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.

If you think the cool cats over at Tesco plan to target the kids with this one, thing again. Their first signing is no other than Simply Red himself, Mr Mick Huckley.

Music Week

This is exactly why I wanted to start this section, to celebrate people like James and let people know how vital someone like he is in the success of an affiliate programme. James will not win any awards at A4U, nor does he sit on the forum all day, but he should be celebrated for his contribution to affiliate marketing. His ideas and knowledge of, not just affiliate programmes, but technology and online as a whole, is second to none. He is always on hand to help affiliates with the more technical aspect of affiliate marketing that us lowly account manager often struggle with, I have never seen him stuck for an answer yet. If he is not getting beaten at Fifa by me or developing feed manipulation tools for affiliates, he can be reached on the following email address james@ro-eye.co.uk  Despite his terrible taste in music (no really) and his lack of tea making he is a great guy. Someone pass me a tissue I think I am going to cry………..

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

I’m James Skelland, and I’m the technical solutions manager at R.O.EYE. I’ve been at the company for just under 2 years now. When I’m not technical solutioning, I play hockey, drink real ale, and come up with million pound affiliate ideas, which I can never be bothered to get started.

What is your day to day role?

I look after all of the technical aspects of the company. So this typically involves the fun stuff such as working with large publishers to help them integrate some funky implementations through the eBay API, the not so fun stuff such as “James, my internet is slow”, and everything in between.

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

Previously I was an IT system and network administrator for an independent insurance broker, as well as building and maintaining the website and ecommerce platform for a toy distribution company. Two very different industries to be in, but my boss at the time had many fingers in many pies.

What do you love about affiliate marketing?

I love the (still) relative infancy of the industry. Because of this, there’s so much scope to be innovative and stretch the boundaries of the CPA model. You’ll always have your staple PPC, content, incentive sites etc, but someone could come along tomorrow with a completely new way of promoting a merchant which blows everything out of the water.

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

Hate is such a strong word, but I don’t really like the reliance on incentive and voucher code sites. As well as the usual last click cookie stealing type of arguments we all know of, you can also end up with some rather lazy AM’s who will sit there and say to their boss “look, the affiliate channel generated £xxxxx in sales this month”, without looking at the bigger picture of incrementality. EBay have taken a bold step in the right direction by telling cashback sites that if they want to promote eBay, they have to prove that they’re adding value to the channel. But they’ve also provided the cashback sites with some exclusive offers to help them to achieve this. It’s a two way street. Erm what was the question again…?

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

Firebug with the Firecookie extension for Firefox is a definite must, along with Live HTTP Headers.

A syntax highlighting text editor – I’m a nerd and deal a fair bit in source code! GWD text editor is my preferred choice.

The almighty oracle and el presidente of all things internet – Google – Email, webmaster and keyword tools, calendar, maps, chrome etc etc. Next on my list is a Nexus One.

A good team of execs to work with and bounce ideas off!

A brew. Milk no sugar. Thanks.

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

I guess affiliates sometimes forget that we’re here to help them. We’ve dealt with tons of affiliates over many many years now, so we’ve picked up a thing or two. We’re not offended if an affiliate turns around and says “Leave me alone”, however some of our best performing affiliates were little obscure guys not so long ago, but they were the ones who were receptive to, and keen to implement some of our ideas.

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

Well if I knew the answer to that then this questionnaire would be in the “Affiliate Millionaires” section of your site. But I think we’re currently seeing a shift in the attitudes of merchants. As attitudes to the channel change, more savvy online/affiliate managers are in place, and with that comes a better understanding about the quality of the traffic affiliates are driving. EBay is the biggest example and have made a significant leap in this direction; however more traditional merchants are now asking us how they can implement a similar value reward based payment model to their affiliates.

What is on your Ipod?

Is this a loaded question? My music tastes are famed far and wide, but I like Bon Jovi at a very geeky level.

How can people get in touch with you?

Email or MSN me: JamesS@ro-eye.co.uk
Twitter: @jamesskelland
Linkedin: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/jamesskelland

Even the nations favourite the Sun was down 1.25% when compared to December 2008, the Mirror took a huge hit and was down 9.01%. If the Sun does go the way of the Dodo then think of all those poor page three girls!

Other so called quality newspapers – the Times, Guardian, Telegraph and the Financial Times all saw sales fall by 13.22%, 12.38%, 9.37% and 6.46% respectively.  People from all walks of life are obviously buying less newspapers and their business model of selling advertising space is showing signs of collapse.

Why are we all buying less newspapers?

People are now consuming news in different ways, whether that be online, TV or via a handheld device, such as an I-Phone, but consumptions inst really the problem, its’ ad consumption.

Much like radio isn’t in the music business, newspapers are not in the news business, they are in the advertising business. Without readers advertisers will not pay to advertise, simple really.

The future is online.

Newspapers need to decide a viable alternative business model and quickly. There are a number of options such as paid subscriptions or freemium’s, adopted by Spotify who offer a limited free service and paid for premium service.

Rumours are rife that Apples forthcoming ITablet will be the saviour off newspapers, only time will tell

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

I am Matt Swan and I am an Account Manager at dgm. I have been working at dgm since I graduated in 2006 and look after some of our key accounts.

Outside of work I am a bit of a football fanatic and have a season ticket at Spurs (for my sins!).

What is your day to day role?

I head up the key accounts team at dgm, taking care of some of our larger clients such as JD Williams, P&O, WWF, Haven Holidays, Wilkinsons and Orange to name a few.

I am responsible for providing reports to my clients on their affiliate activity while also working closely on the strategy in place for our clients – looking at how our clients can increase the reach of their affiliate campaign by working closely with a number of different affiliate types.

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

Prior to dgm I worked for a year with Screwfix on a placement, where I was involved in their online marketing. This is where I first heard of dgm, and when I heard they were recruiting for their graduate programme I was interested in getting more experience in dealing with a wider variety of clients. Learning about other business models and the commercial challenges that merchants face has always been of interest to me. Helping merchants to effectively monetise their affiliate campaigns is a constant challenge which I thoroughly enjoy.

What do you love about affiliate marketing?

The fact that it doesn’t stand still – no day is ever the same. There are always new opportunities for you to explore and to get the most out of for your clients. The affiliate landscape has changed so much since I started back in 2006 and it is definitely for the better.

The fact that affiliate marketing is so measurable makes it satisfying when you can actually see that your hard work has paid off, whether that is in terms of increasing traffic to a merchants website, increasing basket values and ultimately delivering more sales.

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

Dropped tracking tags and last minute changes to programs are always frustrating. It puts us in a difficult position with our affiliates if we are not notified of changes in advance so that we can ensure that our affiliates are well prepared for any changes to a campaign.

Another thing that I hate is fraudulent affiliates. These guys give our industry a bad name and it is good to see networks/agencies working together to eliminate them.

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

In no particular order:

-          The staff here at dgm are a massive help and very knowledgeable about all things affiliate. Being able to call upon our search team and our technical experts certainly makes my life a lot easier. A special mention has to go out to Jess Nathan and Ben Cockburn for all of their help.

-          Affiliates – if it wasn’t them helping to promote our campaigns then we would be fighting a losing battle

-          The A4U Forum – always good to find out what the hot topics are and the affiliates opinions on the various networks. Affiliates are always quick to post on the forum if there are any problems with our campaigns so we are able to pick up on these quickly to rectify them.

-          Affiliate blogs – always good for catching up on the latest news in affiliate marketing. Favourites include http://www.onelittleduck.co.uk, http://www.lammo.net/ and http://www.here.org.uk

-          Google Alerts – helps to pick up on any news that may be relevant to a particular merchant or sector

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

I would always try and provide examples of where I have worked effectively on a similar merchant or within a similar sector to highlight what I could do on the campaign. We always have affiliates that are looking for an exclusive whether that is a code or an increased CPA, and it would be easier for us to sell into our merchants if we had some stats to back it up.

We are always asked for figures by our clients and if affiliates could provide us with as much visibility as possible it would definitely make it easier to secure some exclusives.

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

I think that there are a few things that are really going to shape the industry moving forward…

The “last click wins” debate has been going on for a long time now and I think we will be moving further towards an affiliate contribution model where affiliates that play a part in a sale are rewarded for their work.

Obviously this is not going to please all affiliates as there are a lot of affiliates who are currently the last click that don’t want to see part of their commission given to others. It will be very interesting to see how this pans out in 2010.

Here at dgm we have an affiliate contribution model in place on JD Williams. If an affiliate plays a part in a sale but the last referrer is ultimately one of their PPC ads, the affiliate is still awarded a commission. If they are the sole referrer, this commission will be upgraded. This has been in place for just over a year now and has worked well for affiliates as well as the client.

I think that behavioural re-targeting is also going to be on the rise in 2010 and this is something that a number of clients are keen on. It is becoming more difficult to sell ad space on a traditional CPM model so there are more and more companies looking to work on a CPA deal which is beneficial to merchants.

Another thing that we are going to see is more strategic use of voucher code/cashback sites. In the past networks may have been quick to recommend these without really giving much thought to how they best fit in with a clients strategy. We will see these types of affiliates being used more strategically whether this is to aggressively take market share away from competitors or increase the average basket size of customers.

What is on your Ipod?

Anything and everything really. Been getting into Mumford and Sons recently – thanks to Kevin Sutton for recommending that one.

How can people get in touch with you?

By email is probably easiest and I will try to get back to everyone as soon as possible. Matthew.swan@dgm-uk.com. Failing that I am on IM – mattswan40@hotmail.com

Spotify have reduced its premium six-month subscription rate for UK users from £9.99 a month to £6.49.  You can thank Swiftcover for this one as its down to a recent sponsorship deal between the two that has allowed Spotify to reduce its price.

Spotify has denied that the price-cut is a response to the launch of the Sky Songs and Napster (whatever) services earlier this month, which offer unlimited streaming packages cheaper than Spotify’s normal monthly fee of £9.99.

Does this signal trouble ahead for the music streaming service. Only time will tell.