In the day job I’ve experienced a change of managers, team, office, a split to a new company, responsibility and ways of working.

And I love it. It feels good to have that motivation back, that I was lacking during early 2009, as I continued to perform two roles as a tester and another as Director of my own business.

Significantly I’ve been doing the day-job as a part-time employee for two months now.

I only work in my career role for three days a week.

This means that the time spent in the office are focussed and demanding.

I get asked all the time how part-time life is treating me.

Generally I’ve found that I don’t like working at home alone for consecutive days in a row. I can handle two or three back-to-back but beyond that I yearn to get back in the office atmosphere around people.

And mentally I am still fine tuning the balance of my working weeks. Starting the weekend early on Thursday doesn’t make for a productive Friday.

When I started working part-time I pinpointed three areas that I would focus on and look at over time to see how successful it had been. I also had hard numbers for each so could actually measure any progress.

• Sleep
• Profit
• Engagement

Sleep

Having two jobs is very time consuming and I found that the thing sacrificed the most was my sleep.  Updating voucher codes or fixing Wordpress issues at 1am isn’t pleasant. Basically I wasn’t getting enough sleep.

Now with the aid of the Sleep Cycle iPhone app I can measure my sleep and I target the prescribed 7 hours. After 67 nights my average sleep per night is 6 hours 15 minutes. A huge improvement and I now have more energy to get me through the day and a few extra gym sessions.

I rarely do work beyond midnight now. Work can often wait until one of the four days I’m at home. I use my last hour of the day to wind down at the casino.

Profit

With all the changes at work I felt I had to make the decision to leave completely, do a sabbatical for up to nine months or work part-time. Carrying on as was, wasn’t practical. I couldn’t squeeze everything that needs doing in my own business into evenings and weekends.

Staying as was, also meant that profits would have nose dived as the sites that make money were updated infrequently.

A six month review of this year shows my commissions are up £5,000 on the first six months of 2009 from the retail side plus a few grand more from gambling merchants. The total figure makes for a nice salary.

I have the spent the last couple of weeks just auditing how efficient I am at working and with a simple spreadsheet I’ve found that I’ve only got 50% of the available voucher codes on my ShopCodes site at any one time that I could have. That’s actually really good to know and provides focus.

Engagement

There are lots of benefits of networking. You learn new skills, tricks, get new contacts and have an excuse to party in new places.

I specifically chose to have a Friday off work so that I could use the long weekend to travel around more and get to more events.

Previously visiting the a4UAwards or Affili.net poker evening would mean taking one or two days holiday and I’d find that by the time I get to the second half of the year I’d run out of holiday days to attend late summer or christmas events.

Now with an extra 104 days in my armoury I can get to a few more.

Also by engagement I’m thinking of  the relationships that I have with people online.

I’ve always got up to 3,000 unread emails.

I’m always dealing with my accountant, weeks after he wants to.

Now I measure these. Focus on them. Improve on them.

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Knowing that I’d referred a $3,500 paying customer I logged into the NeoGames Partners account to check on my total commission. The Scratch2Cash email included the caveat:

“If the amount is less than 100 EUR, we are not obligated to pay, as disclosed on the affiliate agreement listed on the website. Any amount under the “Minimum Amount” (100 EUR) will be written off.“

I’ve never read anything so ridiculous. Now I owe lots of companies less than 100 Euros and I just can’t write that off.

“Fitness First, you know that £38.75 you want off me for the couple of times I enter your gym, well I’m writing that off!”

“British Telecom, you know that £39.47 I owe you just to have a landline, well I’m writing that off!”

When I questioned this via email , they replied that they were closing my account.

“Since you unfortunately were not able to bring us €100 or more of traffic, we will close your account.“

Imagine if a reputable affiliate network chose not to pay you because you’d only made one sale – but not only that, not give you the opportunity to make more sales so that you could reach their self imposed payment tier?

Affiliates, you have been warned. I’d write-off the Scratch2Cash affiliate program today.

Still have that itch? Don’t Apply Now!

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2009 has been a good year for my site ShopCodes, such that my accountant said to me before Christmas, “You need to lose your comfort blanket”. He was referring to my full time day-job.

To put it into context the turnover and profit, since Halloween passed by and the gift shoppers arrived, is exactly the same as what I earn as salary in my well paid day job.

For my business over 91% of my turnover is profit as I don’t withdraw a salary as a Director and the 9% goes on Internet and networking costs.

And with not withdrawing even much as dividends from the business, there’s enough in the rainy day pot for my accountant to say, “you can pay yourself a substantial salary for at least four years”.

And what if the business starts to suffer from more competition or other threats? “Start looking for work after two years”.

During early 2010 it’s all change in my full time job. Change of boss, job title and location. The office we’re moving to is on the same street I currently live. I’ve a fear that I’ll get cabin fever working, living (also exercising, drinking and gambling) in the same place.

But that’s also now the fear I have if I decide to leave my ‘comfort blanket’. I’ve never liked change and previously it was about financial security. Now, it’s about cabin fever.

So there’ll be more reflecting from me for a few months yet.

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If you search for “argos voucher codes” or some other combination like “argos promotion code” within Google, my ShopCodes Argos page is either bottom of page one or mid page two but what is striking is that the search engine has chosen to display an Argos video clip integrated into my results listing.

So even on page two, it stands out from the crowd. And if the result were say fourth on page one, those below would probably get ignored as your eye is drawn towards the image.

So merchants start making those videos available as I’ve a feeling a few more affiliates shall take my lead and display them.

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What better testimonial can you get?

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To other gambling merchants, please add an 88×31 micro bar creative to your mix. You’ll then feature on the Grand National page.

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I am absolutely incensed to find that the affiliate manager of Gardening Direct have declined ALL my sales made during March.

Hovering over the red icon in the Affiliate Window interface shows ‘Violation of programme terms‘.

So before I go off to check the terms, I check my site to make sure that all appears ok.

Yup, all is fine. Not only that. All is damn fine! The page is a converting masterpiece!

So, it’s not the page that is at fault, so I read the terms.

Well, as I DON’T DO ANY PPC, the only relevant terms for me are:
‘Affiliates MUST NOT use discount codes other than those posted on Affiliate Window‘.

OK, have I stepped into a trap? I’m advertising a code that is advertised on the banner. I best check the Affiliate Window discount code section.

Nope, the code is there. I’m fine again.

Genenieve, Affiliate Window, or whoever is responsible for managing this program. Please do me a favour and spell out why the terms have been violated, so I don’t waste a moments more time on any associated brands.

Have any other affiliates experienced the same?

Meanwhile, “Ray chill”.

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In the 1st April edition, the newsletter introduces two affiliates to their merchants; includes technical tips; advice on how to build an affiliate friendly site and has a focus on the fashion sector.

The site review covers 4 areas and gives a total score out of 100. ShopCodes scores a respectable 74.

• Content 11/25
• Functionality 21/25
• Originality 22/25
• Creativity 20/25
• Total 74/100

The review notes that the site is well established in the UK (it launched February 2006) and that it focuses on end user offers, particularly promotional codes.

It highlights that the site is user friendly by not hiding codes, a topical subject at the moment as 2 other affiliates are now considering to do so.

The site is very user friendly as all the codes are clearly visible without any ‘click for code’ buttons that hide content and force new windows to open making the site more streamlined for the end user.

One of the lowest scores was for content, reflected as “basic and to the point”.

Content is an area I’ve been working on late into the night throughout April and by adding more non-code content to my pages, SEO traffic has increased by 400%.

The review highlights that I have the ShopCodes.com domain waiting in the wings and that this domain “should establish Shopcodes as a key player in the UK market.”

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Meanwhile their affiliate scheme has been Cold for six months.

In November I received a personal email from Peter Norwood saying that they will no longer be giving out exclusive discount codes to affiliates.

“I obviously hope you can continue to promote Thomson but appreciate we’re moving away from your model somewhat!”

That’s all fair Peter but what you didn’t actually go on to say was that you were reducing commissions to £5 without notification.

You did reply to a post on the A4uforum on 11th November:

“Yes we’ve made a decision to reduce what we pay to cashback and voucher code sites, we’re doing this during November and December and will reassess ahead of the January peak in bookings.

Apologies for the email not going out yet.”

It’s now March and I and other affiliates are still waiting for that first email!

As a voucher code site owner that hasn’t promoted your brand with the use of a voucher code since 31st October 2007, why should I receive less commission than someone who runs a blog?

During 2007 I received over £1,000 commission from promoting Thomson Holidays with an Exclusive code. Now I would have to generate 200 sales to receive that amount.

For a £2,516.38 sale where I once made £50.33 commission, I now only receive £5. That’s less than one tenth of what I once received. How can you justify that?

I made a sale of £2,750 just yesterday. So that is approximately 0.18% commission.

Sadly for me Thomson Holidays is my fourth most visited merchants page. Like some other affiliates I may have to look at other methods of monetising this popular page.

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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.

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