Just like Willy Wonker in Charlie and the Chocolate factory, Books Direct are giving away ‘Golden Tickets’ and just like Charlie Bucket I have got my grubby affiliate mits on one.

“So whats the point?” I hear you say, well there could be up to 15,000 points.

Books Direct are currently running a brand bidding funded incentive prize draw.

Based on a suggestion by two affiliates Fraser Edwards and Paul Wheatley Books Direct stopped their privately run PPC activity and instead these two affiliates now run the campaign at no profit to themselves. All commissions that are generated through this activity is being put into a prize pool and this money is to be re-distributed to active affiliates on the Books Direct programme.  This experiment has now generated over £12,000 and the final pool could be as much as £15,000.

When the draw takes place 2 lucky golden ticket holders will share the pot, definitely an affiliate prize worth winning.

Full details of how to get your self your very own golden ticket can be seen on the a4uforum in the article Books Direct Brand Bidding - Prize Pool

Over the last few days Google have been rolling out a new feature, perform a search when you are logged into your Google account and you get the option to customise the results with “Promote” and “Remove” buttons.

Screen Shot

Promoted listings are moved to the top of your search page and removed ones are sent to the bottom of the page.

What implications this is going to have is too early to tell, but with everyone customising their results (well those with google accounts) google are going to take note of whats hot and whats not.

Could it be open to abuse? again too early to tell no doubt the black hats are already on the case.

What do you think of this new feature?

As a content affiliate my dedicated voucher code site often gets neglected at busy periods, kudos to those voucher professionals who diligently update codes daily I unfortunately don’t have the time or often the inclination, yes I could automate the process there are a few white labels popping up such as promotions.co.uk and icodes.co.uk which are great, but that route doesn’t appeal to me. I’m happy just to bide my time and pick up the odd sale by using my own approach.

One thing I would like to see tackled by the networks is the problem of expired codes and in my opinion this could be tackled by serving them up using JavaScript, by using this method the Code, the Offer and the Expiry Date need never be wrong again on an affiliate site (providing the merchant / network updates it).

This would work great on content sites too, where I am likely to use the current code for a merchant when I write an article, it would be fantastic if the code simply updated or disappeared after the expiry date.

Last week I had the good fortune to find myself in Plymouth I was invited down for the weekend by Hannah Swift of Existem AM and enjoyed the experience so much I stayed the week.

One of the main hurdles about extending my stay was that I hadn’t taken a laptop and there was work to be done, “no problem” said my good friend Mark Russell MD of Existem AM “we can set you up with a desk and computer in the office”. So thats how I became an insider at Existem Affiliate Management.

Working and observing at the office was a real eye opener, now I’ve been in this industry long enough to know the role of an affiliate marketing agency and have come across the good, the bad and the ugly in my time, well I have to tell you now these guys are great, (sorry Hannah honorary guy for a moment), and I’m not just saying that because they are friends of mine.

The whole team is dedicated to the cause of getting the very best out of each and every affiliate program they manage, the cogs are always turning as they provide the all important cohesion between the time honoured triumvirate of merchant, network and affiliate, its easy to see why Existem-am are dual award winners at the prestigious a4uAwards.

From an affiliate point of view Mark, Bruce (must not forget the genial Mr Clayton) and Hannah are a constant source of inspiration, they provide a plethora of voucher codes, content, creatives, best sellers lists and much more, all of which can be found on the excellent Existem Affiliate Management Blog. All that stuff doesn’t just do itself it takes a lot of bloody hard work.

Thank you Mark, Bruce and especially Hannah for making me welcome during my stay in Plymouth, I will return.