The acquisition of Buy.at by Affiliate Window is quite intriguing. Matt Bailey has done a nice piece on “what’s in it for Awin?” whilst Robin Moore from Coast Digital examines the advantages and disadvantages of an affiliate network monopoly. My first thoughts on the news was that it was a bit like Man United signing Michael Owen.

Man United didn’t really need Owen, but they knew that with a bit of love he could become effective and potentially match winning again as long as he stayed free from injury. Besides it’s far better to have Owen at Old Trafford than allow a rival to get him and therefore become a tougher proposition!

So Buy.at are a bit like Michael Owen. They were once young and great, but lost their way due to a move not working out and are now hoping to get back in the big time with an established and successful team.

This means Affiliate Window are Manchester United, except they had to pay $17million for their “Michael Owen” whereas Man United got their’s for free. Mind you, Awin probably have a lot less debt and don’t have half their supporters in red and the rest dressed up like Norwich City.

Admittedly, the football analogy goes to pot some what as the new “Affiliate Window.at” are now singularly dominant in UK affiliate marketing network terms. My biggest concern is that a “super network” may soon in the future only want “super affiliates” or at least introduce tougher criteria to becoming an affiliate.

The latter is probably more likely as new affiliates are important to keep things moving forward and as we’ve seen in the past, sometimes networks and super affiliates fall out.

Which neatly brings us to Quidco.

They’ve appointed Andreas Andreou (ex-Tradedoubler) to their board according to a report on the new look Affiliates4u. That’s not that exciting in the grand scheme of things (sorry Andreas) but it does highlight the growing development of affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is becoming less and less about bedrooms and more about boardrooms. That’s quite scary in many ways, as does it mean that to reach the upper echelons of internet business you need to bring in Dragon’s Den type assistance? Quite possibly…? Mind you it can’t hurt your business too much if your ongoing popularity stems from money saving and hot deal type sites, regardless of how many suits you employ.

Getting more than a new suit though is Affiliate4U. It’s had a full makeover and the first impressions are good. It’s faster, cleaner and the Existem guys have cleverly placed themselves as a Digital Marketing news channel. It’s perhaps yet another sign of a maturing industry and that move from bedroom to boardroom.

The good news is that the forum remains in place, meaning that affiliates from all levels have a platform to discuss and comment about affiliate marketing. So A4U is where old school AM and new AM collide! This makes their role in the future of affiliate marketing all the more important and pivotal.

On one hand they need to embrace the new world of super networks and big boardroom affiliates but without losing the voices and opinions of the rest of the people involved in the industry. I think the new look and design is set up to do that!

Most certainly there are interesting times ahead in affiliate marketing.

To conicide with their return to their original name, and the one everyone used even though they had a new one, they’ve revamped their homepage into something that looks pretty good actually. Now, hopefully, if whoever did the front page could have a go at the internal workings of the CMS and make it a bit more lively then that’d be quite cool too.

One of the things that really frustrates me about Buy.at is the internal navigation.

For example, for some reason I’m only allowed to read 5 pieces of news that are linked on the first page after logging in. None of the news articles link to their relevant programs and after you’ve read the news – guess what you can’t read any more or go to the next article! It’s not really user friendly.

So come on Buy.at – now that Platform A has gone (let’s never speak of it again) have a look around the CMS as a user. A few tweaks should make it more navigable (is that a word) and easier to use.

What’s That Coming Over The Hill?

Staying with “prodigal son” week in affiliate land it’s just been announced that Prezzies Plus have returned their affiliate program to a network footing.

Hmmm – Christmas is Coming!

Prezzies took their ball and other gifts away from Affiliate Window earlier in the year due to various issues with voucher code sites and tried to go it alone (January 2009).

With so many programs it’s hard for an independent program to attract affiliates and I think Prezzies Plus have done the right thing in returning to a network. They have said that “voucher code catalogue sites will be excluded from the program” so hopefully that will mean things run smoothly for them.

In their email and post on A4U Prezzies do admit to being wrong about taking the independent option, and fair do to them for admitting that publically!

Will it be enough though to get back the affiliates they lost earlier in the year?

So what can we learn from Prezzies Plus and Buy.at today?

Well, sometimes you have to go back to go forwards and if it’s not broke don’t tamper with it ;o)

About a year ago Buy.at set up video ads which incorporated affiliate links for Littlewoods. This was a bit of a false dawn but it looks like they’ve reopened the video case. They’ve partnered with Coull, a service which allows you to make any video interactive!

They’ve already launched creative for Haven Holidays…

… and also for Littlewoods

The result is pretty good!

They’re taking TV adverts and applying interactivity to it so the viewer can click on items and then click through to the merchant and make a purchase. They’re an ideal accompaniment to content or as a standalone advert.

The only thing missing is an option to click on the logos for Haven or Littlewoods at the top of the adverts and therefore visit the merchant without viewing the advert. Hopefully this can be added in the future?

I’d love to see this technology rolled out for other merchants. For example Next have a brand new advert (which is very M&S by the way) featuring their new range and a Gwen Stefani soundtrack. This would be a great bit of creative for a fashion blog!

The key issues with video (creative or otherwise) are time and cost coupled with do they convert?

Taking current TV advertising and converting it to this format removes the need for developing specific video, so that should save on costs so what about conversion rates? Although not specifically affiliate related Coull Case Studies are encouraging. Renault “saw a very high view-to-interaction rate” and Agent Provocateur had “engagement rates greater than 50%.”

If affiliates take this creative on board and it proves successful then it may well encourage more networks and merchants to look at video and rescue it from being left on the same shelf as “mobile will be big next year”.

What do you think? Is this the kind of creative you’d use on your blogs and websites?

I wasn’t against v3, I just preferred v2 as it was much easier to pick up links and banners. There’s of course familiarity issues, but I also found the upgraded version did make moving around Buy.at a little bit more cumbersome. Some issues still remain in v4. For example I can click on “My Programmes” and select a merchant, but at neither pages is there a link offering me access to creative.

To get creative I have to choose “Content & Creative” – that does make sense – but I like to be able to click around from section to section without always using the set navigation.

One useful tip for getting banners is choose “Graphic Links” option. Don’t go near “Creative Overview” – I’m not sure if it’s just me, but at times the loading is terrible. It took almost two minutes for 14 3mobile banners to appear. Similar issues put me off v3 too!

Another element I’d like to see changed is the pagination. Instead of Pages 1, 2, 3 etc I’d much prefer A, B, C etc so that I know exactly where the merchant I’m looking for is hiding. You can choose to see “All” on a page (e.g. “My Programmes”) but then “All” means “Warts n All” as it lists programmes you’ve been rejected from or not applied too.

These are all minor issues which aren’t going to hinder usability (although I’d like Buy.at to look at their loading issue) and having spent some time looking around whilst writing this blog there’s some nice bits and bobs in the system.

One thing that’s good to see is a place to list your websites. Having wanted to add Buy.at’s insurance merchants to an insurance website, only to be rejected by most of them, this facility should remove these issues in the future.

ContextEngine is also new. ContextEngine “detects which merchant programmes you are approved for, identifies their brand names in your copy, and then turns them into affiliate links”.

This could be quite useful in terms of blogging – especially when away from the office. For example, let’s say I’m at A4UExpo later this month and hear that Thorntons have a special offer. By quickly typing up a post via mobile and firing it off to appear on our Offers Blog the link should appear around “Thorntons” without me having to worry about including it in the copy.

To see if this works the code has been put in place on this blog – meaning the links for the chocolate company which weren’t included get put in place – that’s quite a neat innovation.

So it’s goodbye to v2 and hello v4, now all Buy.at need to do is sort out their homepage ;o)