An email I received this week from The SkinStore Team caught me by surprise as it was only a month ago they cut all ties with voucher code sites.
Sep 15
You have have been suspended from the SkinStore affiliate programme. Please do not respond to this automated email. In the meantime we strongly advise that you temporarily remove any of this merchant’s links.
OK, quick check of stats. No recent sales. Links removed same day.
Sep 25
SkinStore have taken the decision to stop all activity with voucher code sites and will therefore not be offering any discount promotions to affiliates. For this reason, a number of voucher code sites including yourself, have been suspended from the programme.
Then 6 days ago …
Oct 20
SkinStore is pleased to provide you with a 10% storewide discount code which is valid until the 7th of November 2008. Please ask your customers to enter coupon code AFF10 at checkout.
Sorry SkinStore, I won’t ask my customers as I’ve already pulled the plug. I was strongly advised to remove your links. I could have put the content back up in the time it took me to write this post but the moment has gone. Maybe next time.
I’m still recovering and while I’m still in a position of not being able to string sentences together. Here’s my own personal a4uExpo 101.
- Drinking until 5am
- Full English Breakfast served late (oops missed the opening)
- Smoothies with Cat
- Jame’s Little saying I should get to Barbados (those sales are already trickling in)
- Seeing the London scenery by night
- Sunshine.co.uk’s new Wordpress travel site
- Free Towel from Zanox
- Existem raffle swimming goggles, chocolate, spoon, …
- Hero Grigoraki presenting Effective Voucher Code Implementation
- Sunshine.co.uk bag to put all freebies
- Sky HD bloody mary’s
- Joost de Valk’s wealth of wordpress SEO plug-ins and useful urls
- Caboodle Design talking design
- Katie from Zanox discussing Kodak
- Webgain’s served Peroni
- So much fun
- Chris Frost on the Voucher Code panel
- Conversion Rate Experts on the art of persuasion
- Free Web cam from Zanox
- Smoothies with Jess
- Dozens more Facebook friends
- Staying in the hotel with the late bar
- Mark Russell protecting me from OMG (can’t remember)
- Discovering new opportunities
- Chris Kamara from Middlesbrough
- Blagging Hong Kong rugby trip (fingers crossed)
- Doug and his promotions
- Charity auction that nobody could hear
- The Pink Patch
- Jo from Stream:20 converting me to rugby
- Afternoon sushi
- Jackpotjoy’s Claire and Jasper. Always a pleasure
- All those people at 4am I upset
- Hannah from Existem for being Hannah
- Extreme SEO
- Shak and his Viagra story
- Arriving with 1 full bag and leaving with 3
- Doug’s workforce wearing Doug tshirts
- Kirsty’s Duncan not just being Kirsty’s Duncan
- New drinking partners
- Dan Morley and his new plans
- Vodka Luge
- Jo from Superbreak (won’t ignore you next time)
- Conference agenda with notepad at back
- Pens – can never have too many
- A4uExpo mugs
- Double bed for being there at the end
- 12 noon checkout
- Being bigger than last year
- Meeting my blog readers
- Getting excited when the person talking to me realises I’m ‘Befuddle’
- Vodka Luge with sambuca
- New friends
- Talking about Soccer Saturday with Matt Le Tissier
- Pirate hour
- Existem bean bag to sit on (but the one thing I didnt blag)
- Lammo for drunken chats
- The Zak and Graham double act
- New Exclusive codes
- Negative SEO – come on admit it who did it?
- Free bars
- Kirsty disappointed there was no sexual gossip
- Teresa for the Sky VIP room pass
- All the beautiful people who work in marketing
- People taking photos to remind me of the carnage
- Lunch bags with apples (too healthy for my liking)
- Kieron saying I didn’t need ContentNow
- New business contacts
- Joe Connor’s lodger Dan asking questions that weren’t answered
- The chip waitress who kept winking at me
- Kirsty’s prize winner Rich Harper offering me his voucher domain
- The Benny Hill style chase for chips
- Bryant Hussey for keeping his restraint
- Joe Connor’s Cantbarsed business card
- Sleep which was bliss whenever it happened
- Redcar’s Elaine and Dave
- People not present, were their ears burning?
- Clarke Duncan and his mobile plans
- Lee Bradshaw giving me advise on the ladies
- Sneaking out of the hotel bar at 2am on the second night
- Matthew Wood and Claire for great organising
- Laura pushing up the bidding price in the charity auction
- Those people who I chatted to a lot and I can’t recall your name
- Liane from Linkshare complimenting my watch
- Matt Bailey telling me he told a merchant not to work with me
- All those stands and people that I didn’t approach
- Kirsty McGubbin getting through the champagne before I clocked it
- Kevin Sutton upset that I’d not remembered him from a few weeks back
- Paul Wright going missing
- Twittering whilst twatted
- The London Eye at night
- Buy.ats Hayley who gets to the same events I do
- Meeting Fraser for the first time
- The grey man playing with his balls
- The Super Affiliate session which shows that we’ve all got room for improvement
- The people waving at us from the London bridges
- Kirsty borrowing Hannah’s camera
- Claire from Existem singing Sweet Caroline
- My site being hacked whilst I was in London
- Not remembering much really
- Have you heard about Promotions?
… Ok, I can’t even string a list together. This is taking longer than I thought. The rest will be added a little later whilst I now head off to get a smoothy or shandy …
Before I can even pack my bags for 3 nights of drinking until 4:30am each morning I have to clear them of stuff I collected from CAP Euro in Barcelona 2 weeks back.
I hadn’t even stepped out of the lift when I’d collected my first business card and within 10 minutes of arriving I had to head back to my room for more and to chill. Facing merchants before you’ve even had time for a well-needed coffee (after a night of networking) didn’t seem so wise.
I soon realised that the sensible affiliates roamed the stands after lunch, so I allowed myself a lie-in for day 2.
Aside from the following, I left Barcelona with 35 business cards and I’ve not gotten around to emailing any of the people I chatted to about my website.
- 5 poker caps (1 with bottle opener)
- 4 stress balls
- 3 signed calendars
- 3 large dice
- 3 packs of cards
- 3 bottle openers
- 3 bags
- 3 pens
- 3 t-shirts
- 2 USB
- 2 shades
- 1 business card case
- 1 teddy bear
I didn’t have to email anyone. After a courtesy ‘we’ll give you a day to get back to the office’ the emails started flooding in and whilst I may not be a travel affiliate yet, I’m on my way to be a gaming one.
I’ve secured a few exclusive codes in this sector and a handful are live on ShopCodes for roulette and backgammon brands alongside the more traditional poker and bingo.
I’ve not even replied to all those who have emailed as dealing with gaming merchants can be quite a slow process. You have to play the 5 minute game of CPA or revshare, when all I care about is the content and creatives.
So when I get back from A4uExpo I’ll be keen to implement all the new SEO strategies I’ll be picking up. I think I’ve earmarked to attend all of the sessions.
I’ll then need to continue with my post-CAP strategy, get my October codes in order and then, just maybe, I can become a travel affiliate too.
Ok, we have the EXCLUSIVE code. We have the product. We have the deeplink. The blurb. The price. The expiry date.
We have an image of the product.
We have instructions on how to use the code. We even have a screen grab of the checkout process highlighting how a code is used.
So you’re telling me this isn’t content?
It’s all content in my eyes and it happens to be on a damn good domain too. It happens to be a site called Shop Codes and so primarily it promotes Shop Codes.
Some affiliates out there don’t like sites that promote shop codes but I tell you one thing customers love these sites and what they provide. As a site owner that promotes save £6 here on a Christmas present, I’m capitalising in on those savvy shoppers who want to save a few pounds here and there.
Once I’ve gone through all September’s expired codes and added all the new ones for October, I’ll add even more codes and content and screengrabs and banners and drive more sales, whilst others watch on.
