Most of you reading this will probably be thinking, so what, I wouldn’t touch IE with a barge pole, no big deal. Millions of people in Europe are not quite as internet savy and will use IE as standard. It will never have even crossed their minds that there is an alternative internet browser out there. This ruling has been on the card for a while now and is probably why we have seen Google Chrome adverts everywhere.

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

All questions I wish I had the answers to.

The focus of affiliate marketing is changing and as merchants become more switched on, questions about quality are being asked more and more. The last click wins model and multi channel attribution models are among the hot topics that will continue to be debated during 2010.

How does affiliate marketing solve the problem of quality traffic?

Well, what is quality traffic?

This is down to the merchant to decide what they deem as quality and how they want to measure this and reward accordingly. Some merchants simply look at the bottom line i.e. what do I spend and what do I make? If one number is higher than the other then its working.

Other normally larger merchants have new customer targets; they want to ensure that any advertising or promotion results in new customers and have strict CPA targets.

Some merchants analyse every single channel and touch point to determine its success and have the resource and knowledge in-house to manage this.

The first stage is surely to decide what you as a merchant determine what quality is to you. There is no point in a traditional network developing their tracking to reward affiliates for quality if it’s a one size fits all solutions. The network would have to determine the quality metrics and those metrics may not suite a large number of merchants.

Amazon’s affiliate programme has something called a session cookie which does exactly what is says on the tin, expires when you close your browser and end your current session. Arguably Amazon has done this from a quality point of view. If the affiliate has done a good job in the presale then as soon as someone lands on the Amazon site they should have their credit card in hand ready to buy. If not then that affiliate has not driven quality traffic and they are not rewarded.

EBay famously changed their commission model to reward affiliates for quality over quantity and no doubt many merchants would like to do the same. The eBay payment model is a CPC model that rewards affiliates more for higher quality traffic. The quality of the traffic is assessed by looking at both short term and long term value to eBay.

In a nutshell if someone lands on your affiliate site that promotes lawnmowers and then clicks through to eBay and purchases a bike, this is seen as less quality traffic than if someone had purchased a lawnmower.  There are a number of other factors involved in eBay decided what it deems quality and a great resource can be found here.

Ebay have determined there own quality metrics and this has been possible due to them moving away from a traditional network and developing their own in house network, the eBay Partner Network. Not a luxury all merchants can afford and it is why we, as industry must take measures to ensure quality can be measured.

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

Question: What is the best way to get rich?

Answer: Qucikly….

In reality this isn’t the easiest way but it is certainly the best.  Good advice and help is hard to come by for anyone trying their hand at affiliate marketing.

The net is awash with get rich quick schemes and dodgy ebooks. Most newbie’s will read something about Jeremy Shoemoney or Kieron Donoghue making truck loads of cash by doing nothing. What they won’t read about is how long and how hard they have been working at doing nothing, probably the best part of 10 year – if not longer. The moral of the story is that nothing comes easy and overnight success usually takes 10 years.  If you are starting out in affiliate marketing then good luck, don’t give up and keep trying. Treat any failure as feedback, learn from it and move on. Remember short of winning the lottery or finding out your great uncle twice removed owns half of Halifax, the only way to get rich is to work hard and stick at it.

I have decided to trial a new feature here at Kinky Afro. A featured called Unsung Heroes of Affiliate Marketing. The aim is to feature people that are involved in Affiliate Marketing, people who are vital to the day to day running of a successful affiliate programme. Some of these people you may know, some you may not but each of them has a unique role in the industry we all work in.

I hope you find these posts useful and if you would like to be featured in this series then please feel free to get in touch here.

First on the list is Ken Cheung from Blue Barracuda. Ken is a great guy and extremely approachable. You can read his interview below.

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

I’m Ken, affiliate manager at Blue Barracuda, I essentially oversee all of our clients with anything to do with affiliate, comparison and affinity relationships, I also oversee the campaigns we run, as an affiliate on Findanyfilm.com (http://www.findanyfilm.com), our affiliate site. I also run a few of my own sites including customminifig.co.uk (http://www.customminifig.co.uk), 40kimperialguard.co.uk (http://www.40kimperialguard.co.uk) and Freebie Town (http://www.freebietown.co.uk)

I got into affiliate marketing just after uni and have been doing it ever since. Working network, agency and affiliate side, the only thing I’m missing is merchant side experience, which I’ve kind of touched on with one of my sites. I genuinely believe you need to see the whole picture to be any good as an affiliate manager. Being an affiliate manager isn’t as simple as approving affiliates and checking for fraud.

What is your day to day role?

The great thing about affiliate marketing is each day is different, sure I’ve got my usual tasks such as approving affiliates managing newsletters and codes, but the really juicy stuff is with all the planning, negotiating and analysis, which we do a lot of. We plan for clients yearly, quarterly and monthly, we also send our clients reports with full analysis on a weekly monthly and yearly basis, its only with this level of clarity and depth of analysis that we can really help grow our clients campaigns and make a difference to their bottomline. After work I usually spend a few hours on my own sites, its here that I really get to relax, but also learn about new techniques and understand more fully what strategies affiliates are taking to market affiliate programs. Affiliate marketing moves so quickly you really need to be an affiliate to be able to understand what affiliates are doing and how they are doing it.

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

My previous job was at another agency where I was part of the team that setup the affiliate management proposition and setup their network. In 2008/09 affiliate marketing was the Buzz word it seemed that every agency wanted an affiliate department, regardless of if they had the infrastructure to support it.

What do you love about affiliate marketing?

From an agency side, its innovative and fun, I get to meet some of the most entrepreneurial people and be at the forefront of what’s happening online. As a general rule because affiliates use all sorts of different strategies such as PPC, SEO and Display, you end up getting a very broad idea about how each of these media channels work, which obviously helps you in an agency where all these channels are separate. Affiliate is also all about making sales, and so you end up being very aware of your clients financial needs and requirements, which in turn helps you from a finance perspective. To put it simply, working in affiliates gives you the best skill set compared with other channels and industries, because the rules haven’t been set and there’s still room for growth, it’s a real opportunity to make your mark.

As an affiliate I love the fact that after a day in the office I go home check my stats to find I’ve made a massive sale that’s paid for all my sites and hosting. It’s a great feeling when you’ve been out with friends and you come home to find you’ve actually earned more than your beer money in the same time. Obviously, like any other affiliate, the dream is to have a long term income that doesn’t really take too much to maintain.

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

I have to admit there are things a that really annoy me about affiliate marketing, Hackers and fraudsters being the main thing, there needs to be more done to stop this kind of behaviour online, let along within affiliate marketing. Other things such as Brand name bidding, cookie ‘napping/dropping’ really irk me, but that’s really part of the game, lastly clients don’t always ‘get’ affiliate marketing, and I don’t think there’s enough education about this. Overall, however affiliate marketing isn’t all that bad.

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

Google for sure, and some of the tools google provide, Hitwise and comscore are awesome, as is the affiliates4u forum. I try and read all the affiliate blogs especially Genos, and if I can get my hands on it I’ll real Igaming news (casino affiliate stuff) and revenue magazine (generic affiliate stuff), the BBC and the economist really come in handy as well. To be honest I don’t have a set of tools, but anything that gives me the information I’m looking for quickly and accurately ticks the box.

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

As an affiliate I tend to try and actually speak with the affiliate manager, more can get done in a phone call or a  meeting than over a series of emails, I’ve actually had to deal with this as an affiliate manager and we’ve seen some good response from affiliates, affiliates need to be more predictable and make us (affiliate managers) aware of what they are doing, when they are doing it and for how long, affiliates often expect creative (as an example) done instantly, when the reality is for some of our clients this could be 2/3 months before a graphic designer is scheduled in to do the work, if we as an agency know before hand, we’re in a far better position to allocate resource, prep the client and plan accordingly.

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

Controversial as it sounds I think sooner or later affiliate marketing will take over Display and the main ‘content’ based online marketing format, but this could be years away. For 2010, I think discount codes will still be big, but more things will happen to control this space, attribution and innovative commission structures will develop and I think datafeeds/ comparison will be a big thing for 2010. I think we’ll also see more affiliate merging different type of sites together, eg. Voucher codes merged with price comparison, we’re already seeing some of this with Kelkoo. I think PPC as an affiliate will get really difficult as less brand bidding is allow and less direct linking is permitted and this area of the industry will eventually get absorbed into agency in-house PPC teams.

What is on your Ipod?

Hahaha, this is tragic, I’ve got Wreckless Eric playing as well as a load of classical stuff and dance music, eclectic to say the least, but all music that I can just work for hours to.

How can people get in touch with you?

You can reach me on k0106765<at>yahoo<dot>co<dot>uk for affiliate stuff, ken@bluebarracuda.com for affiliate management stuff and on my phone – 07809572028

Thanks Ken

ASOS the extremely popular on-line fashion site has reported a 47%  sales increase in the six months to September and a massive 110% increase in international sales. Nick Robertson, chief executive of ASOS has recently relieved that two new postage options are to be added in coming months.  One of which is  the  ”Supersave” option, where customers pay less for deliverys that maye take longer than a standard postage fee. The other “ASOS Premium”, where customers will get free delivery by paying an annual fee.

In recent times ASOS have also launched a same day delivery service within a 50 mile radius on the warehouse.

No wonder profits at ASOS are on the rise, even in these times, ASOS is a lesson to all on-line retailers of how it should be done.

Today is a good day to be working in online advertising, it was announced that online ad spend now accounts for 23.5% of advertising spend overtaking TV for the first time. While this is  great news for anyone working in online its not all good, it is also reported that total ad spend in the UK is down a massive 17%.

No doubt the last 12 months have been tough for us all (especially if you are in TV) but these figures are a positive indication that online is holding its own, and actually still growing.

Guy Phillipson, chief executive of the IAB, said: “Internet advertising has beaten all expectations to achieve growth in the most challenging market conditions.”

TV ad spend has fallen by 16.1%, according to the figures from the Advertising Association and WARC. Historically TV has been the ad man’s preferred method of advertising, as well as the largest,  but has now been overtaken but what six years ago was the smallest.

Why is this?

Well one of the main reasons must be down to measurability, something that you still cant be 100% sure of with TV and traditional press advertsing.  With search, display and affiliate marketing traditional marketers are waking up to the level of measurability that these forms of advertising allow them. Being able to analysing the return on investment, especially in these turbulent times, is one reason why online advertising will no doubt continue to grow.