Well I have added my back me button from Affiliates4u, and now that I have seen it in action I have a few things for Tom to do to for it to work even better ;). Now that I have added it, please feel free to back any of my posts to get them a higher profile over at Affiliates4u, it’s always great to see backs and bumps from articles that people like.
Shortly I will be in Portugal and in about 24 hours Affiliate Fat Camp officially starts. However I hope it will be my first and last invite to “fat” camp, all going well I will look forward to “fit” camp the following year but hey it’s a bunch of Affiliates who are found of the drink away from wife’s and girlfriends for just over a week. What’s the chances of us actually sticking to it and coming out the other end a little fitter and a little less fat?
My bet is for the first couple of days it will all be taken serious and then the realisation that it’s actually hard work to get fit will sink in, at this point we will probably lose a few people to the beer. I am hoping to be one of them LOL 
I am considering taking and uploading photos so my facebook contacts can see what we have been up to, but will make decision on that once I am in Portugal, however add me to your facebook if you want to view them search for “Clarke Duncan” not many of them around. The outside of the villa is covered by 8 cameras so their could even be a possibility of a big brother style live feed however Paul says we need to vote on that and it will probably be restricted to family members, we will see.
But is not all about exercise, there is a work element also and we will be discussing the great and the good of affiliate marketing, how things have changed for the better (and worse) and what the future holds and what we can do to be part of it and make it still the enjoyable fun business it’s been for several years now.
This might be pretty much old hat to long time Affiliate Marketing Pros, but worth saying for new people that the News is a great way to cash in on what people are currently thinking about. I know as I have taken advantage of the news when doing my promotions for some time now, here is an example that repeats it’s self every year.
Utility Bills on the Rise
Utility Bills are normally going up each year and every time a story breaks about them on the rise, it’s time to email your mailing list or post to the front of your site the ways that consumers can easily switch providers online and save big money. However as a twist to this news story that never goes away, is the number of companies announcing for the first time in ages, price cuts! But fear not as an Affiliate with a large user base I was at hand to take advantage of this twist of fate by, you guessed it, letting my user base know where they can get cheaper bills should they wish to swap to one of the providers that had reduced prices, the joke here is that many customers who swapped a year or two before all of a sudden found themselves switching back to save from the people they originally left in the first place. A triumph for the consumer, a victory for Affiliate Marketers in getting the message out to as many customers as possible with a little (make that big help) from the news.
It is important that you act within days (ideally hours) of the news story breaking so it’s fresh in users minds.
However there is a very important thing to remember, you can not cash in on all news stories, well at least not ethically. For example you won’t find me selling life insurance off the back of a major terrorist attack.
However there is tactful ways to promote items or service people may be interested in after reading or seeing a current news event without actually linking your promotion directly to the event in question. I am sure many a parent has considered tracking devices for there children in light of the coverage the Madeleine McCann* case in Portugal, and as an Affiliate you would have every right to promote such devices and highlight the issues that would make you consider buying such a device however you would be a complete scumbag if you sent out an email or posted a website and associated the product directly with this case as it would be considered tasteless and most merchants would remove you from there program as they wouldn’t want to be associated with that type of coverage.
Basically what I am saying is the news offers many ways to help you promote goods or services but you have to be thoughtful of the story and your promotion and how it will be seen.
* Note: if you been living in a cave, or from a far flung place around the world, Madeleine McCann is a little British girl would was kidnapped whilst on holiday with her family in the Algarve in Portugal, please click here and visit the UK Missing Kids website, take a good look at her face as you can not mistake her right eye and please remember that face, it could be you that helps find her, you never know.
The Euroffice Ink Selector content unit is now exclusively live on Paid On Results.
I am very pleased how this has turned out, the one above is the 468 wide version but my favourite is the 600 wide one. I have written a post about this new content unit over at Affiliates4U, so save me repeating myself click here to check it out.
It’s been tested on both PC and MAC across 7 different browsers and is working well. The great thing about this step forward in content unit technology is that we will be able to apply much of the new things we have learned to the future content units of other Merchants on the Paid On Results Network all at no extra cost to the Merchant. Merchants if you fancy offering Affiliates more than just boring old banners, why not think about joining Paid On Results.
This week seen Affiliates4u.com go live. This is the updated and much changed replacement for the A4U Forum. There have been lots of blogs talking about the new site already however I think I will hold off saying anything until it’s out of beta. However what I do want to say is yours truly is one of the featured Blog Authors alongside Blog and Podcast super star Fraser Edwards and many others 
Never one to shy away from controversy I have kicked off by getting to grips with bad advice that some Merchants follow without thinking about the bigger picture on how it impacts the Affiliates they work with.
At the recommendation of a good friend and fellow Affiliate at the weekend I was told how handy Facebook was to network with fellow Affiliates, Merchants and Networks I deal with. Now bizarrely I had joined in March, signed up clicked a link to add someone as a friend and left (they wanted to build up a big list of friends as a bet). I had totally forgotten that I was even a member of Facebook
Facebook is basically a social network, a way to keep in contact with friends from all over the world. It also has that little something that I can’t put my finger on just yet that makes it better than many that came before it and some of the business based ones. I suspect that being an Affiliate it is not all about work and we do have a healthy (or unhealthy if you count the amount of alcohol) social side to Affiliate Marketing here in the UK.
Anyway this is just a heads up to say I am currently active on Facebook, so look me up and add me. Just search for Clarke Duncan. There is also UK Affiliate Marketing group started plus from my profile you can view the latest additions to my blog.
Verdict: Worth giving it ago to see if it enhances my business and social life
Ok so we are two weeks on since the launch of Google Checkout UK and still not all the UK Networks have been approved. Here is the list as it stands.
- Approved and Live on Google Checkout Vendor page.
- Approved for Google Checkout awaiting listing on Approved Vendor Page.
- In Process of getting Approved.
So why is it 6 of the Networks are still not approved? I undertook the process for Paid On Results Monday of last week and it took 4 days in total to get approved and a further 2 days before showing on the approved vendor list (they do state it takes a few weeks before the list is updated). Merchants wishing to use Google Checkout UK should first check with your Network that they are approved or in the process and please whatever you do test the Network tracking before making it live on your site, many Networks will not tolerate you introducing a new payment gateway without testing that it tracks for Affiliate sales and you could possibly be suspended by the Network for non-tracking.
I will keep this list up to date should any Network wish to inform me directly or via posting at the A4U Forum.
Note this is not a recommendation for using Google Checkout UK, this is simply a post to make you aware of the issues still outstanding and to keep you updated to the current state of play for Affiliates in the UK.
I started to notice a bunch of emails coming in from “TradeDoubler - Response Team UK” I thought isn’t that nice they now have a response team, so I hit reply on one of the emails to ask a question about the promotion only to find the email address the Response Team was using is “no_reply@ext.tradedoubler.com” LOL classic, have to love whoever came up with that idea
Joking aside I have found TD to be pretty responsive for myself when contacting them in the past. But still had to share that one with you, brightened up my day
Weekly update of new Merchants (to 20th April 2007) that have went live across all the UK Networks.
Affiliate Future
Affiliate Window
Affilinet
Buy.at
DGM
Paid On Results
PrimeQ
Profitistic
Zanox UK
I will soon be stopping this service on my blog due to UKAffiliateMarketing.com going live very soon and will be transfering the list over to that site.
Google Checkout UK hit the streets last Friday with many early adopter Merchants jumping on the bandwagon. Some of them even wrote to Affiliates to let them know that because they where first, Google was offering all customers who bought goods via the Google checkout system £10 off any order over £30. What a cracking deal for the customer and something Affiliates could easily push except there is one tiny little problem - none of the sales track!!!
Yes that’s right any Merchant you are currently pushing that has Google Checkout enabled and is via a Network not approved by Google, means that the Merchant can not show the tracking code for that Network and in turn means no sales are tracked. So Affiliates lose out on any potential commission they could have made.
Now the Networks are not to blame here, most of them didn’t know Google Checkout UK was going live in the UK last Friday, indeed the only Network Approved already had to battle to get it sorted 6 months ago for the US side of the Networks Operation.
The shocking part is that the Merchant currently making money from Affiliate traffic that can not be tracked via Google Checkout actually think they are doing nothing wrong. One of them is quoted as saying “our agreement with Google does not permit us to restrict offering Google Checkout for a proportion of our customers”. All I can make from this is that they don’t much care about the Affiliate Network Terms that say they have to track all sales done online and worse still they are showing no matter what way they try to spin it, that they value Google Checkout above their current Affiliates supplying them sales. The theory must be “lets cash in now and hope the Affiliates will forget what we have done once it’s all sorted”, but who knows the true motives, we can only go on what we see as fact.
Affiliate sales are not tracking, Affiliates are losing money, the Merchant is not! If the Merchant was losing money do you think they stick to the Google Checkout Terms if that is in fact part of the terms.
Other people reporting about Google Checkout UK are Fraser Edwards and Jess Luthi, to keep up with the current state of play for UK Networks you will find a thread I have made over at A4U plus other threads highlighting the current issues.
A4U - Networks Status with Google Checkout
A4U - Google Checkout - Sales not being tracked
A4U - Merchants Seen Using Google Checkout