I made a last minute decision to make the relatively easy Transpennine trip for the a4uexpo Manchester Roadshow and glad I did.

A very good turnout filled the Vodka Revolution bar and I got to meet up with some old friends and new faces amongst the crowd.

There wasn’t a free bar but R.O.EYE had a kitty to get the cocktails flowing. I only had to put my hand in my pocket once and that was because I was one of the first there.

I’m convinced Mark from Existem was deliberately trying to get me drunk as he went to the bar and got three trays of vodka shots. No wonder I’m already on my fourth coffee of the morning.

Highlights for me …

Meeting up with Liane from LinkShare who I last saw in a San Francisco diner in January, as she then worked for the US arm of the company. With another Summit trip to win next year, I’ll be proactively promoting their merchants to stake my claim.

Chatting to Jess from dgm who I couldn’t quite persuade to get her to update my site for me but she’s volunteered to send me lots of information to save me some pain.

We talked a lot about JD Williams and how I’m still clocking up lots of sales for them but they don’t generate me any money. It would be Christmas for me, if JD Williams got back into affiliate marketing in some form.

Aside from them, I do very little on the dgm network, so it’s another that I’m going to just blitz and add more merchants. I’ve shied away from them in the past because I don’t like their interface but it sounds like there’s improvements on the way.

Finally, the evening ended talking to Existem new girl Hannah who even brought her mum and dad. Bless.

All in all it was a brilliant night. It cost me approximately £100 for the train and nice stay at the ABode (who kindly gave me a breakfast to go). That cost is more of an investment though and if you’ve not been to a network event before, please do.

There’s plenty coming up. The next stop for my dancing shoes is Barcelona for Cap Euro 2008.

Until then, it’s time for another coffee.

This week I took a rare trip down to London and got to meet some familiar faces and also some new ones whilst at the buy.at Speakeasy.

I managed to mingle well and during the day and night there was a recurring theme of questions, asked of me, so I’ll answer them here. My answers here are probably completely different to what I said at the time but I blame the free Littlewood’s cocktails.

“I REALLY LIKE YOUR BLOG, WHY HAVE YOU STOPPED UPDATING IT?”

Well, I’ve ran out of things to say. I’ve been entertaining my friends instead on facebook with picture stories of my last month, including a stag-do in Newcastle and a holiday to Benidorm.

Since the holiday I’ve not really done much affiliate marketing and my site is in urgent need of an update, so blog posts have been on the backburner.

I had the pleasure of meeting Doug who likes a good heckle in real life and his blog amuses me. But he challenged me to write a bit more.

I’ve got nothing to rant about but I may just have a dig at Black Circles Tyres later for kicking me off their programme with no genuine explanation why.

I’ve also not been locked in a kitchen for a while.

Genuinely, I’ve just chilled a bit and have been spending more time at the gym than I have been in the bedroom updating my sites. The result of unwinding and going to the gym is that I’ve lost 4kg in weight in 3 weeks.

“HOW IS YOUR SITE DOING?”

I obviously wouldn’t be relaxing so much if my site was suffering but it is currently ticking along just fine. Typically when I go on holiday my site bombs as I don’t update it.

During this last holiday I automated it so that different content appeared on the home page from 1am.

Traffic is consistent and is increasing.

I’ve about 3,000 unread emails and 200 of those have been filtered for my attention. I’ll work through these and also the personal emails I receive from the merchants, agencies and networks.

As a measure of how well my site is doing. In a month my commission turnover is three times more than my take home pay from my salary.

I mentioned that my conversions are currently flying and I put this down to one change I made to my site.

Whilst other code affiliates discussed and implemented ‘click for code’ across their pages, I did the exact opposite.

I doubled the font size to 20 pixels and presented the headline code so that it looks like an image. The result is that people are clicking on it and as it isn’t an actual image, the visitor still has the option to just ‘copy-and-paste’ the code if they wanted to.

This transparency is doing my site no harm at all and only this week the merchant day2dayshop has emailed my site as an example of best practice.

“SO WHY ARE YOU STILL AT ORANGE?”

It was only 50 days ago when I made only £23 commission one day. Doug replied “So!”. But I want to have a bit more of a comfort zone than that.

There is the argument that if I leave my full time job that my business will do a lot better. That isn’t lost on me one bit but having got rid of all my debt I now have money coming in every month that I’d previously not seen before. When I get paid now all the money except my rent and gym subscription is mine. Handy cash to have available when you win a free holiday or two.

I’ve been at Orange exactly 11 years. I joined just after Tony Blair became Prime Minister in 1997.

I’m awaiting an imminent re-organisation announcement. I don’t think my role or team will be affected but I’ll see what happens in the wash.

I’m off to Bristol Zoo next week to hear about the future of testing and then in June I’ll be taking another ISEB testing exam. I can still apply for a sabattical which, if approved, would allow between 3 to 9 months off unpaid.

So, there’s no imminent rush to make a decision either way.

“HOW COME YOU WIN EVERYTHING?”

Any combination of the following help …

1. You’ve got to be in it to win it / Be in the right place at the right time
2. If you don’t ask you often don’t get
3. Play the odds
4. Be charming
5. Have a cheeky smile

So on Wednesday night I tested all to get myself a free ticket at the awards. Matt Wood’s face dropped when Claire suggested I should get a seat. However, I was only teasing at that point as nominee Jasper offered me a seat on the Jackpotjoy front-row table.

“ARE YOU GOING TO THE AWARDS?”

I’m not. Despite being offered a seat on a table with mad Jasper and the lovely Claire, it clashes with a lad’s holiday I have pencilled in that week. Two weeks away and I’ve still not booked my trip to Zante yet mind.

I do say that the awards didn’t seem quite right for bedroom affiliates like myself. Though if I start working my way through those 3000 emails, I expect to be there in 2009 as a nominee.

I’ve registered and paid for this year’s must-attend affiliate networking event in London 13th-15th October.

Last year when I was a fat affiliate but with thin pockets I had to beg my way to getting a ticket for a4uexpo. I begged that much that I had to give one ticket back.

I still splashed out though on a nice hotel and stayed with the likes of Kieron, Elaine and Keith on the Sunborn Yacht, docked outside of the Excel.

This year I have paid up early, so I can concentrate on my goals for 2008 rather than cluttering people’s blogs with tie-breakers.

All I want to know is where people are staying again. It doesn’t really matter as I’ll be propping up one of the hotel bars until 4am anyway. All I need is some shut eye.

There’s three evening events this year, so a4uexpo is just as much about making new friends and meeting old ones. There’s a Thames cruise and an Ignite and Ice Party to look forward to.

Last year I didn’t take away much new business but I took a bag full of knowledge and inspiration.

I will still be working on my goals from 2007 until September 2008. In fact, it is now a milestone in my calendar. I have already achieved one aim. I managed to successfully purchase the domain name I was wanting. Now I just have to find the time to build something on it.

12 floors below me in my 4-star San Francisco hotel there were 400 people networking at the LinkShare Summit and it was only 7am.

LinkShare had kindly paid $2000 for my flights and enough for a 4-nights stay in the Japanese style Nikko Hotel. So it was wise for me to get up early and attend.

It was Thursday and I’d arrived on the Tuesday afternoon after a 15 hour journey with KLM via Amsterdam.

On my first night in the United States, I made the mistake of venturing out alone in the dark, not knowing where I was going. Instead of walking into the bussle of Union Square I went in the opposite direction and was approached by people at every corner. I quickly retreated back into the hotel, switched on the 42 inch plasma tv and caught up on my sleep.

On Wednesday there were several people attending a LinkShare training day for advertisers and publishers and so I used this day to do some sightseeing.

It was a bright day and I got the cable car to Fisherman’s Wharf up to Alcatraz, where I took pictures and ate plenty of sea food. On the return journey I took a detour via China Town and again, just for fun, got lost in the dark.

I returned to the hotel to find a goodie bag from the likes of Boden and Mr and Mrs Smith in my room, which included soap and jewellery.

In the evening I met up with Andy Greaves, the UK face of LinkShare, who I’d previously had a chat with at the a4uexpo in October.

At the hotel bar I discussed that it was timely that I was in the US at this time as I’d just acquired the domain ShopCodes.com that week. More on that development another day.

So, on the Thursday, the main day of the Summit, I went downstairs and ate breakfast standing as I mingled amongst the crowd.

It was pretty much a fifty-fifty split between affiliates and advertisers, so it was a good mix. I particularly looked out for affiliates that had ‘bargain’ or ‘coupon’ on their name badge. Interestingly, I found that several of these affiliate sites are rather large and have up to 25 staff each.

I also approached merchants that offer coupons and managed to persuade a few to offer an Exclusive code, once my new site is live.

The keynote speaker was Ian Ayre and his speech on the value of number crunching got me immediately thinking in how I could A/B split test my site using free Google software and compare the click through rates. I implemented that thought the same afternoon and I’ll share the results in the future.

David Schatsky also had a TrendWatch presentation and basically, we’re all going to do fine us affiliates as more people are getting online and retail shopping.

The closing party that evening was held at the impressive Slide club, with a slide for an entrance. I seriously took advantage of the free bar and danced the night away with the best of them. Belatedly I realised that the LinkShare party had long gone and the only people left dancing wore masks.

On my last full day I took advantage of the good exchange rate and went shopping with a seriously bad hangover before going for a quick drink in a nearby Irish bar with Andy and Account Manager Tiina.

The next event is the LinkShare Symposium 2008 in New York, 23rd-24th June. If you fancy a shopping trip it maybe a worthwhile event to attend.

I’d love LinkShare to somehow get me over there again. Hopefully I’ll have a ShopCodes.com site full of exclusive codes from their US merchants by then.