House of Fraser have just launched their affiliate program on the Commission Junction network, to celebrate they have a great affiliate competition.

The competition is open to all UK affiliates and the prize is a £500 shopping spree with the assistance of a personal stylist at House of Fraser.

Chris Bishop, Online Acquisition Manager, will personally whisk the winning affiliate to the House Of Fraser flagship store on London’s Oxford Street.

To enter, affiliates need to answer the following questions by 31^st July, 2008.

1. When was House of Fraser’s transactional website launched?
2. Based on House of Fraser’s launch 5% net commission, how much would the sale of a Hugo Boss, formal single-breasted stretch wool suit earn an affiliate?
3. Which famous female singer currently has her luxury bed linen and bedroom collection stocked on the House of Fraser site?
4. How much would an affiliate pay for the Prada 80ml eau de parfum deluxe?

Email your entries to affiliates@hof.co.uk with your answers, name, address and contact details plus a link to a fully-working website (the details of the latter can be kept confidential if preferred) and the blog you noticed the competition on (this is important as the blogger who refers the winner also gets a prize). Open to all UK based affiliates. Terms & Conditions apply, see below*.

About House of Fraser

House of Fraser has long been one of the best known names on the UK high street. They are the acknowledged home to many of the world’s most famous brands, from Chanel and Estée Lauder to Prada and Max Mara. With enviable locations across the country, House of Fraser has presented customers with an unrivalled national department store offer for more than 100 years.

The acquisition of the company by the Highland consortium in November 2006 marked the beginning of an exciting new chapter in its history and invested significantly in its stores and external brand marketing - with one of the world’s top supermodels Yasmin Le Bon currently the face of House of Fraser advertising campaign.

Relevant URLS:

- House of Fraser
- Commission Junction UK
- House of Fraser’s Commission Junction publisher sign up page.

Contacts

Commission Junction

Katie Harrod - Account Director kharrod@cj.com Tel: 020 8785 5433

Cath Caporn - Account Manager ccaporn@cj.com Tel: 020 8785 5423

Roger Lee - Account Executive rlee@cj.com Tel: 020 8785 5463

House of Fraser

Chris Bishop - Online Acquisition Manager chrisbishop@hof.co.uk IM: cpbishop@hotmail.com Tel: 020 7003 4102

*Promotion T&Cs

Offer terms and conditions

• An entry into the competition constitutes acceptance of these terms and conditions.
• The competition is open to all UK based affiliates over the age of 18.
• One entry per affiliate, company or household.
• Correct competition answers and prerequisite information detailed must be verified to enter the prize draw where one winner will be selected at random. The judging will be independently supervised and the judge’s decision is final.
• Competition closes 11.59pm on 31^st July 2008.
• The prize consists of £500 shopping spree with House of Fraser gift vouchers and personal stylist at House of Fraser, Oxford Street. Travel to and from the store and any additional expenses are not included.
• The prize must be taken no later than 31^st October 2008.
• Prize is non-negotiable, non-transferable and non-refundable. There is no cash alternative.
• The winner will be notified within 1 week after the closing date by e-mail.
• House of Fraser reserves the right to reclaim the prize awarded if affiliates are found to be tampering with or abusing any aspect of this promotion, as determined by House of Fraser. In such instances, House of Fraser will terminate the affiliates’ eligibility to participate in the promotion. House of Fraser reserves the right to cancel, reclaim or refuse this promotion at its own discretion.
• House of Fraser cannot accept responsibility for illegible, incomplete, delayed or lost entries.
• Employees of House of Fraser (Stores) Ltd, their families, agencies, or anyone connected with the competition are not eligible to enter. The name and county of the winner will be made available upon written request to the following address: £500 Affiliate Shopping Experience, eCommerce, House of Fraser, 27 Baker Street, London W1U 8AH.
• Promoter: House of Fraser (Stores) Ltd, registered office: Granite House, 31 Stockwell Street, Glasgow G1 4RZ Company Number: 10677 Registered in Scotland.

Popularity: 9% [?]

I have spent the last couple of hours spring cleaning (spring is always late in Yorkshire) www.internetmarketingblogs.co.uk

It doesn’t look any prettier but hopefully is a little faster, a major overhaul is long overdue however the guy who wrote the script has gone into hibernation.

In order to speed things up I’ve culled all the rss feeds that were not parsing correctly, I’ve also changed the default view to the last 40 articles rather than 3 days, that way the page doesn’t get inordinately large on the busy days and dwindle to a few posts on the weekend.

I am pleased to be able to say that the Networks and Merchants sections have nicely filled out in recent months.

If you are included in the mix on Internet Marketing Blogs, or simply like what you see, it could do with a bit of link love

Anyone who would like their UK internet marketing related blog included just get in touch, I’m not too hard to get hold of.

Also if anyone would like to sponsor Internet Marketing Blogs UK give me a shout, I’m sure we can come to an arrangement.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Monday saw the Affiliate Future 2008 Barbados Trip touch down at Gatwick bringing the curtain down on an awesome week, with a fantastic group of people, it was a week of cementing old friendships and forging new ones, a week in the sun is a far better way of forming business relationships than a couple of phone calls and five minutes on msn, and you don’t need to talk work at all, that can wait until after the holiday.

Thank you to all at Affiliate Future for a wonderful, fun holiday, there were lots of highlights and many firsts.

Not going to make this a travel log , you had to be there, I will try to sum things up with a few random words and phrases in no particular order.

banks, the ship, mc turtle man, karaoke, McCoy’s driving, hey jude ragga version, mountgay rum, animal flower, buttercup, aloe vera man, street meat, oistins, strawberry daiquiris, sweet potato, flying fish, mullins bay, belini’s, crane bay, concorde, mcbrides, dover beach, bean n’ bagel, rumcake, slippery nipple, baracuda, mini moke, puff the magic dragon, pepper sauce (and the furiously drinking bird), lime margarita’s, lobster, lady(ies) in red.

Unfortunately for much of the time I was suffering from sinusitis and feeling totally grotty and I missed out on some good times (been to docs since and the medication I am on don’t allow me out in sunlight ), but I still have a treasure trove of wonderful memories and I want to go back.

My aim now is to do everything in my power to win a ticket for next year, so I can partake in some of the activities I missed, I really would like to go scuba diving and visit the infamous Harbour Lights.

Again I must extend my thanks to the Affiliate Future team for organising the trip and being fantastic hosts, thanks also to Sunshine.co.uk for my ticket and running a great series of missions in the run up to Barbados.

Popularity: 25% [?]

The BBC have recently published the findings of a spam email experiment that was conducted in conjunction with McAfee.

Now I’m not totally condemning the article and I’m not denying that spam is a problem and that the unscrupulous go to incredible lengths to acquire the email addresses of millions of innocent internet users and them bombard them constantly.

The problem that I have with this article is that it clearly accuses a website that I know to be ethical and clean of the dubious practices of sending spam emails and selling email addresses to third parties.

The website in question is Free UK Stuff and the site operator Clarke Duncan has rightfully written an open response on his personal blog >> BBC News experiment overloads brain cells of editors.

Anyway in my humble opinion the BBC should have taken more care before publishing this article and definitely contacted Free UK Stuff to see if their assumptions held water, check the full BBC article here >> Spam experiment overloads inboxes << and decide for yourself.

Popularity: 24% [?]

In a relatively short time Chris Clarkson of sunshine.co.uk has become something of a demi-god amongst affiliate managers, his tireless work promoting Sunshine since they launched in March has seen Chris scoop the prestigious Affiliate Manager of 2008 award at the recent a4uawards in London.

The series of Sunshine Missions which Chris instigated with the ultimate goal of sending three affiliates on the 2008 Affiliate Future Barbados Trip was a stroke of genius, and none of them were beyond the bounds of any affiliate, I’m not just saying that because I was lucky enough to win a place on the trip along with Chris Frost and Ian Ebbs (thanks Sunshine and Affiliate Future), no these missions / incentives / tasks were devised to get affiliates promoting Sunshine, and they worked.

Many would now look back at what they have achieved and rest quietly on their laurels, not Chris and Sunshine though, no forever the professional the emphasis is on further growing the number of active affiliates on the Sunshine program so with that end they have launched another great affiliate incentive full details can be found here.

Basically the task is to come up with an itinerary for a week in the sun, the trip must include three hotels from the sunshine site with three different Sun ratings and a brief bit of blurb about why you chose each hotel. Its in essence what those in the travel industry call a “Fam Trip” a working holiday designed to familiarize you with the product you are selling.

The travel site I set up to take advantage of the Sunshine Missions is Algarve Hotels so with that in mind my 7 day itinerary is:

Sunday 21st September Flight Teesside > Faro

21st - 23rd September

Dom Jose Hotel - Quarteira - 3 Sun Rating - on the beachfront, only 10m from the sea perfect for a lazy start to the week.

23rd - 25th September

The Ria Park Hotel & Spa - Vale Do Lobo - 5 Sun Rating - a touch of luxury and a good centre to research the Algarve’s golf courses for my Golfing News website.

25th - 28th September

The Pinus Ria Hotel - Qunita do Lago - 4 Sun Rating - close enough for the town centre bars and restaurants so a bit of the Algarve culture can be absorbed and the resort shopping centre provides a bit of retail therapy.

Sunday 28th September Flight Faro > Teesside

Its that simple, if you already have a travel site work out your itinerary and send it along to Chris (details here) if you haven’t got one yet no worries, there are plenty of good travel related domains available get one registered today and you are on your way, you might just get lucky and win a trip, but one thing is certain if you don’t enter you won’t win, entries close 10th July.

Popularity: 42% [?]