Greetings “Ask Kirsty” fans.  I can think of no better way to round off the working week than with a bit of affiliate question asking type fun. Unusually, this week’s asker is an affiliate manager.  Dave Bunyan is the affiliate manager over at Haiths, who sell all things bird care and bird food related, and wanted the low down on what turns affiliates on (work wise!).

Hi Kirsty,

I run the newly setup Haith’s programme, which has just launched on Webgains. I came across your blog (which I have to say is pretty damn good!) I’m relativly new to affiliate marketing but have been in ecommerce for a while now.

I was hoping for a bit of advice. What do affiliates look for in a merchant? How can we help affiliates convert?

I have a basic understanding, but hope to fully understand what makes a good programme.

Kind Regards,

Dave

Well, flattery will get you everywhere!

I reckon you’ve already taken those first steps to being a decent merchant just by being prepared to be open to communication and suggestions from affililiates.  From my own point of view, an accessible affiliate manager who I can work with on a programme is a BIG help in getting those conversions.

I think getting yourself out and onto the A4U Forum would be an excellent first step.  There are surprisingly few merchants participating regularly on there, and as thousands of affiliates are members it does mean you’ll pop into their heads a bit more readily when they’re thinking about new areas to explore or which new merchant to do a bit of work on next.  You don’t even really need to be on there selling your wares all the time.  Just jump in for a chat and make yourself approachable.  You’d be surprised how much that helps!

Also, get yourself along to some networking events like A4U Expo.  Not only will you learn a lot, but you’ll meet a lot of affiliates face to face, giving you a good opportunity to get feedback and make great contacts (and have a really good time too).

The other things are pretty obvious, regular newsletters, banners updated, good and useful product feed that is easy for affiliates to manipulate.  Oh, and making sure your tracking technology doesn’t break every time your technical team makes an adjustment to your order confirmation page, lol.

Take A Look At What Others Are Doing…

If you want a programme to measure yourself against, I’d go and take a look at what Prezzybox are doing.  Their programme is run by the lovely Zak Edwards, who has won A4U Awards for his innovation 2 years running.  BuyaGift & Dead Good Undies also have really good proactive affiliate management.

I’d also recommend giving a wee go at promoting some affiliate offers yourself.  It will give you great insight into what affiliates need and the issues and frustrations they face (although we do lose a lot of affiliate managers to the “dark side” every year as a result of this, lol).

I hope this helps you in your quest to become a good affiliate manager.  I’ve just popped down the absolute basics, I’m sure other affiliates and managers will want to pop their thoughts down in the comments to help you out!

A Programme Plug For Our Askee Being Game Enough To Let Me Publish His Question!

Haiths is on Webgains and offers a commission rate of 10% to 12% – their affiliate info page is here and it seems like a good niche programme to me.  David’s contact details are on that page if you want to give him a shout.  He’s keen and ready to go!

Greetings affiliate organisation fans.  I got a surprising amount of feedback to my previous post about my stress levels and lack of structure, and have had some mails asking me how its been going… so I thought it was only fair to give an honest update on how the system has been working out for me!  It was all very well saying how fab it was after just 2 or 3 days in my post… but has it been sustainable in the longer term?

Well Actually…

So far it is going GREAT!  I have never been this productive and I can get more done in a day than I ever thought possible.  I’m getting what I have defined as a week’s worth of affiliate work done in just 4 days.  Even better, I have also imposed my new scheme on my Duncan and he too has never been so productive.

I have always had dreadful concentration and get bored incredibly easily, and in every area of my life requiring organisation I have always struggled with my natural tendency to get distracted and ending up “veering off course” into totally irrelevant nonsense.

By breaking my working day into hour long blocks and defining what should be done in that hour I never get bored and I pull my head back in when the distraction fairy jingles her mystic bells in my direction.  The end result has surprised even me… I’ve seen a significant increase in what I can get done in an hour.

For Example…

I used to take 2 hours or more to write 6 x 250 word articles.  With my new system I can now write 8 in the same amount of time.

I do hasten to add though, that I’ve not yet found that to be sustainable if I block off two consecutive hours of writing… I get bored and miss my target.

The End Result Is…

I am geniuinely doing a weeks work in 4 days (in fact more than I used to achieve in most weeks).  Duncan and I both are as we both suffer from the same easily distracted personality (don’t talk to either of us when we are driving!!!).  Also, with the unpredictable nature of merchant performance in these troubled times I’m ummm…. no longer troubled by it.  I have my work, I have a plan and slowly but surely I am identifying and acting on new revenue streams and spreading my affiliate eggs into many merchant baskets.

When I am not working, I do not worry about work.  I have started to enjoy many new things recently.  I have bought a fish tank, I am spending a lot of time gardening.  I am proud to announce I re-sowed our back lawn yesterday and pruned several trees (they may even live).

So I will bid all my affiliate friends a zen-like “fare thee well”, for I am off to drink some nice wine perchance read a book.

Affiliate Contentment.

In the second interview of my “where are they now” series, affiliate marketing’s very own Ray Theakston has graciously agreed to answer all my probing questions once more!  You can read his previous interview here.

So without further ado…. over to you Ray!

* How has ShopCodes fared since we last spoke? You mentioned in the 12 months up to the last interview that you’d generated £1.25 million in sales for your merchants. Have you grown on that at all?

Sales in 2008 from the main networks exceeded £1.1m. I’m really proud that I’ve managed to maintain those levels, for the past 2 years, in light of all the extra competition. I read the recent census and I was shocked to see that so many affiliates bring in so little sales.

There were some rare days when I’d get just 200 uniques or made only £30 commission but I’ve now got over 1,300 email subscribers and Google has treated me consistently well for a long time now.

My traffic is mainly SEO and so 90% of my turnover is profit. I could trim that excess 10% further if I could be bothered cancelling some ISP and broadband accounts. So I’m doing my bit for the economy

* Do you think your earning power has been affected by the new IAB rules and the general controversy that currently surrounds voucher code sites? Have you a strategy to deal with any lost revenue?

The IAB guidelines/rules have made no impact to anyone’s bottom line, so now merchants are introducing new rules why they shouldn’t pay you.

My site doesn’t use click-to-reveal as a method to get visitors to view the merchant site and therefore have their cookie. However, some merchants recently have started making dramatic restrictions based on domain names and SEO and not reflective as me as a person, or the page that is built for them.

I can no longer promote Urban Outfitters or Sainsbury’s Kitchen and a dozen other merchants because I’ll either get 0% commission or pittance.

My survival strategy kicked in two months ago and I am now feeling quite bullish that I’m making an extra £100 daily than this time last year, with the same traffic. It’s all about improving conversion rates. So check where those sales are coming from daily and build on and focus around those converting results.

Each time one of the merchants upset me, I refresh their competitor pages. I will also publically blog, twitter and facebook about my annoyances. This has been a masterstroke for getting new converting business and interestingly some of those merchants back onside.

It’s a very very big market out there and as I always say, ‘ShopCodes is not even touching the sides’. So it’s a case of ‘whinge and win’.

* Everyone wants to know how much money an affiliate has. You very generously volunteered the fact that you are “very very close to having over £100k in my bank accounts” when I contacted you to ask for this interview. So the obvious questions arising from this fact:
- Why do you still work 9 to 5 in the face of what is very clearly an incredibly lucrative part time hobby?

Yes, I thought I’d highlight the £100k as it’s a very significant milestone. It does paint a picture of my journey. I’ve already recorded how I was recently £22,000 in debt with credit cards – and I want to show that you can change your life for the better, if you’re determined enough to work hard and make those lifestyle changes.

So here I am with that in the bank, have a good career with a good company, that offers a nice salary, perks and 7 weeks paid leave a year – and a website that earns a few thousand each month.

I’m currently living the lifestyle that having effectively two nice salaries brings. I’ve got no debt, am single and so I’m really just enjoying the moment whilst I can.

Affiliate marketing has infiltrated my day job. Agencies have the audacity to ring me about absolutely nothing of interest and people on MSN spam me with links to posts that I’ve already spotted or chose to ignore. Then there’s the forum, gmail, and twitter. I can’t appear to switch off from affiliate marketing, with so many ways to communicate available but I can just about squeeze in both to my life for now.

* You also said that “I can currently spend £35k as I please, tax free”. What is it that stops you from spending it and the other money you currently have available to you?

Hmm, maybe I do struggle for time because I pay for taxis to get to work. I don’t want for much except for maybe a big HDTV. I seem to get abroad at least 4 times a year and even when I win those trips, I make up for it in the spending department. Maybe it’s because I’m single that I still have it at all lol.

Typically, I spend my monthly take home pay from my day job and the money that my business makes just stays in the business.

Having £35k for my own personal use is a significant amount and seems worthy of using for a house deposit. House or playboy apartment? Lol. Just spotted your next question.

* As one of the most eligible batchelors in affiliate marketing, and as someone with a great and outgoing personality – why on earth are you still single?!?!

I can’t drive. That’s why my rare one night stands don’t turn into two night stands

I’d happily settle down with a pretty woman and if she also works in either marketing, development or design, then we can both become millionaires. I’d even learn to drive.

* In your initial mail to me, you said “If I told my mum and dad, brother and sister I had £100k in the bank, it’d be like for them like I’d won the lottery.” – Is there any reason you’ve not told them about your wodge of cash?

My parents are well aware of what I’m up to with my sites. Every time I see them my dad asks, “How is Google treating you?”

My dad, a ship builder by trade, is now retired and both my pensioner parents live in a Middlesbrough council house. We’ve mooted the idea of me buying it.

It’s not quite right talking about £100k in the bank when you’re hearing stories about the electricity meter about to run out. So it’s getting the balance right. Got no qualms bragging to mates though in the pub.

* Do you think your earning power would increase if you did go full time and really give affiliate marketing a go?

If I had an extra 50 hours a week to work on my site, I’d make more money but I’ve a fear that I’d spend that time in my pants and going blind! Joking aside, I don’t think I could handle working from home alone indefinitely.

* Does the recession have any bearing on your reluctance to go full time?

I’m making more money in February 2009 than previous months and we’re in a recession. So there’s no issues with people spending money online. There just may not be anybody around for me to promote.

If my company made me the offer of redundancy, I’d accept it, as I have no intention of working for another company once I leave this one. That payoff would be a very significant amount and would be a good cushion.

* In our last chat you said you wanted to launch Shop Codes into multiple countries. Is this still a key aspect of your future business plan?

I’ve invested a lot of money in buying the .com domain but I have shelved plans for the development of it since the IAB guidelines announcement. The current set up is not future-proof or indeed 2009 proof.

If I’m going to invest a further few £k on design and development and a lot of hours, then I need to make sure I’m going to receive commissions at the other end. So the plan to be honest is concentrate on what is working now because the goal posts seem to be changing every fortnight.

* What do you plan to do in the next 12 months?

I don’t even know what I’m doing this weekend.

The only things I know for certain is that I’m going to Amsterdam and London to do some networking. See you there.

Almost a year ago I did a short series of interviews with 3 “normal” affiliates (if we can ever be called that!).  I thought it might be interesting to revisit the interviewees and see how they have fared in the last 12 months.  First up is Max Bramwell, you can read his previous interview and see his picture here.

Max has just started the second year of his degree and is balancing study and moolah making.

• Last year you spoke about the sectors you operate in, travel, freebies and general shopping. Have you added anything new since we last spoke and have you seen any credit crunch related differences?

I’ve mainly stayed in the sectors that I was in last year, i’ve developed into a few of them more than others and left the freebie area. The reason for the leaving this area was due to rising ppc costs and the lack of time I had on it.
I have added some new areas which have focussed on issues that I know will be increasing with the credit crunch, so at the moment the credit crunch is making me more money than without it.

• You also mentioned your traffic was 65% PPC & 35% SEO. Have you increased your SEO balance? If yes… Any hints and tips for the readers on how to achieve a better SEO performance?I

Its stayed pretty much the same, which isn’t the best, but im still aiming to switch the ratios so 65% SEO and 35% PPC, but at the moment its the same. I definately need some more SEO lessons!

• Obviously you are now a bit further into uni, how are you finding the demands on your time? You said you hoped to spend more time on your sites in the second year of uni. Have you managed this or is the call of the beer too great?
The demands on my time from Uni is increasing, and so this is meaning its getting bit trickier to fit as much AM stuff as I would like (Ideally i’d love to just do AM full time for 2 days a week then the other 3 be at Uni but my timetable doesn’t agree with that

• Has your definition of a super affiliate changed since we last spoke?

To be seen as a super affiliate on one program can greatly differ from another. i.e you can send say 300 leads a day to one merchant and be seen as their larger(super) affiliate, yet send them 300 leads to another merchant and you’re a small fish.

• You said that in 12 months time you hoped to have grown your business significantly. Has this happened? Care to quantify where your income is by comparison?

Well late last year my hosting packed up, the weekly backups they claimed they did werent there and so I lost quite a bit of data especially from blogs (as i stupidly didnt backup myself) thus my blog www.AffiliateStudent.co.uk was down for a long time (back up now tho ) This affected my earnings quite a lot! In fact in late november I was earning very little! Google dropped lot of my sites due to downtime , anyway back in december it picked up and I found a new niche in late december and this carried on to give me my best ever affiliate marketing month in january! Earnings wise that month brought in (note: not pure profit) the equivalent to a graduates annual salary in that month alone.

• What have you achieved this year that makes you most proud?

This year in terms of since the last interview i’d say achievement wise nothing stands out too much, just that ive actually devoted some decent time to AM.

• Tell us one thing that really worked well for you this past year!

The start of the credit crunch can’t elaborate much more im afraid , that and wordpress! Use wordpress lots and lots!!!

Thanks Max!

Still to come are Chris Frost, although we have decided to do a very glamorous interview as we are meeting up in Sydney next month for a bit of an affiliate jolly.  Recession?  Pah!  Could be some hilarious pics too.  Also Ray Theakston who hasn’t replied to my message asking him to take part just yet.  You can run Ray, but you can’t hide!!!

No, I haven’t gone mad and deluded myself into thinking I can save money on wages by working less!

What with all this credit crunch lark and a merchant or three starting to perform in a dashed rubbish fashion, I’ve been feeling really stressed about the different revenue streams I have on the go.  Before you all pass the hat round to help me out with next month’s mortgage there’s a couple of facts you should know about me:-

• I get stressed at the slightest deviation in “normal” merchant performance and instantly get myself whipped up into a doom-mongering frenzy.
• My idea of a “rubbish and depressing” sales month is still somewhere in the region of 4 times what I used to get paid in my day job.  This is a dreadful character defect and one of the reasons I’ve just implimented the above strategy.  There really, really is more to life than money and I need to start realising that before I end up “unwell”!

So What Exactly Are You Doing Kirsts?

Well, when I get worried about what direction to take and a dip in performance I have a dreadful habit of:-

• Sitting worrying about it and not getting much done.
• Setting myself stupidly high work targets, failing to meet them, getting depressed and demotivated, and then getting a lot less done than I would have done if I’d just footered along as normal.

So this time when I started to get concerned I wanted to stop that pattern of behaviour in its tracks.  It’s not uncommon for me to spend 4 to 6 weeks in a stressed out mess, working 14 hours a day, and getting very little more done than usual.

So anyhoo… here’s my plan!

Using the workplan I talked about previously I decided to ramp things up a few notches and make better use of my working hours.  Each night I’ve been sitting down and planning out EXACTLY what Duncan and I will do the following day and when.  So no Facebook, no A4U, no nipping off online shopping or and of the other distractions I so often fall victim to.  In doing this, I’ll actually meet my work targets for a 5 day week but:-

• Work between 8.30 & 4pm with an hour off for lunch (which I have NEVER done before).
• Only work Monday to Thursday.

And Did It Work?

I have to say its been a massive success so far.  I’ve never stuck to a work plan so rigidly because I don’t need to sit and think about what I’m doing during the day.  Its amazing how much time you waste thinking of what to do next!  Not only am I having a lunch hour but I’ve been able to get out and do some gardening every evening and usually spend some time on my housework during the lunch hour.  This all maximises my weekend leisure time.

I think all this will make me more productive in the longer term and help me to push things in the most efficient direction in 2009, making my business stronger than ever.

I don’t feel stressed any more, I feel good and in control.  I guess I’m lucky my recession solution was so simple, it’d have been a bit of a different story if I was Gordon Brown!

As many of you will remember I had a bit of bother in the middle of last year with a Google Over Optimisation penalty on my Lingerie site.  I documented the trials and tribulations of the whole thing, and was delighted when all my lovely traffic came back.

Or did it?

I was quite happy that my traffic had returned to previous levels and set about fixing up some other sites and starting a few new projects.  After a while, I noticed the odd page that should have been ranking, still wasn’t. But every new page I put up seemed fine and I disregarded it. In typical style it has taken me ages to get curious about it.  However, just before Christmas I decided to analyse the extent of the issue.

And I Was In For A Bit of a Shock!

Out of 109 site pages I looked at, no less than 49 yes you heard me right FORTY NINE still had some kind of ranking issue related to the same Google filter I described all those months ago.  Despite me thinking all my lovely traffic had returned 45% of my site was still in the rankings doldrums.  Some were nowhere to be found, others were only ranking for more obscure term variations (one of the reasons I thought things were a-ok again!).

So, I set to and went through the whole 49 pages. This time I added in lots of new content and removed any term repetitions that still looked “awkward” In the last couple of weeks the results have been steadily growing: -

My organic referrals from Google have increased by around 30%.  Once again, I’ve learned an important lesson about never leaving a job half done with Google.

If you’ve had any filtering issues and think they are resolved, I thoroughly recommend that you take a closer look.  DIfferent search terms seem to have different over optimisation thresholds which means you’ll only find out where those lie by analysing and re-analysing affected pages.  If, like me, you simply assume everthing is A-OK you might just be wasting some of your own hard work!

My next step will be to wait another 4 or 5 weeks and then repeat my manual analysis of all site pages, followed by whatever content alterations are required.

It’s never dull being an affiliate!