“The a4uAwards nominations have just opened last week, so consider voting for CJ and your favourite CJ Account Manager here. Thank you.”

Emmanuel Ogidan

Account Director  

“Don’t set up a UK voucher code site! I know at least 15 publishers who are creating new voucher code sites as we speak and came across three more at the affiliate gathering in Canary Wharf, London last week.

I always say to publishers ‘think niche’. And if you must set-up a voucher code site, perhaps consider targeting some continental European markets rather than the saturated UK; countries like Germany have a dearth of voucher code sites.”

Florian Gramshammer

Senior Sales Manager

“In any PPC campaign, where possible, always split test your ads: create two ads in each ad group and let them run for a while. When it is apparent that one is outperforming the other, replace the less good one with a new one and start again. Over time you will gradually improve the performance of your campaign and save money!

If you want help with deciding when two ads have been running long enough to say confidently that one is performing better than the other, try using Brian Teasley’s free tool at SplitTester.com.”

James Lamb

Business Intelligence Engineer

“There are times when you’re trying to find out if there’s an affiliate or network link behind a text link or banner, but it’s masked or the URL changes too quickly for you to see the redirect URLs!

A tool called ‘Charles’ allows you to see all the URLs once you click on a text link or banner. You can download it here (I’ve been using it as a free trial for quite a while and it has not expired).”

Jason Baker

Head of Agency Account Management and Publisher Development

The presentation should be really interesting. It is in the Online Marketing Theatre if you want to attend.

As well as this our sister company Mediaplex will be exhibiting at the event on stand G41 so make sure you pop by to say hello!

Vikki has joined us in Emmanuel’s team to support him strategically and tactically with the portfolio he oversees as Account Director. Would you like to know more about Vikki? Let me start with a photo of her which looks like a happy holiday snap.

And now let us take the time to get to know her more with a quick interview

So you are an Account Manager at CJ. What did you do before you worked here?

Well I worked as a Marketing Manager for a Canadian software company called Eedo. It was a private company which merged with a US company last year called OutStart who are the leading provider for Social Business and Learning Solutions (Editor’s note - I think that we could have probably guessed Vikki’s job title from the way she  described her previous company).

Where do you come from? Tell us a little bit about it.

I live in Greenwich in south-east London which is also where time is from. As well as Greenwich I have also lived in Sardinia for six months, France for six months and Florida for a year and a half.

What interests you in affiliate marketing?

As someone who has worked in marketing, I find affiliate marketing interesting primarily because of the results it can deliver if used well. I enjoy the fact that it is so fast-growing because it is cost-efficient and quantifiable for both the affiliate and the merchant. It seems like it is a win-win solution if you know what you are doing on both sides.

How are you finding CJ so far?

The training has been great and the people are so welcoming, friendly and helpful (collective CJ blush). I’m excited to be working with a fantastic network of people in a constantly-changing industry and I look forward to meeting people in the wider industry over the coming months.

Let’s up the pace for some quickfire questions

• What are your hobbies?
• Snowboarding, running, power-kite flying (eh?) and diving.
• What is your favourite colour?
• Yellow
• What is your favourite film?
• Tough one as there are so many greats but I would have to say that up there would be the Green Mile, The Goonies and Con Air.
• What was the last book you read.
• Twilight - hated it, stupid vampires
• If you were an animal, which would it be?
• A Giant Squid - I love the Ocean and these things can morph into anything (editor’s note - anything??)

Well many warm welcomes Vikki, with your morphous shape-shifting animals and their intriguing ability to take on the form of apparently anything in the world. Maybe over time you will learn to love CJ’s new favourite animal, the much-maligned, gold-hearted Blob Fish

“If you are a publisher working from home then start the New Year on a positive note by developing good habits. You will probably be pleased to not have to accede to the disciplines of an employer’s office, but should nevertheless get dressed for work, spend fixed hours on the computer doing your affiliate marketing, eat well, and generally run your home office in an uber-professional manner. Otherwise you may find yourself losing motivation and becoming unproductive over the medium to long term.

There are ten excellent tips on working from home here on Microsoft’s small business site.”

Tom Leadbetter

“A few weeks ago we were encouraging you to try out the desktop editors for Google Adwords and Microsoft Adcenter. You can copy and paste directly from the editors into Excel. This gives you even more flexibility to do clever editing than in the editors themselves.

Once you are done, you can copy and paste your results back into the editors using one of the Make Multiple Changes options (for Keywords, Ads, Ad Groups etc.).”

Brezo Sanchez Ocaña

“To get more people to opt-in to your mailing list (a) offer something free or enter registrants into a prize draw and (b) use an innovative way to get your email sign-up box infront of your site visitors.

Your giveaway does not have to cost you the earth. Inkfactory enter you into a prize draw to win an Ipod Nano and a new advertiser we have on CJ, RiaEnjolie, allow you to win one of their website set-up packages.

Try a fresh way to get your opt-in form noticed, such as a lightbox pop-up or a scroll-in bar.”

Cath Caporn

“If you promote websites using PPC through Google and also Bing or Yahoo, you can save yourself a lot of time by creating a campaign in Google Adwords and then exporting it for use in Microsoft Adcenter or Yahoo Search Marketing.

Export the campaign as a CSV file using the Adwords Desktop Editor, and then import it straight into Adcenter or Yahoo using the Import feature of their web interfaces. If you’ve tried it in the past and given up in frustration, give it another go as both Yahoo and Microsoft have improved their import facilities recently and it works much more smoothly now.”

Dipa Shah

Account Director

So - time to hear from one of said experts in the industry. Jason Brockman, Director of Easy Content Units (ECU) has kindly taken the time out to be interviewed for the CJ UK blog. So with no further adieu, here is a photo of Jason for the purposes of visualisation and then we will leap straight into the interview!

Tell us a little bit about youself!

I live in Plymouth with my wife, Emma, and three children plus one due in March! There’s  four cats, two chickens and a horse on the scene too.

What made you get involved in affiliate marketing?

John Lamerton (lammo.net) asked me to join him to help run Net Free Stuff back in 2003 which was our major site with over 100,000 freebie hunters as members.

Tell us a little bit about ECU

Basically we take all the merchants’ datafeeds, clean them up and pop them into our database. Then affiliates can choose to show a content unit on their site with a random set of products, or (and more useful) a specific list of products which they choose by searching and adding them to their units. The units are fairly customisable - I do not think there is anything you cannot do with them, from layout to colour to background. If there is let us know and we’ll add!

ECUs are being used to display product ranges, price comparison, to show accessories or related items, for PPC landing pages, by domainers etc…In fact, the only limit to their use is your imagination. Our showcase page shows how some of our members use ECU.

What made you decide to set up ECU?

Easy Content Units came from an idea we had for one of our own sites. We asked our techies to create an easy way to feature some products from a merchant on our shopping directory. By the time we’d finished we realised that it would be useful for all affiliates, and so Easy Content Units was born.

How long did it take?

It took us nearly a year to develop it to final release. That said, it’s an ongoing project which has seen over 150 tweaks and new functions added since launch. As affiliates ask for new features and functions we work hard to make them happen.

Did the process go as smoothly as envisaged?

Mostly yes. We have had a few hiccups, mainly thanks to merchant datafeeds, but fortunately our system doesn’t need too much from them, so this is fairly minimal.

How many of you are there in your offices?

We chose a couple of years ago to leave our offices and return to everyone working from home. The offices were too restricting and didn’t really match our style. We went through the ‘let’s get corporate’ stage (we had two offices at one point and fifteen staff) but, costs aside, there were so many issues that work lost the fun appeal. So back to basics we went and we haven’t looked back since.

What are your plans for ECU in the future? Any plans to broaden your international reach?

We are constantly developing ECU - adding new functions and features which are mainly requested by our members - and I think that this is one of our strong points. We have, however, reached a point where we are happy with the functionality of the system and are now concentrating on internal systems and appearance.

We realise that we have kept adding things to the front end and not really addressed the layout for our members, especially those that have just joined. It must be really confusing! So that is our first priority, then early in the new year we shall indeed look to expand territories. I, for one, was surprised by the number of affiliates who operate internationally from the UK, so it is to those affiliates that we are first looking to for direction.

If there was anything that you would change about the affiliate marketing industry, what would it be?

I would like to see it return back into the domain of the affiliates a bit more. By that I mean less corporate, less high-brow events and more involvement in decision making by affiliates. I appreciate the purse strings for these things are held by the networks and agencies, but they really only have this money available because of the hard work that affiliates have put in. Even our own forum (A4U) has now been taken over, it seems, from the money machine, and as a result there’s less interaction from affiliates.

Do you have any tips for merchants?

Top tip is to provide a datafeed. We’re currently adding functionality for RRP and Delivery Cost, so if you add this information then great! We offer a service to merchants called ‘Managed Units’. These are great for top selling products, special offers or maybe even new stock. But as a minimum I would recommend the best sellers as affiliates love the ‘put up and forget’ creative, and having top-converting products is a bonus.

Do you have any tips for affiliates?

Use the managed units, make sure you’re signed up to the merchant, join all the networks to give you greater choice of products to feature, especially when creating a unit for price comparison. The most important tip is to ensure that you customise the units to fit your site - ECUs work at their best when they look part of the site rather than an Ad block that’s been posted in - take the time to really blend the units into your site structure and you’ll really reap the rewards.

Is there anything that the industry isn’t talking about that we should?

The importance of creating and maintaining datafeeds. Affiliates love them - whether using ECU or another whole site tool (such as Price Tapestry, Datafeedr or Affilistore). It is so important that they hold as much information as can be added and that they are updated regularly and maintained too so that fixes are quick. I know that we’re sending over 400,000 visitors each month through our datafeeds, so make sure that you get on board and stay there.

Another topic is helping new affiliates to find their way. I know from the support that we give that we have helped a large number of newbie affiliates start to earn money out of affiliate marketing. Whether it’s our role as a third party affiliate tool providers, just us helping out our fellow affiliates, or in fact anyone else’s role is something which should be discussed as newbies actually receive very little help and advice from anyone else at the moment.

What do you think the burning issues within affiliate marketing will be in 2010?

Well the last year was one of Voucher Codes and Voucher Codes. This year I hope that as an industry we can move on! I think that Price Comparison/Cashback/Voucher Codes will feature in our news this year, along with advances in tracking. I think that although the EU has decided not to impose the cookie restrictions, it’s only a matter of time before this (or something like this) is introduced. Related, the idea of sharing commissions between all involved on the customer’s journey is going to be discussed a lot in the coming year, though this is my view is futile - there should be another way.

Finally, if you could start again would you do anything differently?

I’m not so sure. Pricing is maybe one thing we would consider again, not because we need to charge more but it seems that some people have the impression taht the £20 a month price tag in some ways means that the service is poor - ‘if it was any good you would be charging £100 a month’ was a comment we’ve heard more than once this year! All of our members know this isn’t true, but talking to some people at the Expo and at the roadshows before this is the thing which has put them off trying ECU. Strange but true.

Well thank you very much Jason - that was really interesting. As promised, some controversial opinions in there!

“One of the most time consuming aspects of being a publisher is having to manually log into different affiliate network interfaces to view your statistics. There are solutions that enable you to check figures from lots of networks in one place. Most are US focused and don’t cater for all the major UK networks, but ones that do are Staagg and Affmeter. The former pulls statistics into a web or mobile interface and is free, and the later is a downloadable tool which costs $14.95 a month.”

“Google and Microsoft are constantly improving the web interfaces for their Adwords and Adcenter PPC services. In parallel with this they are also regularly updating their desktop editors, which allow you to work offline or edit in ways the web interfaces will never easily allow.

I am huge fans of these tools. Once you have copied and pasted dozens of adverts between ad groups or edited all of your destination URLs in one go, you won’t want to go back to the web!

Here they are:

Adwords Editor

Adcenter Desktop

There are rumours of Yahoo introducing a similar desktop editor.”

“If you are an advertiser, sit down with a cup of tea and spend an hour or two listing your program in as many affiliate program directories as possible.

There’s no major UK specific directory, but you can see a selection of global directories here. The directories are listed in Google Pagerank order. Sadly, affiliate program directories were at their heydey seven or eight years ago and some of the websites listed on that page, including the first one, are no longer being managed.”

“Advertisers can find relevant publishers by seeking out websites which are promoting their rivals.

Find competitors’ affiliate program IDs or phrases in their text links for affiliates and then do a search for them with other suitable words in your favourite search engine. Or you can use software to aid you with the process.

Once you’ve found publishers linking to other sites like yours, drop them a personalised email encouraging them to also link to you and, if possible, offer them a special incentive for doing so.”

“Capture email addresses so that you can stay in touch with your site visitors and market to them again and again. To incentivise people to sign-up to your mailing list offer a freebie such as an ebook or a script. See how John Chow does it on his site.

Collect the subscriber’s details such as their IP address and the date and time they subscribed; you can produce this if anybody forgets they opted-in to your mailing list and accuses you of spamming them.”

“Most experienced Adwords advertisers are familiar with using Google’s {keyword} variable for tracking which keywords have converted into sales. There are other, lesser known, variables which can help you improve your ROI.

If you add the following code to your Commission Junction SID, you will able to see which conversions have come through Adwords ads on Google’s Search network, Content network or website Placements:

{ifsearch:-search}{ifcontent:-content}-{placement}

More detailed elucidation on dynamic parameters in Google Adwords here.”

Sam Richards has joined  us as the UK Head of Sales (as Florian has been promoted to Head of Agency & International Client Servicing - congrats!)  He is a picture of Sam taken very close up to his face

Sam is from deepest darkest Kent, specifically a place called Crockenhill. Some quick facts about Crockenhill you ask? Well in the latter half of the twentieth century Crockenhill was an important area for growing peppermint. The village is also currently creating a habitat for badgers which is nice. Despite this Sam is looking to relocate closer to the office in the near future as it sounds like his commute is a bit of a mission.

Before joining CJ, Sam kept himself busy by travelling around the world and ’sunning myself on various beaches’ which makes me a bit jealous on a cold and rainy Monday morning. Before that he was Digital Head of Sales for PFJ recruitment - he would like to make clear that he is now a ‘reformed recruitment consultant’. He was about to sign up to work for a digital agency when Alison, Cheryl and Florian convimced him that he is a CJ’er.

Here is a little interview with Sam:

• What is the remit of your role at CJ then?
• It is to develop new relationships with key merchants in the UK, get to know them, find out what their affiliate marketing needs are and design a Commission Junction solution.
• What do you find interesting about affiliate marketing?
• The fact that it is a bit of a no-brainer for clients. Well that is the first thing which is interesting but when you scratch beneath the surface it is the fact that there  are so many nuances to the solution - that it isn’t one size fits all and that the approach is different for each client. I work closely with the CJ Account Teams and I love watching them work out ways to launch and then grow programmes - there is certainly a  lot to it!
• What are your impressions of CJ so far?
• Really good, great people and always lots of chocoate (thanks Sam)
• What did you want to be when you grew up? An architect
• What is your favourite colour? Blue
• What is your favourite sandwich? I’m a bit old school - cheese and pickle
• What is your favourite cartoon character? Wile E. Coyote

So now that you know Sam a little bit better I will introduce you to a lady who has the best name I have ever heard - Lieke Schriks.

Lieke has joined us as an Account Manager for our Agency team. We have a similar in-your-face photo for Lieke below.

Lieke is from the Netherlands which, incidentally, gives her a certain kudos. The Netherlands is a very flat country sandwiched between Belgium and Germany. It is famous for clogs, tulips, windmills, canals and bikes. Nothing else. Lieke was born and raised in Eindhoven which is where something called the ‘fabulous PSV’ is based (football maybe? - Lieke seemed keen to point it out).

Before joining us at CJ Leike worked as an Account Executive for TradeDoubler in the Netherlands which she enjoyed but was curious to see if Affiliate Marketing was ‘absolutely positively my thing’.  She moved to work in the Events Management department at Shell and whilst she was with them she relocated to London. It was then that she realised that her heart was in Affiliate Marketing and started her quest to get back into the industry.  ‘For all my luck CJ appeared on the horizon and here I am working as an Account Manager on the Agency Team’.

Let us continue with the earlier format and hear from Lieke in her own words:

• What is the remit of your role?
• I work as part of a team which is reponsible for looking after the growth and development of the agency accounts in the UK. My day to day role consists of many things including: looking after publisher relationships, identifying potential affiliate/merchant partnerships. and basically ensuring the smooth running of the programmes.
• What are your impressions of CJ so far?
• It’s a great place to work! A floor full of funny and intelligent people and I feel like I have learnt more in two months at CJ then at one year at Shell. What makes CJ extra special for me is the opportunity to learn lots about not just Affiliate Marketing but also the other parts of the digital industry as all the ValueClick businesses work together out of the Putney offices.
• What do you find interesting about Affilate Marketing?
• I love the fact that Affiliate Marketing is totally diverse and innovative. Each day my  tasks are different and I am constantly dealing with new and interesting people. It makes me think outside the box and I get motivated by the results that we can achieve in a very short period of time.
• What did you want to be when you grew up? A tailor
• What is your favourite colour? Blue
• What is your favourite animal? A lyre bird - check out the amazing sounds from the lyre bird by David Attenborough and you will know why
• What is your favourite sandwich? Peanut butter with cucumber (Editor’s Note - I have no words to describe how disgusting this sounds, a deviant sandwhich)
• What is your favroute cartoon character? Peter from Family Guy

Well that is it. That is your lot. Welcome Sam and Leike to CJ. May you live long and prosper.

• 1454560, A Letter from Santa
• The last order date is the 20th of December for the UK (16th December for Europe and 10th of December for the USA). Santa Calls and Santa Texts are available up until Christmas Eve.
•  1973680, Agent Provocateur
• The last order date is the 20th December for 1st class postal items to the UK. It is the 22nd of December for special delivery to the UK.
• 2317027, Ann Summers
• The last order date is the 23rd of December. Ann Summers are upgrading all deliveries to Business Post for the last week before Christmas at no extra charge to the customer.
• 849260, Argos
• The last order date is the 22nd of December for most items, but the 21st of December for some larger items.
• 913780, Bargain Crazy
• The last order date for UK standard delivery is the 21st of December
• 1037435, BBC Shop
• The last order date for UK delivery is the 19th of December. It is the 12th of December for Europe and the 5th of December for the rest of the world.
• 2153734, BHS
• The last order dates for UK delivery are the 21st of December for standard delivery and the 22nd of December for next day delivery.
• 2312667, Crave Maternity
• The last order date for UK delivery before Christmas is the 18th of December
• 171316, Forzieri.com Europe
• The last order date for delivery in the UK is the 23rd of December at 3pm
• 2189066, Homebase
• the last order date for delivery is the 21st of December
• 1822347, Hotel Chocolat
• The last order dates for delivery in the UK are 4.30pm on the 21st of December for standard delivery and 2.30pm on the 23rd of December for next day delivery. The last date for orders in Europe and the rest of the world is 2.30pm on the 14th of December.
• 2400997, House of Fraser
• The last order dates for delivery in the UK are midnight on Friday the 18th of December for standard delivery and 1.30pm on Tuesday the 22nd for next day delivery.
• 2422173, Kurt Geiger
• The last order date for delivery is Tuesday the 22nd of December
• 2404911, Leekes
• The last order date for delivery before Christmas is December the 20th
• 2503687, Lenovo UK
• The last order date for guaranteed Christmas delivery is the 8th of December
• 2223202, Londontheatredirect.com
• Tickets can be bought right up until Christmas and held at the theatre box office
• 2195726, Moo.com
• The last order date is the 14th of December for standard delivery
• 1501210, Moonpig
• The last posting date for delivery before Christmas is the 21st of December
• 2434349, Oli
• The last order date is Wednesday the 23rd of December
• 2704210, PriceMinister UK
• The last order date is Wednesday the 23rd of December
• 2465420, ProCook
• The last order date is Tuesday the 22nd of December at 4pm
• 1797996, Rosetta Stone
• The last order date is the 17th of December for standard delivery and Tuesday the 22nd of December for next day delivery
• 2483841, Sainsbury’s
• The last order dates are Monday the 21st of December for standard delivery and Tuesday the 22nd of December for next day delivery
• 661848,  Shoe-Shop.com
• The last order date is before midday on the 23rd of December
• 1642106, Staples UK
• The last order date is Tuesday the 22nd of December with next day delivery
• 1036127, Thomas Pink
• The last order date is the 20th of December
• 2133733, Thorntons
• The last order date is the 23rd of December

Here are our unbelievably magnificent mo-vemberers. Growing facial hair has never been so valiant. I realise that this photo may cause mass hysteria amongst the ladies of affiliate marketing however in the name of (er) journalism I feel duty-bound to report this.

Hang on a minute…. Before you get to see this vision of beauty let me tell you how you can help support the boys as they raise money for prostate cancer. You can click on this link - http://uk.movember.com/donate/find-team/ and search for Value Hicks.

Here is the terrible photo:

Andy- artemis8 & Anna- Sainbury's

 So the rules given to Andy pre-dash were:

• You have two minutes to dash
• No item can be above £300
• You cannot add more than one item with the same SKU
• The search box cannot be used
• The ‘My Comparisons’ functionality cannot be used
• The ‘back’ button cannot be used
• You cannot open windows in new tabs
• You cannot use the breadcrumbs in the ‘Add the basket’ pop up

But fearless Andy triumphed in spite of the rules and managed to bag himself a TV,  Camcorder and a Digital Camera amongst other things,. In Dipa’s words, “Andy navigated his way through the site really well, he was as cool as ice”.

Here is what the victorious Andy had to say of his experiences:

“Well I was ecstatic to find out that I had won. I initially thought that I was going to be racing around an actual store, ala Supermarket Sweep. but fortunately I just had to go to their site and drop items into the basket!! As it happens, it was still pretty nerve-wracking but I was really chuffed with my winnings’

So all in all a great competition and a very happy Andy “This is an awesome prize from Sainsbury’s, one of the best I have ever come across. We will certainly be looking to drive more business for them in the hope that our lucky numbers will come up again - who knows, it still might happen and there’s still plenty of stuff I’d like!”