Grinch keeps his nasty nose out of it!

Ho ho ho!!

Congratulations to Rich Harper, the lucky winner of my contest to win a trip to next weeks A4U Expo courtesy of those great guys at Sunshine.co.uk.

He’s won a full conference pass, plus 3 nights accommodation meaning he can attend all of the great networking parties as well as the event itself.  He’ll also be taking up my offer of chaperoning services, so if you want to find Rich and congratulate him on his win at the Ignite Party… he’ll be raising a jar or two with myself and Duncan!

Rich Says….

“It’s great to win such a fantastic prize! I entered mainly because, well, you just never know!. Sunshine.co.uk and yourself were so kind to offer the prize in the first place that I wanted to enter just so you knew that people actually read your blog and listened to you. When I read the congratulations email, I didn’t really sink in, I had to read it over and over again, and being at work at the time I just couldn’t shout out about it - needless to say I emailed everyone I could to tell them though!”

A Bit Of A Bio in His Own Words…
I’m Richard, and I’m 25. I’ve always been interested in web development and the web in general. By day, I’m a code monkey, oops, software developer, and by night, an aspiring beginner affiliate!

I’ve been reading blogs and following just about every affiliate related resource that I can for almost a year now - I remember reading about the A4U Expo last year, after it had happened and wondering just exactly what went on there (and now I can find out!).

As a beginner I guess I’ve made the mistake of trying to do too many things at once, and haven’t really succeeded at any of them. I’ve had a little success, with a content site, but nothing on the scale of what you guys all achieve.

Away from the computer I’m equally happy just sat watching the tv, or a dvd with my girlfriend, or being out in the fresh air. I’m quite a petrol-head too, and love just being in my car driving. Blimey, how much does this sound like a ‘would love to meet’ profile?! I think I’d better stop there!

Congrats Rich!

I hope y’all will wander up and say hi to Rich if you see him there! Personally, I can’t wait to attend this years great shindig.

Roll on next week

I don’t give merchants the nod on incentives all that often. Generally they take the somewhat unimaginative form of “top selling affiliate” type awards.  Personally, I’m rarely driven to try a programme or new sector out on the basis of these incentives reasoning that it’ll be the well seasoned affiliates on a particular programme who’ll scoop all the prizes.

As usual though, the good people at Prezzybox seem to have come up with the goods.  Their rather topping winter incentive gives affiliates old and new the opportunity to win a swish 5 star holiday to Dubai.

The incentive runs from 1st October to 14th February and if you reach any of the below sales targets over the 4.5 months this promo runs for… you get a lovely prize!!

Even better, affiliates can win multiple prizes if they smash through the various incentive thresholds. So if you end up selling £75,000 worth of gift type gear you’ll get either 3 places on the trip to Dubai or 4 skiing places.

But Wait…. There’s More!

To make this truly accessible to affiliates of every type… there are 2 prizes that mean even new or low performing / inactive affiliates of Prezzybox can be in with a chance to win.  The best new affiliate and most improved affiliate will also score a luxurious trip to Dubai.

You can find more info on this great promo in this A4U thread.

Well done to the guys at Prezzybox for coming up with this great incentive.  I think this kind of promo is great for the industry!