I’ve been wanting to do some interviews with other affiliates for some time now. Many people publish interviews with massive super affiliates who are very inspiring and whom we all look up to. But I wanted to do something a little different. We all know I think it’s more than OK to be a Pretty Good Affiliate or even Just Good Enough… so I wanted to give a bit more insight into the life of a more “typical” affiliate. Now don’t get me wrong… a “typical” affiliate can still be pretty bloody extraordinary and have an enviable lifestyle.

With that in mind… I’d like to introduce Y’all to Ray Theakston, the first in my series of 3 “Pretty Good” affiliates who I think are just as inspiring as those multi-millionaire affiliate megastars.

As you can see, Ray loves his affiliate cash so much he’s more than happy to pose with every individual note!

Here’s Ray’s responses to those burning questions every affiliate gets asked! Ray’s Affiliate Blog is Here if you’d like to subscribe.

How did you first hear about affiliate marketing? When did you decide
to try it out?
I used to work with DoubleClick DART in my day job, updating the
website so knew of web advertising. I always wondered how small sites
could display advertising and in 2000 I found and signed up to TradeDoubler.

I added DatingDirect and Figleaves to my Befuddle site in 2002 and made
£314 commission that year.

What was your first ever revenue making idea? How did it work out for you?
My first site Befuddle had pages of hundreds of celebrities drunk and I
didn’t launch it or operate it to make money. But in Autumn 2003 that
changed quickly when a certain Paris Hilton had a video published on
the Internet.

I was the number one result in Google for the search term “Paris
Hilton” and from day one I had emails from advertisers how they could
get promoted from my site.

I cheekily said they could have a single text link on the main Paris
Hilton page for $500 a day. Surprisingly they were happy to pay that.
Within a few days I had several advertisers competing for top positions.

At the time I was attracting 125,000 visitors daily and being on free
hosting I had to serve my images on a different domain. I had to pay
£100 a day just to keep my site up and running.

I learned two very important lessons during this period …

i) Don’t trust anybody in business. I agreed to do a revenue share with
one man and he didn’t pay out, so I lost $2000.
ii) Don’t base a business model on the assumption you’ll remain Number
One on Google. I didn’t stay there long and as soon as the traffic
disappeared, the advertisers pulled out.

How long did it take you to make that first commission?
My first recorded commission was 25th October 2000 in TradeDoubler for
PriceRunner. They paid per click and it was likely my click!

In 2003 my TradeDoubler commission was a healthy £12,000 and this is
the year that I took ‘making money’ seriously.

What sectors do you work in?
The site that I maintain day-to-day is ShopCodes and this includes any
shops or services that offer promotional codes.

I’ve made a lot of money in the past from Pay-Per-Click advertising. I
used to promote Domino’s Pizza heavily at the weekends and brand bid
for other merchants well before it was restricted.

Want to share one / some of your sites with us?
ShopCodes.co.uk is now two years old. I’ve acquired the ShopCodes.com
and ShopCodes.mobi domains and I am looking to build on its current
success this year.

How do you generate your traffic?
All my traffic is from SEO. No matter how much I spend on Pay-Per-Click
I don’t receive a reasonable return of investment. All my traffic
arrives free and it converts well, so I don’t need to buy and traffic.
I also have 500 subscribers to my RSS and newsletter which is good
armoury to have if the traffic drops.

How much time do you currently devote to affiliate marketing?
All of my time. Even if it’s just reading my emails or monitoring my statistics.

Will that change in the next year?
A lot is changing this year but I am not committing myself just yet.
Firstly I’ve invested in the ShopCodes.com domain to really see how far
reach I can attain. If the revenue is right and the workload is too
much to manage then I may have to leave my day job.

Leaving my day job wouldn’t be a small ask. It pays very well. I may
have the option of taking an unpaid sabbattical from 3 to 9 months.

If accepted this would allow me to work at home on my business and see
how far I can push it. If say the revenue didn’t increase exponentially
or if I couldn’t handle working at home and not having interaction then
I could return to my day job.

This seems a likely option for me.

What has the money that affiliate marketing brings done for your lifestyle?
For the past few years I’ve been abroad 3 or 4 times a year on holiday.
That spending money is from affiliate marketing.

This year I met with my accountant and bank to arrange to pay off all
my personal debt.

So this year I should be able to have a comfortable lifestyle with my
day-job salary whilst any money made for my business will just make the
company bank account even larger.

*You can read all about Ray Paying off his Debts in a year on his blog here*

What’s your definition of a super affiliate? D’you reckon you are one?
My definition of a super affiliate is one who has built up their large
business or revenue from a tiny acorn and not started with an
investment, whether it be launching a site on free hosting or
depositing just £100 into an Adwords account.

I’d like to think I tick most of the boxes to be considered a super affiliate.

I use ethical tactics.
I am more than happy to share my experiences.
I am able to turn a ‘hobby’ site into a profitable one.

However, my turnover is not above VAT threshold so there’s probably a
financial benchmark to be considered one.

Last year I generated £1.25 million worth of sales. Other affiliates
can shout higher figures but I can say that it was free traffic served
on a website that offers free hosting too. So I’m on about 90% profit margins.


Lots of people will want to know how well you do in terms of income.
You don’t have to mention figures.. but do you feel like giving us a clue?
I’ve been hovering just below the VAT threshold level for the last two
years. This year I think I may have to be registered. With my day-job
salary combined I’ll be bringing in approximately £100,000.

How do you motivate yourself and keep your passion for Affiliate
Marketing going?
Google keeps me on my toes. There is a direct correlation with the time
spent on my site and the traffic I receive from Google. If I go on
holiday or even date for a week then traffic drops.

I am a believer in myself though. ShopCodes wasn’t born from scratch.
It’s predecessor was also two years old and didn’t make money. It was
the same content and same design - just the domain name was completely
wrong. Acquiring the domain ShopCodes.co.uk was single handedly the
best possible thing I could have done.

Tell us one thing that’s REALLY worked out well for you in the last year…
Since October I just can’t believe how lucky I’ve been. I’ve been
rewarded with free gifts worth over £1,000 from incentive competitions
and a trip to San Francisco. I won’t be expecting those gifts next
Christmas, as that will mean I’ve had a few lean Autumn months.

Where will you be as an affiliate in 12 months time?
Operating ShopCodes for multiple countries on multiple platforms. All
still from my bedroom with my ‘Publisher of the Year’ award sat proudly
on top of the tv

What achievement in your life as an affiliate are you most proud of?
I’m really proud to have acquired ShopCodes.com. It could really set me
up. I already know Google like the domain as they started linking to it
at the expense of my current site.
That domain wasn’t cheap and so to even think about buying it, shows
how far I have come.

If I can get a version of my site on a mobile portal, that will single
handedly be my biggest achievement to date.

Whats the best bit of advice you can give to an aspiring affiliate?
If you don’t have the correct domain name for a site you could end up
flogging a dead horse. I spent a day reading a dictionary to find the
right phrase before I found and fell in love with “Befuddle”. One week
later my “wonderfully titled” drinking site was named as a Yahoo! Pick
of the Week.

Similarly for ShopCodes it does what it says on the tin and Google
loved it from day one.

Related Affiliate Marketing Posts

• Meet The Real Affiliates - Where Are They Now? Ray Theakston
• 13 Reasons You’ll Fail At Affiliate Marketing in 2009
• The Affiliate Mindset How We REALLY Think and Work…