RatedPeople.com - great service with affiliate opportunities
So, my toilet broke the other day (this post is affiliate related, honest) and given that I’m hopeless at DIY I decided to get the Yellow Pages out and look for a plumber to come and give me a quote to fix. Problem was, all the ads in the Yellow Pages wanted between £50 and £100 just to send somebody out. Pirates.
It was then that I had my lightbulb moment and remembered that a friend had recommended using RatedPeople.com which is kind of like a directory of local tradesmen but with a twist. All you do is sign up - which takes 30 seconds and is free - then simply post details of the job. I.e. “My toilet won’t stop flushing!” and then literally within the space of 10 minutes I had 3 calls from local tradesmen asking if they could come round and quote for the job. Best of all, it’s free to use as a customer (they make money from the tradesmen) and none of the tradesmen who rang wanted to charge me for coming out to quote.
So, at the end of the day I got the job done for something like £40 which included the guy making a trip to plumb centre for parts and he was done within an hour. Fantastic. BTW I’m not being paid to say this but the site was very, very easy to use and actually delivered a fantastic service. I hope more people use it and it extends it’s reach. Interestingly, the plumber who I gave the job too said that the site was by far his biggest source of new clients.
Anyway…I then noticed that they had an affiliate programme on Affiliate Window. The CPA isn’t too bad either, it’s £3 per FREE JOB submitted. If you ask me this is ripe for some local search PPC. “Cheap plumbers in Sunderland” or “Find a plumber in east herrington, sunderland” anyone? Go PPC people go!
What I’m listening to right now: Robots!
Bingo.org.uk - relaunch
Today sees the redesign and relaunch of Bingo.org.uk. I launched it first time round in July 2006 but despite some good SEO results I lost interest and the site has laid dormant for almost 2 years now.
However I’ve had a rethink of my overall strategy lately and decided to focus on just a small handful of core affiliate sites, where I think the biggest earning potential exists. First of all is ShareMyPlaylists.com which, while not strictly speaking an affiliate site, is doing really well and taking up a fair amount of my time. Second up is Bingo.org.uk which I will follow up with a redesign and relaunch of Poker.org.uk later in the year.
The reason why I am going to focus on bingo and poker is really simple, it’s all about the domains. Because I have the most popular keyword domains for both bingo and poker in .org.uk form they rank REALLY well in Google. As per my “SEO results” post linked above, Bingo.org.uk used to rank on the first page of Google for the term “bingo” with very little SEO work. I found that as long as I updated the site with fresh content it would rank well. Given that bingo is one of the most lucrative and competitive sectors online this gives me a huge advantage over other bingo sites.
So the plan is to use the tools I have at my disposal at ContentNow.co.uk to create content and links for Bingo.org.uk. I’m hoping that after some work I can get back to the first page of Google for “bingo”. That’s the plan anyway, I’m not saying it will be easy but am certainly going to give it a good go. Eyes down!
If any bingo merchants want to be a part of the site then please don’t hesitate to contact me via info at bingo.org.uk.
What I’m listening to right now: 90’s R&B
Chiconomise launches, new venture from Apprentice winner Michelle Dewberry
While everyone is talking about this year’s Apprentice final (well done Yasmina), the winner of the show in 2006, Michelle Dewberry has just launched her latest venture Chiconomise.
Michelle, Lauren, Sarah and Sam from team Chiconomise.
Chiconomise started life as a newsletter that contains offers and promotions aimed at women looking for value for money in these current credit crunchy times. However, this week saw the launch of the full web portal to support the newsletter. Michelle and her team seek out the best discounts, deals and special offers from the fashion, beauty, living, travel, lifestyle and food sectors - aimed fairly and squarely at the chic female market.
I had a chat with Michelle today about why she launched Chiconomise and the thinking behind it and this is what she had to say:
“Chiconomise.com is a combination of a money saving and women’s lifestyle portal. I started it because I was fed up with trawling the web looking for deals on one site, sales on another and then content on a third. We have had a fantastic response to launch and I intend to grow it and for it to become the number of destination for everything to do with women’s money saving, lifestyle and finance.”
Part of the site is monetised via affiliate offers, so anyone looking to feature on Michelle’s site should drop the team a line at deals@chiconomise.com. You can also follow Chiconomise on Twitter @chiconomise.
Good luck to Michelle and the Chiconomise team!
What I’m listening to right now: Prince - Take Me With U
O2 let customers down with new iPhone 3G S pricing plan
Let’s be right, the new Apple iPhone 3G S is more evolutionary than revolutionary. It has a faster processor which according to Apple means apps will run twice as fast, it has a 3 megapixel camera, can shoot short videos and erm..a compass. You can now buy it as a 32GB version but other than that it’s not really a massive change to the iPhone 3G.
So you would think that given that the iPhone 3G S doesn’t give us anything that exciting or new then O2 would give existing iPhone 3G customers an incentive to upgrade wouldn’t you? Wrong.
Here in the UK, according to the official O2 Twitter feed the cost of upgrading will likely be “monthly cost x months left on your contract, but specifics may vary slightly”. So let’s say you have 6 months left on a £34.26 a month contract that’s £205.56. If you bought into an 18 month contract, which if memory serves you pretty much had to do when upgrading from the original iPhone to the iPhone 3G and have say a year left then that’s £411.12. To add insult to injury however, when you upgrade you are only given the choice of a new 18 month or 24 month (come on O2, 24 months is seriously taking the water isn’t it? There will probably be 2 new iPhones in 2 years) contract. And if you choose from the 2 lower monthly payment options - as most people will - then you have to pay an additional £274.23 for the 32GB iPhone 3G S.
Add that all up and for people on the average tariff with between 6 and 12 months remaining on the contract and it’s going to cost around £500 to upgrade to the new iPhone 3G S. Just for a compass.
To add yet more insult to injury 02 are now offering a “tethering” option. This is where you can use your iPhone 3G S as a modem for your laptop. Sounds good right? As one of the key benefits of the iPhone 3G is that you get unlimited web browsing as part of the monthly fee. Not the case for tethering though. O2 have now seen fit to charge us £14.68 a month for a lowly 3GB and a massive £29.36 a month for 10GB. I really don’t understand this pricing model one bit. It’s free to browse the web via an O2 iPhone but if you connect a laptop to it, it can be up to £29.36 a month??
Wow. O2 can you find any more ways to take your loyal existing customers eyes out? These price plans are nothing short of outrageous. I certainly won’t be upgrading and may even move to the HTC Magic on Vodafone which is free and quite possibly the better phone.
UPDATE:
What makes this even more disappointing is that when the iPhone 3G came out, existing O2 iPhone users could upgrade for free. There was no contract buy out and the 8GB iPhone 3G was available for free if customers chose a £45 or £75 a month contract. You could get a free 16GB model if you chose the £75 plan. Depending on which one of O2’s other plans customers picked, you could get a 8GB model for £99 or the 16GB model for £159 pounds.
What I’m listening to right now: DJ History Balearic Charts
Win Silverstone F1 tickets with Vodafone
How gutted was I that i didn’t attend the DGM drinks reception in the Met Bar last Tuesday before the A4U Awards? Very. If I did I would have met F1 legend Jenson Button just like Jane and Jess did. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go, it was because I was in meetings all day. Needless to say I’m gutted now.
However, thanks to Vodafone you can win the chance to win tickets to this year’s British GP at Silverstone. Here’s the details:
There are a massive nine chances to win. We’ve come up with a range of categories in the hope that all of our affiliates can find one that’s right for them to enter:
Judged Entries
1). Best Formula One Promotion
2). Best Mobile Broadband Promotion
3). Best Review of a Vodafone Product or Service
4). Best HTC Magic Promotion
5). Best Promotion of Vodafone eVoucher
6). Best Use of Email Marketing
7). Best Use of Vodafone Product Feed
Randomly Drawn Entries
8). Display of an HTC Magic banner
9). Sale made containing a Vodafone eVoucher code
Judged entries will be selected by a panel from Vodafone and our networks. The randomly drawn entries will be selected by chance. Each winning entry earns one Grandstand three-day ticket. You must nominate yourself to be able to win!
All entries must be received by Friday 12th June and winners will be notified on Monday 15th June.
To enter, send the following details to Julia.stent@vodafone.com and Giuseppe.gravano@vodafone.com:
- Your Name
- Which network you run through
- Your affiliate ID
- Email address
- Phone number
- Category you’re entering
- Details of your entry (URLs, sample creative, etc)
You can only enter each category once, but you can enter as many categories as you like!
The Details
Vodafone will be taking a group of thirteen people along to the Formula One – Giuseppe and Julia will be there along with one account manager from each of Vodafone’s networks and the nine lucky competition winners.
The tickets are full three day passes, on the 19th, 20th and 21st of June. The tickets get you entry to the Grandstand for the duration of the event. The entire race weekend looks certain to buzz with an enormous party spirit as Vodafone celebrates Lewis and Team MacLaren’s race on home turf and cheer them on each passing lap.
The best teams and drivers in single-seater motor racing have a new set of regulations to contend with in 2009. With these new regulations designed to increase the racing spectacle even higher from the past two classic seasons, which have thrown up some real surprises and incredible races, expect fireworks on this most challenging of tracks.
But of course there’s not only the Formula One, as the GP2 support category gives fans a chance to see the next generation of stars before they jump to the big time. Add to that the Porsche SuperCup, a host of other support events and Silverstone’s famous Grand Prix Party and there’s little surprise that this is the hottest ticket of the year.
If you need any more information or would like to talk through your entry please feel free to get in touch – Julia.stent@vodafone.com
This is a great incentive and one that gives everyone a chance to win. Go for it!
What I’m listening to right now: How could you break my heart?
Apps and Hats - the quirky iPhone App show
So, what do you get if you cross a lady with a passion for iPhone apps and dressing up? Apps and Hats is what. Christine Morris is a college lecturer in digital communications based in Leeds and really wanted to do video work. She looked at what was out there and noticed that predominantly it seems to be American, and male dominated, also that there was not a lot about the iPhone just yet, it was all about ‘technology’. After talking with friends and family, she realised that if she really tried to corner a narrow niche there might be a chance, plus she is iPhone app crazy (she also write reviews for the mighty 148Apps.com) so it seemed perfect logic. The hook was then needed for the show and dressing in different fashions might be enough to create a buzz about it. And guess what? It works! The show is absolutely brilliant and very well produced. Don’t ask me why but watching Christine and Hattie reviewing iPhone apps while dressed up in off-the-wall outfits just kind of works.
Behind the scenes with Christine on the left and Hattie on the right.
The show currently airs every 2 weeks but Christine is looking to change this it because it really needs to be every week. Each episode (6 minutes) they choose from one of the app store categories and Hattie reviews a free app and Christine choose a paid-for one. Then there is a ‘one more byte’ feature at the end which is some current tech, anything really, they had about iPhone app development one week, the madness of FlightControl another etc… They are also available as a video podcast on iTunes.
Cool.
So if you’re looking for reviews and news on the latest iPhone apps, coupled with some seriously stylish girls then head on over to Hats and Apps. you can also follow Christine (@CMoz) and Hattie (@hati_medd) on Twitter as well as the official @Appsandhats feed.
On a final note, the girls are looking for sponsors. So if you would like to get involved in this awesome project them please drop them a line.
What I’m listening to right now: Armand Van Helden - The Boogie Monster
A sad day and also a new opportunity
I feel kind of sad that Buy.at have, after nearly 3 years stopped advertising on this blog. I still remember the day when Big Mal (now a movie star) rang me up and said that he liked the blog and Buy.at would like to support it by taking out an advertising slot. In those days Buy.at were still very grass roots and were reaching out into the affiliate community to help grow their network. They saw advertising on here as a good way of communicating their programmes to a very targetted audience. However, people and departments change and blog advertising isn’t part of the overall marketing strategy at the moment for Buy.at. This is absolutely fair enough, I appreciate that positions change and budgets can come and go. I just feel a bit sad on a personal level as Buy.at were my first sponsor. Silly to feel sentimental about a sponsor, maybe it’s because Buy.at are based local to me in Newcastle and I had a great working relationship with the “old guard” 
Naturally though things change and Buy.at are now part of AOL and they’re a different beast altogether. Lots of the key staff (with a few exceptions) have now moved on. Perhaps nost telling is the fact that Buy.at weren’t shortlisted in the “Innovative Affiliate Network of the Year” at this year’s A4U Awards. I would hope to see this change by the time the awards come around next year and after speaking to a couple of their staff the other night, I think they recognise there are still opportunities for them to strengthen their links within the affiliate community.
Anyway….what this all means is that I now have a 728×90 ad slot available on this blog for the first time in 3 years. For now I’ve filled it with a ShareMyPlaylists.com ad but it’s available for either £410 a month or £450 a month. More details here. So if there are any affiliate networks, agencies or even merchants who want to feature their affiliate programme please get in touch.
What I’m listening to right now: Jagged Edged – “Let’s Get Married” – (Jermaine Dupri 09 Remix)
Meet the Affiliate Doctors
I frequently receive emails from affiliates asking for advice, and on occasion I receive the odd pitch for new ideas. Earlier this year, Steve Kenny contacted me to see if I would be interested to take part in a new project of his. Steve had contacted me a couple of times in the past with some questions as a newcomer to affiliate marketing, and as always, I try to answer as many questions as I can. However, Steve has come up with an idea to take things one step further …
… and I’m happy to announce that I will be taking part to help people out.
What’s it all about?
Questions and answers to put it simply.
With a majority of the proposed doctors completely unknown to Steve, he pitched a number of well respected industry experts (and me) in a range of fields such as SEO, general affiliate marketing, PPC, copywriting and blogging to see whether they would be interested in becoming an ‘Affiliate Doctor’.
Whether you’re completely new to affiliate/online marketing in general, or a seasoned pro looking for a different viewpoint, you can submit your questions to the ‘Clinic’ and have the Affiliate Doctors give you their honest opinion.
For those a little braver, you can take it one step further - the ‘Surgery’. Here you can submit your site and have the doctors give a critique, suggesting ways in which you can improve or optimise it in areas such as design, SEO, copy, conversion and linking.
All questions and site critiques will be posted in the relevant section of the site.
Why is it so cool?
It’s free. You have unprecedented access to some of the most respected people in the industry, and you will be getting specific, highly relevant advice that is directly related to your problem.
With a top line up of Docs, you can expect feedback from the following people:
Al Carlton (Blogging, SEO, Outsourcing)
Chris Clarkson (General, Sunshine.co.uk Merchant)
Frank Paul (SEO, General, Domainer)
John Lamerton (General, Blogging, Content)
Kier Marston (Webgains Affiliate Network)
Kieron Donoghue (General, SEO, Blogging, Twitter)
Kirsty McCubbin (PPC, Copywriting, SEO)
Mark Russell (Existem Affiliate Management Agency)
Patrick Altoft (SEO, Blogging, General)
Shane Robinson (PPC, General, SEO)
To maximise the benefit, try to be as specific as you can with any questions/sites submitted, and where possible, put it into context with some background info to help us answer your questions as fully as we can. More info can be found in the About and FAQ sections, so do take a minute to have a look.
If you have any burning questions that you would like any of us to take a look at, mosey on over and Ask a Doctor now.
WhatI’m listening to right now: General 80’s/90’s Goodness
Does your logo speak?
The following is a guest post from Ben Johnson of Logoinn, custom logo design service provider based in UK. Logoinn designed the logo for my “Bring Spotify to the USA” facebook group and come recommended.
Among all the significant activities of marketing and branding, logo designing is considered to be the most crucial. A well-designed logo speaks to the people and tells what your business is all about. But sometimes people get tired of looking at the same logo again and again. No wonder why Google changes its logo when any holiday or anniversary comes, because they want to portray the more dynamic feel and to show that their logos actually talk to the public.
Case Study: Google Doodle
According to Google
“At Google, we like to reflect the ever-changing world of our users through the logo designs on our homepage. These ‘doodles’ celebrate different people, events or special dates and are designed by our original Doodler, 30-year-old Dennis Hwang.”
If we go back to the history of Google, the first ever dynamic Google logo (they call it Doodle) was designed by the Larry Page and Sergey Brin themselves. It was designed for the Burning Man festival in the summer of 1999. They created this in case their site crashed, and for browsers that were wondering why the phones weren’t being answered. Now the browsers would know they left for the festival.
Later on, they hired a graphic designer named Dennis Hwang, who has now become the official doodle maker of Google. He draws the designs by his own hands and then computer graphed them. Dennis has designed nearly 150 doodles up till now. At present, Google designs Doodles for nearly every event, and place it on their website for certain period of time.
The last doodle was placed at April 27, 2009, in which Google celebrated the birthday of Samuel Morse, and displayed it all across its homepages. Samuel Morse was an American painter who created the single wire telegraph system using Morse code. This code is a type of character encoding that transmits telegraph information using rhythm. This doodle is in the same Morse code.
Conclusion
Google has been using doodles which come with slight changes according to the events. This branding tactics reflect Google’s image as a more advanced and up-to-date company, and also shows their affection with the events. This not only looks eye-catching to the customers but also helps Google to position its brand dynamically. Hence, you can be the one who can use this tactics to brand your company by using dynamically designed logo on your website at every event. You can even develop an event calendar to get your logo designed before any event arrives. Make your logo to actually speak to your customer.
Ref: http://www.google.co.uk/doodle4google/
What I’m listening to right now: The Dream feat. Kanye West – “Walking On The Moon”
Talk Talk do not understand Affiliate Marketing - brand protection gone mad
How very sad to see Talk Talk getting affiliate marketing completely and utterly wrong. This morning I received an email from their Affiliate Network, Tradedoubler announcing the Talk Talk affiliate programme relaunch. Here it is:
Hi Kieron,
Apologies for the delay in this whole process, it has been a challenge finalizing the relaunch details as there have been several levels of sign off but we have come to an agreement. The criteria to rejoin Talk Talk has changed slightly along with a new payment process.
1) All affiliates joining the program (s) must be a registered company
2) All affiliates must be credit checked (http://www.experian.co.uk/index-c.html) and provide the proof of the check to M-Chi (Agency), and,
3) The programs are changing to a 60 day pending sales period where sales are only recognized upon a complete connection at the users end, upon which the affiliate will paid.
If you meet the above criteria and are still interested in promoting TalkTalk please send over your credit check report and I can turn you back on
Thanks
I don’t have a problem with point 3, I know it can take a long time for broadband sales to be registered so this is fair enough.
Point 2 is a little bit over the top in my opinion. Why do affiliates need to be credit checked? Talk Talk are the ones who will be paying us commissions on valid sales so surely they should be credit checked and not us? What am I missing here?
Point 1 is where I have a real big problem. Why on earth would Talk Talk only allow affiliates who have registered companies to join their programme? Maybe their misguided thinking is that is an affiliate is a registered company then they must be “legitimate” and therefore worthy of promoting their brand? How utterly and completely ridiculous. There are lots and lots of very good affiliate sites and blogs out there run by affiliates who aren’t registered companies. They are just as ethical and legitimate as some of the bigger affiliates so why cut these guys out? It could be that they’re just starting up or it could be that they don’t see the benefit of operating under a registered company. This does not mean they should be discriminated against though.
Actually I’m a perfect case in point. Back when I was just starting out in or around 2000, I was the biggest broadband affiliate in the UK. I was generating tens of thousands of broadband sales a month. Broadband merchants were paying me huge CPA’s and tenancy deals and they all wanted to be on my sites. Was I a registered company at that point? No.
I understand that large companies are getting increasingly precious about their brand but if managed well they can still keep control of it’s use by affiliates without having to resort to this draconian behaviour. After all, lets be clear, affiliates have to be approved by the merchant, so they can simply refuse unscrupulous affiliates who want to join their programme. Networks have all sorts of clever technology to identify and stop affiliate fraud these days so the chances of letting the less desirable affiliates through are slim. I think it also needs to be said that the merchant, Talk Talk in this case has the last say in whether commissions should be approved or not. It’s easy to click that “reject” button.
It just makes me laugh that Talk Talk have such a giant ego that they think affiliates must jump through all of these ridiculous hoops just so we can promote them on a performance based basis. I mean come on! If we were positioning ourselves as nice shiny “digital” agencies and fleecing charging Talk Talk tens of thousands of pounds a month to run CPM campaigns on some popular sites then maybe, just maybe they would have a right to ask for a credit check or insist that we are a registered company. But that’s not the case, we are merely humble affiliates who promote Talk Talk for FREE on our sites. Yes for FREE! We give them our traffic that we work so hard (and sometimes pay for) to generate and then give them banner impressions and clicks all for FREE. All we ask is that if we generate a sale for you, that you pay us a commission. Now isn’t that simple and very, very fair? I think so.
So come on Talk Talk, stop being so utterly ridiculous and play fair. By discriminating against affiliates who don’t run registered companies you are not only missing out on lots of sales but you’re really pissing off the affiliate community.
What I’m listening to right now: Chrissette Michelle – “Mr Right”
Welcome to my blog. My name is Kieron Donoghue and I run UK Offer Media Ltd. I thought it would be fun to post a daily (well hopefully daily) blog, writing about my experiences in Internet Marketing and more specifically Affiliate Marketing. I'll include some personal stuff too, probably about my other passions, music and cars. Please feel free to post your comments and thoughts too.
