Good afternoon,

Hope you are well?

I work at [removed], the agency who is responsible for looking after [removed]. I work in the affiliate team and am in the process of looking for new partners to add value to this channel.

I came across your site and was wondering if you would consider working with us? You have a lot of content and I thought that including [removed] could be a really good fit?

[removed desscription of merchant]

You can find details on [removed]

In terms of payments, we would be able to pay you [removed]. The AOV currently stands at[removed] so you have the potential to earn [removed] on each booking. The fantastic thing about the affiliate channel is that there is no limit to what you could earn rather than just getting a one off payment.

We currently run this programme through Affiliate Window, are you signed up to this network? If not, the sign up process is free and simple. Just follow the link below.

Affiliate Window - http://www.affiliatewindow.com/affiliates.php

I would be really keen to get you on board the affiliate scheme. There is a lot of content that would be made available to you through [removed]. We also regularly communicate lead offers, offer an XML feed and run incentives enabling you to earn on top of your normal commission rate.

[removed]currently have a few offers that are really worth pushing, so if you are  interested, please get in touch.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask.

Thanks

[removed]

When I first received this email, I was quite happy, I do have a few sites in that sector and it was nice that someone had noted them for inclusion but then something hit me, the prasing was a bit strange… they didn’t mention my name for a start which always screams MAIL MERGE.

then there was the phrase I came across your site and was wondering if you would consider working with us, which site? there are no URLS listed.

The email then explains to me what an Affiliate program is and how to sign up to Affiliate Window so they obviously haven’t come through the affiliate window panel otherwise so how did they get my email address (the one they emailed isn’t the one listed on the websites) .

I mentioned it to a friend of mine that it was probably a template email sent out to loads of email addresses’s (probably from a bought email database or something) and left it at that.

This morning however I received an email from the same email address, about a different merchant.

Good morning,

Hope you are well?

I work at [removed], the agency who is responsible for looking after [removed]. I work in the affiliate team and am in the process of looking for new partners to add value to this channel.

I came across your site and was wondering if you would consider working with us? You have a lot of content and I thought that including [removed], could be a really good fit?

[removed desscription of merchant]

You can find details on [removed]

In terms of payments, we would be able to pay you [removed]. The fantastic thing about the affiliate channel is that there is no limit to what you could earn rather than just getting a one off payment.

We currently run this programme through Affilinet. Are you signed up to this network? If not, the sign up process is free and simple. Just follow the link below:

http://www.affili.net/en/Startpage.aspx

I am very keen to get you on board the affiliate scheme.

[removed].

[removed]

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask.

Thanks

[removed]

Now your just taking the piss.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind mail merge, I don’t mind one bit I realise that Affiliate Managers have to get new affiliates and get them on mass (I used to be one and still advise one or two) but here’s some pointers;

• Try and put the persons first name in
• Don’t ask how they are, you clearly don’t give a crap
• Don’t lie

Saying came across your website is all well and good, but when I asked you what website you saw, it was thehodge.co.uk, a website which has nothing to do with travel AND which applied last year for your program and was declined..

Why not just write something like

Hi There, We notice your on [affilaitenetworkhere], We’ve got a great program that we’ve developed a good conversion (and commission rate on) and are looking for more partners to work with, although we don’t have a relationship at the moment, we’d love to work with you.

Then put the program details, it doesn’t assume anything about your ability or try to make guesses, I’d have responded to that a LOT better than pretending that you care how I’m feeling or you’ve been researching my site and you think we’d be a fit together.

I’ve said it before, Affiliate Marketing is all about communication and that wasn’t the best way to begin communication.

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So lets take a look at the top menu vs the new menu

The Old A4U Menu

New A4U Menu

Even ignoring the design initially (we will talk about that later) you can instantly its a case of ‘out with what hasn’t worked and lets make things clearer’. From 10 sections to 6 is a big jump but barring one menu item its instantly clear what each section contains.

News – split off from the ‘pool’, News consists of hand picked articles from ‘featured’ bloggers, this replaces part of the A4UBlogs section and the A4UTV.

The Pool – This replaces the rest of the A4UBlogs and the ‘back’ system, moving more to a reddit style voting system where you can vote up or down an article and rather than just aggregating feeds its now completely submission based (which should stop posts like me making bacon ice cream getting up there).

The Forum – The forum is still VB on the backend because it just works however the new rules in place should stop a lot of the duplicated messages being posted about offers and there’s a subtle difference between the way posts were and are displayed

Old A4U Forum Post

New Forum Post

As you can see, the information has been moved to the right hand panel of the website making the conversation much easier to follow.

The Hub – This is the replacement to the directory and to be only, my only huh? part of the website, at the time of writing The hub only has 4 items in and I just cannot see what it will look like with 200 items.

Jobs – A much cleaner job board now with an added price tag (£49)

Events - Now that’s what I’m talking about, a simple clear events list with out any of the ‘attendance’ stuff, its just a simple, here is what’s going on this week.

Old A4U Events

New A4U Events

Member Thoughts – has been replaced with twitter integration, something which was long overdue.

Press Releases – As a section has gone but since most press releases tend to end up on the blogs / news anyway, this isn’t too much of  a loss.

User Profiles – No more will you have to edit two control panels with avatars and details, the user profile page is site-wide and controls everything from news submissions to forum posts.

Markdown – The use of markdown for formatting is an interesting move and one I fully support, Markdown is a really easy to use way of allowing html formatting without leaving yourself open to SQL injection, I’ve always struggled to get none techies to use it so its going to be interesting  to see the uptake (BBCode will still be used on the forum)

Overall Design – When I first saw the site it took my eyes a few minutes to adjust (I don’t know if that was just the sight of a large Matt Bailey stare looking back at me), the current A4U site (especially with the A4uAwards banner in the background) is quite dark and very blue.. however the new one is just the opposite, white background, light text, it  takes advantage of the white-space available with modern monitors, rather than cramming as much information in each page as possible. (I’m not going to get all mushy about iconography but you can tell its been thought of)

The reddit and twitter influences are apparent and the use of CSS3/in-development styles and other techniques really bring something else to the table (even if its just a fade effect every now and then).

As I mentioned above, they’ve clearly looked at what works on the site and what doesn’t and they’ve not been afraid to cut off bits that really don’t work (anyone remember the A4U wiki).

I didn’t mind the old look, although it did have a habit of having too much going on at once,this evolution however is a definite improvement and hopefully once the initial shock of the transformation has passed people will love it as well

(There is ALWAYS a backlash with a redesign, people hate change)

Anyway just to end with a fantastic job done guys (and girls), I’ve seen some of the work you’ve put in and you all had a late night last night… I hope you get the afternoon off once the transition is working

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Well it was they only bloody bought Buy.at!

Personally I think this is a fantastic move, Affiliate Window and Buy.at have always being the two networks that I’ve found have the best communication (they respond to emails / msn message’s quickly and usually have a contact number), technology (Affiliate Window always have a new gadget to show everytime I go and see them and buy.at’s stuff…. just works) and merchants (between them they will have over 1100 merchants).

There will be a full company announcement at 8:30am so I will update the post after that but a few questions have come up

• Will buy.at be merged completely or will the two separate brands be kept
• What about technology, will you keep developing two separate tracking technologies?
• Will the buy out affect staff.. its not a good thing to bring up but will anyone be layed off as you essentially have two CEO’s and two management teams.
• And the most important question…. Will this effect the Speak Easy?!!??!

Obviously the team are a little bit busy at the moment (and most of them don’t start for another hour and a half but Lisa  Chaikin , PR Manager had time to respond to my first question

Will buy.at be merged completely or will the two separate brands be kept

We already consider us to already be one company and one business, currently working on two platforms using two brands. Mid-term, this is probably not the best way forward but it will take time for us to jointly assess the options available and create a strategy that ensures everyone wins.

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I’m actually quite impressed, it has the level of detail that Google Analytics has but it also has the speed and instantness of woopra with a few extra features to boot.

One of the things I struggled with though was ignoring my actions on each of the websites, the WP component has an ignore admin function but some of my sites are not WP based (shocker eh!).

whilst looking through the forums I spotted that there is a function avilable but its just not documented yet,

http://getclicky.com/cookie_ignore?site_id=$siteid&sitekey=$sitekey

Sending people to the above URL with the variables prefilled (these variables are available in your site preferences tab of the control panel) will allow them to set a cookie which ignores the actions on a single website (you need to send this for every site in your account though).

If your not signed up,  I recommend that you do (and not JUST because I get some cash for it )

No related posts.

But what agencies and these experts don’t tell you is, the best thing you can do at the moment for your company is support.

The best uses of twitter from a company stand point I’ve seen are where companies have taken a proactive stance for companies complaining or venting about products or services, Virgin Media, Affiliate Window and FreeAgentCentralare all companies that have responded or reacted in a positive way to my tweets concerning the service they provide.

I actively follow very few brands on twitter but if I have a problem and I see they are active on twitter, I will @them in a tweet (AFTER I’ve tried there usual support techniques), I firmly believe every brand should be on twitter even if its just to scan for complaints and try and resolve them.

I’ve had problems in recent weeks with tradedoubler and 1and1, the first taking many weeks to respond to emails and the latter putting the phone down on me during a complaint call where they billed me money and shouldn’t have (something which they STILL refuse to fix), Neither of these companies are actively monitoring the social space (from what I can see) and so are missing feedback, complaints and heck even testimonials..

In a space where one person’s comments can get in front of 1-1 million people within seconds, its important to respond properly and quickly (and as most people know, a  quick response can hurt an upset customer into a loyal supporter)

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RT @caius actually @thehodge I quite like steps

As Caius pointed out he would have typed TheHodge so it was easily spotable but still it was pretty easy to do.

I start to think how easy that system could be abused but then lunch time happens and well… I forget.

Flash forward 3 hours, Caius yet again has his name mentioned

RT @Caius: SIMPOL is a new RAD tool that enables a developer to write once & run on Linux, Mac-OS and Windows.www.simpol.com

erm…what? Caius didn’t tweet that… and I promise it wasn’t me!

Turns out that theres a lot more people retweeting with fake messages and its really not on.

Update : As soon as I clicked published and I checked twitter, turns out that 89! days ago Caius asked what the project was, rather than replying with a message the advertisement was displayed as a retweet (the bloke has also deleted all his tweets and started from scratch), I still stand behind my claim that his is happening and its going to happen more.

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• The ability to add a more tag
• A big publish button
• The ability to add images with the correct CSS
• A nice way of tagging
• The ability to reply to comments
• Able to view plugins such as stats and hits 

Anything else?

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David will have done quite a few blogger interviews by this point so we are trying to make this a bit special, so no boring questions ;) (but also no question’s that will make him or Yahoo look silly, they have been great in giving us this time)

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I use namecheap for all my .com and .us domains apart from having a very nice panel and quick system, they always have a decent coupon and support is brilliant.

My uk domains I’m with ukreg but I’m weighing up the cost of having everything on namecheap as its one place.

for naming my domain names, I use a dictionary, thesaurus, makewords and bustaname, by combining these resources I can usually get a good domain after a few hours of trying, I’m quite picky about domain names, they have to be short.. and this latest project is proving difficult to name due to the competition.

I’ve looked on sedo for domains but I’ve honestly not bought anything off of there yet.

Do you have any resources? why not comment on the post

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Cadbury Buttons

Big guys can have a laugh about it, this video from channel 4 all about “man boobs” is both horrifying and funny.

I’m not usually self conscious about things, I don’t mind public speaking, I don’t mind making a fool of myself or having a real laugh but I’ve ALWAYS hated things like swimming and sunbathing anywhere where I did have to get my t-shirt off.

So I’m not going to crash diet.. I’m not going to be cutting out chocolate for a year like I did in `07 (which did help a bit) but I am going to be cutting down on a lot and actually… getting off my arse.

I put on a hell of a lot of weight when I left Stickyeyes and started to work at home. The kitchen was a room away and the supermarket was 3 minutes down the road, food was easy to get to and I just kept constantly snacking as I wasn’t going to the office (well I was but the office was down 16 steps…) I didn’t get much exercise.

So I’ve tried a few scales and my weight is anywhere between 17 and a half stone to 22 stone… Wii Fit says its 19 stone and I`ll be honest, when I saw that number it didn’t feel nice.

So heres my current plan;

• Less snacks at home and work… (this is going to be the hardest one)
• Wii Fit daily
• Fix the bike and get out on it at least twice a week
• Take some time out at home to cook properly rather than heat and eat.

Everyone has dieting advice and everyone has a mate who stopped eating $food and it just fell off, let me say I’ve tried a lot of things (apart from a big cork stopper (I actually misspelled that one a couple of times and that could have been embarrassing) ).

My theory with this is that well, once I tend to publicly announce something I don’t tend to go back on it so this is more a kick up the arse for me and hell the lose weight ads on google don’t pay badly

I’m going to try and do a regular update on my process probably each week… if I have a good week let me know how proud you are and if I have a bad week then… you can tell me off

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