I’ve plugged mine in as seen here:

There’s a choice of black or white and subtle and bold and you’ll need to select one as your old button will link to a “Sorry, we couldn’t find that.  We’re not sure what you were looking for” page.

Clicking the new buttons will take you to a submit page to the new ‘The Pool’.  Here you specify a title and summary and it’s worth expanding on the 250 character limit summary as this is what will prompt people to read and potentially vote for your content.

In the new system you can’t see which supporters you have for your content, the voting is all anonymous, which takes away part of the appeal and fun of it. But it does mean you can “slap” a post and hide.

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He then proceeded to project a collection of humorous tweets which seemed to be mainly from the legendary AlCarlton and a fair few from that Befuddle guy.

So I thought I’d mull over my live tweets from A4UExpo London 2009, which sadly aren’t that humorous but reflected what I was thinking at that time.

Blimey not been here 2 mins and Novotel Excel have charged me £150 for extras. Best abuse the free bar!
7:02 PM Oct 12th

As Chris Clarkson said on Facebook, “Lol, your reputation preceeds you!”

#a4uexpo pre-party has changed with bar well closed and everyone in bed before 4am. I remember when …
4:00 AM Oct 13th

OK it was 4am on the night before the actual event, so I’ll let people off. I loved that I woke up at 8:50am with my phone in my hand and 8:00 typed into my phone alarm clock but I’d fell asleep before pressing done. I skipped breakfast, grabbed a large Mocha and shuffled into Dave Naylor’s SEO strategies talk.

@3wdl it’s all waffle
10:55 AM Oct 13th
Voucher code session at #a4uexpo full of facts but not heard anything new
11:03 AM Oct 13th

I’ve got a vested interest in voucher code discussion but I don’t think the content answered the question that was posed.

This session is just a subtle advert for AOL buyat. Got to get out. Where’s the beer? #a4uexpo
12:33 PM Oct 13th

I was set to attend the Affiliate Doctors panel but from experience wanted to go to more challenging sessions, so I made the last second decision to pop next door for ‘10 Things To Do Before You Thrive As Affiliates …’

Did that say ‘10 Things’ because the slide they presented said only ‘3 things’. As for my Twitter comment, to me, it was a network basically saying ‘use a network and by the way we know of a network…’

Class! Walk late into #a4uexpo Twitter presentation to see my funniest status updates being showcased
5:30 PM Oct 13th
JoannaButler @befuddle They were legendary! @thehodge has a great tweet collection!
5:34 PM Oct 13th from Tweetie in reply to befuddle

The Hodge was showcasing some of my funnier Tweets, here’s one of my earlier ones:

befuddle: “just completed the Bupa online health check whilst eating a Balti”

Bored at #a4uexpo party but Al Carlton’s mugging sounds fun
1:15 AM Oct 14th

The free Oxygen at the party wasn’t enough to keep me perked up so I logged onto Facebook to catch up on Al Carlton’s evening, to which he replied ‘Lol, I’m still turning it over in my head, it was just odd.’.

End up arguing with dozen 02 bouncers for an hour after #a4uexpo party ends. No blood spilled.
3:23 AM Oct 14th

I went to the bar to order five JD & Cokes and paid twenty quid and Gulshan shot another twenty quid forward. I took that back as we didn’t need ten but after a quick count on the fingers, worked out we needed eight, so may as well get ten and handed forward another £20. Still with me? Well the bar lady wasn’t and lost it.

The 02 club bar staff, management and security told us we owed them £20, then we owed them £1.26 and then that they’d returned the full £40. All of which they’d seen on their camera. The £20 they owed us (and not us them) was irrelevant but I’ll always defend my corner. But when you’ve got the biggest bouncers – and these were huge – circling you saying ’stop playing games’ you know it’s time to just shut up and let them share the twenty quid between themselves and all the cleaners that were witnessing.

lammo77 Last men standing at the #a4uexpo bar.. @jasonjbrockman @befuddle and @duncanp
4:11 AM Oct 14th

Another 4am finish!

This is the life. Teresa from Stream:20 giving me a back massage on a #a4uexpo beanbag
1:24 PM Oct 14th

You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.

@Thehodge Grab their beer tokens
2:32 PM Oct 14th

In reply that it seemed that not many were planning to stick around for the closing party though plenty did.

@3wdl Where do pirates chat online? Twittaaarrr
3:13 PM Oct 14th

My effort to ‘win’ some rum and coke from the Affiliate Future stand during their pirate hour.

My Leeds Clarence Dock neighbour Gary Beal offering half hour SEO site review (worth £4k) for free #a4uexpo
4:10 PM Oct 14th
andybanksuk @befuddle Half hour SEO review worth £4k???? Are you sure you got the figure right?
5:00 PM Oct 14th in reply to befuddle

By this point I was lagging and after freshening up, was ready to party …

Vodka luge my face off
5:52 PM Oct 14th
jimbanks @befuddle can i get it on video ? I am sitting right by it.
5:56 PM Oct 14th in reply to befuddle
claireellison @befuddle dirty b@st@rd ;o)
6:15 PM Oct 14th in reply to befuddle

Vodka luge, every party should have one! Stick Sambuca in it and then you go do and say crazy stuff …

Befuddle loves Elissa Benson who I’ve just met #a4uexpo
10:15 PM Oct 14th
jimbanks @befuddle easy tiger!!
10:37 PM Oct 14th in reply to befuddle

One big France Telecom love in

messydesk With @befuddle and @KeithBond having a good last night at a4uexpo
10:42 PM Oct 14th

Thanks for the Spotify invite Keith and more importantly mentioning my Hong Kong interest to Ken. My .hk site project may finally come off the ground.

jimbanks @befuddle im on the train going home but have video of @judithlewis doing the vodka shot and a full frontal (of the ice that is)
10:51 PM Oct 14th in reply to befuddle

I fortunately managed to avoid starring on Jim’s YouTube’s page.

Another befuddled #a4uexpo. Will return back to London soon, then next stops Vegas, Munich & Leeds
3:41 AM Oct 15th

Bed before 4am. Woo hoo! Joe Connor spotted that organiser Matt Wood was giving away free passes to Munich, I just thought they were beer mats. I’m off to Vegas in January with the likes of Kieron, Clarkson and Frostie then I look forward to seeing you all in Leeds for the third ThinkVisibility.

@befuddle Mucho love for Mr Befuddled at the a4u conference… less love for the vodka flu that has now set in
10:21 AM Oct 15th

After a night of champagne, Sambuca, Vodka and lots of JD I don’t know how I got to Kings Cross for my 10:35am train – but I did. And it allowed me time to catch up on my notes of the week, so I write …

I’ve got the taste and I want a lot more
11:34 AM Oct 15th

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Hugely resourceful blog for all their merchants containing voucher codes, content units, best sellers and promotions. I get the content pushed straight to my inbox via affiliates4u.

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Meanwhile, Existem AM have designed and created a stack of units you can use for their merchants. Just grab the code from their blog and replace the id once you’ve signed up at ECU.

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JD Williams has recently relaunched on the dgmPro network and all sales that bring in new customers will be rewarded with a potential £8 commission, no matter the value of the sale. This initially tracks as £4.

If the sale is for an existing customer the affiliate receives 1%. However, considering that JD Williams pulled out of the affiliate marketing area earlier this year this is still good news, especially as they’re back before Christmas, with a clear remit to attract new users.

If the affiliate generates a new customer sale though and the customer later goes off to Google and clicks a JD Williams pay-per-click advert, then they’ll not get paid the full £8 commission but the original £4.

I can already see that I have signed up over a dozen first time customers by promoting the selection of JD Williams Incentive Codes. This is from a total of 48 sales. Not bad, one in every four of my referred customers is brand new. That’s good business. In fact considering I’m having a poor month, I’m very impressed that I’ve generated almost 50 sales for just one merchant.

See voucher codes do generate incremental new business. Just ask Alpharooms Affiliate Manager Dan Morley.

“Things actually look good in favour of voucher sites. Sales coming in, using the vouchers are mostly new customers.”

What will be interesting to see is what proportion of those sales turn into the golden nugget of £8. It may paint a general picture of how content and code sites are losing commission to pay-per-click brand bidders. We shall see.

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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.

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The majority of this traffic was not for people searching for codes. It’s Silly Sale Season and many high street stores such as Debenhams, Dorothy Perkins and Laura Ashley are offering up to 50% off.

My highly optimised site – for codes – is now converting visitors at up to 35%. So one in three of my sale-searching visitors are clicking through to the merchants pages and spending thousands. If only I knew this before.

You see I own a domain with the word ‘codes’ in it – a fact that will soon see my commissions being decreased by Dorothy Perkins – and I have always prioritised codes over any other type of promotion. This was down to the templating of my site and the fact that with a sale you just don’t know when it ends.

Only yesterday I generated £3,500 worth of sales to one of Dorothy Perkin’s high street competitors, netting me a substantial £400 worth of commission. And this was just one merchant, others which have not performed for me before have started to take spots in my Top 10 merchants list … once dominated by Figleaves and JD Williams.

This is not a fluke. Since my recent return of holiday I took a different approach to adding content to my site. As I had 3,500 emails to catch up on and hundreds of codes to add, I ignored them all.

I then worked on the last email in approach. So if the last email was about a code, I’d add it. If it was about top 10 products, I’d add that content. If it was about a sale, I’d add that content.

The result is I’ve a lot less codes on my site than I really should have but have now got a variety of alternative content, that is converting well

… with no ‘Click to Reveal’ in sight.

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During the first half of June I’ve enjoyed my third holiday of the year in Zante and returned for a weeks training course and exam.

Whilst away from home for 2 weeks I was ‘always on’ and connected but rather than checking stats, reading my thousands of emails or editing files, I just updated facebook.

When I packed my laptop, this wasn’t the intention but whilst out in the sun I felt like I deserved a complete break.

Previously I’d have worried that my sites traffic and commissions would suffer. This month, I’ve been thinking ‘So what. I’ll catch up and get my site back up to speed later.’

So I’ve been bathing, flirting, drinking, dancing, learning, revising and everything else but update my site and things are looking promising.

In the last week that my site wasn’t updated AT ALL, it made over £1,000 in commission. During the whole of June I’ve edited only 8 files. That was on the eve of me travelling to Bristol to study for the ISEB Intermediate Certificate in Software Testing.

So, during June I’ve earned £200 per merchant update I’ve done. Not bad, earning approximately £800 per hour. If only it escalated that way.

Now that I’ve had more than my fair share of holidays in this first six months of 2008, it’s now time for me to do a lot more than 8 updates per day, never mind month.

It’s time for me to start adding the June codes before they expire in 2 weeks and earning more than that grand a week.

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I’m back on the blogging trail and Kieron picked up on the fact that my site has gone up in Google for the term ‘discount codes’ whilst his had gone down the positions.

Well what goes up must come down and I’ll write my ‘Google Pushes Down ShopCodes’ piece in the near future, once I’ve got more data to collect.

12.5% of my traffic is now arriving from the three keyword phrases “voucher codes”, “discount codes” and “promotional codes”.

Now while this means that one eighth of my traffic is pretty much full of people who are not looking for particular merchants, it also means that my direct to merchant traffic is in theory down 12.5%. In fact it is much worse than that. Where I’ve gained in the generics, I’ve subsequently dipped in the long-tail.

Of my last 20 Google referrals, only 3 went direct to an internal page and the rest hit my home page. So it puts more pressure on my home page to work harder and I’d imagine the bounce rate of my home page to increase.

When this has happened in the past, it can take anything from 2 days, 5 days or 14 days before traffic returns to its previous high level.

As it nears towards the end of day one on this current Google algorythm change, traffic is down 55% on the previous day and commission accordingly.

The good news though is that the commission earned today is still a lot higher than my full-time job daily rate.

The other blessing is that I am totally relaxed about the change as I’ve got 2,600 unread emails to work through. That’s an awful lot of free content to use at my disposal.

BEDROOM ANTICS

Next up is John who spotted that I’m not attending the A4UAwards. He’s wrote a great post about his experiences of the highs and lows of running a business.

Black-tie dinners are not my thing and I even turned down attending one to celebrate my 10 years at Orange last year. This week I celebrate my eleventh year. I started my first real job just when Tony Blair became Prime Minister.

If I wasn’t going on holiday the first week of June, I’d have taken up Jackpotjoy’s offer of a seat at their table and started panicking about how to hire a suit. If anybody is after attending, maybe you can charm Jasper?

I will feel that I’m missing out on something though as I like my drinking and love freebies.

IF CARLSBERG DID AFFILIATE MARKETING …

Which brings me nicely onto the last person today to mention me. Ross from Affiliate Window announced that I was a winner of the Carlsberg Draught Master.

I was hoping to win another merchant incentive before Father’s Day to give my dad [Also called Raymond] a different present. However, this is too good to give away and I look forward to our 4 days of Summer, where I can quench my thirst in style.

Carlsberg Export is my favourite premium strength lager too despite the best efforts of Heineken to brainwash me last year during my first affiliate event.

Cheers Kieron, John and Ross!

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So I have been spending more time reading blogs and forum posts on the affiliates forum site to be inspired and motivated.

I should have just switched off the PC for there in extra large print was the Bible Code type message “affiliate future losers Ray Theakston”.

The future’s bright … if I stick to the day job!

ADDENDUM

Following Martin’s and Phil’s comments I thought I would revisit the page.

This put a smile on my face: “ray theakston living legend affiliate”!

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