Christmas is approaching now, and this is the biggest time of the year for online retailers - which also makes it a great time for affiliates. I find I get my best conversion rates with online retailers who have a high st presence, probably due to the trust factor.

So with that in mind, its great news that Comet have launched their affiliate scheme on Affiliate Window, meaning you can promote thousands of home electronics and appliances to your web users on a 3.5% commission.

Sign up with Affiliate Window

There's a mass of new merchants available this week, so here's a run down of the best:

Affiliate Window

I Want One Of Those is one of the most well known gift sites online. They have a huge range of gifts and gadgets, which make them a perfect merchant in the run up to Xmas. 10% commission on a 30 day cookie. Also in the spirit of Christmas is LoveSanta.co.uk. This is a service that lets parents send customised letters from Santa to kids. Average orders total £15 and the commission is 25%. Mills & Boon is the most recognised name in romantic fiction, and they are offering a 15% commission for new customers,

Sign up with Affiliate Window

Affiliate Future

Affiliate Future has a couple of interesting new merchants available.

It's a cliche, but diamonds are a girl's best friend - and that's even more true when it comes to Christmas presents. The Diamond Jeweller is a ones stop shop for your jewellry needs, stocking over 650 items. Commission: 8%

123Bingo.com is another new merchant, seeking to replicate the popular Bingo experience in an online settings. They are offering £35 for every new sign up.

Sign up with Affiliate Future

TradeDoubler

Skype has become a huge online presence in the last 18 months, and recently hit the headlines after being purchased by eBay. They have a program on Commission Junction but have now joined TradeDoubler too. Their basic offering - PC to PC phonecalls - remains free, but they offer good commissions on their paid services, such as Skype In and Skype Out - connecting your PC to traditional telephony networks.

Amkells.co.uk is an online retailer - that looks a bit like Amazon - selling all kinda of audio visual and home entertainment accessories. They offer a 10% commission.

Sign up with TradeDoubler

I came across an affiliate scheme whilst looking for disability aids for my dear old gran, who suffers from mild Parkinsons.

DisabledAccessories.com runs its own affiliate scheme. They have a wide range of accessories in categories such as Bathing, Bed & Chair, Comfort, Eating & Drinking, Household, Leisure / Therapy, Ortho Supports & Medical, Mobility, Moving & Handling, Paediatrics & Obese, Personal Care, Toileting.

Their scheme offers a 6% commission on all purchases, and they operate a 30 day cookie.

Visit DisabledAccessories.com
Sign up with DisabledAccessories.com Affiliate Scheme

As Christmas approaches, parents will begin to dread that they won't be able to get hold of the toys their kids will want this year. So help them take the stress out of the Xmas build up by ordering early.

The Toy Retailers Association has issued its prediction of the top 12 toys for this Christmas.

• B Daman Tournament Set -Hasbro (Order this toy from Amazon)
  
• Baby Annabell New -Zapf (Order this toy from Amazon)
  
• Barbie Pegasus Annika -Mattel (Order this toy from Amazon)
  
• Bratz Rock Angelz -Vivid (Order this toy from Amazon)
  
• Crazy Frog Ringtone Plush Character -Vivid (Order this toy from Amazon)
  
• Furby -Hasbro (Order this toy from Amazon)
  
• Monopoly Here and Now -Hasbro (Order this toy from Amazon)
  
• Roboraptor - Character Options (Order this toy from Amazon)
  
• Star Wars Darth Vader Voice Changer -Hasbro (Order this toy from Amazon)
  
• Steam Along Thomas Train Set -Tomy (Order this toy from Amazon)
  
• Tumble Time Tigger -Mattel (Order this toy from Amazon)
  
• Tyco Cyber Shocker -Mattel (Order this toy from Amazon)

These are the toys you should consider pushing to your web visitors through affiliate schemes. Get them to order early, and order often.

Of course, Affiliate-Schemes.Info is your primary resource for all things affiliate, but believe it not, there are some other sites out there too which are worth reading.

UK Affiliate Marketing Forum
http://www.a4uforum.co.uk/
Interesting forums on all the affiliate networks plus other related subjects such as web promotion.

Affiliate Seek
http://www.affiliateseek.co.uk
Affiliate program guide and news with searchable listings.

Adsense from Google is a fantastic program, there's no doubt about it. It made monetising web content an option for a whole lot of people who maybe hadn't even considered it before. I rememebr the first time I got a cheque from Google, and couldn't believe I was receiving a substantial amount of money for people clicking on ads on my website.

This book, "Make Easy Money with Google: Using the Adsense Advertising Program" by Eric Giguere takes a bright and bold approach to explaining to you how to make money through Adsense.

It has some useful tips in there, as well practical guides you can follow to setup your web projects and create revenue streams through intelligent placement of Google Adsense adverts. Certainly I'd have no problems recommending this book, particularly to beginners as there's lots of stuff in here about you go about setting up your website in the first place. I kinda think this book is perfect for the person you know that doesn't really have a lot of knowledge of the web, but knows there's money to be made online and wants a quick guide to the whole thing - setting up, placing ads, collecting cash.

The book is written in an interesting style - it's based on dialogue between the author and people asking him questions. Speaking of which, one of the Amazon reviews said they emailed the author with a question and he replied with answer. That's pretty cool!

Buy now from Amazon UK - £12.59

Affiliate Window have announced a raft of new merchants available through their network.

Cornhill Direct - one of the biggest names in insurance - has a program which pays up to £35 for every car or home insurance transaction generated.

I've talked before about how iPods can generate great sales. Simply iPod is a new merchant through Affiliate Window selling all the iPod range plus tonnes of great accessories. Everything to do with iPod is available from this retailer and they offer 3% commission on a 30 day cookie.

As we approach the end of the year, 365Calendars.com could be very useful merchant for you as people look for stocking filler gift ideas. They have 1100 calendars to choose from, and offer 10% commission on a 30 day cookie.

Promote these merchants by signing up for Affiliate Window.

I like to bring you the best affiliate schemes and programmes. Occasionally, however, I feel duty bound to bring you some of the worst. Netklix, in my humble opinion, certainly qualifies for such an accolade.

My reasons for not liking Netklix are three fold.

Firstly, the interface is so cumbersome and click intensive. Tasks that might normally be achieved with a single click elsewhere, seem to take 3 or more with Netklix. For anyone who has RSI, this is really bothersome and stupid design.

Secondly, the range of affiliate merchants is seriously poor. They have maybe one or two good ones - Ann Summersand Chemistry spring to mind - but that's about it.

Thirdly, they just make odd decisions. I submitted my dogging site, mydogspots, to them for use with Ann Summers links. They declined the site. I emailed them back and told them it was silly decision and they recanted and approved it after all. You can't afford to be prudish about your affiliates if your merchants are selling dildos and other toys. Since then, they've declined another site I submitted and I don't have the time to convince them of the business case for each site. They just make the wrong decisions.

So, as the title says..... Netklix? No thanx!

Amazon has a comprehensive system for creating text links or banner links to any item in their massive inventory.

But building links can be a bit cumbersome using Amazon's website, so here's how you can make a quick and easy text link to an item in the Amazon store.

Start off with

"http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/"

then add the ASIN or ISBN code for your item, plus a trailing slash:

"0340896280/"

then add your Amazon Associates ID (or better still, add mine)

"findoutabout-21/"

You should end up with link the one below.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0340896280/findoutabout-21/

That's it! The easy way to make a simple text link to an Amazon product. This kind of link is deal for dropping into emails and forum/blog postings. It also makes it easier to dynamically generate links if you have a list of ISBNs in a database.

In the second edition of the Affiliate Schemes podcast, I talk about Ad:Tech05 and round up news for affiliate marketers.

Download

Download Podcast #2
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Sites Mentioned

What Phobia
TradeDoubler (for access to La Sensa, Figleaves and Under-U.com programs)

Relax.... Close your eyes.... Your eyelids feel very ... heavy...

Now wake up, you're back in the room.

Hypnosis is a powerful tool for the treatment of many conditions such as phobias, stress, lack of confidence and irritable bowel syndrome. But it can be expensive, and hard to find a good practitioner.

Hypnosis Downloads might be the answer: It has a large range of good quality MP3s, voiced by Roger Elliott, which make hypnosis affordable and accessible to many.

And best of all, they have an affiliate scheme that offers 25% to many. What I love about this affiliate scheme is that you can literally target the whole world. Many affiliate programs targeta country or territory which means you run the risk of having adverts that are no use to many of your visitors. Not with this program.

You can see how I've integrated these MP3s into my phobia listing site, What Phobia.

Visit HypnosisDownloads.com now - affiliate sign up link towards the bottom of the page.

New figures released today from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), show that there has been a massive boost of 62% in online marketing spending in the first six months of 2005.

The total for January - June was a staggering £490 million, with experts predicting that online advertising spending will hit £1 billion for the whole of this year. To demonstrate the growth, it's now a fact that more was spent on internet advertising in the first six months of this year than in the whole of 2003.

The IAB article lists 4 key drivers for this growth:

• Broadband
• Engaging creativity
• Media consumption
• Online retail boom

The 4th of those listed is the one of most interest to me. In short, more and more people and spending more and more online, which only reinforces the fact for anyone who reading this, that affiliate marketing is a fantastic business to be in at the moment and will continue to be for the forseeable future.

Yes, we know, spyware is intrusive, annoying and hard to get rid of. You visit one slightly dodgy site, and before you know it, you've got popups over all over the place and your internet searches are hijacked.

This problem effects a massive amount of internet users. Which means there are a massive amount of potential customers for anti spyware products - ergo, it's a fantastic internet marketing opportunity.

By far my favourite system for this kind of thing, is RegNow - the online network that helps software publishers reach new customers through internet marketers - because it allows customers to purchase and download software immediately. This is great because once you can convince your web visitors that they require the anti spyware software, you can make it available to them immediately with a software download.

Regnow has a variety of popular anti spyware applications you can promote to your users and expect good sales.

Spyware Doctor

• Manufacturer: PCTools.com
• Price: £19.95
  
• Commission: 35%
  

McAfee AntiSpyware

• Manufacturer: McAfee
• Price: £24.02
  
• Commission: 20%
  

eTrust PestPatrol AntiSpyware

• Manufacturer: eTrust
• Price: £17.99
  
• Commission: 50%
  

Sign up now with Regnow and start promoting anti spyware products to your web users.

The BBC has reported that Digital music sales revenue has tripled in the first half of 2005, compared to 2004.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) estimated 6% of record industry sales were digital, worth $790m (£450m).

"The digital music boom is continuing and it is growing at an exciting pace for the music industry," IFPI said.

So what does this mean for Internet affiliates?

It means there's a fantastic opportunity to start selling digital music downloads to your web users.

iTunes is probably the biggest name in music downloads. Their European affiliate program is run through the TradeDoubler Ad network and offers 4% commission. using the iTunes linkmaker, you can create links to any artist or track in their huge database.

Another big name in audio downloads is Napster. They are running an affiliate program through Commission Junction. They offer £3 for every trial sign up that you can generate.

One of my favourite things about the Affiliate Window program, is the application you can download to run alongside it.

Once you've installed it and given it your account details, it monitor's all events in your account, and pops up with a very pleasing Ker-ching when you get a sale, which is very reminiscent of an old fashioned cash register.

Using Outlook rules, I've also set up a similar sound effect to play whenever I get an email from RegNow telling me of a sale.

Possibly the most satisfying way to keep track of your affiliate sales?

Quite a nice little affiliate program is the one run by BT Openzone, which pays out 10% on any sales of BT Openzone Wireless Hotspots vouchers. BT Openzone is the brandname that British Telecom operates its thousands of Wifi Hotspots under.

These vouchers are especially useful for business users, as they can prepay for their wireless internet usage before they on to trips, meetings, conferences etc.

Any scheme that has a commission that pays in double figures is one that certainly floats my boat, and this is no exception. I integrated the affiliate links quite nicely into my wifi hotspot directory, myHotspots. Typical commission per sale might be 60p - £1, but I've also had many sales with commissions of £4 and £8.

Only downside with the program is that I have emailed the admin people a couple of times about non urgent issues and got no replies. One interesting feature of this program is that you get full access to the details of the customers whi purchase the vouchers, so you can always email them trying to incentivise them to make return visits.

Definitely a program to look into though, if you have any kind of UK web traffic which is at all focused at technology, or wireless technology specifically.

Become a BT Openzone Reseller/Affiliate

We've had the iPod, iPod Mini and now iPod Nano. How much smaller can it get? I'm going to register a domain for iPod Atom I think!

But popular, mass market devices with great media recognition are a real bonus for us affiliate marketers, and I hear that affiliates are having massive success in selling these for their merchants at the moment.

So, as it's the hot product of the moment, I thought I would compare merchants who you can sell it through, and see who has the best commission.

iPod Nano is available in black and white, and in 2gb and 4gb variants. For this price comparison, I'm comparing the iPod Nano 2gb version - the 4gb is about £40 more. There's also a load of great accessories to go with it - another cool reason to start promoting it.

Amazon.co.uk

• Cost £139
• Commision: 5%
• Affiliate Network: Amazon Associates

Misco

• Cost £136.99
• Commission 5%
• Affiliate Network: TradeDoubler

Official Apple Store (UK)

• Cost £139
• Commission 2.5%
• Affiliate Network: TradeDoubler

PC World

• £139
• Commission 2.5%
• Affiliate Network: TradeDoubler

JohnLewis.com

• Cost £139
• Commission 2%
• Affiliate Network: TradeDoubler

Currys

• Cost £139
• Commission 2%
• Affiliate Network: TradeDoubler