Last night a friend and colleague of mine purchased a Hotpoint AQXXF149P Washing Machine from Sainsbury’s Kitchen. He did it via my ShopCodes tracking link, not to receive a discount (as there isn’t any) but so that I could receive the commission.

This morning he asked me if the sale tracked and I said yes and showed him that I made one Sainsbury’s Kitchen sale at 20:40.

He was surprised to see this as he had spent a lot more than the price listed on the Affiliate Window Transaction Breakdown Report screen which shows a pending sale of £244.26 with a 2% commission of £4.89.

He spent £287.00 on the washing machine, plus a further £12.99 for disposal of his existing appliance and delivery at £19.99. His total outlay was £319.98.

In his email order summary it does say that the VAT element included in the Total price is £47.66.

I’ve tried to do the maths but I can’t quite figure out why it says £244.26 within Affiliate Window and not £287.00.

You can’t visit any affiliate marketing blog these days that’s had a New Year revamp without seeing a ‘Powered by MaxBlogPress’ Stripe Ad across the top of the page.

See, it’s up Here, across there and all the way down there too.

Well I thought I’d add the free WordPress plugin myself but use it to advertise your sites for free.

All you’ve got to do is talk to me.

So, if you’re talking to me. Add your insight to my blog posts and the best relevant one liners within the comments will be highlighted above. Some links will go direct to the post whilst others can go direct to your site.

I’ve customised the strip so that it doesn’t look like a blatant advertising slot. With a MaxBlog Press Stripe Ad you can:

• Create an unlimited amount of stripe ads
• Choose the frequency of display and give each ad it’s own weight
• Customize the look and feel of the ads to match your blog’s layout
• Choose to have it static, or to hover at the top of you blog while scrolling down
• Advertise an affiliate link, links to your own products, or special “timed” offers and promotions

I look forward to reading and approving more of your comments.

I thought I’d take a moment out to praise an excellent email from Jon from Jewellery.tv, the contents of which should shame those affiliate managers who kick under performing affiliates away.

Health Check

“Why doesn’t Jewellery.tv convert for me? If you are one of the Jewellery.tv affiliates that aren’t seeing sales come through regularly you are probably wondering what is going wrong. Don’t despair send me an email with your name, ID, a brief note of what you do to promote us and any links, and I will review and give you a full health check by response…”

Jon, who replies to every single affiliate email should be taken up on his offer as there is a healthy 10% commission available for every sale.

Even high performers can earn up to 20%, so it maybe worth seeing how you can generate £10,000 worth of sales in a month.

I’ve yet to implement the suggestions he made to me in our last email thread but I am satisfied with the slight improvement my own site has made in conversions.

This January I’ve already generated 33% of the Jewellery.tv sales total I made in the whole of 2007.

I promote the merchant with an Exclusive promotional code, which is provided to me on a monthly rolling basis, so if I don’t perform, I may lose the code.

Compare Jon’s email with the one from B&Q, both on the Affiliate Window network.

“B&Q is currently under going a review of their affiliate activities. We are looking to ensure B&Q partners with Affiliates driving high volume traffic and sales to diy.com.

Unfortunately, as part of this process we are looking to remove affiliates who are not delivering the desired threshold on these metrics from the program.

After reviewing the clicks and sales delivered from your website in the last 3 months, you have not met our minimum threshold. Thus, it is with regret that we will be suspending you from the B&Q program. This will take effect 7 days from receipt of this email.”

B&Q, I think your affiliate program needs a health check.

Am I glad I transferred many of my merchants links from TradeDoubler to LinkShare UK during the Autumn? Too right! It’s just won me a $3000 trip to the US.

All LinkShare UK affiliates were entered into a prize draw if they made just 1 sale during a 3-day period.

Well I made exactly 100 orders on that network during the month of December.

On Friday whilst browsing my email in the pub on my phone, I spotted one from Andy Greaves, which caught my attention “San Francisco Trip – Are you free?”

Too right I’m free mate. I’ve never been to America and this is an opportunity too good to miss.

“Sorry about the rather last minute of this, remember the advent calendar promotion … Well my US colleague randomly picked you.”

I’ve been really lucky the last couple of months with winning prizes (and money out of crackers.) Ever since winning a pass for a4uexpo in October I’ve not looked back. On Christmas Day I won a 4GB iPod Nano in the Affiliate Window draw; I’ve had 4 numbers on the lottery; won a pair of shoes and much much more that was documented last month.

The trip to San Francisco is to attend LinkShare Summit 2008. It will be an opportunity for me to see what coupon affiliates on the other side of the pond are up to and a chance for me to see how the LinkShare foray into m-commerce is getting on. An area that I want to dip my toe into later in the year.

The prize includes:

• Flight to San Francisco
• Four nights hotel stay in San Francisco (29 January – February 1)
• Complimentary attendance at the LinkShare Symposium 2008 conference
• LinkShare Summit after party and dinner

The conference is for 2 days, allowing me time to do a bit of tourism or shopping or have a shiutsu massage back at the hotel.

The New Year has already got off to a flying start and this trip may just set the agenda for the rest of the year.

First things first. There’s a North East Affiliate Meet on the 26th January in Durham.