Moose on the Loose

As you are probably aware a few of today’s larger search engines have historically used sponsored listings or back fill results from other sources, and simply branded in their own image msn, yahoo & ask jeeves are to name but a few.

A small, non time consuming, un-innovative side project we are embarking on is to reproduce something similar utilising what is currently available out there, to offer user functionality which is fairly similar to any other search engine whereby some search engines look familiar in the way results are displayed, together with similar userability.

However we have a few interesting innovative ideas up our sleeves on how to monetise those results more effectively, something we have trialled with existing sites with some success without too much effort. We are confident this little twist will reap dividends.

We have absolutely no delusions of grandeur, but our initial target is to gain 10k (10,000) UV’s (Unique Visitors) a day by end of Quarter 1 rising to 100k UV’s by year end. We feel this would be easily achievable & reward us with a nice modest income to supplement what we already earn.

Initially we will be starting with the UK market & duplicating the formula to other english speaking nations such as the US. Other territories will be rolled out once we are satisfied with the results, but cross promotion will assist in ski ramping the sites. One of our main focuses will be to ensure that results displayed are demographically clean & relevant to a UV’s country with geo-targeting to assist this both from a users & advertisers perspective.

Over the festive period of Christmas & New Year and even into new year there will be less posts than normal. Usually from about 21st December to 15th January as my son has a birthday in this period too. So no apologies for any lack of posts.

I’ve tried to always maintain that business revolves around my family lifestyle, not allowing business to rule my life. So far i’ve managed to pretty much hold firm to this principle and would suggest the same to anyone to adopt.

Anyway, may I take this opportunity to wish everybody a healthy, enjoyable & successful 2007, it what will be no doubt an interesting year.

Also a warm thanks for some fabulous Christmas presents from Fraser & Fiona, Paid On Results (Clarke), Buyagift, Search 123, Affiliate Window, Virgin Mobile, Tradedoubler & Google.

“Less is More”

I will be elaborating on this come new year resolutions.

Blog Tagging seems to be a current craze (phenonomen) at the moment spreading around like wildfire in the internet “blogosphere”, to the point it is becoming quite mainstream. Blog Tagging is where somebody tags you in their blog and you have to say 5 things that people don’t know about you in your blog. You then tag another 5 people who must do the same. Thanks to Kieron for tagging me.

So here we go…

5 simple things you didn’t know about me:

1. Before I did Affiliate Marketing full time I used to be in the Royal Air Force & had an entertainment agency.

2. I graduated at Kingston University studying Aeronautical Engineering which is totally unrelated to affiliate marketing.

3. I am a football coach and intend to go for my FA Coaching Badges.

4. My musical taste is still stuck in the 80’s, including many favourite bands such as The Cure, Madness, OMD, Depeche Mode, Wham & Adam Ant. I have a urge to attend a fancy dress party as Adam Ant.

5. My favourite food is Chicken Jalfrezi from a local curry house “Red Rose”.

So, in the festive spirit of Christmas here are the 3 people I’m tagging…Fraser, Eric, Matt

The Buy.at Beta Management Area (MA V3.0) & Accompanying Toolkit has been launched with the intention of being an easier way for affiliates to access more information about programmes with a much needed improved functionality & reporting.

We are in the process of testing to the limits we require for our own daily purposes, ensuring it delivers the “nuts & bolts” of what is required “together with a few “bells & whistles”. The old system was particularly poor & clunky to say the least, but if Buy.at are to be considered a serious contender for the affiliate network throne in 2007, this is just one necessity for them in order to attract more big named & and / or quality clients.

Judging by the face of it, it is an improvement, but I will have to play around with it properly for some time over the festive season.

Affiliates browsing the Toolkit by sector will be able discover the latest promotions, affiliate incentives, last order dates & hopefully more.

During the prelude until Christmas Buy.at will be daily updating the Toolkit with information regarding the better performing programmes in terms of the hottest selling products, CR’s (conversion rates) & EPC’s in order for affiliates to maximise the most out of available promotions n the few days remianing. I just hope this is regularly maintained & updated.
The Beta launch of their new Management Area (MA V3.0) & Toolkit, can be accessed using your usual login details. Please note, that as this is a Beta application, the existing Management Area will continue to be available, until such time as they move from Beta to a full application launch. This upgrade sees the inclusion of many new features in what they hope will benefit affiliates by providing an excellent platform which they will be adding to throughout 2007 and beyond.

For further information about the launch and the key benefits of MAV3.0, the Introductory Guide can be downloaded from https://users.buy.at/mgt/introduction.pdf

Also, you may want to check out https://users.buy.at/marketingtoolkit

My advice to Buy.at which has been reiterated to them directly on a number of occasions is to go back to their roots. When they first launched, there was a buzz in the industry, they seemed genuinely in touch with how different affiliate marketing was to mainstream business & had their feet firmly on the ground. However during 2006 in my opinion they became a little arrogant & got above their station with the capture of big brands being primarily due to their previous popularity. With the whiff of cartel like pay closed groups in the pay per click market & poorer than acceptable affiliate support. Let us see if they can walk the walk & follow through with their intentions, in their commitment to change all that for the better like they have assured me. Let’s hope they do becuase their potential is huge .. All we can do is see.

With reference to comments about the new Buy.at platform, postings made by affiliates can be viewed on the following A4U Forum thread.

If you view the right hand side margin, you can see we have a “Mooses Network League Table” of how we rank affiliate networks, who have affiliate programs belonging to merchants we currently deal with. As you can see Commission Junction are firmly & deservedly rooted amongst last place for a multitude of reasons which would be too long a story with multiple instances to enter within one simple blog entry.

This is not a direct reflection of the programs or merchants on their network, whereby there a considerably number we would like to promote more extensively than what we currently do by delivering the volume & quality custom, but sometimes you get a network which is a hinderance to both affiliate (s) & merchant (s) for that realtionship to flourish.

Commission Junction have nearly always be the bane of our lives for a multitude of reasons, the aggregate of minor problems we have had with any other network since being an affiliate cannot compare to those we have endured with CJ. Unfortunately we share that discomfort with other fellow colleagues who have been in industry for quite a while pre 2000.

Remember it was a group of us on this side of the pond in the United Kingdom, who pioneered the beating or the massive withdrawal / retreat of spyware / adware & stopping networks for using these companies to a certain degree.

In our opinion CJ were one of the reluctant to change. As we jointly tackled CJ UK from these shores & even brought it up at CJU in Santa Barbara about 3 years when they were perceived to be in denial claiming it wasn’t illegal or unethical. However that is just one minor encounter from history.

Maybe one day I’ll bore you to tears over a jar about the trials & tribulations of Commission Junction. But to get on track, I want to pose the question:

Are Commission Junction the School Playground Bully?

In my personal opinion, YES they are and I will elaborate examples gradually through the history of this blog as it flourishes.

But one thing for sure with these bullies, the only way to tackle them is to square up to them nose to nose & let their clients & fellow affiliates (on forums) know exactly why they are potentially on the wrong network, and that wrong network being Commission Junction.

Just to mention the 2nd part Fraser’s interview with Nicky Iapino from Affili.net) is now live

Click Here for Part Two

As far as I am aware this hasn’t happened yet. But could it & will they?

The thought only came about because I was using Firefox 1.5, and realised I couldn’t click on Google Adwords adverts from about advert number 4 or 5 onwards. The ad displayed yet wasn’t clickable. This went on for a few weeks until we downloaded Firefox 2, which seemed to have remedied the problem or it could have been coincidence with Google’s Technical team fixing the glitch. Apparently some users reported similar problems in Firefox 2. At first I thought it was either my PC or Norton Internet Security up to it’s funny tricks.

However this got me thinking … How far down the road are Google in developing their own browser? As they seem to be closely aligned with Firefox at this moment in time. Now just imagine the coup Microsoft could pull off if their IE browser by default blocked Google Adwords or Adsense … claiming it’s simply an ad blocker … perfectly legitimate I reckon … That would certainly send revenues plummeting for Google, but would also affect advertisers livelihoods. However it would certainly get advertisers recommending other search engines & perhaps balance the playing field rather the unhealthy dominance Google currently enjoys. The general public need to realise there is more to the internet than just Google.

With regard to this glitch, here’s a little conspiracy for you. Was it an experiment to analyse if it forced users to click higher bidding ads? … if that as the case why not display fewer ads you may ask … or unless was it a way of reducing CTR for those un-clickable ads & thus via quality score increase minimum bid for those lower ads. Anything is possible & then claim afterwards it was a technical hiccup. You cannot put anything past them.

If Internet Explorer did ever decide to Block Google Adwords & Google Adsense, it would be pure poetry.

Thinking out loud based on the posting I just read on the A4U Forum.

If Affiliate A places a merchant banner on a their site (earning commission via CPA basis only), as we know banners notoriously have low CTR’s. Visitor(s) remember the brand whilst on your site, a later sequence of events ensues, the Visitor(s) remembers the brand in the banner & types name into a search engine. The Visitor(s) either go via natural listings or merchants adverts. Affiliate A receives no remuneration (gets no commission) for displaying ads.

Perhaps there is a call for there to be a default CPM, payment per 1000 impressions, in any merchant’s banners displayed on an affiliates site.

Another scenario, Affiliate A does the pre-sell with a Banner on their site. Again a later sequence of events follows, the Visitor(s) remembers the brand in the banner & types name into a search engine. The Visitor(s) this time goes through an affiliate link belonging to a privileged affiliate who is part of a closed bidding group. Why should Affiliate A bother promoting the merchant in the first place?

Maybe it’s become a time where there shouldn’t be any more free brand exposure for merchants via banners & brand logo’d creatives & affiliates to be fairly remunerated for displaying these.

I will have to ponder on this some more, but we have generally been reluctant or not displayed banners at all for the aforementioned reasons as well as the fact banners generally don’t have any Whoopee Doo factor … btw … have you ever noticed in NMA how they get so excited when a merchant has created a new 120×60 creative & give it a quarter page spread … Whoopee “Bloomin” Doo … anyhow instead networks & merchants should be focusing on more up to date technology, like what we have been requesting for a significant period of time like full API Product Feeds to easily create price comparison / product search sites & Streaming Media Ads like TV Commercials. The industry is just lagging even further behind.

Perhaps the traditional model of CPA should not necessarily be phased out, but evolve into hybrid commission structures comprising of two or more of the following elements … CPA. CPC, CPM & PPL & PPCall, thus fairly remunerating affiliate efforts for displaying banners & certainly applying to poor converting merchants.

P.S. I have just had this link passed to me from Fraser … Cheers Mate … for In Stream Video Advertsing Click Here

There needs to be more innovation from Networks, Perhaps more will follow suit, following like Lambs. Rather than in 2007 being left like Lambs to the Slaughter.
Note:

CPA – Cost (Payment) Per Acquisition (Sale)
CPC – Cost (Payment) Per Click
CPM – Cost (Payment) Per 1000 Impressions of a Displayed Banner. M represents the Roman numerial for 1000,
PPL – Paid (Payment) Per Lead (Registering or Application)
PPCall – Paid (Payment) Per Call (Telephone Call)

In the right hand column, you can now view “Mooses Network League Table” which is my personal ratings of affiliate networks we currently deal with. It consists of variable factors & opinions all weighed differently. From Trust to Loyalty, Openness & Honesty, Quality of Programs, Affiliate Support, Active Participation in Affiliate Community, Resolution of Problems & Queries, Tracking & Reporting, Quality of Interface etc …

… Basically those towards the top generally “Get It!”

Get It! – Is usually attributed to an individual person(s) within the Affiliate Marketing Industry … who know What it’s About & What it’s Meant to Be About & Know Where It Should Be Going. They not only “Talk the Talk”, but also “Walk the Walk”. They are active … not inert … & strive for fairer practices & positive improvements within the industry & certainly don’t sit on the fence or allow themselves to be intimated. They are the David’s, in a David versus Goliath industry, who realise it can actually be made a more level playing field than others realise.

They are the Boaz of the affiliate marketing industry. Boaz denotes “In Strength”

Therefore those towards the top of the league table receive preferential listings with regard to … say for example … links for an affiliate program which maybe on more than one network. Between 2nd and 5th there really isn’t anything in it, and contrastly 8th, 9th & last position are a long way behind 7th place.

In due course, we’ll blog a quick opinion of each network, with regard to movers & shakers. Like who we are expecting great things from & those which may not have fulfilled their promised potential. Even down to those we think won’t be around for long … or to be more scandalous, the industry would be a better place without them.

But, on a positive front, like any business, next year I think we can expect some really good things from a couple of networks, irrelevant of where they are in the league table, whilst several might not evolve … yet again .. &missing another opportunity & endure a annus horribilis once more.