10.30.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 5:05 pm by fifi
Yes it’s Tuesday and I’m only just getting round to updating my blog after THE affiliate event of the year! I won’t do a complete dissection of the A4UExpo as loads of others have already done so but I just wanted to say a couple of things about it…
- A huge thank you to Kieron - your car is lovely (yes even in white) and the heated seats more than helped the 7 hour journey! Damn those maltesers eh…. I wish you could have seen the other drivers faces! The tunes were far better than expected but I’m still not an R’n'B fan despite his best efforts - it’s all about the indie Kieron.
- A huge thanks to Claire and Matt (and their team) at Existem - the whole event was perfectly organised - it more than met expectations and everyone I’ve spoken to had a great time, and it certainly beat the Affiliate Summit in September….
- Thanks to the lovely Garry Hamilton for making the night turn slightly bleary-eyed with Tequila just after 11pm on Wednesday! And to Kevin Edwards at Affiliate Window the following evening for doing the same thing - despite my best efforts to palm them off to a fellow Scot I was caught in action and made to drink another one
- I can’t go any further without mentioning my fellow founders of facelingerie.co.uk - Tara and Mark from UK Web Media - we are definitely onto something here! I have a few pictures which I’m sure we will be using for the launch of the site soon…
- Thanks to Simon Lewis for coming all the way to the Expo just to see us and Ramada Jarvis - the journey was appreciated and as ever it was great to catch up.
- Congrats to Affiliate Window on their awards - all two of them! And thanks for letting me in on the celebrations with the champers :)
- The end of Thursday led me to recruit 4 new body guards - guys it was much appreciated! Warrick Lambert and Laura Przybek from Buy.at, Rob Berrisford of CKNet and Frostie are a team to be reckoned with.
- Poor Colin - not only did we manage to lose each other on Friday, but he had the dubious honour of sitting in the airport with me for over 2 hours while good old BA delayed our flight… with no reason…
And Tara - we managed to share a room without any serious mishaps! Although the spooning thing in the middle of the night was kinda weird…..
Great event - can’t wait til next year! Got some time to recover before the Buy.at Christmas Cracker thank the lord.
Permalink
10.23.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:15 pm by fifi
The long-awaited affiliate marketing conference A4UExpo at the Excel in London, is almost upon us - with things kicking off tomorrow night at the pre-party held by the chaps at buy.at. Tara and I are journeying down to London with the lovely Kieron in his new car, and are due to arrive just in time for dinner! Stuart (from POR) and I will also be trying to track down the Celtic Champion’s League game against Benfica before the pre-party gets into full swing.
The first day looks set to be a great start with a whole load of presentations to choose from - I am particularly interested in the “Confluence of Search and Affiliate marketing”, plus the email marketing presentation. The case study from Experian I’m sure will also get a lot of visitors!
Then it’s off to get ready for the A4U Awards at Fox near the Excel, where we have been nominated for 3 awards! We are also delighted to be presenting the award for Best International Publisher - with Clicks2 Customers, eConversions and Net Media Planet the nominees. I’ve met Sri Sharma (Net Media) at several industry events and he is always good fun; but I work with Josh and Richard from eConversions a lot and they really are a great couple of guys so this will be an interesting one for Tara and I to present.
A few drinks (*ahem) and a couple of hours sleep later, and then it’s on to Day 2! It looks better than Day 1, Tara and I are just going to have to split into numerous people and get along to all of them…. The future of the industry is obviously something we are all interested in, particularly the changing role and nature of search - both paid and natural. Despite having a great team of search engine optimisers at Equator always on hand to help, I am really interested in the SEO 101 - then I can bowl our guys over with some link building jargon! The topic of networks and their role in the industry is one which is most certainly changing - after my recent posts on their role and what we look for in a network, I am really interested to see the thoughts of others on whether we will “Need a network in 2008″. Interesting to note that this is perfectly on a topic recently highlighted by my senior manager Tara about the blurry lines of the industry. You can see her post here.
We won’t be attending the after party - two nights out in a row plus trying to consume all this wonderful knowledge is no task for the faint hearted… If you haven’t met us before and are attending the conference then we look forward to meeting you, if we have then we are looking forward to catching up! (Providing the G&T’s aren’t £8 this time round eh Josh??). As well as Tara and I, our Head of Marketing, Martin Jordan, and one of our SEO experts, Colin Boyd, will also be attending so come and say Hi!
Permalink
10.19.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:05 am by fifi
Now we have our Christmas night out all sorted it’s now time for us to get the Equator Christmas Campaign moving. Who can believe it’s a year since the fantastic Mission Unpossible!
This year we want to make it even better! To get everyone at Equator involved we are spending this afternoon brainstorming some ideas. The allocated groups (see below) will get together and get those creative juices flowing! We’ll then be rounding everyone up and getting each team to present their idea(s). The members of the group with the best idea (as voted for by the Equator steering group) will be awarded a bottle of champagne each.
Check out our reindeer groups….
Dancer - Lachlan, Vicki, Paul, Graeme L, Jarrod, Graeme D
Prancer - Tara, Andrew, Dex, Stephen, Fraser, Cheryl, Martin
Blitzen - Sarah, Bill, Caroline, Clair L, Les, Patrick
Dasher - Suzanne, Jonathan, Gill, Elaine, Mark, David W
Donner - Clare J, Kevin, Grant, Colin, David C, Laura
Our Head of Marketing, Martin Jordan, has already come up with a great idea already so it’s game on for the rest of our teams to come up with one to compete…Good luck everyone!
Permalink
10.18.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 3:27 pm by fifi
Following on from yesterday’s post about what an agency looks for in an affiliate network, we had a visit from another one today. DGM wanted to discuss their ad network with us, as having never used it before, and always being open to new ideas, and with them being in Glasgow, now seemed as good a time as any to discuss exactly what they can do for us.
The conversation did however start with a question of why we no longer use dgmAffiliates (the affiliate network part of Deal Group Media). For those of you who are familiar with the affiliate marketing industry you will be aware that dgmAffiliates have had more than their fair share of issues over the last 18 months, and for that reason we spent most of the meeting discussing them! If you aren’t in the industry you might not even be interested - but one of the main things was the launch their new reporting system (dgmPro) and no one liked it. There are a whole host of reasons why (which if you are really interested can hear on Fraser’s blog here). From my perspective the main reasons we no longer use dgmAffiliates is because of the reporting and the level of account managment we received.
The conversation was lengthy about the problems that we have experienced - however we’re always willing to give someone another go (within reason!). It seems the last few months has seen some changes over at dgmAffiliates….
Thanks to Martin Giraud and Garth Stone for coming up to see us. It’s the first time since I have been at Equator (19 months and counting) that we have been paid a visit for a chat. It was great to get a few things off our chest about the network and the problems we had been having, and I have to say they listened and accepted what we were saying. I guess none of it was new! It does appear that some of it has already been taken into account, with changes being made to dgmPro and restructuring of the account management team. They also appear to be getting a lot of new merchants on board - so is this the start of a new era? Only time will tell.
One thing for sure is that the Expo next week will be a big thing for dgmAffiliates - as well as one of their account managers, Matt Bailey, being up for an award (in the same category as me!) it’s a massive PR exercise for the company. A lot of affiliates have very strong opinions on dgm; a lot of which will take a lot of persuading to be converted again… I will be interested to see the changes to dgmPro and compare it to the likes of Affiliate Window (which is a great system to use).
With each day we near closer to the big event at Excel London and it’s looking more and more interesting…
Permalink
10.17.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 5:54 pm by fifi
Today seemed like a good one to write my second blog post…
Martin and I have just returned from lunch with the lovely Carol Cadman-Cooke and Stuart Mathie from Paid On Results - as we are both based in Glasgow now seemed like a good a time as any for us to start looking into doing some business! Having never used this affiliate network before I can only go on others’ opinions; all of which seems to be incredibly positive (particularly from Nadeem) and their technology in the affiliate marketing industry appears to be second to none. Despite our lunch table being made available rather late the food was good and the banter even better (Stuart and I will be finding a pub showing the Celtic game next Wednesday…). We may even have persuaded them to add something interesting to their Expo stand next week… Trust me everyone will be paying their stand a visit at the exhibition!
From an agency persepective there are a number of things we look for in a network. As we have a strong affiliate management team in house we don’t want an affiliate manager from our networks. Instead we want a number of key things:
- Tracking - reliable and consistent please. It’s no use to us if we have a client report due by 12pm and we can’t get access to the userface until 5pm… Also magically appearing numbers which differ everytime we pull reports is incredibly frustrating and leads to us making numerous phone calls to networks to get things sorted.
- Reporting functionality - again time is of the essence. I want to be able to see quite quickly a snapshot of my programme(s) and its performance. Having to pull 5 reports to simply get a stats on impressions, sales, clicks and conversion rate is ridiculous!
- Affiliate contact details. A huge part of being an affiliate manager is building relationships with affiliates. How are we supposed to do this well without actually having their contact details? Generally we will have worked with a lot of the larger affiliates on one of our other programmes, but if we haven’t and can’t get access to their email or phone number via the network how are we supposed to get in touch with them? I understand the need to protect our partners and their personal information, and they obviously don’t want to get spammed with needless information all the time - but at least have the functionality to let us email them from the network interface if you aren’t going to give us their details.
- Innovative Technology - We want to stand out to our clients. We want to do all we can to make their programme/campaign a success. In order to do so we try to be at the top of our game - and we want the networks we work with to be the same. Big plus points go to Affiliate Window for their ShopWindow, and to Paid On Results for their Content Units (everyone knows how huge a success this has been for Prezzybox)
- Account Management - Whilst we are very active on forums, blogs and general industry sites, we look to our account managers at affiliate networks to be our expert on their network. No-one else should know it better. For example, Affiliate Window have a Christmas Campaign running at the moment for all of their affiliates, this is a perfect way for us to get our clients involved - but we need a network to let us know they are doing it! Pro-active account management from an affiliate network is very hard to come by yet is an essential factor of a programme’s success.
Equator use a number of affiliate marketing networks to give us the technology to run our affiliate programmes - and I have to be honest and say that none do all of the above. Some come close (namely Affiliate Window) but as always there are a number of things they could do to improve :) I will be interested next week at the Expo to see an overview of the Paid On Results interface and what they as a network can offer us.
Finally a thought on the Equator Halloween night out - 2nd November is the date and I am going as Keira Knightly in Pirates of the Caribbean… I may not be as skinny but I have an equally good right hook! Frilly shirt and funny hat here I come….
Permalink
10.01.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 1:38 pm by fifi
I know, I know, I’m slow…. But I still want to talk about it!
The event that was the Equator BBQ was it all it promised to be. At a beautiful location. On a boat. The sun was shining. And last but not least Messy. With a capital M. Bringing Cherry Vodka in hindsight was perhaps a dangerous idea, particularly with Mark and Graeme around, ready and willing at 11am. But muchos fun was had by everyone, the day was great fun, and was good for a bit of team bonding! I even saw a bit more of James, our Creative Director, than I anticipated…. I can honestly say that I am glad I left when I did though… Take a look at all the best pics on the Equator flickr account here.
Top prizes go to our Head of Marketing, Martin, for the best face ever when drinking a shot, and to one of our lovely account managers, CJ for looking particularly special at Vodka Wodka!
Speaking of prizes; Equator might be winning some! The first A4UExpo is due to be held on the 25th and 26th October, The UK’s very own industry-specific educational Affiliate Marketing Conference and Exhibition for everyone working in or across Affiliate Marketing. The event already looked set to be a great couple of days, with everyone who is anyone in this industry set to make an appearance.
To add to the excitement of the event A4U are also for the first time going to be rewarding “Excellence and Innovation in Affiliate Marketing”. After nominations being put forward back in August, the final list has been published - with all A4U members being able to vote now in a number of great categories. As well as Equator being nominated for “Publisher choice of Agency”, one of our merchants have been nominated as “Best New Merchant of 2007″. The Wickes programme is on Affiliate Window, and we are delighted that they have been presented with this nomination.
And if all that wasn’t enough, I have been given the honour of being nominated as “Best Account Manager 2007″. I have to say this was a great shock to me - there are a lot of incredibly talented people in this industry, so to be placed next to some of them in this category is very flattering. Thanks to everyone who nominated me - and please feel free to vote for me if you agree on the nominations!
I can’t mention this without saying a massive THANK YOU to my senior manager Tara Moar. Tara has been in this industry for a few years now and is without doubt one of the best people in the sector. Without her I would be no-where near getting this nomination, so it’s yours too Tara!
And so I come to an end of my first post… there will be more so keep your eyes peeled!
Permalink
Powered by FireStats