It was with a touch of irony that I read an A4U piece on OLD’s 2010 blogger award this weekend. In an interview after the awards they asked me why I thought so few UK affiliates maintain a blog… and pretty much since then I’ve hardly posted here. In part because I’ve been doing other stuff like taking photos of boats and bees, but also because sometimes it’s nice just to take a step back once in a while.

But the affiliate world doesn’t stand still and the fortunes of three UK affiliate networks are in focus at the moment.

At the end of July DGM went into administration, but it’s taken a further fortnight for the plugged to be pulled. As of the end of last week affiliates who had not removed links were given a pretty lousy 12 hours notice that dgmPro for the UK was being switched off by ADH Holdings who had acquired the system.

There’s an announcement on A4U and some quite direct comments in response to things.

Going public with views, at least in The UK AM industry, is often not the “done thing” so it’s quite refreshing to see some open commentary, especially from those involved. Quite often (and I’ve said this before) there’s an assumption that those involved in AM know what’s happening “behind closed doors” when they don’t.

Actually in fairness, I’m a nosey so and so and just want more gossip.

However open commentary isn’t being confined to just the end of DGM in The UK. Sunshine’s Chris Clarkson has posted an emotive post on his blog about Affiliate Future. His open letter is an interesting read and hopefully those who can react to his suggestions take them on board. In fact it’s Sunshine’s and their affiliates’ frustration with AF’s development (or lack of it) that has led to them opening with Paid On Results.

This move could be a key one for POR and early indications suggest that they realise this with the launch of their Sunshine Report. This is a bespoke reporting suite for affiliates of Sunshine.co.uk on POR and first impressions are pretty impressive. I’d be surprised if other travel merchants and affiliates aren’t raising one or two eyebrows in POR’s direction after seeing what they can potentially offer them versus what they may be getting elsewhere.

In fairness POR aren’t the only network innovating. Tradedoubler quietly announced Product Level Tracking (PLT) with RouteOne. From the email “PLT enables commissions to be offered to you on individual products”. So if RouteOne want their affiliates to focus on DC branded gear they can raise the commission for it. An interesting development to keep an eye on in the future.

For now though, the sun is most certainly shining on POR up in Scotland.

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If you run a forum and are thinking of how to monetise it then it might be worth popping along to Moneysavingexpert.com later today. They’re teaming up with the award winning Skimlinks for a one month trial to see if they can get their massive vBulletin forum generating revenue. Skimlinks have developed a plugin for vBulletin that rewrites selected words and phrases into affiliate links.

It’s not surprising that MSE are running this trial. Forums aren’t the easiest thing to monetise! Users tend to dislike intrusive adverts and subscriptions cause additional work and headaches. If you’re thinking of adding a forum to your site then stop and think carefully about it. On one hand they can be brilliant, usually when all is running well and the users are lovely. However, they can be very time consuming and a huge drain on resources.

If you’re not earning money from managing the forum, spending hours dealing with admin issues can be very frustrating on a lot of levels.

According to an announcement on MSE they’re hoping Skimlinks will “allow the forum to cover some of its costs – if so we may be able to use it to expand resources”. They also say “It has no adverts (no one can pay to be on the site) and does not generate any income.” These comments do make you wonder whether the MSE forum is becoming a bit of a drain on their resources?

So, it’ll be interesting to see how this trial progresses!

Firstly will forum users embrace the presence of Skimlinks? Forum users tend to be quite vocal on new technology or interference in their activity. Will they ignore the links? Will they see them as an intrusion? Or will they take to them like a duck to water and start earning MSE commission? If the latter then expect a few more forum users trialling Skimlinks in the coming months.

From an affiliate point of view there are also things to consider. In one addition of a bit of code there’s suddenly a new affiliate in town. OK, not quite a new affiliate as MSE has always been one, but they’ve just expanded their reach quite a bit. A whole bunch of affiliate links dropped on to a top 10 UK social network can only mean some extra added competition for that last click!

Slightly deeper than that though is will it open up user eyes into the world of affiliates? Will it make them more wary of links – “don’t click on that it’s an affiliate link”? Or perhaps it might make them more aware that sites and forums can’t run on fresh air forever and that they need to support them by shopping via affiliate links?

Then of course there’s the “what if it doesn’t work” element of the equation. I’d be surprised if MSE was poor in terms of income, but can it sustain a continually evolving forum that “does not generate any income”? Skimlinks seems to be a good idea to try and address that issue, especially if MSE maintain their “no paid advertising” stance.

As a siteowner who also has a number of “does not generate any income” elements on site (adsense, affiliates, banners = doesn’t work) I’m particularly interested in seeing how this trial pans out. I’m sceptical simply because whilst I think the technology is lovely, I’m not sure if it’ll be lovingly embraced by the most important element of a site – the user.

But, if Skimlinks works for MSE then it’ll be kudos to them for turning a moneysaving forum into a moneymaker.

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There’s an interesting and important post about DGM and their administration over on Affiliates4U. The post reveals something about the administration and also comments about leaving links up especially as “you are unlikely to realise the value of the sales commissions you are generating”. It also appears that any rescue of the network will not be forthcoming.

Administration has a horrible ripple effect.

There are obviously those caught at the eye of the storm such as ex-employees and there are merchants who need to move to other networks asap. Plus of course, possibly a little too glossed over in many respects, there are the affiliates who could be losing out on significant and much needed income. Some may have PPC bills to cover, whilst others may be having a few sleepless nights until their merchants move or they figure out what to do next.

Cashback sites and their users are also caught up in this ripple effect. The reaction from affiliates to DGM’s administration has been one of a quiet acceptance, in my opinion, but hell most certainly has no fury than a cashbacker scorned.

In the firing line over on Money Saving Expert are Quidco who whilst quick to explain the administration then got both barrels and a lot more besides from unhappy punters. Their problems were compounded further when a rival site announced they would be paying up any monies owed from DGM affiliates.

What’s quite fascinating from the discussion though is the varying degrees of knowledge regarding cashback, affiliates and tracking. In some cases cashback customers didn’t know a tracking company, such as DGM or Awin, were the middle man.

The issues Quidco are having on the money saving forums also highlights one of the problems of doing “customer services” away from home and the relative safety of your own forums. Having tried to do it, albeit thankfully no where near on the cashback site’s scale, it’s not something I’d rank as a highlight of the working week.

Because of that, and many might be shocked by this, I feel a tad bit sorry for Quidco. They reacted to the situation as they saw right but then got battered and bruised by all and sundry for being perhaps too quick off the mark. Maybe they misjudged “what to do” but perhaps the blame really has to fall on the poor way the administration has been announced and the uncertainty of what’s happening (or not).

In contrast to DGM, Clash Media also went into the admin corner last week and immediately switched off their UK network links. That’s a pretty good indicator of “we’re not in right now”. Just as an aside to this it’s interesting to note that there’s been less comment and little cashback or affiliate furore over this particular network’s end, despite their ukprizedraw program being run via a number of other networks.

Anyway, at least today’s “unofficial DGM announcement” should bury any hopes of a reprieve or uncertainty about keeping links in place “just in case”! The start of August for some affiliates is going to mainly revolve around switching links. But here’s the thing – if you’re unhappy about that, stop and think “at least I’m not running a cashback site” (unless you are, then go and get the beers in).

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Considering we’re in a business about getting visitors, making them interact on site, and hopefully convert to paying customers it never ceases to amaze me that “thanks for entering our competition” pages are so badly done. From an affiliate perspective it’s a real downer as quite often that’s our only opportunity for the visitors we send to get hooked in to buying, but from a siteowner perspective it’s like waving goodbye to the person who’s just arrived.

Here are a few examples of what I mean!

“Continue Shopping” isn’t a great call to action. This page could show some special offers, a one off deal or perhaps even a discount code with an option saying “email this code to me”. There’s nothing here to make me want to stay on site.

Play.com don’t fair much better!

Now some sites direct link to their pop up competition pages, so if they do this what will the visitor see in terms of deals, promotions, and latest offers? Nothing! Now many people will say “ah, but competition people won’t buy anything” and that’s fair comment but the odds of them doing so must increase slightly if they see something other than a blank page?

Nothing means they could just go for a Burton!

“Start Shopping Here” is fine, but would you click? These page needs related film goodies or something to capture the visitor’s interest. Marketing people need to get the person who codes the site to automatically put the same details on the thanks page that they put on the rest of the site.

Don’t let them say “it can’t be done” – it can be done! If you can pass out offers to affiliates you can put details on these pages.

Hallelujah! Well done Firebox – this is good!

Although to be a tad critical it doesn’t quite go far enough (I know I’m harsh). I’d like to see something like “as a thanks for entering the competition we can offer you XYZ discount or Putty Monsters, the winner of our Invention competition, at a special price”.

Now I don’t know if it’ll improve our conversion rates with merchants. It can’t hurt it anyway as for many we have Yazz Stats (the only way is up). However, all merchants and siteowners running competitions should be thinking about the journey of their users through competitions.

They do the nice landing page, they might even remember the “thanks for entering email” (none of the above do), but very few people bother with the “thanks for entering page”.

In fact by putting nothing on it, you might as well automatically close the site down once someone’s filled in their details to enter your carefully crafted prize draw. With nothing offered to encourage them to stay (or revisit without that thanks for entering email) you’re essentially shutting the door on them.

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Ryman are a UK stationery and office supplies retailer, and they’ve relaunched their site and by the sounds of it their affiliate programme. To celebrate the relaunch their agency, Locker Room, and Tradedoubler have pulled off a bit of coup and managed to get Ryman’s Chairman and Dragon’s Den star Theo Paphitis to record a video message for affiliates of Ryman. Take a look below.

Theo thinks that together “we can do a lot better” and “make more money” and that the new website will help to take the Ryman affiliate programme to the next level. In typical Dragon’s Den style, he even manages to get in a mention about his kid’s inheritance. Theo’s main message though is about commission and in order to motivate affiliates to start to work with Ryman there’s a fixed 10% commission rate for the next four weeks.

OLD wonders though if this could this have gone one step further?

Commission increases are lovely, but sometimes it’s what can’t be bought that’s often more desirable or more valuable. Imagine if the above message concluded with “at the end of September, we will be selecting one lucky affiliate to come to London for an all expenses paid lunch with Theo, where you can chat about your business and affiliate marketing before taking a trip to Dragon’s Den”.

Would that be more motivational?

For me personally I’d say yes. I’m not a Ryman affiliate and I’m afraid the video doesn’t really get me wanting to head over to Tradedoubler and get promoting. I was almost won over by the mention of the great zoom feature though, but for now “I’m out”!

Staying with Dragon’s Den this poses an interesting thought!

Now that we know Theo is fully behind affiliate marketing it’ll be interesting to see how he reacts if any affiliate companies appear on the programme in the future and what he says about them. He’s invested in an affiliate company before, having offered to spend £200,000 on Gaming Alerts. Perhaps not the best use of his kid’s inheritance!

Anyway, it’s great to see a household business name giving a boost to affiliate marketing and maybe Theo’s message will spark a trend of similar videos! Perhaps Theo will be manning the Ryman stand at A4UExpo or better still appearing in a regular “Ryman’s Affiliate Video” bulletin?

All I’ll say is “thanks Theo” for choosing to talk about Ryman and not La Senza. Trying to fit in the Duran Duran “Rio” inspired title would have been much tougher.

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