In contrast to some of the blog award comments above it shows that a sound entry from a smaller business can still get recognition in this industry.

The answer is simple – they submitted a document that detailed their achievements relating to the vertical and the award relevant to their sector. The official A4U Awards website had full details of the formal submission process and what was required to meet it. As judges we reviewed each application against the criteria required for entry and made our collective decisions.

If you want more details on what the document contained that won the award in each vertical then why not ask the winners? I’m sure if I were them I would be making the most of the award and using the publicity from it as a tool to grow my business.

You also say that “All I’m after is a bit more information behind the awards. From some of the comments above, I’m not alone.” I have to disagree. The comments above are from a couple of people who disagree that I won best blog. That’s all. And they have every right to disagree, its called having an opinion and I’m all for it. Nobody else – as far as I can see in the comments above anyway – is calling into disrepute the voting process.

To answer your question about how many users voted in the coommunity awards, I have no idea. You need to ask Matt. It’s up to him to publish this information, or not.

For example, if I understand the process correctly, the vertical awards (finance, retail, gaming, travel & leisure, technology & telecoms) are judged by the panel of judges including yourself. In this respect, all I would like to know is why the winners were chosen. What did they do to get chosen?

I’m not signed up to all of the winners, so it would be nice from my perspective to see why I should sign up with them. I presume part of the judging process would assess the merchant’s performance, the way the merchant handles affiliates, what they can offer affiliates, etc. Is this correct?

Just because a company has won an award doesn’t necessarily mean I will sign up. The fact that they won an award as they offer affiliates 24/7 support (for example) is more meaningful to affiliates IMO and would make me more inclined to become a partner. This can only be a good thing for affiliates and merchants. Those merchants that failed to win an award then know what they have to do to improve their programmes in order to win next year.

In the haulage industry, the awards are distributed in a similar way to A4U EXCEPT for the fact that each of the winners in every category receives a 2 page article about them in the organiser’s magazine. The 2 page article explains exactly why the company won.

As for the community awards, how many people voted? Was the turn out a good proportion of A4U users? How many voted for each of the contenders for each category? If I came 2nd in an award, I would like to know how close I was.

Perhaps the community doesn’t need this information. The point here though is if there is nothing to hide, why not publish the figures? As far as I am aware, voting results isn’t ‘sensitive data’ so there is nothing theoretically preventing it from entering the public domain.

I was asked for reasoning behind my comments and I have offered this. I have not accused any of the panel or anyone involved in the awards of “not act[ing] in a proper manner”. The assumption that you believe that this is what I think is “very, very insulting” too. I am extremely disappointed that you have taken this as a personal attack. It has not been an attack of any sort – I’m just after some information that will help further the meaning of these awards to myself. The awards have the power to be an incredibly powerful tool for affiliates so long as the information behind them is available.

For the record, I’m all for the awards. I think they can be a great tool for promoting the industry elite.

As one of the judges I gave my time up to review almost 100 submitted entries. If I’m honest it was a pain, it took far longer than I expected and took up loads of my time. Then, when we got down to the finalists we had to use a complex scoring system to rate each if the finalists on certain criteria. Now, what more do you need to know? Can you tell me of any serious industry award (and I don’t mean Eurovision for goodness sake) that actually disclose the details of the judging process? I can’t think of one. There simply isn’t a need.

You ask for “numbers” and “logic” but for most people, they are content that Matt has picked an independent panel of people with a good background in the industry and a solid reputation of being fair, honest and unbiased. The “logic” used was the fact that we used our experience and analyitical ability to pick who we thought should win. What more do you need to know? If you think any of the judges haven’t acted in a proper manner then by all means speak up. Some evidence would be appreciated too.