I noticed that a fair number of people link to Buy.at using what looks one of their affiliate style links, but takes you to Buy.at itself. The link is in the form http://joinbuy.at/username

When I saw that, I assumed there must be some programme for referring new affiliates to Buy.at, like lots of other networks run. But I asked them and they said they have no such scheme.

So why do some people link to Buy.at with that link? Is it some legacy thing? Or is there some private referral scheme going on?

Answers on a postcard please.

Speaking of Buy.at, I'm finally starting to see a regular trickle of sales come in. In fact, looking across most networks, seems like sales are definitely picking up. I hope it stays like that all the way to Christmas!

Labels: affiliate network, buy.at

Adsense has been great this month, and is up there in my top 3 months ever which I'm kind of pleased about because my sites are no longer Adwords supported, so my traffic was all free. Since I started out doing this, I've waiting for a point where I could say I was earning at least as much as I was when I had a full time job, but through monetizing web content. I'm not quite at that stage yet, unfortunately.

But, I looked at solely my Adsense earnings across a year and thought I'd find out what full time jobs they were equal too. I thought I'd look at job ads in the US and determine what kind of job I'd have to do in order to make the same amount that my websites are doing in Adsense.

Assistant Front Office Manager (CA/San Francisco)
Ensure efficient guest registration, check out and telephone service. Observe front desk agents and ensure that established procedures are completed in accordance with policy and procedure i.e. proper public relations techniques are utilized, guests are handled both courteously and professionally, proper identification and credit are established for all transations. Observe front desk and telephone attendants and ensure that their duties are completed in accordance with established policy and procedures. .....

Computer Tech - Some Exp Required - Entry Level Accepted (Long Island, New York)
Looking for a computer technician. Must have some Experiance and/or Computer School. This is an Entry Level Position. You must have a car to travel to our customers to service their systems. Full Time Position. Benifits. Car Expense Reimbusement.

OFFICE ASSISTANT (Long Island, New York)
A Commercial Cleaning firm located in Huntington, Long Island seeks an Office Assistant. Must be detailed oriented and juggle various tasks.

- Answering an active phone system
- Typing letters and memos on Ms Word
- Data Entry
- Filing, faxing and copying

Labels: adsense

You might notice I have added some drop down boxes in the right hand column that list some popular affiliate programs under different cateogories. Selecting a program and pressing go takes you to the network signup page for that program.

Hopefully it will be a useful little list for anyone new to affiliate marketing, and I'll be adding more programs and categories over the next few days.

Hot on the heels of IE7 is the release of Firefox 2. With the publicity of the new release, it will probably be a good time for webmasters to bring out the Firefox referral buttons from Adsense.
I've seen on some comments on forums saying people don't make much if anything with the referral buttons, which I find suprising because Firefox referrals has probably been my single most successful piece of online marketing. I suppose context is everything.

I had hoped to be able to say in this post how good the new FF2 is, but to be honest, I installed it onto a Win2k machine it's a complete mess. It lost my favourites, the integrated search box doesn't work and neither does tabbed browsing!

[Edit]

Ok, a reinstall fixed it!

I've had some pretty good success in the past with a range of software titles available through the Regnow software distribution network, and the Affiliate Manager for the publisher told me they were moving across to the oneNetwork platform and asked me to move across too. I've been using it for a couple of months now so thought it was time to do a review.

Publisher/Merchant Selection

oneNetwork does have some great software titles available which your users will have heard of before. Probably the best known are Symantec (for Norton Anti Virus, Norton Internet Security etc), Trend Micro (for PC-cillin) and Roxio (for CD/DVD burning tools).

Link Options

There's a wide range of banners in all the popular sizes, and there's a product feed available.

Support

I've had a couple of support issues so far. They've been answered in a timely fashion, though sometimes left me wondering if the person answering actually understood what I was asking.

Reporting & Notification

This area has been major disappointment. It seems to offer substantially less detail than the Regnow platform and isn't easy to navigate or understand. Email notifications tell me when a sale is made, but don't tell me the specific product which has been sold. There doesn't seem to be any information on referral URLs. The information in the payment reporting doesn't tally with payments I've received (payments are only available by cheque in the UK, by the way). I've been informed by someone in the know that improvements are imminent - I hope that's true.

Summary

It seems to me that the interface and reporting requires a lot of work before it's really useful. But that aside, this is a great network for promoting and selling digital downloads from leading names to customers all over the world, and the international aspect is a real bonus because many other affiliate schemes will be country or territory specific.

Sign Up To oneNetwork Affiliate Program 2.0

Labels: network review

I recently signed up with Paid On Results in order to promote LA Star Style, as mentioned previously. It has a couple of nice features, especially the deep linking tool, so thought I would write a review of the network.

But then when I sat down to write it, I thought I would instead just put the same effort into this review as Paid On Results have put into answering the two support questions I have emailed them through their system: none at all.

Here endeth the review.

[EDIT]

OK, since I wrote this, I got a nice email from Graeme at Paid On Results apologising for the delay and answering my support queries which was very much appreciated. Now here's a dilemma: when yoy've had a moan and the problem's been resolved, do you delete the moan or just report the fact that it's been sorted out to your satisfaction?

With that out of the way, I'll do a full write up soon on Paid On Results which has actually really impressed me so far.

I signed up last year with BT Openzone's own scheme for selling its wireless hotspot vouchers. Since then, I've had a pretty regular stream of sales but payment has never been mentioned and there seems to be no information on their site about how you actually get paid.

So I decided it was about time I chased them up on it. I went to their web page and it said call them up with any queries.

Phone them up and the guy answered, "BT Openzone Support".

"Hi, I'm calling about the BT Openzone Partner Scheme for selling Vouchers".

"errrr...."

"You know, the scheme for reselling your airtime vouchers. It has this phone number on the website."

"Urrrr..."

"You sound like you're not too aware of this scheme?"

"Well, you haven't properly explained what it is"

"Well it's the BT Openzone Vouchers which are available to resell through your 'partner zone' on your website".

"On our website? What's the URL"

And on it went. And the outcome was they had no clue about it but said to email them and they would divert it to the right department. Which I did, and have had no reply.

So I posted to the A4u forum asking if anyone else promoted this scheme and got no response.

Am I really the only person promoting these hotspot airtime vouchers??

Labels: affiliate, independent

My wifi hotspot directory, myHotspots, is doing quite nicely at the moment but I'd like to see it do even better and score better than a PR4. Yes, I know people say PR doesn't matter any more but I still want to see some improvement.

I got to thinking how I can get some links from new sources and this is my idea.

So I have created XML feeds of my wireless hotspot data which any webmaster can seamlessly embed into their own website. So, Joe Bloggs has a website about Yarmouth and he can now put live Yarmouth hotspot data straight onto his site with little work involved. And all I ask is a link back.

Suggestions please on other link building ideas, other than the usual begging letters. And boy do I hate those automated ones asking for link swaps!

Well that will serve me right for crowing about my positions on MSN.co.uk.

A day after I proudly boasted that my Toys site was ahead of Toys R Us, it has now disappeared from the rankings. As has my bikes site which was #1 for "bikes".

What did they domains have in common? They were both keyword1-keyword1.co.uk names, like toys-toys.co.uk. Has MSN decided it doesn't like these URLs?

Drats!

Microsoft has finally given Internet Explorer 7 its long awaited release. I've had the beta installed for a while and it seems ok though I tend to use Firefox but if you're making sites, it's kind of important to use both I think to see how your pages look.

Now, the release of IE7 could be a very big deal. I took the decision a while ago not to worry too much about Google SERPs. MSN rankings are much easier to achieve, and yes a lot less people use MSN than use Google, but enough people use MSN to make it a worthwhile endeadvour. And for the past couple of years, I've been waiting for some kind of push from MSN to see them grab a bigger share of the search market. They've made a few attempts but not much has worked.

But if they can get the new IE7 with integrated MSN Search pushed out to enough users, could we be about to see a sudden - almost overnight - rise in MSN's share of search? Could the glory days be just around the corner for those sites listed high in MSN SERPs?

Like a lot of other people, I like a little moan about how Christmas comes around too early and the shops are stocking Xmas related stuff too soon.

But actually, I can't wait to get started in giving my sites a Christmas makeover! I've added a whole load of Xmas effects already to my Toys site, which I think I can get away because the site's purpose is almost entirely based around the run up to Christmas now.

But for other sites, I'm not sure when the right time to start making the changes is. Are you going to make your affiliate sites more seasonal? What will you be adding and when?

I was debating with myself yesterday about what merchant to promote on my Toys Toys site, with the release of the Toy Retailers Association's prediction of the best selling toys this Christmas.

I decided to put the 12 toys on the front page with a price comparison using Amazon, The Entertainer and Woolworths. I always thought Woolworths was good value but I was suprised to see that on almost every item, they were the most expensive option.

I'm pleased to see that after sorting the site out - it had been down for a while with a broken web.config file - it was immediately re-indexed by MSN.co.uk and is ranked #3 for "toys" today, which is above Toys R Us who didn't approve me on Affiliate Window.

The Toy Retailer's Association has released it's predictions for the top toys this Christmas. This is kind of a big deal because Christmas is really the biggest time for sales in the year.

Here's the list:

Baby Born with magic eyes - Zapf
Bratz Forever Diamondz Assortment - Vivid
Cars Fast Talkin’ McQueen - Mattel
Deal or No Deal Electronic Board Game - Drumond Park
Dr Who Cyberman Mask - Character Options
Let’s Dance Barbie Doll - Mattel
Paper FX Dream Weaver - Flair
Pixel Chix Mall - Mattel
Tamagotchi Connexion V3 - Bandai
Thomas Aquadraw - Tomy
Trivial Pursuit 90’s - Hasbro
V.Smile Baby - VTech

I didnt get approved for Toys R Us on Affiliate Window yet, so I'm weighing up whether to promote these toys through Amazon (and finally get my head around their web services) or through The Entertainer on Webgains.

I have to admit, I have been ultra productive recently and building new sites at a rapid pace and even impressed myself with my productivity. And as much as I can, I try and make them decent sites with some kind of content which might at least be of interest to someone.

I am actually pretty proud of today's site. I had an idea when I woke up today for a site in the style of Heat magazine to promote the LA Star Style merchant which I blogged about the other day. The affiliate manager for that program is one of the most respected and experienced around, and for that reason I'm really keen to push it because I think it's bound to be a hit.

So my new site, registered, designed and completed all before tea time is Celebrity Fashions.

I did a slight technical problem though to do with CSS, so if anyone is passing by and reading this who might have some input feel free to lend me a hand with this one.

On the front page of the new site, I have an image and a h2 tag below it. The h2 is white text on a purple background and I have used "margin-top: -20px" in the CSS to move the h2 up and overlap the image and give it more of a DTP type feel. It looks great in IE, exactly how I wanted it. But in Firefox, the purple background of the h2 tag wont overlay on the image. It's in the right place but I just get the white text and not the background color so it looks hard to read. Any ideas... anyone?

Ok, some non affiliate rambling come up...

I was working at home today and had the TV on in the background. I'm a bit of a news junkie so leave News 24 on all day - it kind of reminds me of when I worked in the City and you'd have big screens carrying the news channels all day.

Every so often you'll get a sports bulletin and some young upstart, probably on his first job in TV news will read the sports headlines. A real beginners job which to be honest, there must be a 100 people or more to choose from when you select someone for that job.

So there I was, minding my own business, eyes on my Adsense earnings, one ear on the TV when I heard Jon Sopel say, "Let's go now to Matthew on the sports desk". I glanced at the screen and nearly fell off my chair. Was that who I thought it was? I quickly fact checked online and yes, it was who I thought it was. Sir Matthew Pinsent CBE. That's a bit odd I thought. Must be Comic Relief or Children In Need, I imagined. But no, I read up and it appears that Sir Matthew Pinsent CBE is now a cub reporter on News 24.

How bizarre. Though I suppose having a knight of the realm does lend a certain amount of gravitas to an otherwise inconsequential sports round up. What next? A Drivetime traffic update from Sir Jackie Stewart OBE ??

Buy.at really seems to be getting some top brand names on its network lately.

They just announced today that Waterstones has launched its affiliate scheme through them, offering a minimum of 5% commission - rising to 8% for top performers.

This is in addition to the recent additions of HMV (who I think are a sister company of Waterstones) and the National Lottery.

They already had John Lewis, Marks Spencer and La Senza available, meaning that Buy.at must have one of the most recognisable and impressive merchant lists going.

I suppose one of the dangers is that a High St merchant might be too well known as an offline brand. I buy books off Amazon because the prices are great and often that's the only place to get those prices. I have a feeling that with someone like Waterstones, I might just check the price and then get down to the store and buy it for instant gratification, although I'm not sure if their online and offline presence operate different pricing structures as some companies do.

Labels: buy.at

LA Star Style is a cool new site which sells "red carpet fashion" - which are basically the latest styles from Hollywood, selected by their buyers who have worked alongside top celebs.

Their affiliate scheme is really cool, and seems to be built around what affiliates need and want.

Features include:

• Introductory 25% commission until Nov 7th, before revering back to 12% (which is still an excellent rate)
• Open PPC policy
• Product Feed
• 120 Day Cookie

The scheme is available through the Paid On Results affiliate network.

The great thing about affiliate marketing is that you can enter new sectors and be creating content about completey different subjects to what you were doing the previous week. I only recently did my first travel site and it has immediately become one of my best earners.

So after seeing how great this sector is, I've set about building a site which will be for hotel listings, and I really want this to be a site that generate US traffic and sales.

The domain I am using for this project is star-hotels.org.
Ok, seems alright but nothing special you might be thinking.

But now lets add in some sub domains, like this:

http://five.star-hotels.org
http://four.star-hotels.org

And for good measure, lets put on some interesting sub folder names, like this:

http://four.star-hotels.org/new-york/
http://three.star-hotels.org/london/

And you have possibly the most beautiful URLs I have ever seen! They read so nicely, I really love these URLs and can't wait to start promoting them! The site is still in need of further development but I've got enough up to let the search engine bots get to know it a bit better.

Labels: domain names

The National Lottery has launched its affiliate scheme on the Buy.At affiliate network, offering 50p for every account sign up and £3.50 after a customer's first online purchase. This is a great, high profile merchant for Buy.At. The scheme is actually already in operation on TradeDoubler, but it's good to be able to have a choice as to what network you want to use them on.

I read recently that the new charity lottery, Play Monday, was struggling to find its feet. They should take the National Lottery's lead and start an affiliate scheme and allow the thousands of affiliates in the UK to promote their new business for them.

I was looking at my monthly outgoings and trying to work out what's available through affiliate schemes and what isn't. It seems like pretty much all my regular payments are to payees that operate some kind of affiliate scheme, which I guess demonstrates just how prevalent this form of marketing has become.

Here's a list of things that I normally pay for that are all available through affiliate schemes, directly or indirectly.

Mortgage
Credit Card
Groceries
Insurance
DVD Rental
Porn Subscription
Broadband
Mobile Phone
Utility Bills (affiliate schemes promoting switching)

But then it struck that one of my biggest and most regular outgoings doesn't seem to have any kind of affiliate side to its business (as far as I know!). What is it? Petrol. Think about the amount of money you spend on petrol on a regular basis and imagine how much could be made as an affiliate.

So why don't affiliate schemes exist for petrol?

I guess because petrol is something we all buy anyway, usually on an ad hoc basis depending on when the fuel light comes on and what petrol station is closest when it does. And it's not something you'd think of as being an online purchase. But I'd have thought there must be scope for some kind of scheme that was designed to encourange brand loyalty.

So could you turn petrol into an online business? I can think of two models that might work: either a petrol prepayment card that you could sell on a website and get a commision on the purchase for. I guess it would need include some kind discount in it for the customer for them to bother prepaying. Or alternatively, some kind of loyalty card where signups through your site would lead to you getting commission on recurring sales for, say, the first 6 months of the card being in use. I think either of those two schemes could be made to work.

I doubt it will happen but there seems so much money in it, I'd love to get a piece of the action! OK, that's my blue sky thinking over for today.