With the run in to Christmas sales on it’s way there’s some exciting news for affiliates from Affiliate Window – the exclusive launch of Best Buy UK, a leading consumer electronics retailer, on their network. With product feeds being promised this could prove to be a popular new merchant on many sites during the festive period.

One interesting element of this launch is how will rival merchants take it!

The consumer electronics sector is notorious for messing about with commission levels and even Amazon, for example, have limited what can and can’t be earnt on select items. If Best Buy get their numbers right they could not only be taking away customers and sales from the competitors but also some of their top affiliates too.

If feeds are in place alongside top notch Christmas creative and offers then this could be a top program for the season and the New Year Sales. With VAT due to rise in early January 2011 there may well be a flurry of purchases to save on high ticket items too.

Here’s the official announcement from Affiliate Window.

Following on from the successful opening of Best Buy stores around the UK in Thurrock in Essex, Hedge End near Southampton and Merry Hill in West Midlands earlier this year, the popularity of Best Buy’s website and the reach of the Affiliate Window network “will combine to establish the Best Buy site as the designated destination for consumers wishing to take advantage of the very latest and greatest technology, services and content as well as inspiration and impartial advice – and competitive value”.

Best Buy UK’s affiliate marketing campaign will kick off this Autumn and “will be an integral component to the success of their new transactional website which launches simultaneously”. The site will include innovative elements such as ‘My Best Buy’, the company’s customer retention and rewards programme and a consumer forum, as well as comprehensive advice for those seeking knowledge and inspiration.

deVere Forster, MD Online for Best Buy UK added: “We’ll be working closely with Affiliate Window and the broader publisher community to ensure that the launch of our transactional website in the Autumn builds on our already established and ground-breaking presence online, and provides our customers with another way to shop with us.”

Mark Walters, Managing Director for Affiliate Window said: “Best Buy UK has a progressive outlook towards affiliates and I’m confident we will see the company using relationships and tools in equal measure to maximise opportunities for all parties.”

It most certainly sounds like one to watch!

The main concern is that Best Buy currently don’t have an online transactional site, so only time will tell just how affiliate friendly the site is! Of course they may offer low commission rates too but here’s hoping that they do come in with a competitive deal for all.

Another concern is that some affiliates don’t like to risk things too much at Christmas. A known merchant, who’s been doing sales over the past 12 months, is often preferred over a new rival. Best Buy UK will need to work quickly to convince apathetic affiliates that they are worth the promotion time.

The program is due for launch in the Autumn.

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Can you believe that it’s September already? Before you know it they’ll be emails from networks and merchants asking about your Christmas campaigns. However, before all those fun and games kick off again there’s probably a few things that need looking at, especially if you’ve been taking things easy over the last few months.

By doing them now, you might save yourself a bit of time when things get busier!

1. Check Your Links

Aside from the odd network closing it’s doors a number of merchants have either sadly gone into administration or closed their programs. What is notable is that those that are closing aren’t reopening elsewhere, at least not yet! Then there are also merchants like Prezzybox who have gone “exclusive”!

This may mean you have a lot of out of date links and they’re not going to be earning you anything. A few hours tidying up links, even on sites you’ve not given much attention too over recent weeks/months/years may be worth doing.

2. Check Your Scripts & Scripting!

When you use automation it’s sometimes very easy just to sit back and let things plod along. However, feeds change and that might be causing a few issues with your sites. Make sure that everything is running as it should be, there’s nowt worse than discovering things aren’t right on the afternoon of the “end of the busy Christmas period”.

For example today we found a site pointing to a domain holding page – oops!

3. Check Your Feeds!

This ties in with the two above, but make sure your feeds are up to date and are being picked up from the right network. Make sure any old feeds from defunct merchants aren’t hanging around and appearing in your price comparison results. They’re not good for conversions.

Automation should mean your feeds are usually ok, but sometimes old merchants/links get in when they shouldn’t.

4. Keep Focused!

Earlier this year we cut back on the number of sites we were trying to run – and guess what? We’re doing less work and our income hasn’t been effected. It’s tempting, especially as things usually pick up after the summer to start doing more and more. Don’t let it happen!

5. Find Your Affiliate Mojo

All jobs can become a bit tedious or frustrating and the grass may appear greener elsewhere, but then that may involve working for someone else – not good. If your enthusiasm for AM is waning then try and go back to doing what you enjoyed.

Look at working on the things you enjoy rather than slaving away on stuff that perhaps isn’t interesting or struggling to gain traction.

6. Have a Holiday!

You need one!

Now you might be wondering why I’ve blogged this list!?

Well they all apply to me and after quite a nice month or two doing slightly less work (hooray), there are a few jobs that now need doing. Ideally most will be done asap (the affiliate mojo may take longer) so come those Christmas promotion emails I’ll be ready and enthused to take them on.

Maybe ;o)

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Plymouth! Home of Sir Francis Drake, departure point of The Pilgrim Fathers and past residence of Dawn French (Wikipedia). It’s also the location of the now annual Existem AM barbecue, a kind of old school affiliate industry meet up! Unfortunately this year the weather impeded on proceedings and meant the BBQ was more a Grill and was held inside, but that didn’t stop it being an enjoyable event.

As ever it was great to catch up with some very familiar faces as well as one or two new ones, not always for the right reasons mind. The guy from Wow Media who walked into a door, fell over, slumped all over the show with his jeans at half mast and proclaiming “I’m off to my expensive hotel” will most certainly be remembered. Class!

It’s important to learn new things at affiliate events, so what did I learn from heading down to Plymouth for the second time?

1. Disappointingly there wasn’t that much dancing from Clarke. However, there does seem to an obsession amongst Plymouth folk for The Wurzels. It’s almost like an anthem – first rule of Plymouth Club, learn lyrics by The Wurzels. At least in Wales we have Tom Jones’ Delilah!

2. Flip Flops were everywhere! Apparently these were donated by Webgains. I guess it’s wrong to complain about freebies, but to be fair you could understand why they wanted shut of them. For them to fit properly you needed unfeasibly long toes. However, they did have a better use as “gloves” for the new found sport of Flip Flop Boxing. 2012 Olympics stand by!

3. The Hodge is insane! He’s also quite infectious – not in a diseased sense – but his enthusiasm and sense of humour definitely lifts spirits. He was also graciously beaten in the first ever Flip Flop Boxing match, although to be fair he probably didn’t know he was in it. A trip to Think Visibility is definitely on the cards.

4. Two Unlimited are being reformed. Apparently there’s video footage of myself, Elaine, Dave and Dom singing along to “There’s No Limits”. Techno! Techno! Techno!

5. Never trust your missus with a camera!

6. Cake/Gateau/Dessert/Pudding are words not known in Plymouth. Well at Existem AM! BBQ food is nice, but a man can’t live on steak, sausages, chicken and salad (”you don’t make friends with salad”). Cake related items are needed. Next year I’ll bring my own.

7. If I do bring my own cake, Hannah from Existem AM won’t be getting any. I’m still traumatised by her demands for more Duck Cake. At least I think it was cake she wanted.

8. Auctions are good fun, but don’t take part if you’re on the opposite side of the room from your wife. She may be bidding and you may be bidding against her. She may also be bidding on things because she’s had one or two extra ciders.

9. Never trust your missus at an auction.

10. Loquax can run without someone holding it’s hand! This was probably the first time myself and Kirsty (co-director) have been away from home over a weekend at the same time (which in about 10 years is quite an achievement). I kept “in touch” with a few emails and admin things via the iPad – and it all worked well.

11. Unfortunately the 11th thing I learnt is not for publication… not just yet anyway!

So there you have it, a brief overview of what was a nice relaxing and enjoyable weekend in Plymouth. I learnt nothing new about affiliate marketing, but did learn I can leave the office and let the site do it’s own thing once in a while. More importantly it made me realise that I’m heading down the same lifestyle pathway as a number of my peers.

I don’t want/need to be heading to affiliate meetings to “cut a deal” but need guidance and inspiration on how to make sure I’m running things web wise and that they’re not running me. More importantly, when I’m away on these things, I simply just want to enjoy a beer and a chat with some good affiliate mates.

Because of that, next year’s event on 12th August is already in the diary.

And for that a big thanks goes out to Existem AM for organising! Cheers.

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Moneysupermarket.com have employed the services of Omid Djalili to front their TV advertising campaigns over the last few months. To be honest I usually ignore them as they’re of little interest and just not as funny as the Gocompare.com “he’s only a tenor” advert. However, the latest one did make me stop for a moment.

In fact it made me stop and rewind Sky+ as I was sure I heard the words “discount vouchers”!

And indeed you do!

Now I’m not 100% certain, but is this the first TV advert for online voucher codes? I know there have been cashback site adverts (whatever happened to those guys?) but never anything for vouchers.

It’s not the best of adverts in my opinion as it’s not funny and it doesn’t really convey the message very well, but I guess you could argue it made me stop for a moment that it did it’s job? What it did make me wonder is, given that we’re now just weeks away from the Christmas shopping frenzy and with the economy as it is will we see other affiliate code sites on the small screen?

Is the small screen a viable option for voucher code sites or indeed other affiliate sites?

Will we be seeing adverts featuring voucher code site owners such as Doug, Duncan and Mark dressed up as Santa Claus and pulling out voucher codes to offer to the masses?

Stranger things have happened!

Mind, if it does happen let’s hope that it’s a lot better than seeing someone choking, being hit with a trolley and breaking a fish tank.

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One of the most interesting, but also frustrating, aspects of running Loquax over the last decade or so is the myths and legends that crop up. We get people saying “they never win anything via our site” with such accusation that you wonder if they believe we’re responsible. The fact that we’d have to be in cahoots with several thousand across the web to perpetuate this seems to be completely overlooked!

Reasons for the belief that “it’s our fault” stems from the issue of referrals from a competition listing site and concern that entries are deleted because they may be deemed from a “professional comper” (*).

In our experience only a handful of sites have ever really got the hump with people who like competitions, or enter them as a hobby, visiting their site. Usually this is because answers have been given out and occasionally it’s because the person running the competition is a bit naive. A handful over the years doesn’t suggest a major issue though.

By the way the term “professional comper” is total nonsense. I like taking photos, but I’m not a professional photographer. By the same token, aome people like entering lots of competitions, but that doesn’t make them professional. I really wish media people would get their head around this!

Anyway the purpose of this blog!

What I’m hoping for is some blog comments or private feedback about compers and how you, if you run or have ran competitions, perceive them. Do you embrace them as “well it’s traffic” or do you actively monitor them perhaps via referrals in your logs or check popular sites and forums to see if people are trying to circumvent appearing on your radar (using non-referral tags).

Another question that crops up is what is cheating? Do you mind that answers to your questions are posted freely, essentially turning what you’re offering into a quick and easy send in your data prize draw format.

Finally do you remove entries? Automated entries (where a bot will deliver a lot of competition entries without those people ever visiting your site because they’ve paid a service to do it for them) have already been mentioned here on OLD and I’m all for those kind of entries being disqualified. But do you (or have you) ever disqualified people because they’ve clicked from a comping site?

Hopefully they’ll be some replies. I was going to do a survey for siteowners who submit competitions via Loquax, but that’d probably be targeting those people who don’t mind competition people.

If you do want to make anonymous comments (or at least not reveal your site’s identity) then fair enough, but please use a valid email address.

Please post via comments or send via the contact form. Thanks!

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