Do you think an affiliate network's job is strictly as a facilitator, connecting merchants with products to promote, with affiliates that have sites or mechanisms that allow them to promote said products?

Or do you think that affiliate networks should actually be helping affiliates to earn more. Of course it could be said they do already help affiliates. All of their innovations and widgets etc are there to help the affiliate earn more I guess, but I like to think how they could go even further and what maybe I would do if I woke up tomorrow and found myself in charge of an affiliate network.

One of the things that an affiliate network could do is to link to its affiliates sites. Affiliate Network homepages often have a decent Google Pagerank and could be considered authority domains. Affiliates often have new sites which need the helping hand of incoming links. So how about affiliate networks giving their affiliates a little boost with a plain text link.

Now, how would this work. There's loads of affiliates, and many of them, like me, have loads of websites. They surely wouldn't all deserve a link but how about if you could nominate one quality site which you wanted to receive some link love, after being approved by a moderator from the network. Even then, there might be hundreds of links and a page with that many outbound links might not be helpful anyway, so a page on the network site could perhaps just show a randomised selection of 50 sites from their database of affiliate nominated sites. Another option would be to break them down into categories and create a directory.

Most affiliate networks, I think, tell you which merchants they work with. Why not be open and proud about the good quality affiliate content based sites they have on their books.

One consideration from the network's point of view would be, why should it link to your affiliate site when you might be promoting merchants on other networks at the same time or instead of the original links and I think that would be a fair point to make. I'm not even sure if there's an answer to that, except maybe you would qualify for the incoming link (and possibly other perks, such as better commissions) by committing that site to work exclusively with the merchants of that network?

Or is this idea fatally flawed? Let me know if you think this could never work in practice.

Another idea I had, which I can't remember if I mentioned before, would be for affiliate networks to operate private noticeboards within their control panels where affiliates could post up messages finding in context links from other affiliates. Affiliates understand what other affiliates need in terms of links and if you help them in their linking strategies, that could be good for all.

What do you think - is there anything you've thought of that an affiliate network could do, beyond what it already does, to actually help you make a success of your affiliate business?

Labels: affiliate marketing, affiliate network, ideas

When things are going particularly well with my sites, as they seem to be right now, my mind starts to wonder about "what next". How can I progress. Yes, I could keep making and working on websites which I do intend to do, but I also like to think about how I might diversify into other offline, bricks and mortar style ventures.

One of my interests for a while has been office space, and I was particularly keen on the idea of small businesses pooling office space and rather than it being a strictly financial arrangement, they would add value to each others businesses through synergies that took advantage of their respective skills. That was my motivation behind a website called Office Share.

But lately I've been thinking how cool it would be to set up a big open plan office where affiliates and other freelance new media types and creatives such as designers, coders, SEO and SEM people, could come along and have a professional place to work from and enjoy the buzz of kicking ideas around with similarly minded folk and find possible shared business opportunities too.

There'd be 24/7 access to the facility for people working on projects into the wee hours. There'd be a training and seminar room where people could give demonstrations to their peers, or affiliate networks or merchants could come to explain new technologies or sites. There'd be a resource library with great books and training materials on web technologies. There'd be a chill out area to take a break and chat ideas over a coffee. There'd be an intranet promoting a skills exchange between members.

Rather than rent a desk or space, it would be more like a gym where you paid a subscription and turned up on the days it suited you. Personal possessions could be left in a locker, and then you just grab a spare desk when you come in. I enjoy working from home but would I like to go work along side people doing similar stuff for a couple of days a week? Most definitely.

And from this affiliate incubator, excellence would be promoted and fantastic websites would flow.

What do you think?

I'm no where near the point of actually doing this and of course the likelihood is that it will stay as just an idea, but I do think it could be awesome, so feel free to leave any comments if you think it's a good idea, or bad idea or have any suggestions as to what facilities you think it should have. Is there already projects like this in existence that you know about?

Labels: ideas

I was feeling a little flush a while back and decided I was in the mood for an acquisition. I didn't really give it too much thought and then one day I saw a site for sale, advertised in the Digital Poin forums.

It's called Peg Play and its a cute little site where you can create pictures and drawings by selecting dots on a grid. This immediatey appealed to me because I like making pictures and I love the randomness of it all. It seemed like a fun little 5 minute diversion that anyone can have a go at with no artistic ability needed.

So, as the title says, I liked it so much that I bought the site. Can't even remember how much, I think it was a few hundred pounds. That was earlier in the year and to be honest, I haven't touched it since then. It took me months to even get round to uploading it because I guess my initial enthusiasm was lost a bit. And since the site is made in technologies I don't use, there's much I can do with it.

So I thought I would be fun to throw it open and ask for suggestions on what you would do with this site, either just as a site improvement or a monetising tip. I guess my initial thoughts are add in the ability to rate and comment on pics, get some linking going on to raise the PR and then maybe sell text links or just sell the site and hope for a profit.

But what would you do? Check it out and put any cool ideas in the comments section. I'll try and make the best ones happen and report back on its progress.

Labels: ideas, new site, pegplay

What do I mean by Affiliate Marketing Live? No, it's not a suggestion for another affiliate marketing conference, it's to do with talking to your users, live and in real time.

Increasing numbers of websites offer the facility to speak live to a customer service representative in a chat window on their website. When I was more active with my computer support business, I had a Live Chat option on my website which meant I could try to convert visitors into clients.

When a user came onto the website, I would see from my control panel that they were on there, and I could see their IP address and browser information. Actually seeing the IP was interesting because often it would auto resolve it and tell me the hostname and it was obviously rival companies.

And I didn't need to wait for them to click on the Live Chat button - I had the option to initiate a popup box inviting them to a chat. In the chat, I could fill them in on details of services available, give them URLs, collect their email address, log the chat and generally establish a relationship which might lead to business being done.

So I got to thinking how this could be exploited for affiliate marketing. How useful would it be for you to talk to your users, advise them on the best products and then give them the URL to a recommended product? I think this could be a great to offer a personal shopping service and increase conversions.

What are the drawbacks? Well, it will require a lot of your time so the things you are selling would have to be worth in terms of commission. You don't need to sit there 24/7 though - most of the chat services offer the function whereby if you're logged in, the button on your site says you're available and if you're not, it says you're not available - simple.

It would really work best if it was in subject area in which you had expertise and could genuinely give advice. I'm thinking high end laptops, bikes and TVs would be a good way to go (probably not on the same site though). If you had a lot of traffic, you might soon become overrun, so would this be a better solution for a very niche, low traffic, high product-value site.

One of the live chat solutions is from a company called, well, Live Chat Software. Check out their website, give it a go and speak to their operators and try the 14 day free trial if you think it's something that could benefit your site. I might give the trial a go one one of my sites soon and I'll let you know how that goes.

Labels: affiliate marketing, affiliate tools, ideas, live chat

Well, just a short post so my blog isn't too neglected. This month going incredibly well, which is exciting. Thanks to one site moving from #2 to #1 on MSN.co.uk for a great search term, earnings in the past 8 days are equal to half of my total earnings in best ever month. June is looking to be a fantastic month and it shows that MSN can be very useful even if its just a small percentage of what Google can get.

Ideation (Thanks to Katie from the Apprentice for the silly buzzword)

Wouldn't it be nice if trendy green grocers, Abel & Cole had an affiliate program ?

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a Skype plugin that immediately googled numbers not in your contacts when they call you? (maybe there is? let me know!)

Ok, hands hurting with RSI - that's it for now.

Labels: ideas

I have a couple of clients left over from my IT support days who have established bricks and mortar businesses that also have an online presence. Their websites get a reasonable amount of traffic from local brand recognition, offline advertising etc.

It occurred to me that there was plenty of scope to add additional value to those websites in the way of affiliate schemes promoting other services which would also be of interest to their customers, without having any detrimental affect on the core business of the company.

So I approached one of these companies and we have agreed that I will add related affiliate marketing content, handle & track the revenue and then split it with them on a monthly basis.

The possible risk is that the company might see how it's done and go it alone, cutting me out of the loop but I figure they have their core business and I have mine, and they'll most likely be happy let me carry on doing my thing and they can carry on doing theirs. I think it helps when there's an established relationship and trust is already there, but otherwise a more formal approach may be required to protect work done on their behalf.

But it seems like a nice idea I thought, and I wish I did it earlier. But does anyone already do this? Has this got a name... Affiliate consultant? Business Enhancer? The Cream On Top?

Labels: ideas

Some people have predicted the death of Linkshare, CJ and others thanks to Google's recent announcement.

Well, I have a plan for their survival.

Promote new affiliate and merchant sign-ups using Google's CPA platform.

It was obvious really.

Labels: affiliate marketing, ideas

Following on from my post the other day about accidentally printing my advert on the back of an envelope, my mind started racing and I considered the possibility of scaling this up to create a new ad network, finding advertisers willing to subsidise the cost of envelopes for businesses willing to post those envelopes - with the advertiser's message on the back - and create a new advertising channel. Businesses get free envelopes and advertisers get their message to potential new clients.

I spent a bit of time the other night putting together a site to make this vision of adsense-style ads on the back of an envelope seem more real, and FreeEnvelopes.co.uk was born.

I often find that when brainstorming around midnight, absolutely anything seems possible. And then later, in the cold light of day, the same ideas suddenly sound nuts and a complete waste of a previous night's work. Certain practicalities dawned on me such as it would be almost impossible to track and people might just bin their free envelopes or stick return labels over the ads. Also when I first put an envelope with a cellophane window through my laserjet and saw how crumpled it came out, I realized my kit wouldn't be up to the job. Also, mention anything "free" and you're likely to bombarded with the professional freebie hunters.

So, I'm still undecided about this one and am considering several options:

1) Approach companies to pilot test the idea
2) Leave it as a mock site and promote it as an idea thats perpetually "coming soon", with a few ads and affiliate links on it.
3) Take it down and forget all about this madness.
4) See if Yahoo! will buy it off me for loads of money

Number 2's looking the most likely at the moment.

Labels: ideas

I was just working on an advert which I'm placing in a magazine in March. I've had mixed success with print advertising before but thought I'd give this one a go since I got the ad space pretty cheap.

The ad is only small - about 4cm by 6cm - and I wanted to print it and see how it looked on the page. So I press the print button and wait for it come out, not realising that I thrown an envelope into the paper tray when I opened the post this morning. So the printer pulled the envelope and printed my little ad on the back by mistake. It was a completely random act but I have to say, it looks brilliant.

It came out just the right size and this immediately seems like a perfect way to get little adverts for websites out there in circulation. There's no real cost attached and not much effort - just print a little text ad on a bundle of envelopes and use them as and when required.



I don't have to send too many letters by post but I'll certainly be looking ways I can add value to my envelopes in future!

Labels: ideas, marketing

What thing that has often occurred to me is just how boring most of the banner ads are that are supplied to affiliates by merchants. Very often, you will just a selection of banners in some standard formats and the most imaginative they get is to have some animation.

But if you're a broadband merchant, why wouldn't you just supply a banner form that provides a postcode lookup function which takes the user to an availability page?

If you're a web registrar, why wouldn't you provide a domain search box for affiliates to put on their sites?

If you're the National Lottery, why don't you have banners that display results or are an entry form? Or maybe a number generator?

And if you sell books, how about a RSS feeds of your best sellers in various categories that could be integrated into affiliate sites?

It just seems to me that most merchants just come up with some boring ads for you to plonk on your page when they would be better off by using their imagination to come up with ways in which they can be seamlessly integrated to become part of the content.

Labels: affiliate marketing, affiliate tools, ideas