It’s been a slow day today – so slow in fact that TD stats are currently at around 4 hours behind everyone else. It would have been nice if instead of screwing up the interface they’d invested in technology to keep stats closer to real time.

The delays are not good for affiliates! It’s nice to know if a day is going well or if a campaign is working. Take for example National Express – they announced a competition lead program yesterday that wasn’t tracking. The delay meant that we were unable to be sure the program wasn’t working for several hours. Fortunately TD did get the tracking sorted and all’s now working well…

… working so well, that a tinyurl link was added to our forums today for this competition. I’m pretty certain there’s an affiliate link hidden behind it, but have been unable to find out for sure. This kind of (possible) unscrupulous action is why some affiliates are now sorting out an affiliate association.

Whilst I can understand the need for an association, I’m still undecided if it’ll ever really work. Will networks, merchants, or other affiliates take notice of the association and will it have any serious teeth in which to act when there’s action to be taken.

Great Idea of the day/week/year in affiliate terms though goes to Lee on A4U. An affiliate/merchant ‘dating system’ (to pair up working partners, not date them) is pure genius and if a network or group can organise this then it should work well. We can help/advise with competitions, are active in other sectors away from competitions, and always interested in doing other things… a ‘dating’ system would help merchants know what we do/don’t do and hopefully lead to more business and contacts. Perhaps this kind of system is a better avenue to look into for an association (i.e. it’s members are ones who are serious about affiliate marketing – whether full time/part time).

Insurance has never been the best area of affiliate marketing for us – and if my experience of trying to buy online is anything to go by then it’s no wonder it’s an awful convertor.

Earlier in the year I bought home insurance through our own Budget Insurance affiliate link – it didn’t track! The ‘investigation’ into why it didn’t track resulted in Budget claiming the sale was made from a direct url and not an affiliate one…. even though the click was made via our own Buy Insurance site! Budget are no longer promoted on the site.

Car Insurance is due, so it was back to our own site and a look round the top insurers. More Than crashed at the ‘Submit’ to get a quote. Direct Line, Lloyds and a couple of others couldn’t find the address – we’re on a new estate – but rather than ask for the address to be entered directly online, the sites all gave a number requesting me to continue the quote application by phone (so no affiliate commission).

Esure though were even more special. Check out their options for occupation! I run an internet company – but the closest option is ‘Retail & Customer Services’. Anyway, when you then enter your details, pick an occupation that vaguely resembles what you do – guess what? Esure then redirect you to First Alternative, their sister insurance service!

So, my experience of insurance merchants include (1) No tracking (2) Sites Crashing (3) Encouragement to Phone Up for a Quote and (4) Redirection to a Sister Company!

In all cases no commissions for affiliates!!

Today I’ve received about 20 emails from Zed telling me that they require all links to be reciprocated and as there are no links back to them they’re going to be forced to remove the links.

Guess what Zed baby, you can remove the links… all of them! We didn’t ask for them in the first place to be put on your spammy Secure-Payment-Indexes-Bingo-Sites-Roulette-Baccarat-Slots-index-2.html page and there’s no way in a blue moon you’d get a reciprocal link from us!

Git!

I love this joke… Jude doesn’t mainly because she gets to hear it at least once a day.

Two nuns are out driving when a vampire drops onto the bonnet of their car. “Quick sister” screams one nun “Show him your cross”!!!

So the other nun leans out of the window and shouts, “Hey You! **** off!”

Still makes me laugh even now.

Spent the afternoon in the cinema watching Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and finally George Lucas has delivered a prequel worthy of the original trilogy. Lightsabers, Battles, Humour, Wookies and loads of action made this in my opinion one of the best Star Wars movies…. ever!

The downsides to this dark side film is that Jar Jar Binks did appear, albeit thankfully briefly, but no one lightsabered him into oblivion. Padme and C3PO were both sadly under used, as too was Chewbacca and the Wookies – but this could have been because in the battle scenes so much was happening. Also I’ve never really taken to Samuel L Jackson being in a Star Wars movie. His character Mace Windu is neither a fighting Jedi like Obi-Wan or a cool loveable green Jedi like Yoda. In the fight scene with The Emperor Jackson could have gained much more credibility had he whipped out a gun and gone into full Pulp Fiction tirade.

That aside there were a lot of plus points. The story flowed well (there seemed to be less dialogue than the previous prequels, which was good as Lucas is awful at dialogue) and the action ploughed along relentlessly. Of course we all knew the eventual outcome of the story, but it was all cleverly played out and at least we could feel sorry for Anakin as he became the biggest baddy in movie history. The Emperor was pure class (although a little too often bordered on OTT pantomime villian rather than demonic Sith Lord) and the battle with Yoda superb.

All in all, Sith does merit the hype and is a worthy addition to the Star Wars universe. Sadly, it does also demonstrate just how woefully poor The Phantom Menace was in comparison. Lucas has said there’ll be no more movies, just animated cartoons and TV Series spin offs – however the excellent novels by Timothy Zahn could easily be Star Wars VII to IX and therefore fulfill the prophesy of 9 Star Wars movies.