G’day from glorious Sydney!

We’ve been having a grand old time so far and yesterday we took up an invitation from DGM Australia and went on round to their offices for a bit of food and a few drinks on their rather fab rooftop terrace.

They were an incredibly friendly bunch and both myself and Chris Frost really enjoyed meeting the team, putting a few faces to names, and learning a bit more about what the network was all about.

Duncan, Chris, Jane (Chris’ lovely other half), Myself & Gavin of DGM fame enjoy a nice drinkie at DGM towers!

Retiring over the road to the pub for a few more jars…

Chris laden down and posing with his DGM goodie bags and Duncan lumbered with carrying a cocktail dress I’d bought on the way to the Do!

We had a really nice day, so thanks to DGM for putting on a right good do!

Interested In Finding Out More About The Australian Market?

I know that many affiliates in the UK are beginning to look at the Australian space and wonder if it is developed enough to create new income streams or have already started planning ways to enter the market.  Looking at the range of merchants on offer from DGM alone, I feel e-commerce sites are definately becoming more developed and are starting to look to affiliate marketing to help them develop their online revenues.  In particular, there are a very wide range of quality Australian finance merchants on the DGM network. Having had a quick gander I reckon that  Aussie organic results and PPC arena is fairly wide open and accessible in comparison to the often cutthroat conditions in the UK.  With recession not biting as deeply here in Australia, the industry has not seen the same issues with reluctance to issue credit (yet!).

Worth A Punt

I’m already working with DGM in Australia and have found the team to be incredibly friendly, helpful, and most importantly – responsive. With their help I’ve created the beginnings of a nice wee dollar revenue stream. If you’re considering working in this market you can sign up for the Australian network via the DgmPro site.

I must warn you that our Chris is already in posession of a full list of DGM merchants – so you’d better hurry up before he rushes in and dominates the Aussie affiliate marketing scene!

More about our affiliate related fun in Sydney when I’m back home later this week

Hot off the presses at R.O.EYE towers they’ve scored a massive business partner in the form of the recently launched Ebay partner network – the auction giant’s very own affiliate platform, replacing its relationship with Commission Junction.

R.O.EYE say their “objectives are to further develop the network through servicing the needs of the existing affiliate base, including their effective optimisation and recruiting more publishers. We are also working with eBay to maximise activity from new affiliate business models, which are at the cutting edge of affiliate marketing and are beginning to generate significant volume. “

Grand objectives and corporate chat aside, I have to say that I’m geniunely delighted for the team at R.O.EYE. If you’d asked me yesterday who would be associated with this huge brand name I’d have said “I dunno, some faceless big London agency who don’t actually have a clue about affiliate marketing or how to deal with the affiliate base. No doubt they’ll have fed Ebay a load of branding and corporate nonsense and blinded them with their association with other big names like Sony or Apple.”

How wrong could you be?! I apologise humbly Ebay, for underestimating your good judgement.

I’ve always held the Manchester based team in very high regard. The account managers there have always been very responsive, knowledgeable, and most importantly – gosh darned nice people to deal with. I think the fact a big name like Ebay have chosen a team who actually have decent, in-depth knowledge and good relationships with their affiliates bodes really well for the future of the network in the UK (and says something about the way Ebay want the programme to be run).

It’s a long time since I have done anything with Ebay, but I think having a contactable team in the UK with a proven track record within the UK scene will do wonders in terms of my own inclination to work with them. I’d like to think that this attitude will be fairly representative of a number of my industry colleagues.

Pretty exciting times at R.O.EYE and I’m really looking forward to seeing the direction they take the programme in. In my very humble opinion decisions like these are very positive for our industry and I look forward to seeing the affiliate centred developments to the Ebay network in the coming months and years.

Congrats guys, it’s great to see some fellow Northerners doing well

Oh, and the shiny new Ebay team are Chris Worthy, Ben Friedman or Pooja Kashyap. Give them a shout if you’d like to find out more about how you can work with them and Ebay. Contact number can be found on the R.O.EYE website.

Apart from other nice surprises in my inbox recently, POR sent me an e-mail over the weekend that impresses the hell out of me! I’ve got an old site which I used to use to push through traffic to an adult toy shop they used to have on board. It gets negligable traffic these days, so I didn’t bother my backside updating when the merchant left.

I was delighted to get the following e-mail on Sunday: -

On the 06th June a visitor to your website clicked on an Affiliate URL for a Merchant who has closed its Affiliate Program with Paid On Results.

The visitor was shown our Expired Links page, and given several other related Merchants they may be interested in. This visitor followed one of our related links and went onto make a purchase with Sex Shop 365.

Normally the commission due would just be added to your account, however in this case you are currently not an Affiliate of Sex Shop 365. In order for us to pass the commission onto you we first need you to join the Sex Shop 365 Affiliate Program

You can do this as normal though your Affiliate Control Panel, once you have joined and been approved for this Merchant we will add the commission due to you into your account.

If you have any questions please let us know.

So I duly joined the programme as they suggested, and whaddya know? £3.64 magically appeared in my affiliate account a day or so later. I’ve probably not been paying attention, but I’d no idea POR had this functionality. I think it’s a great thing for affiliates such as myself who have hordes of old, unloved, and out of date sites.

Not a huge commission, but definately one of the sweetest i’ve had in recent times. So a belated “well done” to Paid On Results, and yet another reason why I should be doing more with them to add to my list!

After all my moaning and general gnashing of teeth recently regarding the often awful treatment of affiliates, it is finally time to share an actual bonafide decent experience.

I’m currently in the process of setting up a bit of a site devoted to womens car insurance. It’s a while since I’ve done anything in the finance or insurance sector, so I’m painstakingly watching what I’m doing lest the FSA come along and demand my first born son because of a poorly-worded description of a policy.

I noticed that most women’s insurance companies such as Sheilas Wheels, Diamond, and Diva Female Car Insurance were with Online Media Group. I decided to apply to the network as soon as I had enough of the site together to show them how I was going to be presenting all their insurance merchants to all my budding female readers. I had heard a few folk saying nice things about how responsive OMG were, so I was hoping for prompt action on my application.

Within 24 hours they let me know I’d been declined. Puzzled, I sent a support e-mail asking why and discovered from their prompt reply I’d accidently mis-typed my own URL (I must have been having one of my regular blonde moments). So once that was cleared up, I immediately got an e-mail welcoming me to the network from an account manager who will be dealing with my account. Nice touch. This was then followed by another e-mail from aforementioned lovely account lady asking a bit more about what I was looking to promote and what other sites I had. Goodness. Two good things in one day. “Can they better that?” I thought.

“Yes, they can.” Was the answer this morning when I discovered three e-mails in my inbox informing me OMG have helpfully signed me up to six womens car insurance related retailers giving me a nice head start on a bit of admin.

It’s such a small thing, it’s quite ridiculous I’m that pleased about this that I have written a nice blog post about it. It just goes to show what a point of differentiation you can achieve by doing some relatively minor, helpful tasks for all your new affiliates.

What a great start to my womens car insurance affiliate career!

Keep it up OMG…. and please… don’t disappoint me, I don’t think I’ve the strength for any more Network related outbursts this week. My other half’s sick of walking on eggshells the whole time. Don’t do it for me, do it for Duncan!

http://www.omguk.com/

A while ago I had a $4300 claw back from my CJ account with absolutely no warning or explaination. This was for commissions that had been paid out 12 months previously. At the time, I was mighty damned pissed off (who wouldn’t be?!?). It turned out that the commissions were from a merchant that had gone bankrupt. CJ then clawed back every penny from yours truly. The merchant in question was Wealth of Nations Clothing by Judy French.

I posted at the time on A4UForum, and to my surprise CJ were extremely responsive. They explained what had happened quickly on the forum, and even called me in Australia to say how sorry they were about it all.

At the time they promised to look into whether or not I might get a small amount back from the initial deposit paid by the merchant, and also said they owed me a big, big favour for the inconvenience. “We’ll see what we can do for you and drop you a line about it”, the nice young chap on the phone said. “Wow!!”, I thought. “What an improvement from CJ. I pledge never to sully their good name again.”

What have I heard in the 8 weeks since? Absolutely hee haw from CJ. Thanks guys! In honour of your excellent customer service skills and another recent annoyance, I have written a heartbreaking poem outlining your cruel betrayal of a trusting young affiliate beauty (what do you mean “who’s that?” Its me!)

An Ode To CJ – A Modern Day Tale of Love Gone Awry

The moral of this affiliate tale?
CJ’s policies will make thy wail!