Just after a month after being the co-sponsor for the A4UAwards, DGM have announced that they have gone into administration. The news comes on the same day that Affiliate Window announced a merger with Zanox, thus highlighting the varying fortunes of the two networks who have been part of UK Affiliate Marketing for a considerable amount of time.

Given the economic climate it’s perhaps not a surprise that a network has hit this point. Even so, it’s a sad day for affiliate marketing and for those who have been involved with DGM and it’s previous incarnations of UKAffiliates. For many affiliates, including ourselves, it used to be their number one earner and despite a few issues around the “Pro” era there’s always been affiliate affection towards the network.

In fairness the road has always been uphill for DGM since they moved from DGM2 to the ill fated DGMPro. In essence this has been the albatross attached to the millstone that’s been round their neck, whilst a (Cheeky)monkey played on their back. The affiliate system wasn’t the most user friendly and whilst DGM tried to sort things out, Awin and Buy.at emerged like Seb Coe used to do having sat behind Steve Ovett for 700m and leg it to the finishing line to grab the gold.

After a management buyout – at least on the surface it looked like New DGM were moving forward. They introduced new innovative ideas, like the mobile and broadband comparison units as well as travel maps. New clients, including The National Trust, were appearing too and with the merger of Buy.at/Awin there was opportunity for them to continue that climb and establish themselves as a network of choice for affiliates.

Sadly, for whatever reasons, that climb has now been halted by the grim reaper of administration. The knock on effect to affiliates is as yet unknown. But, it’s a stark reminder to us all how the fall of one business to which we are somehow linked can have an impact on our own. Affiliates do need to make sure they have several eggs and several baskets!

DGM’s administration though has, as you’d expect, resulted in some lively and interesting discussions on Twitter about networks and their future.

Are the days of the affiliate network numbered? Will there be other casualties? Do networks need to adapt their business models? Will agencies take to the space and remove the need for networks?

Perhaps there are more questions to be asked – like were the clients won really ideal for affiliate marketing or more intriguingly are there the affiliates in situ willing or able to promote new wins, not just for DGM, but other networks who as yet haven’t been absorbed by Affiliate Window? Has affiliate marketing hit a critical point, where as a discussion ensuing on affiliates4u suggests, that it’s now simply voucher code marketing?

Who knows the answers to these questions and how these events will effect AM in the months to come?

In the meantime, let’s hope there’s minimal impact for those effected by this administration.

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A4UExpo 2010 takes place in London between the 11th and 13th October at the London ExCeL. It’s the fourth expo and this year we’re being a “new venue, new opportunities and format”. There’s even a new website coming along too. As yet the agenda and programme aren’t available, but if you like earlybird discounts you can book your ticket now.

Last year the earlybird was £249 for affiliates, although if you were quick off the block you could have picked up a pass for just £149 (A4UExpo Blog). This year, to take into account the new venue, new opportunities and format – and quite probably the rate of inflation, credit crunch and sundry extras the early bird for affiliates is a mere…. £395!

That’s a 58% increase from last year or a 165% increase if you got the cheap deal. Blimey!!

In fairness the pricing is inline with other events, such as Bingo Bullet, and in fact it’s still a bit cheaper and probably better value.

However, I’m not rushing for the early bird – not just yet.

I did enjoy A4UExpo 2009 and did get some exceptional value from attending. However, a large bulk of our time was spent doing meetings rather than being in the seminars.

Taking into account ticket cost, travel, hotel and also time off for two people that was fine. However, at the increased rates this year I’m starting to question whether we need to rethink a little. Paying out almost £800 for two tickets (£700 if you pick up a discount code on Twitter) to then go and have a few pre-arranged meetings sounds expensive, even more so if it’s at the expense of missing sessions.

The increased cost means that there now needs to be increased value in attending. That means that before parting with cash I’ll be scrutinising the sessions when published a lot more closely than normal. Also coming under the microscope will be what’s on offer during the event. An extra few quid not to suffer that club at The O2 again may actually be worth it (personally I’d prefer The Thames boat trip again… that was cool).

It may well mean that this year we have to cut down on meetings and perhaps attend more seminars. If that’s the case then they better be good. Whilst A4UExpo is great for the social aspect, there has to be more value in attending than just supping a few beers with mates. We can do that down in Plymouth. The alternative is to consider not going to Expo and perhaps spending a cheaper few days in London meeting merchants/partners etc instead.

Fortunately we’re in a position to be able to afford to attend, and perhaps still will as it’s an event unlike any other for affiliate marketing. However, for new entrants to the industry or those struggling to get a foothold the price, plus of course travel, hotels and maybe even time off work, may feel they’re being priced out of things and that’s a big concern.

The best advice if you’re after a free ticket is look out for giveaways, like this one on Affiliates4U, and discount codes which are already appearing on Twitter. There may even be some blogger passes available too!

The “earlybird” rate will expire at the end of August, although if A4U’s previous is anything to go by, it’ll get extended.

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I’ve always been a firm believer that the content on your website should be your own work. But, even old ducks can learn new tricks and also realise there’s actual benefit in outsourcing tasks to others. Time is a precious commodity and no matter how many pointless sites we kill off or tasks we automate there’s always something new to fill the void.

Affiliate marketing was meant to get easier, but it just seems to be an endless stream of admin, updating, twittering, coding, stat checking, blogging, facebooking, emailing, banner removing, banner updating, writing content and hoping that someone buys something to earn you a couple of quid.

This often means that somethings, well one thing – content – tends to get slammed to the back burner. It’s often the “I’ll do that later” item on the to do list I’ve not yet written. Yet, in order to keep some sites ticking over they do need a little bit of daily content and they’re just not getting it and therefore not keeping up with The Jones.

So enter right Content Now and their news service.

Having been the primary writer on Loquax (well actually only writer), giving up this task to an unknown quantity was a bit scary. I like knowing what’s being written, have a structure I like and know (roughly) how I want it to appear. Letting someone else do this is a big deal… ask Jude! So, having emailed Kieron and Simon at Content Now to get the ball rolling for content, I honestly expected a couple of weeks of tweaks, alterations and “not quite rights”, possibly followed by “well we tried it”.

I needn’t of concerned myself and in fact wish we’d done it sooner.

The content is more than fine and more importantly frees up a boat load of time. After the initial month we doubled the order. Any questions are immediately answered and if there’s something not quite right, it’s sorted out quicker than Robert Green can say “whoops, slippery ball”.

Recommended? Most definitely!

Outsourcing “news” though does have a disadvantage in that you’re never quite sure what’s going to arrive in your inbox. Is it what you really want? Is it what you’d do yourself? It can be a worry, at least initially! However, this is actually an advantage. More often than not the content I was writing was a bit fixated (i.e. I stuck to the stuff I wanted to write about). Outsourcing has broken a few barriers and expanded what we cover.

The outsourced content also means I can focus on what I like doing, and if that involves nothing or watching 11 gutless Englishmen lose to Germany then so be it. It’s all good news.

As mentioned above picked up free time has an uncanny knack of getting rapidly filled and there have been much needed tweaks to a couple of sites and extra content added in places, which previously wouldn’t have been done if I’d been doing the routine bits and bobs. However, outsourcing was to make my affiliate life easier not busier.

The key now is to make sure it stays that way!

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The cookie attribution debate took a step forward this week with the announcement from More Niche. They’ve introduced a new system on their network that will allow a merchant to decide how to reward their affiliates. They can stick to the current model of last click wins or offer a more complex system, pretty much like that suggested recently by Vodafone.

Currently only one merchant on the network has taken the plunge into the uncharted waters of cookie attribution. Proactol, a weight loss product, will continue to offer the last referrer a commission of 30% but in addition they’re also offering a fixed CPA payment of £3.50 to the first referrer. This is described as “a thank you for introducing them to the brand”.

The basis for the decision is because “this could change the power shift away from Voucher sites (capturing brand traffic) and add more value back to the generic content affiliates”. However, a recent discussion on A4U suggested that a lot of incremental sales from a voucher site don’t come from “brand”. Perhaps More Niche/Proactol could release data to demonstrate that they are seeing sales being lost to VC sites?

The lack of data to back up the need for splitting cookies is the single biggest problem with the journey that merchants and networks are embarking upon. From an affiliate point of view I want to know that if my user clicks on my link and then makes a sale within an uninterrupted cookie period how much commission I will earn. Last click satisfies that simplicity.

However, if multi attribution is going to happen what an affiliate needs to know is how much they would earn under system 1 and how much under system 2. That needs to be demonstrated in some way, especially if, as will be the case with bigger brands, other marketing channels will be chucked into the user journey. How much money is lost from the overall affiliate pot when you start assigning influence from other areas? Who will suffer pound wise if it drops – will it be affiliates, networks, or the agency implementing the model?

The case with Proactol though is slightly easier to grasp in terms of change of earnings compared to say the currently theoretical Vodafone model. Proactol have kept last referrer commission the same at 30%, but lumped on an additional CPA for the first click – so provided you’re a first introducer then you’re going to be quids in. Nothing else changes along the food chain. They’re just paying out more – not redistributing their commission.

More Niche hope that they’re going to revolutionise the affiliate marketing industry with this technology but, is this really a revolution? Or is this just a clever way to try and attract affiliates to step forward and promote the brand? If Proactol is giving all it’s sales to VC sites then would it not just be easier not to work with them (assuming they do) and award the commission to the previous click? How long are customer journey’s who buy the product? What would the reaction have been from their top last click affiliates to say drop to 20% and 10% offered to first click?

Despite opening up more questions than answers it’s a bold move by More Niche and Proactol. If nothing else it will no doubt push along the multi attribution research and debate. What will be interesting will be to see stats in the future about what kind of impact split commissions have had on this particular program. Did it increase affiliate interest? Do affiliates feel rewarded? Do affiliates actually care? In fact that’s a good question! Do affiliates really care about split cookies or are networks/merchants the driving force behind it?

The only outcome I hope for with all this split cookie talk is that, even if it doesn’t become the norm, that we see greater transparency and greater vigilance from merchants/networks. For example a program should show who’s deduping against what, are post impression cookies in the mix, are some cookies more favoured than others etc. as well as what steps were being taken to ensure cookie stuffing and forced clicks for first, middle or last click were not a problem.

Discussion regarding this issue is ongoing over at eConsultancy where Geno Prussakov has put together an interesting analysis and poses some questions including “how do we know who really introduced the customer to the brand?”.

With the ongoing debate surrounding “the need” to replace “last click wins” I think it’s safe to predict that splitting up cookies is going to drive us all in affiliate marketing just that little bit (more) crackers.

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Prior to the A4UAwards this week, I was in London at the 5th Annual Online Bingo Summit. This is a conference organised for online bingo operators, software platforms and a smattering of affiliates and affiliate mangers. To be honest it’s a bit of a confused event in affiliate terms and I even overheard one person this year say it wasn’t really for affiliates despite there being an affiliate ticket option!

Perhaps this event isn’t for affiliates! But if that’s so why is there an award, within the proceedings, for best portal and another one for best affiliate programme? And how can anyone who’s not an affiliate vote for best affiliate programme anyway? You can understand the confusion!

I’m hoping I overheard things out of context. Affiliates have a role in online bingo and the affiliate space shouldn’t be confined to a handful “super affiliates”, who let’s face it are still affiliates even if they want to pretend to be something else. There should be a place for them at an online bingo event and their presence should be encouraged.

However, this isn’t a cheap conference. An affiliate pass costs upwards from £595+VAT and that does restrict affiliate numbers considerably, especially when you include hotel costs, travel etc. The question is then, is there value in an affiliate attending?

In a direct comparison to say A4UExpo then it’s a big fat “no” – simple as! However, this is a more niche event and it’s useful to pick up a few “insider” tips, get yourself known especially to those at the end of an email, and do a few meetings without the hustle and bustle of a large conference.

Day one was mainly spent in talks, chatting and networking – all good. The evening of the first day concluded with an awards ceremony. It was good to see some worthy winners this year, like Tombola and Bingo Port, but the whole thing was incredibly cringe worthy thanks to the presentation skills of Gregg Scott.

Never have I seen someone die on their backside on stage so quickly and then so often.

A top tip for Gregg, and indeed any stand up, do not come on stage and introduce yourself as a cross between Jonathan King and Christopher Biggins! Biggins, no problem – but with King then you’re on dodgy ground from the off!

Another top tip for Gregg, and indeed any awards presenter: when you complete your set and it’s been a disaster then leave. Do not go from table to table and hand out business cards! It’s embarrassing.

In some ways Gregg was a highlight of the event. It was so bad that you wished you weren’t there, but also so bad that you were glad to be there to witness it. For that to be a highlight perhaps gives you an idea of my overall view of the conference.

Once I’d caught up with people I needed to see in a business capacity on day one then that was it for me and I gave the second day a wide berth. The talks I attended were ok, but nothing really generated a buzz in the way A4UExpo does. The social and networking aspects were good (although the after party didn’t get rave reviews – thankfully I went to Nandos instead) plus I had a couple of productive and encouraging meetings.

All in all it was OK. In fact it was pretty much like the last time I attended in 2008. Sadly I don’t think the Bingo Summit has moved on well enough in affiliate terms, not just for affiliates but also marketing operations within online bingo, which in my opinion is simply a missed opportunity.

Maybe things will change in 2011? If not at least I hope they don’t ask Gregg Scott back!

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