Affiliate Marketing Blog

At the moment it’s just a pie in the sky thought, but I had the notion that the concept of a merger between DealGroup Media (DGM) and Paid On Results (POR) might be quite successful.

In a nutshell, with POR’s technology & DGM’s sales staff for recruiting merchants & affiliate support, it might just actually work.

Paid On Results overall has the following plus points:

• Trust - POR is highly respected in the affiliate marketplace amongst affiliates. POR really do “get it” & are trusted by affiliates to do the right thing.
• Technology - Excellent interface and technical ability.
• Innovation - Great understanding of the market and willing to lead the way in different areas (voucher stuff is a recent example). Plus they are continually developing neat little tools.
• Reliable Interface - An impressive user interface affiliates & merchants to use.
• Support - Able to deal with issues and get them resolved to the benefit of everyone and not simply role over to merchants / affiliates.
• Reliability - Tracking & reporting considered amongst the best in the industry.
• Flexibility & robustness to expand.
• Promote content affiliates by providing support and tools while still carting for PPC and Cashback sites by providing the tools they need also
• Don’t like brand bidding groups (BBGs)

We have the unsung hero at POR who is Graeme, the tech whizzkid, an absolute genius & a guy who as even helps with support at unearthly hours of the night without expectation to resolve any minor issues, who with the right team underneath him & under his guidance could perform further & bigger wonders.

The main problem is Paid On Results don’t blow their own trumpet, too humble / modest maybe, thus not assertive in bringing the so called larger merchants onboard to look impressive on their portfolio & consequently sometimes getting overlooked by merchants / agencies when they shouldn’t be. What you see is what you get with POR, no hollow promises & false assurances or aggressive sales techniques when pitching to clients, but honesty & integrity who have the trust & respect of the industry as a whole.

They currently don’t seem to have enough sales staff or an abundance of resources that they could direct in affiliate development and maybe it would be beneficial to have some more technical staff that Graeme could direct on what to do. Yet POR still manage to provide better interface & tools than most other networks who have an abundance of staff.

It’s that last sentence where DGM could potentially fill the void. With the pros & cons of each network these could mesh quite neatly/snuggly. Firstly DGM would need to oust the BBGs they currently have within their network, it’s a disease & a tag they need to lift & get rid off quickly & in a lengthy previous conversation with one of their directors earlier this year, this hasn’t seemed to have materialised yet. I don’t think going it alone as they are will quite work.

Let’s be frank, DGM will never really have the technology to compete with their fairly inflexible interface, a subject of ridicule in the past, which is maybe the only tangible thing that separates them as being a network from a management agency to bring clients onboard i.e. the “clincher”. I would also need to ascertain if senior management / directors whoever they are have the “mind set of” affiliates to bring them forward in the correct capacity.

For they have had more lives than a cat & at this moment in time are possibly one down in the bottom of the ninth innings with two outs & need a big play (baseball if you were unsure) .. “babe ruth” style as they take to the plate & point to the stand signifying the next ball is a home run.

Before, someone from DGM picks up the blower to moan at me, hear me out. I think there is the sincerity at DGM to do the right thing, I don’t know if there is anything inhibiting that at the moment, but they have an opportunity for a big play. Some of the bad elements (not all “were” bad eggs) within the company have gone onto pastures new (some of the respected ones gone onto where the grass is greener). There are some very pleasant & proactive staff on the affiliate side trying to offer good support & be proactive in the community. They have a sizeable sales team to prospect for clients too, but don’t have the technology to back them up. Their reasonable client base would compliment POR’s quite well & with Clarke “Legend” Duncan & Graeme from POR together with some of DGM’s team under their guidance they could develop quality API tools to compete with the impressive ShopWindow at Affiliate Window. To do this you need the volume of merchants.

From chatting with a few affiliate peers, I also get the impression that they actually want to see DGM do better, a kind of big uncle / aunty fostering mentality, wishing them to eventually succeed.

Where POR maybe lacks is an assertive sales team, fancy sales presentations & resources. DGM would compliment it. Both networks need something to boost them further into the spotlight of prospective clients & forefront of affiliates minds, it will just mean DGM relinquishing their visibly poor platform & interface, but they mustn’t hang onto their apron strings forever.

It could be a synergy that might just work? What do you think?

Okay, I’ve sowed the seeds, it’s up to the others to explore the possible opportunities whether they agree or disagree in public, but wish both well and it’s food for thought.

It’s sometimes disappointing to see there is lack of decorum being displayed on the forum by fellow affiliates & peers who don’t congratulate those affiliates who win incentives which are generously provided by merchants & networks.

Is it because they didn’t win? Spoilsports? Or simply too lazy though there maybe good intent? or Lack of manners? I still wish incentives were highlighted more, some do pass by without actually realising they were there in the first place.

Most (not all) merchants deserve recognition for running these and any additional public recognition & incremental sales that are generated should hopefully be the fruits of the reward by their generousity, so that we may potentially see more generous incentives being run (without expecting or taking for granted).

So next time an affiliate wins an incentive, take a brief moment of your time & post a couple of words of congratulations on the forum to the winner & maybe even a thank you to the merchant (even if you didn’t win), sometimes being nice gives you a warm & fuzzy feeling inside. You never know, we might see more incentives because of it.

So in one fair swoop for those I have in the past inadvertently omitted, congratulations & thank you to those merchants too, though if you can please use a megaphone so more affiliates can take advantage of your generosity.

Webgains are actively seeking hackers & slackers. They have taken into consideration that interested participants have holidays, so have kindly provided a choice of dates to ascertain which dates people would like to slope of for the meet.

The choice of dates are 11th July, 18th July & 25th July.

Oh … did I neglect to mention it was for their 3rd annual Affiliate Golf Day … of course they were … so if you are looking to slope of work for the day & fancy hacking your way around a course, no matter what your ability or how green you are at playing golf, then get your name down for a fun day out & let them know which day “suits you sir” by letting them know on the forum.

Click Here

Last year was really good fun & I thoroughly enjoyed the company of everybody there, even though our group only lost by about 0.1 of a shot with the Texas Scramble format, which is the best format to play as a team for an entertaining golf day. There were also a couple of sponsors who provided prizes. One of whom was a merchant we didn’t know at the time, so we started promoting them & became one of their top affiliates by winning £500 in a sales incentive. There were even prizes on the day for best dressed plus closest to pin & longest drive.

So if your a hacker and/or a slacker or even a bit of a bandit (golfing terminology) then show your support for the efforts Webgains put into the day by getting putting your name down. Are you up “fore” it?

Click Here

Why should affiliates be permitted to SEO in organic search for a brand (including variations & misspellings), when a merchant already has a restricted paid search policy in place based on the brand?

What makes PPC unique in being isolated and targeted with knee jerk reactions with: over restrictive keyword policies, damnation from some networks & ridicule from some purist SEO affiliates.

Brand bidding is indeed a low hanging fruit, it also serves as a good litmus test to find out how well or poorly a merchant converts to ascertain if that merchant is worth pushing on generics & product related terms.

Putting it simply there is no real difference between SEO & PPC, both are competing for placement on search engines, with SEO there are obviously a whole lot more affiliates doing / exercising this.

SEO is more deliberate, however. A PPC ad can easily appear for a hybrid phrase like “BRAND electrical store” without actually bidding on the brand because they are bidding on on a partial element i.e. “electrical store” “store” or “electrical”. With SEO it’s more deliberate because they physically have to add the brand somewhere into the content or meta tags or url sub domain / directory url. i.e. the brand has to be appearing somewhere on the page/site . With PPC this isn’t necessarily the case & with expanded broadmatch / synonym match / contextual matching on PPC keywords, it’s the PPC’ers that get fingered out by emails or on public forums.

So flipping this on it’s head, if an affiliate can SEO for a brand (i.e. there are no restrictions) why can’t a PPC’er do brand bidding on paid search?

At the moment only a few merchants have SEO restriction policies in place, thankfully. I look forward to the day (not in wanting, but more in dreaded anticipation) when this increases further, this in turn will temporarily deflect attention from affiliates engaging with PPC (and synonym matching issues) where some SEO affiliates quite happily jump on their back. Perhaps they will be able to appreciate how unreasonable it can be when the ball is in their court with the restrictions being imposed upon them.

If an affiliate can SEO for misspells, why can’t a PPC affiliate when there are keyword restrictions in place for paid search bid on variations & misspellings. So what difference is there really between SEO & PPC? I have always considered this blanket rule on not bidding on variations & misspellings inappropiate simply because the merchant is not aware of what they actually all are.

If SEO is rightly or wrongly perceived as NOT being the domain or jurisdiction of the merchant … a taboo area .. then by the same token nor should PPC, let’s remember search engines are a third party & not owned by networks, merchants, agencies nor affiliates. The search engines themselves rank organic listings & sponsored ads according to what they deem most relevant / quality according to their algos & manual tweaks.

To reiterate, what makes PPC unique in being isolated and targeted with knee jerk reactions, damnation from some networks & ridicule from some purist SEO affiliates?

“A merchant should (in theory) be number 1 in search, but in PPC they may be outbid by affiliates - and therefore don’t feel happy about giving commission that way?”

Paid search engines also rank ads according to various “quality” scoring factors & algos, it it’s not uncommon for SEO affiliates to rank higher than merchants for the brand. With hybrid terms & variation / misspellings this is even more common place / common practice. Therefore the merchant is still “giving” (if that is the right word) the commission away. A SEO page might also list other merchants as options to the visitor, thus leakage occurs, or worse still promote an entirely different merchant. There are most probably more cases of malpractice / rogue affiliates or leakage than that from PPC. So why do people of the incorrect mindset tend to consider PPC’ers to be the bad boys/girls?

So next time you see someone appearing for a brand or hybrid phrase on paid search, just look at all the organic listings for that same phrase as comparison, so that you can perhaps gain a little perspective & stop condemning PPC affiliates.

Remember an affiliate doesn’t have to be signed up to program to SEO. So isn’t it better the merchant & a signed up affiliate is duly rewarded with the sale rather than a competitor! Thus isn’t it better to offer an affiliate commission & put in their pocket than the tills of a competitor? Remember an affiliate can still SEO for brand, hybrids & misspells & send to sponsored listings! Where very often the EPC is better than going through the CPA channel, so it doesn’t matter if an affiliate is signed up to the merchants program or not.

Keep remembering merchants DON’T own the search engines!!!

When we see a few merchants introducing SEO restrictions, ask one question, since when has the ownership of an affiliates own website been the intellectual property of a merchant? Never!!! Another risk with SEO restrictions is that the potential customer may end up at a non-affiliate site such a consumer review site or blog where an individual might have had negative reviews about a merchant. People mis-type by re-occuring habit, I understand brand conformality & portrayal in correct spelling, thats another discussion altogether, I am relating more to actual brand spelling & hybrid phrases / longtail, though mispellings do have their dutiful role to assist in directing the flow of traffic to the intended recipient & thus should maybe be accepted by merchants.

You might say with SEO, merchants cannot police all websites whether these are affiliates on non-affiliates that has anything to do with meta tags, content copy etc etc … and that it’s all about control & thus it’s easier to control PPC affiliates.

No, is the simple answer to that one. SEO or Affiliate websites can be simply requested to use javascript links or images where the merchant’s name is referred to in the content & ban the brand name in meta tags or even insert ‘no index,follow’. Why do you think this is unreasonable? It’s similar to the same ludicrous PPC restrictions which are enforced where you can’t mention a merchants name in the PPC ad copy.

In my opinion SEO gets manipulated ethically or abused unethically with dubious practises or suffers greater leakage via SEO on brand related terms a whole lot more than PPC.

It seems daft that you can’t do PPC but you can do long term SEO which can’t be switched off or changed or corrected as easily as PPC, the latter having greater flexibility & speed in portraying a brand or current offering correctly. Compare how quickly a PPC ad can be amended to a webpage being amended and indexed. The PPC ad wins hands down.

“If PPC’ing a brand you are spending money advertising in order to send traffic to the brand owner or divert traffic from the brand owner”

A vast majority of brand PPC is simply to send traffic to the brand owner, however cost has nothing to do with it since both methods have their own costs. SEO affiliates running a website incur elements of cost from hosting to buying a domain to paying employees or out-sourcing & not forgetting those man hours which are an affiliate’s most precious commodity.

“But it’s more like writing a magazine, where as PPC is akin to putting a classified ad in the newspaper saying you promote a merchants stock”

No again, a publisher’s website is still media promoting the services & products a merchant offers, the difference being that a webpage can contain more content on the pre-sell. A PPC affiliate can still direct traffic to their own website in the same manner instead of direct linking to the merchant. However, one advantage of direct linking from paid search is the following blog … Prefill the Basket - Don’t Presell the Customer Twice … where you don’t need to presell the customer twice plus you get 100% transitional flow of traffic without leakage.

Quite simply there has been the incorrect mindset from the beginning by networks, merchants, agencies & even purist affiliates. The catalyst for this was the introduction of the single URL policy by paid search engines like Google Adwords, Yahoo Marketing & MSN Adcenter. There were knee jerk reactions from some networks, merchants & agencies who didn’t think about it properly & have not been trained correctly with regard to the bigger picture.

So what if it requires a cultural change? Well, if the mindset was incorrect from outset then maybe it needs to be reprogrammed to bring back into proper alignment & continuity. It’s quite plain to see how a few networks & some employess “don’t get it” that’s because they were not educated correctly in-house & have a false perception of what is right & wrong in the industry.

Granted, it would be like opening pandora’s box if there is a deluge of restrictions enforced on SEO, but perhaps those purist SEO affiliate who slate & slander PPC should take a step back and think of the bigger picture on how lightly they have got off so far.

Should balance be restored by imposing the same restrictions on SEO where there are PPC restrictions? That’s open to thought provoking discussion, I wouldn’t advocate it, but it will balance the restrictive policies currently around, it will still have a long way to go to be as far reaching as PPC restrictions are at the moment, why should one be more ridiculous than the other?

If a user types in the brand, hybrid, misspelling or variation into a search engine then in theory only one organic listing should appear in the organic listings … but there isn’t … by the very nature of search engine it lists options … thus there shouldn’t be that restriction on PPC or SEO either.

Therefore the only exception I see pertaining to paid search is the use of the actual brand / merchants url as the display url in the paid search adverts because of the single display url & that is all, nothing else.

Thought provoking isn’t it? Should the encroachment into brand related SEO be a taboo area to impose restrictions upon, when PPC is treated so heavily handed?

Additional note:

A wider issue might be that those merchants which dedupe might do so against seo one day.

If the industry in some quarters prefer ppc brand bidding, where permissible & where there are BBGs, not to overwrite content affiliate cookies (which I agree), then by the same token though not easily implemented I guess, why shouldn’t the same apply to sales from SEO on brand? And by an additional token shouldn’t SEO on brand not overwrite PPC affiliate bidding on generic & product related terms?

Basically imho there is not really much difference between SEO & PPC, the former has to actually include the brand to appear organically & the latter can be achieved to appear without actually bidding on the brand, so why does / should ppc get isolated for targeting & not seo? i.e. why should seo be allowed for a brand but not ppc. Is seo taboo & ppc not?

You never know, it could all turn Interflora or John Lewis or Marks “&” Spencer, where merchant names have to be gifs or jpegs or javascript or can only be mentioned a certain number of times. Then you have merchants who say their name cannot be part of your directory structure or as a sub domain of your own site. … Don’t you just love affiliate marketing? If it’s not one thing it’s another.

If that is the case then, then search engines should list only one website when a user is searching for a brand or variation, but they don’t, they are search engines by their very nature! & no affiliate, merchant, agency or network owns them.

A question is will this now see an increase in seo restrictions later in the year or was it bound to happen anyway because affiliates were too apathetic & networks too yellow bellied to call a halt to the domino effect by saying “no more”. If it does affiliates will have the 2nd chance & opportunity to stand united, but I won’t hold my breath. On the flip side merchants with an IQ above that of an amoeba or geranium might actually start opening up their keyword policies to a certain degree.

Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today, well you cannot anymore anyhow.

The pre-agenda early bird rate for a4uexpo 2008 ends on today ! yep that is today! … Where you can save a mammoth £100 on all delegate rates by registering before the end of today, infact simply do it now!

If you want to know a little more about a4uexpo 2008, Click Here which will convince you that this will be the hottest, must attend Affiliate Marketing event of the year!

To Register Click Here

The A4UExpo is quite simply the one event every affiliate should write in their diary at attend, it truly represents the many great aspects in affiliate marketing to educate yourself & implement, synergize & network with like minded professionals to forge flourishing business relationships, listen & participate with high quality speakers in the seminars, engage & debate in round table discussions, socialise with your peers .. the list goes on … To Register Click Here

If you’re shrewd enough you can even earn a generous 10% commission as they have an affiliate program on Paid On Results.

“This year there are two different types of passes available to purchase for a4uexpo;

The Conference Pass includes full access to all of the Workshops, Conferences, Networking Sessions and Exhibition Hall, complete with Luncheon & Refreshments. This pass includes a place on the Thames River Cruise during the second evening, plus networking opportunities at the pre-event Networking Party as well as the After Event Party on the last night.

The Networking Pass includes unlimited access to the Exhibition Hall & all networking areas, access to the pre-event networking party plus Luncheon & Refreshments on both days. The Networking pass does not provide access to the Thames River Cruise or the After Event Party.

Affiliates can earn 10% commission on all sales, with the cookie period custom set to reward all sales up until a week prior to the conference.”

They even pay you commission on the VAT element. Keep an eye on their blog, and press centre to acquire ideas on how to promote the event to their audience.

Click Here to Join the Affiliate Program

Yes we have used affiliate links on this blog entry, but if you sign up to the network Paid On Results, you can get your own.

Are affiliates generally too accepting of reductions in cookie periods without objection because its not headline news?

Somehow I think this is the case.

We hear excuses alikened too … “The reduction in the cookie window is in a bid to bring affiliates in line with all other media. Before making the final decision whether or not to implement this change, customer journeys were examined and it was found only a small % of sales were completed outside the new cookie period. “

Poppycock I am afraid.

That extra small % is better in an affiliates pocket than that of the merchant own. To put a different slant on it, are they going to increase the commission by the same % as a proportion of the current rates? … Thought not!!!

It seems that little offence is taken when the cookie period reduces, which though not of the same scale, is still effectively reducing the commission that can be potentially earned .. akin to dropping the commission rates.

Some merchants are too gun-ho in reducing cookie periods, to increase their own bottom line by a few %. Look after the pennies & the pounds will look after themselves. Therefore in theory there should be an increase in commission by the same minimal amount, it’s just something networks / merchants implement without a secondary thought for the affiliates.

Then we hear excuses from a network like “the rest of their online media strategy runs with this and despite putting across our arguments it is very difficult to get a client to change their whole strategy to fit around our affiliate’s expectations. Either it levelled up to the affiliate cookie period or it levelled down to the search, display and partner cookie period and affiliates are not the biggest stakeholder in that strategy”

Which doesn’t answer the question of whether they will inversely reciprocate this reduction in cookie period with an equal increase in commission.

Before we know, we have a domino effect, with merchants using excuses of coming into alignment with others in the same vertical sector, then what happens is one reduces still further & there becomes a  knock on effect whereby others follow suit & so forth.

But hey ho, in what seems to be an ever increasing apathetic industry on the whole, it gives more reason to look at hybrid commission structures or CPC models.

It would interesting to know though, on the whole have cookie periods generally gone up or down, because it’s not documented enough & often goes under the radar of grabbing an affiliate’s attention. Sometimes these cookie reductions can be perceived as simply a “shameful tactic in the clawback of commission” & squeezing the affiliate that little bit more.

Not a massive outburst, I am illustrating how affiliates are too often secondary in others thoughts and how affiliates generally don’t question cookie reductions or worse still session cookies … like when a merchant revamps their site, first thing out is affiliate tracking, last thing in is affiliate tracking … that’s if it is remebered.

Statement of the Day : We are not a good news bible.

“An Achilles’ heel is a fatal weakness in spite of overall strength, actually or potentially leading to downfall. While the mythological origin refers to a physical vulnerability, metaphorical references to other attributes or qualities that can lead to their downfall are common.” - Wikipedia

There are probably several common factors we could roll of the tongue which sometimes seem like an eternal ground hog day from a general lack of innovation, only a few decent api product feeds, problematic tracking, occasional payment problems, zero notification on policy changes causing friction, programs closing without due & proper notice.

… but one surpasses them all.

This is the affiliate marketing industry’s dependency on search engines whether it be Google, Yahoo or MSN. Quite obvious you may think, it doesn’t matter if you do PPC or SEO, it’s the common factor most rely on to a great extent, take that source away and the industry goes into freefall.

I often come across merchants who foolishly think they have some divine right to appear number one or organically for their own brand. Even affiliates maybe sometimes take this source of traffic for granted. But really though what divine right has anyone to appear well or at all in search engines. None what so ever !!! It’s the search engines which own them, not you, me, nor anyone else has any jurisdiction to what does & doesn’t appear on that & the sooner we all stop taking these things for granted the better & make the necessary contingency plans to at least off-set the potential impact of being shot in the Achilles Heel

Nobody has any Divine Right to list well in organic search engines, because quite simply none of us own the search engine.

So what are the solutions? What’s our fallback biatch apart from going for 5 stars working in MacDonald’s or stacking shelves in Tesco & thus losing our quality of life as scruffy bedroom affiliates.

I don’t know the full answer & perhaps we need to discuss this openly to safeguard our own futures, because there are some Goldmines search engines, like Google’s Embedded Site Search, haven’t exploited yet which could seriously put a dent in all our incomes but prolifically increase theirs more than any loss affiliates might incur. It’s simple stuff we have been doing to some mediocre success which I’ll elaborate on in my next blog. Though this turn-off the traffic tap may not be imminent, the safeguard solution / plan may need to adopted sooner rather than later.

One simple part of the solution, note not the whole solution, is to aggregate the knowledge of affiliates we know or trust to create our own search engine. Not to go head to head with the majors as that is just foolish, but gain incremental traffic by outflanking. It’s like a military operation, to defeat any nemesis / enemy you go for the supply line. As mentioned before this is partly why Google introduced automatic matching because the quality of other sites was getting better i.e. more sticky & users were returning to the search engines less & less.

Hence, if on all our existing sites we can incorporate a half decent search engine for web search utilizing free & paid for sources out there, or better still aggregate the plethora of affiliate skills out there to develop one selves, then the more of us that do this, then the less likelihood or need there is for visitors to return to the main search engines. A way of monetising this I will come into on another blog.

All very obvious … but we do need to think about it & actually develope something as the business model of “affiliate marketing” needs to secure it’s own future.

AWESOME .. EXHILARATING .. THRILLING .. LAVISH .. ADRENALIN FUELED RUSH .. are just a few words to describe what was an absolutely fantastic few days in Las Vegas, last weekend, courtesy of an incentive from Buyagift. I have to start of by saying Thank You .. Thank You .. Thank You to Graham (call sign “Puke”) & Dan (call sign “Whirly Sprinkler”). Even though I served in the Royal Air Force until 1992, having the opportunity to actually fly & take control of a Fighter Aircraft, has always been a dream since my childhood, by pushing the envelope of my normally modest comfort zones, pulling positive G’s of between 3 to 4.6 whilst Dog Fighting over the Nevada Desert in scorching heats of 108 degrees, was an experience I ’ll always remember with excitement. Even since returning last Tuesday & quite jet lagged, I am still buzzing.

Like those who were some of the lucky attendees / winners from last year to Las Vegas, we thought it couldn’t be beaten, but Buyagift surpassed those high levels of expectations once again.

The Outbound Journey : The Boneshaker : Morning : Friday 16th May

We all met at Gatwick Airport on Friday morning & departed on one of the traditional bone shakers which Virgin Atlantic Airways operate, because the flight wasn’t full, we managed to spread ourselves out over a few treble & quadruple seats enroute to recoup as much shut eye as possible to charge the batteries (I don’t do mornings) for the few days ahead. Landing was a little turbulent, imho synonymous with Virgin Atlantic & as for the pilot, I think any of us privileged affiliates possibly could have mastered a slightly smoother approach & landing with a High Yoyo (HYY) & a Low Yoyo (LYY) to throw into the mix.

Airport Transfer to hotel was in some kind of beefed up / pimped stretched Limo type bio fuel bus, called Earthbuses. With music pumping, leather seats, booze onboard, neon/disco lights & LCD TV. These Executive & VIP Limousine Buses are really comfortable with room for up to 25 passengers, which are ideal for large corporate events, airport transport, and nights on the town. The vehicles run on bio diesel and produce ultra-low emissions, their sales pitch is something along the lines of being committed to style & service whilst saving the earth. These little trimmings & indulgences Buyagift generously afford adds to the enjoyment and reduce our own carbon footprint (well sort of).

http://www.earthbuses.com/images/fordreserve.jpg

It’s the only way to travel in style for the short journey to our hotel, no other than the lavish Luxor Hotel and Casino on the famous ‘Strip’ in the heart of Las Vegas. For myself who is quite interested in Egyptology, this was quite a befitting theme for a superb weekend. A marvel of modern construction, the iconic pyramid of Luxor Hotel & Casino climbs 350 feet into the desert sky containing an enormous 29 million cubic feet of space and is crowned with the world’s brightest beam of light. Within the soaring walls of the great pyramid, more than 2,200 Deluxe Rooms overlook a spectacular and expansive atrium. An incredible thirteen 747 Jumbo Jets can fit inside the Luxor’s stunning Atrium

http://www.cnrc.navy.mil/sandiego/las_vegas1.jpg

Lap of Luxury : Sapphires Gentlemen’s Club : Evening : Friday 16th May

After a quick freshening up, it was a quiet, gentle & relaxed winding into the weekend at Sapphires Gentlemen’s Club. Apparently it’s the world’s largest gentlemen’s club, featuring some 70,000 square feet of topless entertainment and serving variety of cocktails, wines, champagnes and cigars. We were told there was apparently at least 100-150 topless laptop dancers there. We can neither confirm nor deny … plausible deniability … … I think we rolled in about 5am, but really nobody was keeping time.

http://www.sapphirelasvegas.com/grfx/header.jpg

Mexican Standoff at The Gun Store : Lunchtime : Saturday 17th May

A last minute addition to itinerary was a visit to the indoor shooting range at The Gun Store which is a full service gun shop specializing in self-defence security & police equipment with a massive arsenal of varied handgun & sub-machine guns available to shoot. It was MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) with 10 of us plus instructors in a confined space firing an assortment of live firearms in quick succession, something I haven’t done for quite a few years, it was organised & well drilled chaos. But you can’t help thinking that it could be relatively easy for an accident to happen i.e. if someone didn’t keep there weapon pointed down tin can alley or some unbalanced individual decided to liberally spray bullets in all directions, though with the number of instructors there, they would have pounced on any culprit fairly quickly. I guess it’s little surreal for the uninitiated, but it was a certainly different & fun start to the day.

Apparently they turnover $50k a day with a high ROI, when you see the continuous queues & rapid turn around of gunslingers it’s not surprising the place is making an absolute mint.

http://www.blackdossier.net/users/m-a-images/The-Gun-Store-Las-Vegas-sign.jpg

Days of Thunder: Afternoon & Evening : Saturday 17th May

The Indy Car USA Track in Las Vegas is known as the ‘Diamond in the Desert’

Originally, I wasn’t really into driving sports or racing cars, until the baptism of fire from last years incentive with Buyagift when we were driving sports cars in the Nevada desert & I started watching the TV program BBC Top Gear, even now after doing relatively well in affiliate marketing over the years, my personal car is only a family Toyota Previa (which I am quite happy with), so I am not really into owning flash cars or yatchs. Indy Car racing proved to be a whole new world of driving enjoyment.

The sheer scale of the place shocks and puts most venues in the shade. It boasts not one but two road circuits, a dirt track, kart circuit and motocross facility as well as the main 1.5 mile oval speedway.

Obviously our focus was on the oval when we took the challenge of the Indy Car Experience where oval racing is a unique discipline and not for the faint of heart. The speeds achieved are extraordinary and the racing takes place just inches from the perimeter wall.

With the short briefing over and safety kit on, we took to the track. After the obligatory recce laps in a road car you get strapped into the racer. Fire-up the engine and, even within this vast complex, the sound is simply fantastic. Master the correct line and you will quickly be able to build your speed. With massive downforce, super sticky slicks and 12 degree banking you can expect some fairly serious g in the corners. The purpose built 650 bhp Indy cars can quite easily achieve fast-paced action of up to 200 mph on the Las Vegas Oval … Crikey.

I think most of us got to about 146 to 149 mph as we chased the lead car having to stay within only 4 to 6 car lengths if we wanted to go faster. Doing these speeds on a flat motorway would be quite easily achieved I guess (not that I have tried), but doing on a race track is a whole new thrill.

I only wished there was an onboard camera to record the event so that we could all relive our experience. It was again another very hot day, but by the time most of us got to ride, the sun had set over the back of the main stadium so that we wouldn’t swelter in our dashing racing suits & helmets as we completed about 6 laps of the circuit. Even though we had a brief initial tuition it was pretty much hands on as you played yourself in, realise your limitations, and then really savour the scintillating experience as you raced around the track, it was absolutely brilliant.

An almost ideal way to get the juices flowing for a night on the town in LV, for me the perfect day was to come.

Early Night

For the following day to keep the adrenalin pumping we were going to be flying ‘air combat dog fighting’ missions in a fully aerobatic Marchetti fighter aircraft high above the Nevada desert. We were going to be split into two groups. The earlier one meeting at 7am the following morning, yep, anyone who knows me knows that I burn the midnight oil (a natural body clock) and I don’t do mornings, so I was in the early bird group, thus I was tucked up in bed by about midnight after a light dinner with no intention of breakfast in the morning.

Top Gun : AIR COMBAT USA : Sunday 18th May : Some Unearthly Hour in The Morning

“I feel the need, the need for speed”. Even though I served in the Royal Air Force until 1992, having the opportunity to actually fly & take control of a Fighter Aircraft, has always been a childhood dream, by pushing the envelope of my normally modest comfort zones, pulling positive G’s of between 3 to 4.8 whilst Dog Fighting over the Nevada Desert in scorching heats of 108 degrees, was an experience I ‘ll always remember with excitement.

“Picture yourself strapped into your fighter aircraft, high above the Nevada, when suddenly out of the sun comes a bandit. Sweeping into a banked roll you come round on his tail, line him up in your gunsight and let him have it! A trail of smoke appears to signify your hit – victory is yours! This is Air Combat USA? – a unique chance to be a Fighter Pilot for the Day!.”

The Air Combat USA program allows civilians (either pilots or non-pilots) to experience the exciting adrenalin rush of the Dogfight in real military trainer prop aircraft all under the expert guidance of professional instructor pilots. My instructor was Jim “Bogey” Reed who received his BS from the USAF Academy in 1972. During his 30-year career in the Air Force, he flew a variety of aircraft including the F-4, OV-10, and F-15, amassing over 5,000 hours of tactical flying experience. Receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross as a squadron commander during Desert Storm, his unit was credited with 6 aircraft kills. Before coming to Air Combat USA, he was an air combat instructor in the T-34A with Sky Fighters.

On arrival we were kitted out with our own personal flight suit, we had the pre-mission ground school briefing on format of the course, safety and tactics, prior to the one hour of flying with formation flying, practice manoeuvres and six dogfights followed by a mission debrief and gun camera review. Oh, and incase of “Bail, Bail, Bail” we were told of when the canopy jetisons on how to climb onto the wing & fall low off the trailing edge below the rear stabliser & rudder.

Each “pilot” then picks his opponent from the group and throws down the gauntlet with the challenge of an aerial Dogfight!, full theatrics are of course encouraged, I “Moose” (call sign) challenged Graham “Puke” Keen who was going to “crash & burn”

The aircraft used for the mission was an Italian built Marchetti SF260’s specially modified for the purpose. Each aircraft is equipped with modern safety harnesses, rapid deployment parachutes and special equipment for the Dogfight including laser weapon systems fitted to underwing pods, gunsights and three video cameras which record all the action and “kills” on video tape. Originally designed to transition pilots to jet fighters, they have a stick grip and gun trigger identical to the F4 Phantom.

Upon boarding your aircraft you are given a final safety and cockpit briefing and without further ado you are strapped into the aircraft and the mission begins! Once airborne the instructor pilot gives you time to acclimatise with level flight and a series of gentle manoeuvres to assess your comfort levels.

This is very much hands-on so once in the air you do 90% of the flying! Working with your pilot you’ll used canny tactics and teamwork to out-manoeuvre your opponent and get him within your gun-sights. With the aircraft able to pull an incredible +6g and –3g you’ll need to focus hard on first sighting the enemy then pre-empt their every move before arming your weapons system and going for the kill.

You can’t run out of bullets so you can get totally trigger-happy if that pleased you. A direct hit will register with real to life sound effects and a dramatic trail of smoke trailing from the other aircraft (whioch looked great on the debrief & souvenir video. The whole thing is an intense and uniquely exhilarating experience!

During the course of your flight we learned a series of air combat manoeuvres including - High and low Yo-Yos, Lead, lag and pure pursuit - Gunsight tracking & Physiological effects of “G” Force … HOOK !!! … HOOK !!! … HOOK !!!

Unfortunately for Graham it was like shooting fish in a barrel as he was blown out of the sky, I get quite bad motion sickness, hence not having breakfast, by nauseous moment (white bag time) was on negative g’s, though there was no follow through by praying to Hugh, thus no loss of points nor any spillage.

Once back on terra firma we had the opportunity to study the video footage to see where it all went right or wrong. The video we got to keep! So once this is reformatted I’ll get it on the blog. When you run your opponents video footage with yours side by side on split screen it was exciting to watch. It is the ideal way to relive what for me was the experience & thrill of a lifetime. Being the first to go out, I hanged about for the rest of the day, seeing how the other guys got on & the joy of their reactions.

It was a great pulling positive & negative G’s all weekend, but the biggest G is G for Graham from Buya”G”ift & big boss Dan. Thank you both for a fantastic few days. Now I know what the “G” in Buyagift stands for. Not just “G”raham but also the G‘s from the experience we had.

The Nightclub Tour : Sunday 18th May : Evening

To wrap up the tour of Las Vegas, we enjoyed a tour of the nightclubs with limo transfers & VIP admission to some of the top clubs and all in one remarkable night. Our first stop was the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino next door, with a glass elevator all the way up to the sixty something floor, with a fantastic view over Las Vegas.

Other clubs we went to were

Body English - Arguably, the new ‘daddy’ on the Las Vegas Club scene, Body English at the hard Rock evoked the image of a rock star’s English country mansion complete with leather Chesterfield sofas, acres of gilded mirrors and crystal chandeliers. Opulent and decadent – just what you would expect.

Tabu - Located at the MGM Grand, Tabu is a decent new ‘ultra-lounges’. It strikes a good balance between chill out lounge and happening club. Sumptuous décor, fashionable crowd and gorgeous waitresses combine to make a pleasant.

CatHouse - is an upscale ‘uber-lounge’ based on a French 19th century Bordello which manages to remain intimate and uniquely provocative. Two styles of music with two separate DJ’s juxtapose tastes in different areas within CatHouse. Dancing, not restricted to a dance floor, is encouraged throughout the ‘loungerie’, with lingerie clad performers enticing participation.

I think we strolled back to our hotel about 6am, after wisely leaving one of the other hotels before someone else got thrown in jail, I dunno, whatever ever happened to liberally sprinklings of enjoyment, whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas But that is another discussion saved for the bar & not on a public blog, boys will be boys!

No apologies for a long blog post, as this was something I personally wanted to document for posterity as a truly tremendous few days. I will populate this blog with a few photos a bit later.

Many thanks once again to Graham & Dan from Buyagift.

As you are aware Brand Bidding Groups (BBGs) have generally been for the familiar privileged few & favoured affiliates within some networks with the result of maximum reward with minimum effort with content affiliates suffering the stealth tax of cookie over-writing. There are a affiliates who are millionaires by doing something a monkey could do & offer little or nothing to the affiliate marketing space apart from being suited n booted & pretending to have a corporate persona as wide boys talking industry jibberish.

The solution I propose opens this all up to protect content affiliates & share the wealth where no network has suitable reason to withhold integration of the concept, unless there is possibly something to hide.

Here is the process of how it would be set up, now you must read through the WHOLE of this to understand this is quite simple & the real potential for all affiliates & the merchant.

1) An affiliate agrees to volunteer themselves!!! They look after the brand bidding group on a non-profit basis on direct to merchant paid search activity on brand terms, hybrids & obvious variations & mis-spelling. Obviously they would liaise with the merchant regarding the content of ad copy if it is necessary, though often this is best left to experienced affiliates to manage the campaign responsibly & professionally. You’ll also find volunteer affiliates will be more expansive in their use of keywords & not just exact match of brand [BRAND]

2) A separate Google, MSN Adcenter or Yahoo (YSM) account would be set up for each merchant so that the network, merchant and affiliate(s) involved have access to as well for keywords used & advertising spend. The reason for this will be more apparent a little later, so start licking your lips now.

2) What is paramount is transparency!!! The name of the affiliate(s) and the keyword database are available. Other affiliates not directly involved with the non-profit brand bidding group can also put forward suggestions of keywords to add to the mix & possibly integrated.

3) There will be no overwriting of content affiliate cookies at all!!! Content affiliates also include those who do paid search on product or generic keywords in paid search whether this is direct to merchant (i.e. permitted to use the display URL of the merchant in advertising or bringing traffic into their own site). This would require a separate network account being set up (an easy enough process), the main bit of work would require liaison between the network & some integration of code on the merchants behalf. Now at the moment we see Affiliate Window have done the honourable thing with Woolworth’ s. I don’t wish to knock it and it’s good progress, but the disadvantage of the Woolworths approach though is that it rely’s on cross referencing with a white list of keywords. The beauty of this scheme I am suggesting is that this separate link NEVER overwrites other affiliate links, but it can be overwritten in the normal manner of last referrer currently adopted. This content affiliates cookie always wins.

4) Obviously this non-profit affiliate can promote the merchant in the familiar manner as a content affiliate, on generic & product related terms in the normal way by using their affiliate links from their day to day account.

5) Now, the above is a great start within itself, but with paid search engines you can only use a certain display URL once (i.e single display URL policy). This is where some work is required on behalf of the network to earn their over-ride. Quite simply separate domains (either owned by the network or merchant) are set up for creation of landing pages or templates probably (preferably varying in design). The network would create these template / landing pages in liaison with the merchant for the brand bidding purposes, but if flexible enough these can also be utilised by normal content affiliates to integrate into their sites, thus offering multiple usage of the templates / full page sized content units.

The purpose of this is to provide more coverage in advertising listings with an increase in advertising slots incase competitors are bidding on the merchants brand & hopefully increase the transition of traffic actually going to the merchant. This needs to be only fully adopted if competitors are appearing in the space for keywords relating to the merchants brand. It’s a safeguard to counter competitor advertising or could be used in unison with the merchants own inhouse brand activity if they have one.

Now, the Non-Profit BBG can use one of their own URL’s to display the template (when bidding on brand going direct to a landing page), but there would need to absolutely zero leakage to other parts of their web site or web sites they own to make it fair i.e. to ensure other parts of their web site don’t benefit from bidding on brand. For their normal (non BBG) link then they fall into the same offerings as other affiliates.

It is important networks do work for their over-ride rather than sitting on their laurels ensuring these templates whether created by merchant or network are updated at reasonable intervals.

Now for the Deal Clincher

6) You are maybe asking what happens to the commission earned from this brand bidding. Well, we share the wealth of course, it all goes into a massive Prize Pot to share amongst other content affiliates who promote the merchant. The cost of the paid search activity (remember from a separate Google, MSN, Yahoo account) is deducted from the total commission earned via the brand bidding. These figures are released to the affiliate community for transparency.

7) The way the Jackpot Pool can be shared out is as follows. The Jackpot can be divided into 5, 10 or even 20 equal amounts. For the content affiliates promoting the merchant, 1 sale = 1 ticket where an affiliate can win no more than one prize for that specific merchant. Prize funds could anything for £20,000 to £100,000 or even more (don’t forget Millions have been made by these brand bidding groups, agencies & networks), which is a lucrative cash bonus for any content affiliate. Alernatively half the prize pool could be divided proportionally amongst their top 10 affiliates & the remainder going into the lucky dip. The frequency of these draws could be quarterly for lesser amounts of annually for a huge bonus.
Whereby:

• Content affiliates will more likely be incentivised to promote the merchant. Of which some could be used to launch their own bigger or greater projects, plus of course reaping the rewards of their own hard work.

• The merchant has a greater potential to receive an increase in incremental sales because of the generous Jackpot / Prize Pool available.

• The network still receives their over-ride, with any increases in incremental sales, plus they would be held with higher esteem with affiliates for their transparency & dedication to sharing the wealth amongst content affiliates.

• The wealth is shared amongst more worthy content affiliates across the industry rather than the familiar pre-chosen select few that some networks embrace.

Disadvantages

a) Some networks may jump on the bandwagon - Using the spin of strategic groups by maybe only offering a token program here or there trying to fool un-savvy affiliates or those that see things through Rose Tinted GlASSes. A network must be committed to this fairer solution of handling BBGs.

b) Finding volunteer affiliates - This wouldn’t be too difficult as I know, including myself, there are content affiliates who would embrace this. Setting up brand bidding campaigns on the different paid search engines only takes a small amount of time & requires little managing, except for occasionally updating ad copy & ensuring ROI is obviously profitable.

c) Who will fund the PPC activity? Well this should be the network of course. Why would they object? They have to do something for their money, it’s a no brainer really, since they would still receive an over-ride whereby PPC costs are recouped anyhow, rather than the volunteer affiliate awaiting for their expense. Any network objecting to this would need their scruples testing, when this should be weighed up against the increase in incremental sales & esteem they could gain & hold amongst affiliate peers which would transcend to other programs on their network. Just think about it for a moment!

You may ask, then why doesn’t the network simply do the whole branding themselves. Well who says some don’t do this already through mates or their selected cartel of affiliates with kickbacks. At least with what I propose it’s transparent & again the wealth is shared.

This solution in my book will clearly demonstrate which networks, merchants & agencies truly have any sincerity to what is a very workable solution. What traction this idea developes into, I cannot predict, but the opportunity is there to do the right thing for content affiliates & the industry as a whole, with the ball firmly served into their court.

There you go my fellow peers. The proposed solution to brand bidding groups & sharing the wealth amongst the true content affiliates.

Any additional advantages you feel this offers please offer a comment, so that we can get this solution rolling. And any volunteers please feel welcome to put your name forward. Any merchants interested in trialling this concept can email me “moose [at] mooseontheloose.co.uk” or PM me through the forum where my handle / username is “Qui Gon Jinn“

“People doing well under the current system are not inclined to look favourably on those who question the system.” !!! - Morpheus from The Matrix

From: Do You Take the Red Pill or The Blue Pill?