Seven days later
A week ago I wrote my blog posting (Not) Leaving The Day Job. It obviously struck a chord with a lot of people, I received some encouraging comments here on the site and the post was one of the highest rated on Affiliates4U for most of the last week. Here’s the update on what’s been happening since.
I mentioned last week that my strategy now is to concentrate on content. I wanted to write one posting a day on at least one site. I’ve sort of kept to that. I’m slowly soft-launching what I would call my first proper site : Vibration Platform and have been adding a few articles during the course of the week. The site is starting to pick up a little organic search traffic and I’ve been supplementing it over the past day or two with some PPC. At the moment I’m spending a few pence a day on PPC and making a quid or two a day on AdSense. Nothing sensational but once I build up enough content I can start looking at some link building. I’m aiming for it mainly to run on organic SEO traffic.
Discounting
I’ve also started setting up a discount codes site. This is a bit of bandwagon-jumping that I’ve been umming and ahhing over for a while. In the day job as a merchant’s employee I doubt the value of 99% of the voucher sites out there. The good ones attract new customers and incentivise them but for the most part they’re just brand name squatting and often dropping cookies in exchange for non-existent discount codes. But I’ve finally decided that if you can’t beat them, join them. If other people get away with it, why should I sit back and miss out?
This is going to be another Wordpress-driven site. I’m getting pretty hot at setting them up now and familiarity with the platform builds confidence in making the most of it. Wordpress really is surprisingly powerful if you understand it and spend a bit of time thinking things through before you start.
I’m hesitating at the moment over whether I should go down the “click here to reveal the discount code” route. For those not in the know, the idea is that you tell people you have a discount code for a particular merchant but require them to click a link to reveal that code. At the same time as revealing the code you open the merchant site in a new window and therefore drop your affiliate cookie. Some less honest voucher sites will make you go through this process just to tell you there is no offer. They still get the commission though because of the cookie drop. Other affiliates just post the code right there on the page assuming that enough people will follow their affiliate link to the merchant to outweigh the number who were already on the merchant site and just looking for a discount code.
I’m inclined towards the”click for code” approach as part of my “why shouldn’t I when other people get awat with it?” strategy. I’m not going to cheat people by claiming to have codes when I don’t, I’m not going to nick other affiliates’ codes and I’m going to display expiry dates where appropriate. Is it so much to ask that I get the reward for supplying useful discounts to the customer? Still not 100% sure on this one. Flame me in the comments if you have a strong opinion one way or the other.
Tweaking
This week, I’ve also been wrestling with some performance problems on my server. I have a Linux VPS which is fantastic as I get all the tweaking fun of a real server but at a lower cost. The problem is that I get a lot less RAM than I would on a real server and my Apache server seems to delight in eating it all up and then demanding hard drive swap space for dessert. Have you ever tried to understand the Apache config files? I have and I don’t recommend it to the faint of heart. I’ve got more parameters in there than I care to care about and I suspect my tweaking may yet prove fatal. If this blog goes offline, you’ll know why.
A-PeelingÂ
Over at my long-standing (and much neglected) site Friday Emails, I’ve been toying with the peel-away ads that I saw mentioned on Ray’s blog. This is a site I’ve been running for about three years now and easily predates my attempts at serious affiliate marketing. I’ve never successfully monetised it other than with a bit of AdSense income. I’ve got a Yahoo dating ad as the peel-away at the moment but that’s just temporary. Need something suitably international though as more than two-thirds of the traffic is non-UK.
Friday Emails used to be regularly updated and I had a regular weekly mailing to over 3000 subscribers but it only ever managed to break even and some time last year I lost interest in updating it. It’s on my todo list for some time way off in the future.
Reading
Finally, I’ve bought a book. A proper paper one with pages and a cover. It’s called Getting Things Done by David Allen. Subtitled “How to achieve stress-free productivity”, it’s apparently a big favourite amongst us geek types because of the focus on systems, classifications and methods. What I’ve read so far seems great. Needless to say that, as far as reading it goes, I’m not getting things done. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…
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February 21st, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Regarding le discount codes: I display the code in a paragraph of text but most people just want the code, so they simply cut and paste it, ignoring the link. Therefore I place the paragraph within a link so that anyone trying to take the code must click. I think it’s more ethical than the ‘click to reveal’ scenario because they’re actively taking the code.
February 21st, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Hmm, that’s not a bad idea, Phil.
I was thinking of maybe combining the “click here for code” graphic with a tick box saying “Also open the merchant site”. The user therefore has the option of clearing the check box if they don’t want to open the site.
March 11th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
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March 12th, 2008 at 9:14 am
It’s not so much a question of doing what others are getting away with but trying to strike the best balance between the value you offer any merchant or traffic on generating a valid click and not simply being used as a resource for discount codes without any reward.
This last point is the key. Merchants already question the inherent value of any partner who doesn’t actually guide traffic to their sites to buy. Many discount voucher sites are aware of the fact that visitors already know what they are going to buy and who from but merely access them ‘last minute’ to secure a discount code. Hence the questionable tactics of opening merchant sites whilst reviewing codes in order to drop cookies.
As a network we are already working with certain affiliates on how to change these processes before merchants decide the value add for this specific sector is limited and either reduce commissions or withdraw for it all together.
If, on the other hand you can justify that your visitors are able to make a conscious choice on accessing any available codes and then choosing to ‘Shop Directly’ from your site you are covered.
This doesn’t always have to be a deterrent either, deep linking to relevant merchant sections or the specific voucher section can be an added benefit for the visitor.
As a final note, discount vouchers sites can be seen to hijack valid affiliate sales as the current ‘last referrer wins’ basis ensures they get to drop their cookies just before the sale, (possibly overwriting any genuine affiliate referrer cookies). So keeping on the right side of the road will benefit you both with merchants and affiliates.
Good luck with your ongoing project.
Kind Regards
Mark