It’s some time since my last post and during that time things have been moving at a hectic pace.

My affiliate activities while still an important stream of income now play second fiddle to my first faltering steps as a merchant, in November Gluten Free Food Products Limited was born and the last 2 months have been a steep learning curve with premises, equipment, stock, Vat reg, e-commerce website, credit card integration and a million other things to sort out, thankfully I have haven’t had to do it alone and my wonderful girlfriend Mandy is also my business partner and we have embarked on the adventure together.

My internet marketing skills and Mandy’s inside knowledge of Coeliac Disease means we cover a fair few bases.

We have now soft launched and are waiting for the trickle of orders to become a torrent, full launch comes this Saturday when we are handing out leaflets and samples at our first food fair as an exhibitor so if you happen to be in Leeds pop over to St Chads and give us some support.

Crossing the divide – a new adventure

A couple of weeks ago I soft launched my new project Outsource Resource with the aim of setting up a freelance marketplace tailored to the UK.

The seed of the idea was planted at A4expo, for a fair while I have been dabbling in outsourcing work, and have been active on sites such as elance and odesk, however at the expo I was introduced to fiverr a website where every job costs a mere $5, it wasn’t the pricing structure that appealed to me (you get what you pay for) but the simplicity of the website.

http://outsourceresource.co.uk/ uses the fiverr model but it is aimed as an alternative to odesk and elance with realistic prices.

How it works

1. Freelancers list the service they are willing to provide
2. Clients buy the services they require
3. Freelancers are notified when their services are bought
4. Clients are notified when the work is done and can approve the payment
5. Freelancer receives payment

Alternatively if service required is not available

1. Client posts the service they require
2. Freelancers apply to provide the service
3. Client approves application
4. Clients are notified when the work is done and can approve the payment
5. Freelancer receives payment

Payments

• All transactions are made via Paypal for better security and dispute management
• For each task the freelancer receives 80% of agreed price
• The payment is made only when the client has confirmed the task has been done

So if you have a job you require doing set up a free account and list away, or if you offer a service put up the details and hopefully someone will employ you.

Advantages of Outsource Resource for freelancers who are already active on odesk and elance is that your feedback on those websites can be imported to your profile. Also you can record an introductory video.

If you want to introduce freelancers and employers to Outsource Resource there you can pick up your affiliate link on the edit your profile page.

This project is very much in beta so please give feedback, report any bugs, offer suggestions (keep them clean) etc. using the comments below or the feedback form here and I will pass them on to my developer.

Oh btw the logo on Outsource Resource came from the job I posted

Outsource Resource is also on twitter @1outsource and Facebook.

New UK Freelance Marketplace – Outsource Resource

Axel Springer and PubliGroupe conjointly have bought a 50.1% share of Digital Window Ltd the parent company of Affiliate Window one of the leading UK affiliate networks, which is the largest European market for performance based internet marketing.

This acquisition strengthens the position of  Axel Springer and PubliGroupe in the online marketing sector as the the two companies already jointly own the German based internet services provider Zanox.

Kevin Brown, founder and CEO of Digital Window Ltd, who will continue to manage the company, announced:

“I am delighted to partner with Axel Springer and PubliGroupe, two of the most successful European media companies. Working together will create some fantastic opportunities for Digital Window, which my team and I are very excited about.”

I am certain that this acquisition is very positive for UK affiliate marketing as a whole and that Digital Window will continue to go from strength to strength.

This move is not entirely out of the blue and it continues the theme of consolidation within the industry most notably when Buy.at was acquired by AOL in February 2008. Incidentally AOL have recently announced that they are dropping the Buy.at and Platform-A brand names, hopefully Axel Springer and PubliGroupe will not do the same to Digital Window and Affiliate Window.

Digital Window aquired by Axel Springer and PubliGroupe

Friday was a good post day I received a couple of bottles of wine from my good friend and affiliate podcaster extraordinaire Fraser Edwards.

Fraser has recently acquired the websites www.redwine.co.uk and www.whitewine.co.uk in order to get the word out rather than mess about with business cards he decided to get a few bottles of Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc printed up instead and distribute them throughout the internet community.

So far I have enjoyed the Merlot here is my short review.

The dominant features of this wine are black cherry, blackberry, a trace of vanilla and just a hint of nutmeg, all in a well structured wine with soft tannins. It is the ideal type of wine to age, because it has a great deal of character plus satisfactory structure for lengthy development over time. You could if you wanted drink it directly with food, or lay it down for a few years to mature.

Actually those tasting notes are complete bollocks partly made up and partly plagiarism, while some of it may be true and it was an excellent bottle of red I’m no wine connoisseur more Ozzy Osborne than Oz Clarke in my drinking habits.

Incidentally Fraser is currently running a competition where you can win a case of wine this closes at the end of July 2009, look on the sites for more details or follow @whiteandred on twitter and re-tweet to enter.

Thank you www.redwine.co.uk and www.whitewine.co.uk

Last Autumn Clarke Duncan of Director of affiliate marketing network Paid On Results handed me a business card, “this is our new corporate image” he told me, impressed I have been waiting with eager anticipation for the changes to be implemented on their website and now the wait is over the re-brand has begun here is the formal press release:

Paid On Results this week announced a rebrand as part of it’s strategy to grow and transform the business. This move will help to position the company to showcase its unrivaled knowledge of affiliate marketing, innovative technology and supportive staff.

The new branding includes a new logo and corporate colour scheme which better reflects the company’s vibrant and exciting vision for the future of ecommerce. Developed after months of internal and external consultation, the new image represents the core values of Paid On Results – friendliness, clarity, simplicity, dynamism, excellence. The new brand identity has been applied to all Paid On Results marketing materials including the website, blog, presentations and stationery.

Clarke Duncan, Director and Shareholder, spoke about the company’s new identity:-

“This is an exciting time for Paid On Results as we continue to grow steadily and recruit additional staff in the face of the global recession. The rebranding reflects this excitement and optimism. The future for Paid On Results sees further growth aided by an increased emphasis on sales and marketing. Today Paid On Results can look to the future with confidence, largely because of its strong background in bringing to the fore innovative technology and in employing knowledgeable, friendly staff. We will continue to build our independent business based on these strong foundations. “

About Paid On Results:

Established in 2002, Paid On Results has always been at the cutting edge of affiliate marketing in the United Kingdom. The company has developed an incomparable comprehension of the market and has built up positive relationships with many of the country’s largest and most successful affiliates. This combination of groundbreaking, yet extremely user friendly technology plus experienced, knowledgeable account management has made Paid On Results a potent force in the industry.

Paid On Results roll out a corporate re-brand

The first full month of the @AffiliateBlogs twitter account retweeting Internet Marketing Blogs is over the twitter account now has 901 followers. As promised here is what has been popular throughout June.

Top 10 Tweets via @AffiliateBlogs in June 2009

June’s Most Popular Tweets from Internet Marketing Blogs

Huge outcry in America at the moment, from today, 12th April 2009 Amazon.com has appointed its self as net nanny and is removing sales rankings from adult erotica books, this has the impact that regardless of how many volumes they sell they will not appear on the best seller listings, therefore anyone not actually searching for a particular book will not see them.

Some websites are reporting that this new policy is specifically aimed at gay and lesbian titles however others are saying this censorship is more widespread and affecting all adult material.

Here is a copy of the letter that has been going out to authors:

“In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature. Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.

Best regards,

Ashlyn D

Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage”

I personally don’t run any adult sites however as an affilate I can see how this situation could be turned to our advantage, by specifially targeting the right key phrases the savvy internet marketer will now be able reel in a lot of sales from this genre which would previously have gone direct to Amazon.com.

Amazon.com censorship and how affiliates can make a killing

I have just discovered that my voucher codes website was mentioned in an article in The Sun way back on 20th of January so its only taken me 10 weeks to realise, check out the article here I try a week as a voucher vulture.

Just scroll down to Friday and you will see vouchersuk.co.uk in the useful sites box.

So thank you very much Judy Cogan and The Sun for the mention its much appreciated.

Has it brought in much traffic? In a word no, a grand total of 112 visitors to date but I’m not complaining my humble site is listed in the company of the big boys and that means a lot to me.

A mention in The Sun and I never even noticed

The nominations for the 2009 A4uAwards are now open, so make sure if you are a member of the forum that you get your votes in as it really does count.

Here are who I am nominating and why.

Publisher’s Choice Of Network 2009

Paid On Results ~ Constantly ahead on the technology stakes

Publisher’s Choice Of Account Manager 2009

Hannah Swift – Existem AM ~ proactive and dedicated above and beyond the call of duty

Publisher’s Choice Of Affiliate Manager 2009

Elise Newman – Blue Chip Vacations ~ new to the game but picking things up fast and really moving her company forward in the affiliate arena.

Affiliate Management Agency of 2009

Existem AM ~ on a hatrick but still leading this field and constantly pushing the boundrys, plus the only management company that always gets deeplinks right in emails.

Affiliate Marketing Blog Of 2009

Kirsty McCubbin ~ http://www.affiliatestuff.co.uk ~ Always an enjoyable read with great tips for newbies and old hands alike

There you have it and regardless and whether you agree with me or not please get your nominations in.

Nominate here.

A4uAwards 2009 my nominations

Starting with the network innovation, it will come as no surprise that the network in question is Paid On Results, yesterday they launched a new tool which deals with links from expired merchants, thus reducing commission leakage and hopefully improving the user experience, a lot has already been written about it so rather than me regurgitating it all read about it here:

• Dead Links are Alive!
• Look After The Pennies and the Pounds Will Look After Themselves
• The Links are Dead – Long live the Links!

On the merchant side the innovation comes in the form of a facebook application launched by Lastseason.com, as it is fashion related I wrote about it here Lastseason.com First With eCommerce Facebook Application, at present it is not an application that can be used as a revenue source by affiliates however I am sure that this is only the tip of the iceberg and more e-commerce Facebook applications will be developed, not only by merchants but by affiliates and networks too.

In fact why stop at Facebook come on you developers lets see some more wordpress widgets too, as far as I know only Prezzybox have gone down that route.

Lastseason.com are on Affiliate Window.

Network and Merchant Innovation