In all honesty I shouldn’t have to say this but I am shocked and surprised by the amount of times affiliates talk to me about not getting paid from merchants in a timely fashion, its terrible! It’s not that much of a surprise to hear affiliates say they haven’t been paid by merchant X for 5 months, that August!

Paying your suppliers on time will ensure a longer more profitable working relationship, nowhere is this truer than the world of affiliate marketing where there is still a whole host of successful sole traders working from their spare room.

Let me give you a scenario. A search affiliate starts a campaign and spends a large amount of money driving clicks to a site they have built around your brand, the end of the month comes and Google charges this affiliate for those clicks. Meanwhile someone has validated a percentage of the sales generated via the network, the affiliate is happy as they have made a profit. Great. However the network will not release that commission to the affiliate until merchant x has paid them for those sales, fair enough I guess but if merchant x isn’t paying for those sales for 5 months, it means the affiliate doesn’t get paid. It really isn’t rocket science.

Now, although the affilliate is happy with their profit do you honestly think they are going to invest more money or time into you and your brand without being paid? Of course not, so the affiliate pauses their campaign or promotes someone else.

All businesses at one time or another go through cash flow problems, it’s understandable, your affiliates are your online sales force and in lean times are needed more than even, it might be a good idea not to upset them!

Now I have not actually met Karen, I was introduced to her by a mutual friend as she had a few questions about affiliate marketing. Since then we have spoken a lot via IM and email, I can honestly say I don’t think I have met a more passionate person about affiliate marketing and online in general. She has recently started at The Slice and is no doubt a future star in the world of

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Karen and I’ve just started working at The Slice London, which is a reasonably new franchise of The Slice – (but based in London– surprise surprise!). The Slice London is an account management network for primarily financial campaigns. The Slice and The Slice London share a pool of affiliates and software but we both run separate campaigns to ensure our affiliates always the perfect campaigns to run to each of their sites/mailing lists etc. As I’m completely fresh-faced on the affiliate scene, I’ve had a great time this past couple of weeks with Internet World on and being able to chat and get to know the people in the industry!

What is your day to day role?

So far, I’ve been speaking to all of our affiliates and learning about them: their ad models, preferred/ successful campaigns, what type of demographic they market to. I also send out alerts on new campaigns, help get the tracking in place and respond to any enquiries the affiliates may have. Once we’re familiar enough with an affiliate, we’re able to then send out targeted campaigns to them which we know will work well. Basically, I’m here to make our affiliates as much money as possible and help out wherever possible!

What was your previous job and was it related to affiliate marketing?

I worked for an online florist, which meant I ran a lot of digital marketing campaigns, primarily SMM, PPC, SEO, etc., though the role there included a lot of offline marketing as well. I took over the affiliate marketing account towards the end of my time there, so I’ve had experience of the industry, but more from a client’s perspective! I’ve also run a couple of my own SEO based websites which has given me some insight from an affiliate’s point of view, though there’s a lot more to learn still!

What do you love about affiliate marketing?

I simply love the model – pay on results! It’s a win for every side – a sale for the merchant and money made for the affiliate. After working across the channels, I’ve definitely found the affiliate marketing side as the best way to produce both measurable and sizable ROI! It’s also a hobby of mine – I’ve always loved the online environment and while I don’t make a huge amount of money back, I can safely say it’s my first hobby that actually pays me back for my time!

What is on your Ipod?

At the moment I’m re- listening to the Gatsby’s American Dream discography!

How can people get in touch with you?

You can reach me via email or msn on Karen.clarke@theslicelondon.com. Alternatively give me a call

They say a picture paints a thousand words, enough said then I guess….

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you and what do you do?

For those of you that don’t know me – I am Karel , despite the funny sounding name I am originally from Bristol and have lived in Berlin for the last 4 years. I am affiliate marketing manager at German affiliate network belboon-adbulter GmbH.

What is your day to day role?

I spend a lot of my time dealing with affiliate and merchant enquiries, I am responsible for 3 different industries so the questions can vary somewhat. Due to my past experience I have also recently been given the role of contact person for all our price comparison affiliates, I currently have a list of around 180 so I imagine this will keep me out of trouble for a while. It’s my first completely German speaking role and so I was really worried to begin with – but so far it seems to be holding up quiet well!
Oh, drinking coffee and looking out of the window as well – we have an amazing office with a fish tank with a lift through it one side and the Berliner Dome the other. If anyone comes to Berlin come and visit!

What was your previous job and was it related to affiliate marketing?

I spent 2 and a half great years at Idealo, my first role in affiliate marketing. I joined initially as an English content worker and managed to work my way through to UK country manager. It was a great role as I got to meet all the people I now in the UK affiliate marketing arena, firstly through MSN and then at A4U’s and a few lucky people in Barbados last year with Affiliate Future.  One worry about leaving Idealo was the lack of contact I would have with the UK…

What do you love about affiliate marketing?

You people. As I said I have met some fantastic people over the last few years and made some great friends.

What do you hate about affiliate marketing and what would you change if you could?

Hmm – good question. I personal hate of mine is being based in Germany when you are all having pub meets, football tournaments and having fun etc. – but that’s really more a geography hate…

People bitching on the forum I guess. Makes me not want to post as often as people will pick up on small irrelevant points and turn a good thread into a slagging match or into a voucher code thread – boring!

List your top 5 resources that help you with your day to day job?

A4U, XING, Linkedin, 100partnerprogramme.de and my iPhone for cheeky Facebook and Twitter checking. Twitter used to be big for me but in my new role I honestly don’t have the time – sorry guys.

If you were an affiliate how would you help someone in your role?

That’s a hard one as I am still pretty fresh to being network side – obviously sign up to our network, my programs and make lots of money with us and make me look great.

As an affiliate I would have asked Merchants and network account managers to get in touch when they honestly had a good promotion or merchant that I should have been pushing, and if it was worth getting in touch with me for then pester me until it I actually dealt with it.

In your opinion what is the future of affiliate marketing and how can affiliates take advantage of this?

Mobile Affiliate Marketing – without a doubt this is the future.

What is on your Ipod?

Not enough new stuff to be honest but a bit of everything really. Have been listening to Arctic Monkeys,  Murs and Royskopp recently – random mix I know!

How can people get in touch with you?

Karel.ellis-gray@belboon.de

Skype: karel.ellis.gray

msn: karelwork@hotmail.com

I was personally nominated in the Affiliate Manager – In House or at an Agency category and it was a massive surprise. Thanks to everyone who voted for me and fingers crossed I win!

See you at the awards.

I’m Helen,  my role is senior online marketing manager at BSkyB. More specifically I work across the ppc search and affiliate channels.  I manage the in-house team for both these channels and work closely with the rest of the marketing team to ensure integration and online support for all campaigns.

What is your day to day role?

Every day is completely different. In general  I work with my teams to optimise both the PPC channel and affiliate channel to drive more sales and efficiency.  I also work closely with the rest of the online team to ensure campaigns are integrated, budget is being deployed effectively etc.  Additionally, I try my best to get involved in other parts of the Sky business such as 3D TV to sell in the role of PPC and affiliate to these business units and help support their activity.

What was your previous job and was it related to affiliate marketing?

My background is purely in affiliate marketing, I have worked at two affiliate networks since leaving university, most recently DGM where I spent a very enjoyable 2.5 years.

What do you love about affiliate marketing?

I love that affiliate marketing is a microcosm of all online marketing.  Affiliates do PPC, SEO, email, DM etc. I love the variety of this and the enthusiasm of the affiliates that goes with this.

What do you hate about affiliate marketing and what would you change if you could?

There are a lot of people in this industry that profess to be experts and publicise themselves widely as just that. In my experience those that are really good at it keep quiet, are modest and are very successful from doing just that.

List your top 5 resources that help you with your day to day job?

Twitter – keeps me posted on industry news

Google Reader – keeps me updated on the blogs I like to follow

Excel – couldn’t live without it

DART tracking – lets me know everything, all the time

Sky News – keeps me posted and grounded on what’s happening in the real world

If you were an affiliate how would you help someone in your role?

Be transparent about what you are doing and be open to testing new ideas.  Sky is an incredible place to work in that everyone is always open to trying new things. I’d love more affiliates to come to us with more ideas about how to generate sales.

In your opinion what is the future of affiliate marketing and how can affiliates take advantage of this?

This is the first time in a few years now that i have felt really positive about the future of affiliate marketing.  I think we went through a bad patch with a real reliance on brand traffic but stakeholders in the industry have really broadened their reach and as a result affiliate has become an invaluable channel.

This needs to continue and I can see more affiliates developing themselves as brands. I also think there is still a huge opportunity for the long tail affiliate, especially on a campaign such as Sky where there is so much scope to tap into a content niche.  I don’t like to jump on a well travelled bandwagon but multi-channel attribution has to become part of affiliate marketing at some point, if only to protect the real content affiliates.  I also, controversially, think post impression may make a comeback for those affiliates that can create a brand / sticky / high trafficked site.  Exposure for brand such as Sky is really key and if affiliates can offer this then I think there is an argument for remuneration.

What is on your Ipod?

Spotify with a very varied music taste, I like anything from Take That, to Phil Collins to Lady gaga and The Killers, weird I know but I love all music.

How can people get in touch with you?

www.twitter.com/Helenmarie21

helen.southgate@bskyb.com

MSN: helen.southgate@hotmail.co.uk

Our good friends over at A4U towers have been busy working on the launch of the new look site. It has officially launched today and I must say its a real Booby Dazzler (its a northern thing) It comes with a host of jazzy new features but don’t take my word for it, check it out for yourselves here.

Gossip has been rife over recent weeks and chatting to a few industry contacts a whisper of a merger between two well know networks seemed to be the talk of the town.  Today’s news that Digital Window has acquired the Newcastle based Perfiliate Ltd, better know to us as Buy.At, ended that speculation. This acquisition signals the formation of the UK’s biggest performance based marketing group. AOL purchased Buy At in 2008 for a whopping $125 million CASH!

What does this mean for affiliates?

An official statment sent to all affiliates signed up to Affiliate Window reads:

As existing affiliates of AW, you will see no change to the day-to-day service we provide. It will be business as usual, with the same desire to provide industry-leading service and technology to all our affiliates. There will be no change to the frequency or structure of your payments.

This deal will allow us to leverage the rich expertise in both businesses to deliver exciting and ground-breaking solutions for the market at a much more rapid pace. Digital Window solutions such as ShopWindow, Darwin, AWin Analytics, Snoopy and Agent99 will, over time find space alongside trusted Buy.at solutions like Offer Central, EventEngine, ProfitPlus and FlexTrack.

Exciting times. Watch this space.

I think a lot of times merchants come up for a little too much flack from affiliates. I know the merchants I work with are constantly looking at ways to improve their programmes. On top of this many of them have a huge number of other issues to deal with that may not be related to affiliates needs.  In a post inspired by Keith’s “6 Effective Habits Of Super Merchants” I thought I would add my opinion from the other side of the fence and look at “6 Effective Habits Of Super Affiliates”. Now by super affiliate I don’t mean a huge affiliate generating a million pound a day, quite the opposite.

1 – Communicate

Much has been written about merchants not communicating with their affiliates and not listening to their needs. Well the same can be said for affiliates at times. Yes I know you are busy and you receive a lot of emails, we all do, but if you do receive an email from an account manager then reply back. Even if it’s to say “Thanks got your email, I will look into it”. Communication is key in any relationship; if you as an affiliate want the most out of that merchant then get back to them when they contact you. Even if it is a stupid question!

2 – Be honest about your activity

It’s not enough to say you don’t know how you are generating sales or that it is none of their business how I get traffic (Its does happen). Being open and honest with a merchant will ensure they come back to you time and time again. Trust is a huge factor in any type of relationship.

3 – Merchant friendly website

Let’s be honest it isn’t rocket science to put up a website these days. I see hundreds each day, some good, some bad, some really bad! Putting up a clean, user-friendly site that a merchant will look at and be pleased to be associated with is a sure fire way to get in their good books.

4 – Keep your site up to date

Affiliates are quick to scream from the rooftops when a product feed is out of date but what about when an affiliate’s site is out of date. Check that the products you are featuring on your site have the correct prices and are linking to the correct place. If you don’t have time to update them all then then use something like Easy Content Units.

5 – Attend events and network

This is an important one. We can sometimes be guilty of hiding behind our computers and instant messengers, but in the real world people are at the other end of those computers. Get out and meet those people. Many a deal has been done over a few beers. Not only that a relationship changes when you meet face to face, more often that not for the better. Agencies, networks and merchants love to meet affiliates and will often by ALL the drinks. What are you waiting for!

6 – A4U isn’t the final word

As much as I love the forum and try and participate as much as I can it isn’t the entire industry. I speak to affiliates every day, affiliates that haven’t ever heard of the forum or A4U and have no interest in it whatsoever. The guys and girls over at A4u have done a great job in publishing our industry and educating merchants, that is a fact. What I am trying to get across is that a lot of affiliates would benefit a hell of a lot more from talking to the network, merchant or agency direct first, before ranting on the forum.

Thanks for reading.

When Ed isn’t tearing up dance floors at affiliate events, or trying to impress the girls with his silky football skills, he can be found working hard over at Affiliate Window HQ.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you and what do you do?

I’m Edwyn a partnership’s account manager at Affiliate Window. I’ve been here for 18 months and manage a portion of the top 200 affiliates on our network. I first joined as an admin assistant fresh faced out of university and as I’ve learned the industry (with the help of some great mentors: Julie Wood, David Hall, Kevin Edwards etc…) I have taken on more responsibility and now look after some of the strongest performing affiliates; offering advice and implementing strategies to help grow their revenues and strengthen their relationships with our merchants and us.

What is your day to day role?

It’s difficult to answer when every single day offers so much opportunity and variation but the main tasks I undertake involve sourcing offers from merchants, promotion planning and writing performance reports.

The exciting parts of my day can involve helping to organise affiliate/merchant events, aiding affiliates to integrate new technologies and finally, analysing industry trends. When you have a base of 90,000 affiliates there is a wealth of information just waiting to be dissected. I guess now would be the time to confess that I’m a maths graduate and that evaluating stats is a dirty pleasure!

What was your previous job and was it related to affiliate marketing?

Upon graduating I took a gap year working for Arsenal Football Club (a dream come true!) I trained as a coach up to grade 2 and then proceeded to teach in the local community on Arsenal’s behalf. I did 4 months in London before being whisked off to Greece where there were 15 + soccer schools for me to teach at. I spent a couple of weeks at each one and by the end I was even taking sessions in Grenglish (my own variation on Greek: Greek/English)

Unfortunately the dream job had to end as coaching children left no time for a social life and definitely didn’t pay enough. Returning to England I was offered a job as an assistant manager at my old university bar or the far more enticing and career wise move to Affiliate Window, it was an easy choice.

What do you love about affiliate marketing?

I love that two people with opposite opinions on the best way to promote a product can both be successful. It’s so open-ended and enthralling that really anyone with a computer and an imagination can get into it.

I also love that it encourages people to make money from their passions. Everyone has something they are really interested in and affiliate marketing offers the opportunity for people to make money from their self-created dream jobs (with a little guidance of course.)

What do you hate about affiliate marketing and what would you change if you could?

I think there is nothing I hate about affiliate marketing. There are a few niggly things that bother me once in a while. The one that instantly springs to mind is some people’s expectation to be given everything on a silver platter without a track record of proven success. Sometimes it can seem that ‘everyone and their dog’ requests exclusive deals/codes/promotions.

I guess the underlying issue here is that affiliate managers face an eternal struggle to educate and inform their clients about how affiliate relationships work.

List your top 5 resources that help you with your day to day job?

1. I may be a little bias here but the affiliate window Wiki: http://wiki.affiliatewindow.com/index.php/Main_Page makes my job very easy as I often refer affiliates here to answer the common questions that they have.
2. I regularly check the affiliates 4 u forum and enjoy the topical discussions that happen on a recurring basis, it’s interesting to see how so many affiliates are able to be successful despite having completely different approaches.
3. One of the greatest resources has to be my colleagues at Affiliate Window, there are so many people behind the scenes that are inspirational, hard working and very intelligent.
4. The NMA which is great source of industry news
5. Kirsty’s blog http://www.affiliatestuff.co.uk is great for new starters and helped me a lot when I first joined Affiliate Window.

If you were an affiliate how would you help someone in your role?

Just do the basics and do them well. Be polite, answer emails/calls even if it’s just to say ‘no I don’t like this promotion/idea’ and perhaps most importantly manage your expectations. Don’t expect changes to happen overnight as there will be a chain of people involved in any affiliate marketing idea.

In your opinion what is the future of affiliate marketing and how can affiliates take advantage of this?

Affiliate Window will take over the world J and affiliates can take advantage by joining us:

https://www.affiliatewindow.com/signup/index.php

In the future, I expect affiliate marketing to continue its rapid growth as online spend increases yet again and affiliates will find more innovative ways to promote products and deals. Specifically with Affiliate Window in mind, I’m excited about the recently launched Darwin which will see Affiliate Window offer a new level of transparency through the use of social network features that were pioneered by Facebook. This will increase interaction between affiliates and merchants and remove some of the barriers that networks including Affiliate Window have in place.

What is on your Ipod?

The last three songs were: Female of the species (by Space), Run this town (Jay Z) and Chan Chan (Buena vista social club) – certainly a random mix!

How can people get in touch with you?

You can email: Edwyn.mcfarlane@affiliatewindow.com or get me on msn fredwyn at hotmail.com or ring on 0207 553 0409

I’m Zak and I’m the MD for Prezzybox.com. I launched Prezzybox in 2000 (we’re nearly 10 years old – very exciting!) just as the .com bubble was bursting and I’ve been here ever since! At work I look after the company strategy and marketing. Enjoyment is key for me – both at work and home – so I try to run a nice and relaxed ‘ship’. It’s important to enjoy coming to work.  Polly, our Golden retriever comes to work with us every day for example (it’s no free ride though – she’s in charge of sending out all our newsletters. To be honest she struggles with this – primarily because of the lack of opposable thumbs!).

I love music – playing guitar and singing in a band and in my spare time I contribute to the music website www.gigjunkies.com (which happens to be ran by the missus!).

I’m also a keen Aston Villa fan and I’m sure under the tutelage of Sir MON they will once more relive their former glories of the early 80’s.

What is your day to day role?

I’m the MD at Prezzybox.com. I look after overall strategy and oversee the company marketing.  I therefore spend lots of my day in meetings, ensuring that each department is doing what is required of them and we are moving forwards in a unified direction. Networking – be it with affiliates, networks, suppliers, marketing partners or whoever also makes up a large part of my working day.

Explain a little about job and what you do each day.

Very varied! I can literally be involved in anything from talking to Venture Capitalists through to putting out the recycling all in the same day.

Generally however I ensure that the team is moving forward cohesively in the same direction, which obviously involves a lot of meetings with all the heads of departments and then ensuring that the company strategy is being carried through as expected.  Encompassed in this is company expansion – be it strategic partnerships, the development of a catalogue or moving into the USA, as well as internal development – improving systems etc.

Alongside this I oversee the company marketing. We’ve quite a flat company hierarchy (everyone gets involved), but I’m involved with everything  from SEO to PPC. I’ve got a particular passion for Affiliate Marketing and am involved in that on a daily basis – usually having a natter with Affiliates on MSN to make sure we’re doing everything that is required.

What was your previous job and was it related to affiliate marketing?

I was a brand manager for Victorinox Swiss Army Knives.

Affiliate Marketing??? It was 1999 when I last worked for somebody else – did it exist then?

What do you love about affiliate marketing?

Lots.  I think the model makes PERFECT sense from a merchant perspective. I mean, what could be better than paying for a sale when it is generated rather than a marketing fee up front which has no guarantees.  I also like the fact that Affiliate Marketing is very cutting edge and dynamic – often leading the way  for bigger more established areas of marketing (for example I’m pretty sure we were the first company to introduce video banners).

What do you hate about affiliate marketing and what would you change if you could?

MOANERS! Basically it’s a symbiotic relationship between merchant, network and affiliate. Everybody, no matter how good they are, make mistakes. Therefore it really get’s my goat when I see any one of the 3 groups bemoaning  the other publically before then actually a) know all of the facts (there’s always two sides to every story) and b) without giving the other party a chance to ‘privately’ explain their actions. Grrrrr

What would I change…. Good question.

I think I’d try and encourage more transparency. Every business, be it merchant or affiliate, has a criteria it works to – be it to run a lifestyle business, to make as much profit as possible, to build it up to sell or whatever. Therefore each business has different needs  that it wants to take from the affiliate marketing relationship. So, for me, it would make more sense to communicate these needs with our affiliates. For example, if Merchant A needs to make X% profit margin from an order then it makes more sense to communicate this with affiliates so you all know the parameters to which you are working.

List your top 5 resources that help you with your day to day job?

• Outlook (communication is key!)
• MSN Messenger (ditto)
• Google Analytics (stats are great!)
• Google Optimzer
• Google Keywords Tool

If you were an affiliate how would you help someone in your role?

For me, communication is key. I’d therefore encourage somebody in my role to continually talk to affiliates… Tell them about new products, specific promotions, product advertising etc. Liaise with your affiliates and ensure that you are maximising the relationship to your benefit over your competitors.

In your opinion what is the future of affiliate marketing and how can affiliates take advantage of this?

A lot of “big boys” are now getting involved and throwing a LOT of resource at affiliate marketing as they’ve finally seen the benefits. This is obviously attractive for a merchant because big companies obviously have the ability to drive greater volumes of traffic/sales. However, although this may make things tougher for your archetypal affiliate, it needn’t mean that they can’t compete. Niches are always there to be exploited for example, whilst smaller companies can be much more reactive to market trends whereby bigger companies have numerous levels of hierarchy to go through. The modern day affiliate will therefore have to think and work smarter.

What is on your Ipod?

Ahaaaa. Right then, in no particular order…

• Apollo (my band – blatant plug have a listen at http://www.myspace.com/apollobrummies)
• Oasis
• Kasabian
• Kooks
• Jersey Budd
• The Beas
• The Beatles
• Elvis
• Jimi Hederix
• Eminem
• Power of Dreams
• Rage Against the Machine
• Happy Mondays
• Stone Roses
• Hard Fi
• Zutons
• Jackie Lomax
• Willy Mason
• The Jam
• Sheryl Crow
• Jet
• Kula Shaker
• The La’s
• Lilly Allen
• The Raconteurs
• Reef
• Seasick Steve

How can people get in touch with you?

zak@prezzybox.com for email/MSN. Simples.

Thanks Zak.