Today, Prezzybox have announced the decision to leave POR as a network and go exclusively with AWIN. To be honest this has been a really tough decision as we go back a long way with POR and we all get on really well. So, I’d like to just briefly let you know the reasons why we’ve decided to go exclusive with AWIN.

First things first. This is ABSOLUTELY NO REFLECTION ON POR or their performance. I am still a big advocate of them, their technology and their approach and I will happily act as a testimonial for you them going forwards – both on and off the record.

However, the primary reasons for use moving to 1 network are:

1)       AWIN have a big account management team - which benefits us massively. A number of our team speak to a number of their team every day. They simply have more resource.

2)       Basically - this means they can open a lot more doors to bigger affiliates. 

3)      Also Julianne has come on board as our Marketing Director and I’m letting her have free reign pretty much. We’ve not done as well as a company as I would have liked and this is maybe down to me running the marketing. So we’re having a change of direction - well - Julianne running it her way and seeing how we get on

So I would publicly like to thank POR for everything they have done for us over the past 8 years. They are a great network, have the right ethics and I genuinely believe they have both the affiliates and merchants best interests at heart. It’s purely a business decision at the end of the day and only time will tell whether it is the right one or not.

I wish Clarke, Graeme and the team every success for the future and hope that we can still enjoy a pint or two at future Affiliate events.  

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For me, this was by far and away the best Expo yet. Insightful, great speakers, terrific buzz about the place and all in all a cracking couple of days. So, what did I find particularly  fun and interesting….

• Dave Naylor. Dave’s seminar’s on SEO were a real eye opener and really informative. I also had a good natter with him in his “surgery” and not only was he a great help, but a decent chappie too. ‘Leeds Leeds Leeds’…
• Easy Content Units Our ‘janner’ friends (the two J’s) have built a really great tool which I honestly believe all merchants and affiliates should use. They didn’t present, but appeared to be holding an (almost) 24 hour surgery on the cracking ECU.
• Chatting with Clarke Duncan. It’s always good to have a natter with Clarke. He’s always got loads of great tips which he’s willing to share and doesn’t hold back with his opinion (or two!).
• Chatting to the fella’s from Google. It was great to finally meet somebody from google and find out that unlike the myth, they are actually real people, who like you and I, like a couple of beers! It also is nice to know that they run a ’sensible’ business model and are actually there to help merchants like us progress.
• Hooking up with the AWINners. Is it any wonder they are called winners? Their team all seem to have so much vibrancy and passion about Affiliate Marketing that for me, they really are the network of choice!
• Conversion Rate Experts (and Squirrel). We’ve not done any work with the chaps at CRE yet (we may do if the price is right ) but they obviously know their pop and gave a great presentation on increasing your conversion rate. Toooooo many people focus their entire marketing effort on attracting visitors rather than converting your actual visitors into purchasers.
• The Food. Rather than your traditional ’sarnie’ we were treated to chilli con-carni and nacho mix, and then the delightful pizza (although I regret having the same pizza the night before at Frankie and Benny’s,  grrrr!). Talking about Pizza, pizza’s without cheese are nearly as funny as dogs in hats driving down the road with their heads hanging out the car. You had to be there…
• The Folks. Faaaaarrrrrr tooo many to mention. From my sidekick Mr Keen, through to the Queen of Affiliate Marketing it was bostin to catch up with you all once more. Also nice to meet new people like the Hodge and Michelle Croft. Smashin.

So there we have it folks. It was a really great Expo. If you didn’t go then you really should (the usual suspects of Mr Frost, Shane and Moosehead were sourly missed) and I’m already looking forward to next years!!

Toodle pip.

TBW

PS - To the person who reads my blog (I quote) “EVERY DAY” happy belated birthday.

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Ho Ho Ho!

It’s 1st October, the dark nights are drawing in and that can only mean one thing - Christmas is a coming. So, we only thought it right and proper to provide our lovely affiliates with some delightful tools to help them maximise sales over this years festivities.

1) Landing Page Product Generator

Nowadays with the advent of Easy Content Units, AWIN’s Content Widgets and the like, Affiliates can choose exactly what products they wish to promote instead of the products dictated by the merchant. So, we thought we’d take this one step further and allow you to select exactly what products you want to appear on your landing page so as to increase conversion rate with our Landing Page Product Generator.

How you get involved? Simples…

• Email Ben on ben@prezzybox.com and tell him you’d like to customise the products on your landing page. Don’t worry if you don’t already have a landing page - we’ll create one for you giving your users £5 off all orders over £20. You can see an example of one of our landing pages here
• Once we’ve created your login details then you simply need to login on the link provided
• Then you need to select which products you want to appear on the page and enter the product ID’s in the boxes provided
• Press ’save your Settings’ and then log out.

That’s it. As we say - simples. We really do beleive this will help with conversion rate as you can now focus your landing page on exactly the products you are promoting.

Generic Voucher Code

As an extra incentive to use the landing page we’ve created a genric gift voucher which allows users £5 off all orders over £15. Simply use voucher code EARLY-BIRD The voucher is valid till the end of October.

2) Customised Product RSS Feed

We’ve also launched our Customised Product RSS Feeds.

In the months leading up to Christmas we add literally 100’s of products to our site. Keeping track of them all as an affiliate can be the difference between an average Christmas period and a great one.

If you click here then you will find an RSS feed of all of our latest products. Simply add this to your favourite RSS reader and then every time we add or update a product you’ll be the first to know. This will give you a great competitive advantage when it comes to product reviews, listing products or price comparisons.

Customising the RSS Feed

It doesn’t end there though. You can also customise the RSS feed in order to give you your own Personalised TRACKING DEEP LINKS to each product. You can see a step by step guide of how to do this here.

Also, if you want to use products from a specific product category then you can by simply using the following querystring - Prezzybox.com. You can see an example of this here

3) New Site Design which will increase your conversion rate

We’ve teamed up with onsite analytics company 7 Billion People and have recently redesigned Prezzybox in conjunction with their recommendations on how to increase conversin rates. The early signs are that it is showing an improvement in conversion rates. You can see the full article on the relaunch here and why it will help increae your conversion rate, but some of the things we have put in place are:

• Home Page focusing on gifts. We sell gifts so lets tell people this straight away

• Product Page - bigger call to action and direction to the cart when you’ve added an item to it

• Simpler cart/checkout, which we’ve developed to direct the customer to the buying process as seamlessly as possible

All of which we feel will help increase conversion rate over the Christmas period.

4) Creative

Ben and Bianca have been busy beavering away to create lots of lovely creative for this yuletide and have produced the following:

Content Units

We’ve designed a number of fancy content units in a host of different shapes and sizes. Each content unit incorporates a Christmas feel and a working search bar or gift wizard. All the content units include products which we feel are going to be top sellers this Christmas.

Christmas Gift Wizards

The Gift Wizard is a great of of choosing a gift for someone if you don’t know what you want to buy for a friend. We’ve therefore produced a number of Christmas Gift Wizard content units which you can use on your site. This form of creative is always very popular as it adds a unique feature to your site and allows your users to search for specific items or find the perfect Christmas gift in a hurry!

Vidibox Video Content Units

A video is a great tool for selling products. You can see some research we’ve done on Videos assisting in conversion rate here. So, we’ve produced a number of video content units. You can see a selection of them here

Where to find the creative

All of the creative can be found on both AWIN and POR and is ingeniously entitled Christmas and then what it is (for example Christmas Gift Wizard Search Box). If you struggle to find any of it please contact Ben and he’ll point you in the right direction.

Easy Content Units

Easy Content Units allows affiliates to create product content units in seconds which look and feel like part of your site. These content units are then updated to ensure correct pricing and availability is shown to your visitors. All of their units are fully customisable to fit in with your site and they’ve even got units, where we keep the products fresh with our current bestsellers. However affiliates can customise them any way they wish. You can see an example of one of the Prezzybox ECU here or check out the print screen below.

Best Selling Products/Hot New Products

I’ve looked at all the stats, bent the ears of our buyers and spoke to Nikki in PR to see what are going to be the best selling products this Christmas. I’ve split it into:

1. Hot New Products for Christmas
2. Best Sellers this Year
3. Stocking Fillers that will fly out

Now, the list is far too big however and would make this post HUGE!! So, I’ve taken the liberty of posting on a different thread. You can see this thread by clicking here

That’s all folks

That’s all for now folks. We’re hoping this Christmas is going to be a cracker so if there’s anything we can help with then please don’t hesitate to contact either Ben (ben @ prezzybox.com email and MSN) or Zak (zak @ prezzybox.com on email and MSN) and our new addition Nikki our PR girl (nicola @ prezzybox.com on email and MSN) or give us a call on 0844 2495 007.

Cheers,

Zak.

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Next week Prezzybox.com are exhibiting all of the goodies which we feel are going to be the BIG sellers for Christmas 09.

Fancy a seaky peak??

We’re at:

• IPC Media (Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark Street, London, SE1 0SU) on Wednesday 8th July
• Nat Mags (72 Broadwick Street, London, W1F 9EP)  on Thursday 9th July

You don’t need to make an appointment, simply pop along and see the girls.

I really do think it will be worth while, because we’ve some AWESOME goodies on display which are sure to be big hits this Christmas, so it will really help you get ahead of the rest with regards to building sites and optimising them.

Toodle pip.

TBW

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Hi guys,

For today only Prezzybox.com are giving away a gift voucher which allows £5 off all orders over £10.

Voucher Code: FATHERS-DAY

Promote away at your leisure guys!

Cheers,
Zak.

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Hi guys,

Voucher codes, and particularly (some) voucher codes websites have come in for a bit of flack of late.

Some affiliates aren’t happy with the way in which some voucher code sites are doing business, affiliates are “borrowing” other affiliates vouchers and using them when they shouldn’t be, whilst at the same time some merchants are either dropping voucher codes altogether or reducing the commission that they pay to voucher code affiliates.

All in all it’s getting a bit messy, so me and the guys at PB.HQ thought we’d best do something to lighten the mood surrounding voucher codes.

So, I’m pleased to say that we’ve developed a system whereby users of Prezzybox can either redeem their voucher code against their order as normal, or if they are feeling generous donate their gift voucher to charity.

You can see how this is done here:

We’ve been running this for approx a week now and it’s proving pretty popular. To tie in with Fathers Day we’re donating the vouchers to the Orchid Charity for Male Cancer and we’ll be changing the charity on a regular basis.

Want to get on board?

If there’s anything you need from a promotional point of view then give either Ben or myself a shout and we’ll gladly assist.

Cheers,

TBW

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Over the last 3 years Prezzybox have won 5 Awards at the A4U Awards and been shortlisted for 3 others. Without blowing our proverbial trumpets I feel that this is great credit to my team (bear in mind we’ve only got 15 staff in total) and testament to the work that they do. We are very often pitted against MUCH bigger companies and so far have faired really well against them in the Affiliate sphere. But why is this? What do we do a ‘lil’ old Prezzybox that gets us so much credibility? Well…

• We communicate with our affiliates. A lot! I don’t think enough emphasis is put upon communication. We talk to our affiliates - be it over the phone, on messenger, face to face, email, twitter, blog etc on a DAILY basis. Many of them are now my mates and I think regular communication is vitally important.
• We listen. Again - not rocket science but we listen to what they want.
• We then respond. Once they told us what they want - be it a content unit, a banner a product video or whatever - we do it. Quickly.
• We launch promotions EARLY. For us this is a no brainer. Launch your creative early and then more people are likely to use it. I’m sometimes astounded when people launch their promotions only a few days before the actual event itself.
• We think outside the box. A bit of a cliche this one, but we do try to push the boundaries - hence the launch of our vidibox video content units and our page peel creative for example. Basically we think “if we were affiliates what tools would we want to promote Prezzybox” and then do it. Again not rocket science….
• We run decisions by our affiliates. If we’re making a big change to the website or a decision that may impact upon our performance then before we implement it we run it by our affiliates to get their input on it. Not only does this get their ‘buy in’, but it also takes account for their expertise which is obviously really valuable.
• We enjoy it. We genuinely enjoy what we do, and of course enjoy working with our affiliates and we hope that comes through in our communication and tools that we produce. Consequently our affiliate scheme generates a large % of our orders come through our affiliates.

There we go folks. As I say, it’s not rocket science and I’m not professing that we are the best affiliate marketeers ever, but we obviously do something right, so fingers crossed I’ll be doing a similar post next year

Toodle pip.

TBW.

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Drop your Pants with Prezzybox

Here at Prezzybox we’re always looking to do our bit for charity, whilst having a bit of fun at the same time. So - for our Fathers Day promotion - we’ve teamed up with the Orchid Charity who save mens lives from Testicular, Penile and Prostate Cancer and are trying to bring some much needed awareness to the cause.

So - we’d love it if our lovely affiliates would give us a mention (hint hint!). To make sure you benefit, we’ve included LOADS of great content - such as our ‘Dad Disaster Stories’ and our ‘Design Your Pants’ competition - and have segmented LOADS of great goodies specifically for your dad - be he a ‘football fan’, ’master chef’ or ‘gadget lover’ which is sure to generate lots of sales.

So. What are you waiting for? Get promoting Prezzybox today and make sure the 21st June is a cracking Fathers Day!

Toodle pip.

TBW

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Well folks,

I’ve got to say I’m pretty chuffed at being nominated for the 3rd year running for the Publishers Choice of Affiliate Manager. I’ve got to say I feel a little bit like a cheat as Ben and Bianca (our designers come techies come marketing legends) do the bulk of all of the clever stuff - I’m just the chappie who chats to affiliates a lot and make sure things which are meant to happen, happen! OK - that’s not strictly true but you know what I mean…

So - I hope you’re going to visit the awards and vote (click here), but who you going to vote for???

Well, that’s the big question.

I’ve got to say that I’m up against some really top people in my category and feel pretty honoured to get to the final 4. Last years winner Chris Clarkson of Sunshine fame runs a great affiliate campaign, whilst I’m a big fan of Naomi at Firebox. I know Naomi is responsible for a lot of their marketing and we all know what a good job they (she) does. Making up the quintet is Joshna of Red Letter Days. I’m big buddies with Graham of Buyagift, so feel a bit of a turncoat writing this (hey - he’s voting for Naomi so I’m only repaying the favour!! ;-)), but Red Letter Days are getting a lot of exposure in the affiliate sphere so Joshna must be doing a good job.

So, there we go folks. Get yourselves along to the Affiliate Awards, get your votes in and then I’ll see you for a knees up on the 2nd of June.

Toodle Pip.

TBW.  

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That’s right, you’ve read it correctly, Prezzybox.com are giving 2 lucky affiliates the chance to win a place and join them on their skiing trip in a couple of weeks. You can find details how here, but please rest assured this is the easiest Affiliate competition EVER!!!

We’re taking a number of affiliates away skiing to Europe on the 14th March for a week and are inviting 2 affiliates to come along for the ride… So, I hear you ask…. “what do we need to do to enter?” Piece of cake. All you need to do is:

1) Email Ben on ben@prezzybox.com with the subject “take me skiing”.

2) Tell Ben how you are going to promote Prezzybox this year. The more inventive and creative your promotional plan the better. Go on, sell it to us!

That’s it.

So, don’t miss out on this great  competition, enter today and bag yourself a tasty skiing trip alongside the Prezzybox team!

Over and out.

Zak.

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