Rob Berrisford.com

This is a guest post from a good friend of mine and Head of Shop Window Amo Sokhi.

I’m pleased to announce that we have launched v2 of ShopWindow this morning.

Since launching last year, we have been collating feedback from all of our partners (both brands and affiliates) with the intention of refining the shopping service further.

Eight months on and we have v2 which offers a much better search function and an improved user journey through to click. Ultimately a major focus has been on ensuring a user is driven through, increasing conversion rates from the product pages within the shopping service. A demo of the new functionality can be seen at www.shopwindow.com , with all new versions available within the interface as of this morning.

Managed Widgets

Along with this release, we’ve also released a managed widgets service, offering managed content to all affiliates within particular categories.

Affiliates can now log into their accounts and select a widget to integrate that has products pre-selected within it, managed by us (ShopWindow).  This basically allows affiliates to integrate widgets and not worry about the maintenance side of things as we will update them every week.

Our launch demo is within the entertainment categories (books, CDs, DVDs, and gaming), for which we have integrated some managed charts and new releases widgets. Check it out at http://entertainment.shopwindow.com .

As always, our system takes custom templates which you can integrate yourselves, so the widgets can still look exactly as you need them to. 

I think that our main drive for this has been the fact that many of you guys have portfolios of sites for a variety of sectors, and where possible we should help you make content relevant and fresh.

It’s all really good stuff, and we are pleased with our developments so far. I’d definitely recommend taking a look at the managed widgets if you don’t work with ShopWindow already, and if you do, upgrade your shops now J

Cheers

Amo

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(not that i go to this sort of establishment obviously)

I was chatting to some mates this weekend about strip clubs and the things they do to take advantage of their drunk and horny customers.

In this line of work you tend to end up in lappys quite a bit. The industry is made up, in its bulk, by men, I know there are some very good ladies working in the industry, but the fact is, there are more men, meaning that social gatherings end up in these establishments some times.

I am not going to get into an argument about the rights and wrongs of peelers, just highlight how strippers and managers take advantage and how blokes tend to fall for it and how we can learn from these experiances.

1: Do business for the right reasons

Lets get this straight exotic dancers are in this for the money, they are not dancing for the fun of it and they do not “really like you”. Thinking you are in love with a stripper on a drunken night out is a very quick way to spend £300 on dances then go home alone.

2: Discuss payment terms before signing a Contract

This is a popular habbit of gentlemens establishments, charging you a 20% service change for drinks and dances paid for on a card. It doesn’t cost them any more to conduct business via credit card then ASDA so why do they add 20% on the top?

3: Consider your options before signing a contract.

Business shouldnt be done in the heat of the moment, you should always weigh up the risk reward of business transactions, consider what you are getting for your money and what you will gain from this transaction. By this i am talking about “shall i keep going?”.

Anyone got any to add?

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Well the affiliate awards have come round quickly haven’t they?

Matt and the rest of the A4U team have decided to split the expo and the awards into summer and winter events, which is a good idea I guess.

Last year someone suggested running the affiliate raspberries, but I am not sure if they ever really got off the ground.

I thought I would take up the mantle this year, maybe give out the awards in a pub the week before the main event, not sure how keen sponsors will be.

Initial thoughts around the raspberry categories are:

Biggest Ego in Affiliate Marketing, Network Side.

Biggest Ego in Affiliate Marketing, Affiliate Side.

Biggest Ego in Affiliate Marketing, Merchant Side.

Most overrated Merchant

Most overrated Network

Most overrated Affiliate

Worst Program Launch of the year

Scariest Affiliate

Worst Haircut in Affiliate marketing

Worst Dresser In Affiliate Marketing

Funniest Blog

The award for life time averageness

All nominations will be completely confidential, and the final winners will be decided by a panel. If anyone has any more suggestions for awards do pipe up.

****************************************

Sorry, email nominations to rob at ck - net dot com or via the contact page

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I have to confess I don’t spend much time on the forum (sorry Matt). I have most of the blogs on RSS and pop onto see if there are any new blogs knocking around.

When I do on occasion go on the forum, a large bulk of the comments seem to be giving stick to some of the networks/ merchants. I am not saying some people don’t deserve it but that is how it appears.

After a quick read about the “Next Situation”, I was thankful I didn’t work at a network any more.

I spent 9 “interesting” months at dgm and still have some good friends there, along with the dgm’ers that have moved to other networks. So I think I have a fairly good view of what life is like both sides of the fence.

I thought I would pop my thoughts on the advantages and disadvantages of both roles down.

Network

Advantages

Constant Wages – one of the main benefits of life network side is regular wages, these are there no matter what happens (within reason). An affiliates income can drop massively overnight through no fault of their own, though on the flip side it can increase overnight.

Infrastructure - I never thought I would miss the infrastructure of a network job, but it is quite comforting. With a board above you making decisions for you and peers watching your back it is easier to rest easy at night without checking your blackberry every 30 seconds.

Disadvantages

Abuse – It is actually quite difficult to do right when you work network side, well at least that is what it feels like some times. Affiliates will always direct their frustrations towards the network and network staff, sometimes wrongly.

During cases of commission drops, network staff will fight hard to stop this from happening because they know it will kill a program and they earn a % override so any drop in commission hits them in the pocket.

Then again I worked at dgm during dgm pro migration so I will never have great memories regarding speaking to most affiliates.

Bonus – Although senior network staff probably earn more than a good percentage of affiliates, their earnings will never be as closely tied to their productivity as an affiliate’s.

As an affiliate it is satisfying to see profits going into your pocket, as a network account manager it is sometimes frustrating to see it going into the CEOs.

Affiliate

Advantages

No Boss – This is still the case for 99% of affiliates, which is a nice thing, being in charge of your own destiny. Though there are some of us that are affiliate side and still have a boss (you wish Chris).

Flexible hours - Again this is still the case for 99% of affiliates, if you want to take the afternoon off, as long as I don’t have a meeting, it isn’t a problem.

Though it becomes more difficult when it comes to taking holiday, most affiliates can’t just swan off without looking in on things every day.

Competitors – I have never been in an industry where I got on so well with majority of my competitors. In my network days it was unheard of to talk to an account manager from another network. Now it is more common, but not as frequent as affiliate side.

Disadvantage

Unpredictable – Things change quickly online, and with no warning. Things like the Google quality score threatened to wipe out many of affiliates. Although this obviously affects the networks too, the staff are all on a wage, meaning that they will be alright for money at least in the short term.

Again this is only a quick post, it would be great to hear from affiliates and network staff alike.

In particular people who have sat both sides, Paddy? Duncan P?

What are the disadvantes of being an affiliate? Any more advantages? Network side? What do you think? Jess Nathan, you are always pestering me to update the blog yet i have never seen you post a comment.

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This is another project I started a while ago, I have already got some great feedback from some of the big hitters in the industry but it would be great to get some more input from people I don’t know out there.

I am looking to compile a list of the most influential individuals in affiliate marketing.

I think this could be extremely interesting, there are a huge number of lists of the biggest companies, networks and agencies but as we all know it is the people that make this industry what it is.

Who are the people you need to keep on the right side of? If you need advice who would it be great to have access to? Who is going to know where the next year will take us?

I am thinking about splitting it out into, Affiliates/ Affiliate managers, Merchant Managers, Network Staff and Agency Staff, plus a list of other influential parties like bloggers or media owners.

If you could email me a list of 5 from each catagory, I am hoping to start publishing these lists in the next couple of weeks with your help.

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