Interesting changes are afoot in the bingo affiliate world with the announcement from two affiliate networks about third party link building. The rule changes have essentially been put into immediate effect by Ignite Bingo, who run Costa Bingo, and Joy of Bingo who are responsible for Wink Bingo and the new site Tasty Bingo.

The gist of the announcement is given below:

As of this date affiliates are not permitted to acquire any links for [Bingo Site] terms from third party sites for the purpose of deep linking to their own [Bingo Site] review and information pages. Any affiliate found to have broken this term from this day onward will have any affiliate commissions withheld. The brand owner has made this move in order to guarantee the quality of reader experience when a user searches for their branded terms in search engines.

As I understand it the sites in question aren’t happy about paying commission to affiliates who perhaps are paying for trademark name links in order to inflate their positions in SERPS. Bingo is a competitive area and ranking for a “brand name”, even in the top few places can be beneficial to an affiliate’s monthly earnings.

In some ways the decision is understandable but the brand doesn’t control Google or how the search results appear or the quality of reader experience. Any brand owner would love the right things in the right order on SERPS but sometimes it just doesn’t happen. Perhaps the solution is a better SEO strategy from the brand?

Or if an affiliate is acquiring backlinks through payment then Google should be the ones to deal with it (paid links). Perhaps the fact that some affiliate sites rank for “brand name” (and above it in the case of Tasty Bingo) means that the search engine is happy with the link building processes that have gone on or they feel the site is genuinely worthy of that spot?

This puts the merchant in a bit of a pickle.

Firstly how can they determine what Google ranks and where and really is it up to them to decide who goes where? And secondly how is the acquiring of third party links going to be monitored? Also does acquiring mean getting a free link because someone has read your comments and wants to genuinely link back to you?

Another issue is what if the affiliate says “no” to the terms and switches links to a competitor site in protest (i.e. they rank for Site A but tell their users to go to Site B)?. That possibly raises potential legal issues but the fact is that the affiliate will still be ranking in SERPS for the brand. If they kick off the affiliate will they have more problems to deal with? If they don’t take action are they paying out commission they don’t feel they should be to an affiliate who perhaps isn’t working with them in partnership or “adding value”?

The eventual result will be a bit of a shake up in the bingo affiliate arena.

One merchant unveiling the new terms seemed to me to be a “reaction”, but a second following 24 hours later suggests that this issue is going to transcend across more brands over the coming weeks and months.

I’d expect many operators to now extend their own SEO and link building work so as to outrank affiliates under brand terms and generics, something which many are already trying to do. This no doubt costs them money and perhaps that will mean commissions will be cut to accommodate? It could well be that some operators start to become a bit more selective about who they work with, especially when it comes to their own independent networks.

It’ll be interesting to see if these term changes have any impact on SERPS, affiliate/merchant relationships and which bingo operators affiliates work with over the coming months.

Personally I sympathise with the bingo brands, but don’t think the strategy employed is really going to change anything. Monitoring and proving if an affiliate has acquired links is going to be difficult. Even if you ask affiliates to stop doing something they will try and find ways around it. That said affiliates paying for links run the risk of eventually being caught out so perhaps natural equilibrium will eventually win through?

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We all know that Doctor Who travels in time and space in his TARDIS, but why doesn’t the historical line change as he visits various places? Well the explanation is that there are some events he can interfere with, whilst other events are fixed in time and space and they can’t be changed, for example The Waters of Mars episode. Only The Doctor knows what can and can’t be changed.

So what has that got to do with affiliate marketing?

Well, some things we do to promote a merchant are going to be in flux. They can be changed as and when an update is required. For example if Merchant X has an expired voucher code or old competition and then releases another one, it makes sense to “interfere in time and space” and update that code in the directories or databases we manage.

However, what if we’ve spent some time writing a more indepth article (or blog post) that’s been dated to comment upon or promote something Merchant X is doing? Let’s say they’re having an Easter Egg Treasure Hunt. Our article would be dated, explain what’s going on and because we’re after traffic and sales hopefully SEOed accordingly.

This article or blog post is essentially a fixed point in time and space. By this it means it’s something that’s not going to be changed or interfered with ever again. In exactly the same way that a newspaper or magazine article remains part of the history of that publication if you like.

Writing content takes time and effort, and so there’s nothing more frustrating than getting an email saying “Merchant X has seen your site and wants this, that, and the other doing” to an article that’s “fixed in time and space”! Sorry, but we don’t write articles so that they are to be constantly updated retrospectively.

Why some merchants/agencies don’t “get this” I really don’t know? What I do know is that getting a “we’ve just audited email” (especially when the merchant doesn’t email you at any other time) is just annoying. In fact it just makes you want to not bother writing content or promoting the merchant.

Rather than use the beat them with stick approach perhaps dangling a carrot might work better? For example why not send an email saying “thank you for promoting us. The offer on your page is good, but it’s now out of date, perhaps you could write a new one with our current promotions which are blah….”.

So come on, let’s stop this time wasting auditing milarky. Give an affiliate new content to work with so that they can write more content, linking in their previous articles and building up your promotion. That’s how things should work – and that’s an easier concept to understand than the physics of time and space.

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There’s a touch of irony that in the week one merchant was caught out increasing prices when a user clicked an affiliate link that another launched an innovative system to sort out some of the many discount code issues. Red Letter Days have come up with a clever way of dealing with discounts and promotional code boxes whilst holiday firm Vivastay have possibly got themselves in a bit of a pickle.

In fact Vivastay could have trumped Red Letter Days had they just reversed what ever system they had in place. According to this post on Affiliates4U when an affiliate went to the site direct the prices shown were cheaper than if they went via an affiliate link. Not a good practice at all and potentially damaging to the industry. Having done some tests this morning it does seem this issue may be fixed. A price check on Barcelona’s NN 1898 on different computers and clicks all gave the same price. Good news if true.

Possibly better news for affiliates is the innovation that Red Letter Days have introduced. They have come up with a multitude of clever coding that means if a user clicks from an affiliate site a discount is applied if that affiliate has one and an add discount box is removed if they don’t (full details). There are also some fail safe systems in place so that Affiliate X can’t nick Affiliate Y’s code either. Codes can also be applied site wide or to specific products.

For example if a customer wanting to buy a relaxing eco break in Wales and they head to Red Letter Days via an affiliate without a discount code they get this…

However, if the customer goes via an affiliate site who have an agreed discount promotion with Red Letter Days, say 10%, they get this…

The idea is to try and get the consumer to not go wondering off in search of codes and discounts – something many affiliates are concerned about, especially when a prompt is made at the checkout stage to complete a discount code box. It’s a massive step forward and Red Letter Days, Affiliate Window and Affilinet should be congratulated for making this a reality.

It does away for the need for codes, the pesky promo box won’t be seen and a consumer can see straightaway the price they’re paying.

But new innovation always brings questions!

Firstly how much difference will it actually make? If Red Letter Days affiliates were losing a fair proportion of sales at the checkout stage then removing the code option is a significant step forward. The data from this innovative step could be the catalyst for other merchants to adopt a similar approach.

A slightly bigger concern though comes in the light of the Vivastay issue and that’s the public perception of affiliates and pricing. Even if one customer says “I get charged more clicking from your site than if I click from another” an affiliate (who hasn’t got a discount in place) may quickly lose the trust and goodwill of their users.

This means how discounts are reported at the merchant site is incredibly important. Whilst I appreciate it’s early days, the line through the price (above) perhaps isn’t quite enough for me. Although I guess drawing further interest to the price differential (e.g. “special offer” or “exclusive deal”) may not be favourable either.

Anyway all minor quibbles and shouldn’t disguise the fact that a massive step forward has been taken. For more details and examples about RLD’s innovation head on over to Affiliates4U. The affiliate managers are on hand to answer any questions.

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The shortlist for the 2010 A4UAwards Community Shortlists have been announced on Affiliates4U and there are some genuinely pleasant surprises in amongst the nominations. There’s also some good news for OneLittleDuck in the blog category, so thanks for the nomination.

This year the awards have taken a small leaf out of The Oscars and increased the number of nominations in most categories – not quite to 10 – but at least six! Only the Publisher of the Year remains on five nominations, which is bizarre as you’d think this should generate more nominees? Two 100% cashback sites (Quidco and Topcashback) will battle out with Vouchercodes.co.uk and Skimlinks (who won everything last year) for the award. The fifth nominee is Shopstyle and it’s nice to see something different in the group.

There are 8 nominees for “Affiliate Manager: In-House or at an Agency” including Naomi Brown from Firebox, Hannah from Existem AM and John Jupp from Affiliate Program Advice. Daniel Austin and Chris Worthy from R.O.EYE, Karen Clayton of Azam Marketing, Joanna Halstead of i-level and Joshna Patel of Red Letter Days complete the group.

Best Account Manager at a Network has 7 nominees and they include James Little of Affiliate Future, Darren Newmark from LinkShare and Aga Marchewka of buy.at! Helen Collins of affilinet, Chantal Williams and Julie Wood of Affiliate Window and Anne Budden of Affiliate Future are also nominated.

Both those categories are just about impossible to call! If Ladbrokes had a book on this they’d probably do better than they do with The Oscars where there’s always a 1/40 nailed on favourite for each of the main categories.

The Affiliate Marketing Blog of 2010 is possibly slightly easier to predict.

I’d be surprised if Kirsty doesn’t take top place again. However could we have an Avatar vs The Hurt Locker situation as the nominations bring up two surprises. Firstly well done to David Fiske who thoroughly deserves his nomination and also well done to eBay for their Partner Network Blog. I think that’s the first time a merchant blog has broken through in this category? Joining Kirsty, David and eBay are Lammo.net and previous winner Kieron. Plus there’s of course OneLittleDuck.

Finally there’s the best Affiliate Marketing Network. Affiliate Window, Affilinet, Affiliate Future, Commission Junction, LinkShare and Paid On Results will battle it out for this one. I think it’s fairly obvious which way this one will go but you never know do you? It’d be a surprise to see Awin not (A)win again.

All in all it’s quite an interesting set of nominations. The changes made by A4U this year most certainly have resulted in two fiercely competitive awards (Affiliate Manager and Account Manager) that you could really pick any one nomination as a deserved winner. Only one voucher code site in the publishers group could be seen as a surprise but it’s nice to see ShopStyle in the mix. No Loquax though – boo, hiss etc. It’s good to see a merchant in the blogs group though.

A big well done to everyone who’s been nominated and thank you if you nominated/vote for this blog, it’s really appreciated.

You can cast your Community Award votes over at A4UAwards from the 22nd March.

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A few years ago the first site most new affiliates would try was a shopping portal. Put up some categories, add some banners and hey presto the road to affiliate marketing success was set – or not! Nowadays the shopping portal has been replaced by the voucher code site and many newbies, and even oldies in AM, see it as perhaps an instant route to earning commission.

So the question is should you set up a voucher code site? Here’s a few pointers to help you decide…

1. You Need to Love Competition
Kaiser Chiefs sang “Love’s not a Competition”, but you’re going to need to love competition if you want to take on the voucher code sector. The UK scene is dominated by the likes of myvouchercodes or vouchercodes or (insert name)codes dot com, dot co.uk.. dot anything.

They’re only part of your competition. There are codes on cashback sites, moneysavingexpert, Hot UK Deals etc plus a bundle of big brands like GMTV, MSE (again), AOL and moneysupermarket who have code sections powered by the big boys.

Oh and there’s also a few hundred/thousand/hundred thousand other affiliate voucher code sites here in the UK. If you like competition, perhaps even being an underdog, then the voucher code scene could be for you.

2. You Need A Little Time
In the words of The Beautiful South you going to need “A Little Time”. Actually you’re going to need quite a bit of time. Voucher code sites don’t run themselves, even the white label/feed based ones. Yes you can automate updates and content from various sources but you’re still going to need some unique content.

3. You Need A Little Patience
Listen to Take That as they encourage you to have a little “Patience”. Having a new affiliate voucher code site doesn’t automatically mean you’re going to become a multi million pound geezer that everyone loves to hate overnight. Like any new site it needs looking after, updating, adding new content, promoting etc… and remember you’re competing with all those other code sites so it can be a tight squeeze in the SERPS too.

4. You Need A Sense of Humour
Darren Hayes sang about a sense of humour and you’re going to need one if you’re embarking on your first affiliate voucher code site. This code has ended, you can’t use that code, that code is for that affiliate, you get no commission for this, that code closes tomorrow etc.

Again you can rely on automated set ups to help you, but the amount of to-ing and fro-ing in code side maintenance is akin to John Terry popping round to see his neighbour’s wife.

5. You Need To Do Some Happy Talking
Captain Sensible once sang “happy talkin’, happy talk” and if your voucher code site is going to do really well it’s going to need some exclusive codes. That means talking to merchants, networks and agencies and letting them know why you should be given exclusives.

You could rely on feeds or automated services but your very own exclusives mean unique content that may get sent around the internet and they can make you more competitive. The downside is you’re going to need to spend time getting them. You’ll also need that bit of patience as they’re not always freely available.

6. You Have To Be Insane In The Brain
Hey DJ it’s time for Cypress Hill’s “Insane in the Brain”. Get a “you don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps poster” and stick it on your office wall. It’s a saturated market that’s attracting more and more interest. On this month’s CJ Blog they even say “I know at least 15 publishers who are creating new voucher code sites as we speak”.

In other words there’s a lot of competition and you’re going to need to be incredibly busy – not just updating codes – just to get a toenail in the doorway. It’s not impossible and if you’re up for a challenge (probably with good domain name at hand and some cash for PPC) it might just happen.

On the other hand you might want to consider concentrating on niche and generating a content site that can evolve with you. Of course include those important codes in your copy so as to not lose your hard earnt visitor’s sales to a voucher code site… just don’t spend all your time trying to be one.

The soundtrack for this blog post would have been added to Sharemyplaylists but it needs a few more songs.

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