I had been working furiously away for weeks on transferring all the products and deep links over to their new home, with it’s lovely new interface and delightfully easy back-end, not to mention the smooth way it has been trained to take relevant discount codes and special offers and drop them invitingly into their respective deep links and cascade them throughout the site - courtesy of the lovely Becky, DaveN (SEO guru & Leeds United Supporter) and their team at Bronco .

Alas circumstances were to dictate otherwise - and Allkids has had to be put on the backburner, to the extent that although I’ve managed to create a page ready for the announcement of the Dream Dozen Top Christmas Toys 2008  (which is doing very nicely in the listings :)) I’m  way behind on updating all the Christmas toys pages - thank heavens that organically listed content sites can chugg along nicely with little or no input - as it could  be December, or even later, before we see the launch. 

The reason is that all our energies, mine, Dave’s and OurKev’s, have had to be poured into Children’s Rooms. 

In August, after several weeks of negotiations, we parted company with Andrew and Julie.  Dave and I now have complete control of the company.

This coincided with having to move lock, stock and barrel to larger premises, which needed a complete overhaul and refitt - walls knocked down, new shelving put up, new computer systems installed and new staff trained - and then a major restock. (not to mention our home extension, garden landscaped and granddaughter to play with)

The above although time consuming and labour intensive proved to be quite simple compared to the PHP and Mysqul I found lurking behind the front of the Children’s Rooms website - I don’t do PHP and Mysqul - (I struggle with Dreamweaver and html)  so it’s all quite a mystery, gobbledegook and unfathomable.  Thank heavens that Andrew ensured that the day-to-day running of the website is quite straightforward and as long as no-one clicks anything unfamiliar we should be OK.

Unfortunately one victim of the takeover has been the Children’s Rooms Product Feed - many items appear to be out of stock and it’s not showing any of the new products - I can only apologise for this and ask that all affiliates be patient and assure them that having a successful Affiliate Programme is high on our list of priorities.

We have had several offers of help from our friends in the Affiliate community, but have asked  Bronco to investigate with the emphasis on ‘mending’ the product feed as soon as possible.

So the last couple of months have been something of a roller-coaster ride, it’s been very emotional and draining, tempers have been frayed, voices raised (me and Dave) and many sleepless nights - but we’re both convinced that Children’s Rooms and Allkids will be worth all this effort and look forward to 2009.

Every merchant has the indisputable right to pay for placement in the paid search arena for their own name/trademark - if somebody simply types Next, Argos, John Lewis into a search box, being too lazy to input the full url into the address bar, then it’s only right and proper in these circumstances that the merhant shouldn’t have to pay affiliate fees.   (whether they found the product previously on an affiliate site is another argument - but for the record I don’t have a problem with this - swings and roundabouts!)

I also appreciate that many merchants don’t have a clue how to implement paid search or simply don’t have the time and are quite prepared to pay someone else to do it for them.

It’s also pretty obvious that those folk who are implementing the paid search on behalf of said merchants are absolutely creaming it in - money for old rope, shooting fish in a barrel etc etc.

Yet it is, apparently, quite easy and quick to implement that even I could probably whip up a few PPC adverts for, let’s say, NEXT - with the added bonus that if there’s not that many ads then the cost is pretty cheap.

But it, appears, to be incredibly tricky to police 24/7 and some, unscrupolous, affililates, take advantage of this and do the brand bidding thing anyway - adding to the merchant’s bill and the network’s coffers.

So, obviously, the poor merchant is actually paying out oodles and oodles of money to agencies/brand bidding groups/networks for something that doesn’t actually cost that  much to implement and can be done quite quickly and doesn’t require too much manpower to oversee.

So why on earth don’t networks or agencies offer this function  as part and parcel of their service without involving any third parties? 

 Well, apart from the fact that they would lose the oodles and oodles of cash that this racket produces! 

 mmm, well nothing’s changed actually, apart from the change of Network, the commission is still only 2%.

which will come as no big surprise to the majority of affiliates.  True, they are offering incentives to all affiliates who swap their links from Affiliate Window to either of the two new networks, so that’s a plus - well, it is if you’re one of the lucky 6!!

SO WHY THE SWITCH?
Obviously merchants and agencies do not need to explain why they choose one network over another, and sometimes it does seem like a virtual merry-go-round with all the switching that goes on between the networks - it is a pain, but part of Affiliate life.    

But the timing of this particular switch leaves a very sour taste in the mouth (Jonny started with the cliches - I’m just going with the flow)

In my view it’s been a  case of get someone to do the dirty work (Awin), they get all the flak and when the sh!ts well and truly stuck to the fan, then we’ll cut and run with our shiny reputations in tact and reinvent ourselves on other networks - DOH!!!

only one thing wrong with that scenario, Next and I-level are assuming most Affiliates are, in the words of Affi-liate, NUMPTIES of the finest order, and we’re so incredibly gullible that we’ll smile and swallow all that bullsh!t, as we did when they lowered their commission rates - twice!

So two things to think about before swapping those links -

Would you be happy in Affiliate Windows shoes now? and

If John Lewis, The White Company, Otto Group and The Home Shopping Group can afford to pay decent commission rates for quality traffic - why can’t Next, Argos, ToysRus etc?

IT’S YOUR FUTURE - ACT NOW - ONLINE SPENDING IS ONLY GOING IN ONE DIRECTION  AND WE CANNOT AFFORD TO SELL OUT TO THE LOWEST BIDDER

The vast majority of this traffic originated from only a few pages:-
kids bedroom furniture - kids beds - kids bedding - nursery furniture

see a theme emerging here - mainly NON RETURNING PRODUCTS - although I will hold my hand up and confess to sending some traffic from my kids clothes page,  approximately 2.5%, and maybe some clothes were bought through my other links (but, then again, maybe some furniture was bought through my kids clothes links!).

Now, if I’d never included Next on these pages and carried on sending the traffic to my existing merchants, I reckon I would have made (taking an average of 7%) £21,910, an extra £9329, which is another nice amount - could have spent it at Next on new furniture for the new house!.

In 2008, if I had decided to keep Next, and assuming I sent the same amount of traffic, my commission would have plummeted to £6260 - BUT, not only have I removed them I’ve replaced them with some higher paying merchants (more about this laters), so my average commission should increase to, about, 8.5%, bringing me in £26,605 - and possibly more as Google as just promoted my best keywords to those top 3 positions.

Given the above you may wonder why I started to promote Next and thier 4% rate in the first place,  as I don’t normally include low paying merchants.   I knew I would make a success of it - they do have some lovely kids bedroom furniture and accessories - and I reasoned that if I sent them good, quality, converting traffic, they, like most of my other satisfied merchants, would actually reward me with an increase in commission - oh folly!

So, why didn’t I ditch them when they inflicted a 25% pay reduction by reducing the 4% to 3%?
Because I’m a trusting soul, and when they replied to my ‘angry’ email with a strong inference that they would be looking to introduce a category based commission structure, which would take into account Affiliates, like myself, who didn’t incur vast amounts of returned goods, I actually believed them.  I am considering changing my name to Pollyanna.

No prizes for guessing my reaction to the latest offering of 2%

Obviously I contacted Affiliate Window and informed them that I would be removing all Next links immediately, but would reinstate them if I was offered an higher rate in the light of the amount and quality of traffic I sent to them.  AW were very sympathetic and promised to put my case to them as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, for Next, in the meantime, the merchants I had replaced them with have performed amazingly well - Tradedoubler and Buyat must be rubbing their hands with glee - and I’d be criminally insane to start promoting Next again - and Dave would probably have me locked up!

So Which Merchants Am I Using In Place Of Next?
Letterbox on Affiliate Window
GLTC, Bedworld and The White Company on Tradedoubler
Littlewoods Direct, Mothercare and John Lewis on Buyat
Amazon - found some cool kids furniture and acccessories there!
Clothes - Freemans and Grattan (POR & CJ) they pay 10% and NO RETURN CLAWBACKS ( you have to wait 10 days though)
I’ll also be including Woolworths, Urchin, Blooming Marvelllous and La Redoute soon.

So there are quite a few good, quality merchants who pay a darn site higher commission, to choose from.

Why I think that letting big, brand name merchants get away with paying ludicrously low commission rates is so bad, in the long term, for Affiliates, is a whole other blog, probably entitled
YOU PAY PEANUTS - YOU GET MONKEYS

You could argue that they have the brand name and this could figure in the conversion rate  (I capitulated over Next - but they are the exception to the rule) but if someone is willing to pay a premium price just to shop at Hamleys, then they are going to Google Hamleys.  If they’ve landed on your site through a toy related search term, then I think promoting a cheaper merchant is going to bag you the sale and probably double your commission.

Why does it annoy me - ‘cos I find it insulting that some merchants simply try to trade off their brand name and offer such low commissions, as though we’ll agree to anything - but some of you do, wierd!!

Which is what I find inexplicable when there are a plethora (love that word) of toy merchants - especially on Affiliate Window and Amazon - who have great products at great prices at great commission rates.  These are the merchants we should be encouraging and not kowtowing to the likes of Hamleys and ToysRus, to name but two.

I understand that networks and agencies have a duty to their merchants to promote them and try to get affiliates on board - but come on, with a little bit of detective work you can unearth some alternative programmes which will pay you what you’re worth.

OK rant over.

If you thought it was too expensive or you simpy couldn’t afford/justify the cost - you were totally wrong - start saving for it now or get a loan (memo to self, insert finance link here)

If you’re unfortunate enough to have a ‘proper job’ either pack it in or save some holiday time for next year.

And  if you’re a sole operator try and get yourself a couple of clones - you’ll need one to go round the exhibition while you’re in the seminars and one to eat while you visit the lunch time bonus sessions - or hire a Virtual European Assylum Seeker for the duration - one of the very many tips I picked up ( although I could have got that one wrong, it was 1.30 am outside the pub).

AND I DON’T EVEN DO THE NETWORKING THINGY - (for all you literary pedantics I know you’re not supposed to start a sentence, never mind a paragraph with ‘and’, but, hey, I’m getting ‘with it’)

I stick to my tried and trusted friends, beit other affiliates, agencies, merchants or networks - who I’m sure keep me uptodate and informed all year long - so think how much more I could have gotten if I was a serious networker.

I’m not going into detail about the Expo - there’s a plethora of blogs, including (in random order) Jason’s, Keith’s, Joe’s, Paul’s, and Keiron’s who’ve done a magnificent job of detailing the event.  But (yeah, I know, don’t start a sentance …) here’s a few things I learnt

- start videoing - if you’re subject lends itself, in any way shape or form to being featured on a video - do it and include it on your webpage/blog. (if it’s porn and you’re not doing this already, start thinking about another subject!)

- disguise your affiliate links - this is something most of us know and probably do - but if you’ve never got round to it, it’s time to start.  Two reasons - increase your natural search rankings and also to prevent networks/agencies/merchants from discovering your best PPC keywords and phrases.

- backlinks, backlinks, backlinks, quality relevant backlinks and backlinks

- if you’re a ‘good’ affiliate and can fill one of those 21 spaces on Google’s first page - start negotiating a higher rate.

- by 2009 online advertising will have the largest share of all advertising - and probably sooner.

- not a tip, but interesting, what if Google changed the order of paid and natural search and moved the paid search into the main arena!  - start thinking about that now.

- the major search engines are concentrating more on what the end user wants and less on onpage/offpage factors  - so if your visitors are hitting that back button because your content is rubbish then Google, Yahoo and MSN are taking note!

- think about the type of person (not visitor - a real person) who visits your page and why they’re buying, are they looking for cheap and cheerful, something to impress the neighbours or eco based.

- sign up for Karl and Ben’s Conversion Rate Experts 101 Tips - genius

- I’ve discovered 2 new major merchants who I thoroughly expect to increase my revenue next year.

- and one sweet little golden nugget that I’m not sharing with anyone - it pays to steel yourself, down the wine and stay to the bitter end of the afterhours shindig.

In a nutshell - am I going to revisit Affiliate Summit in Vegas next year - only if someone’s going I can shop with - am I going to A4UExpo next year - DEFINITELY.

I did receive some communications congratulating me, but I assumed it was for Children’s Rooms in the Best New Merchant category, which everyone at Children’s Rooms was incredibly chuffed with, but, I don’t think, we expect to win as we haven’t been up and running for very long - but it’s nice to be nominated.

The nomination for Allkids is particularly gratifying though as I always feel like ‘a poor cousin’ when I hear how other publishers manage their websites and all the talk of PHP, ASP and API’s (not got my head round that one yet) - and I’ve only ever mastered CCP - Click, Copy and Paste. The only thing automated about Allkids is me at 2am in the morning, after struggling with a new page, and trying to creep into bed and not disturb Dave!

Nowadays we also have the added complication that publishers (I much prefer website owners) should be active in the Social Media arena or face certain death - WTF!! I’ve only just dipped my toe in the Bloggingsphere, and most of my attempts haven’t seen the light of day - yet ;). I don’t have enough space in my head to attempt to understand Facebook or Diggit or any other newfangled timestealers - I’m sure they’l all go the way of CB Radio eventually - I did love the Convoy song though. And suffice to say I’m sat in a fabulous condominium overlooking a frog pond, next to a huge lake in New England, after visiting Niagara Falls and before ending our holiday in New York taking our 12 year old to see the Blue Man Group - so as long as Alzheimers doesn’t hit full time, and I continue what I’m doing I think I’m safe (fingers crossed).

So thanks all who voted for Allkids - so now I’ve got to lose 2 stone, find a posh frock to match my shoes and, definitely, get a tiara, write an acceptance speech and practice my ‘losers’ grin - just in case!

ps who did I vote for? can’t remember totally but Zak, Prezzy Box, POR and Matt seem to ring a bell.

 From my admin section I log into ‘manage’ then choose either ‘Posts’ or ‘Pages, both seem to have the same format - and can write in the Title box, but cannot get my cursor to move into the Post box!!!

Anyone fathom what I’m doing wrong - please?

 well, apart from the small  glich when I accidentally overwrote Allkids -aaaargghh  - but hey, life’s full of challenges and I overcame that one - thank heavens.