Affiliate Marketing Blog from UK Offer MediaWelcome to Kieron’s blog - the life and times of an Internet Marketeer

Kieron, how do you find special offers to feature on your site?

This is one of the questions that I get asked most frequently, take this colourful email I received the other day for example:

Hello Kieron,

How are you? Full of beans, I fervently hope.

I’m Sam and I’m currently freelancing for xxxxxx. I was rather hoping you might be able to give me a spot of advice - I found you on Affialiates4U and thought you seemed just the fellow.

I’m setting up a website for xxxxxx which presents their readers with offers suitable for them. However, I am having a spot of bother actually finding these offers - I’ve registered at Paid on Results, and found a few there; and also at TradeDoubler and Buy.at, but cannot figure out how you find offers from the merchants you have affiliated yourself with. UKOffer.com seems to overflowing with them, you clever devil - but how? I’d better point out that the website I’m setting up will only exist for a couple of months, until the promotion is over, so we’re not in competition or anything.

I’m not sure what I can offer you in exchange for advice; perhaps an amusing story? Thanks in advance,

Sam

So as Sam’s email made me smile I thought I would answer it here and hopefully it will be of use to others too. BTW Sam did tell me who he was working for but I thought I would respect his privacy and not publish his details here.

So, first of all Sam, you’ve joined 3 UK affiliate networks, but there are plenty more. Here’s a list of the UK networks that I work with and can recommend.

www.advertising.com
www.affiliatefuture.com
www.affiliatemarketing.co.uk
www.affiliatewindow.com
www.affilinet.com
www.buy.at
www.cj.com
www.dgmpro.com
www.linkshare.com/uk
www.omguk.com
www.paidonresults.com
www.premieraffiliates.com
www.smart-quotes.com
www.silvertap.com
www.tradedoubler.com
www.webgains.com

There are a couple of smaller affiliate networks around but I haven’t used them so can’t vouch for them. I’ve used all of the above so have no problem recommending them.

Once you have signed up to all of the above networks you will then need to sign up to to individual affiliate programmes that you think will be of interest to your readers. Then, once you have signed up you will find that you will receive emails from merchants when they have special offers, discount codes etc. This is how I get most of my discounts to be honest, I just wait for them to appear in my inbox. The secret is to sign up to as many affiliate programmes as possible to ensure you get the most amount of promotions in your inbox and therefore more content to use on your website. Some people complain that they get too many emails from merchants, not me however. As long as the email is relevant and telling me something that is useful then the more the merrier.

Hint, if you are looking for any specific affiliate programmes then use Affiliate Bounty. It’s a directory of most UK affiliate programmes and will tell you what network they are on and what commission rates they offer etc. It isn’t 100% up to date but its pretty good for a free resource.

Another fantastic resource for affiliate marketing in the UK is the Affiliates 4U forum. It is the biggest and best affiliate forum in the UK and most of the major networks and many merchants participate in it. There are individual forums for retail, special offers and many more. Bookmark this site and check back daily as the most proactive merchants are always posting special offers and promotions etc.

Blogs: Some networks and merchants have their own blogs in which they publish their news and latest consumer promotions. Here are some of the best:

Webgains Blog- This is the best affiliate network blog ever. It’s updated daily with the latest offers etc from all of Webgains merchants. I get loads of good stuff from here.

Affiliate Program Advice - news and updates for merchants managed by Jess and her crew.

R.O. Eye Blog - merchant news from programmes managed by R.O. Eye.

Existem Affiliate Management - blog featuring loads of offers and promotions from their merchants.

Sunshine Blog - if you’re involved in travel then you can do a lot worse than hooking up with these guys.

Prezzybox blog- the latest goodies from gift/gadget merchant Prezzybox.

I’m really surprised that more merchants and affiliate networks don’t have their own blog. It’s a great way to promote your programme to your users, I for one use the Webgains blog every day. Networks could even charge their merchants for featuring on the blog, another revenue stream there guys!

Mailing lists - A few affiliate networks publish weekly mailing lists that feature the latest promotions, special offers, discount codes etc. As far as I know, Buy.at, Affiliate Window, Linkshare (although a bit sporadic) and Affiliate Future do this. So get in touch with your network contacts and ask to be added.

Last but not least do your own detective work. There’s nothing to stop you visiting the websites of the retailers you are promoting and see what the headline offers are. More often than not these aren’t always communicated via the affiliate channel so you can end up promoting offers that no other affiliates are promoting.

Does anybody else have any other methods for finding special offers to promote? Or have I missed off any other good resources?

What I’m listening to right now: Pleasure P – “Encore”

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Saturday, April 19th, 2008 at 2:31 pm and is filed under Affiliate Marketing, Affiliate Networks, Affiliate Programs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.