We like to do our bit for charity here at Prezzybox.com - as you can see from our recent Voucher Charity offer.

So, whilst chatting with Alicia from Skimlinks about a charity idea they had which involved the social networking sensation Twitter (I admit it, I’m addicted!!!) it became apparent that Prezzybox would be the perfect partner to run a trial with. The trial would combine a number of things I’m passionate about - namely Prezzybox, innovation and donating to charity (as well as social networking!). Perfectamundo!

Here’s the concept - which I have to say is simple, yet in my opinion genius at the same time - well done Skimlinks!

1. Customer comes to Prezzybox.com

2. Customer buys a goody and then goes through the checkout process as normal

3. Once they have checked out and are on the “Order Confirmed” page they see the following option to ‘chat for charity’ where they can tell their friends about their latest buy. If their friend then goes on to make a purchase Prezzybox will donate 10% of the sale amount to charity.

 4. The customer then clicks either ‘Tweet this’ or ‘Facebook this’. This then automatically populates either a ‘tweet’ or a ‘facebook status update’ which says “Look what I just bought from Prezzybox (link to product). If you buy one 10% of the price will go to charity”.  Here’s an example:

 5. Once they tweet it this will then be viewed by all their followers - which has the obvious benefit for Prezzybox of generating extra sales/brand exposure, but also the additional benefit for the charity of generating donations which they wouldn’t ordinarily get. Everyone’s a winner!

As I say, I think this is a brilliant idea - really innovative - so hats off to the Skimlinks team. You can see why they are getting so many plaudits so early into their inception.

Toodle pip.

TBW

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3 Comments »

Hello folks,

I, like most other people who check out the Affiliate Forum on a regular basis have been impressed with the number of prizes on offer of late. Affiliate Future are running their annual trip to Barbados, the chaps at Sunshine are giving away holidays a plenty, Sky and Buy.at are offering “once in a lifetime” visits to the Grand Prix and IWOOT have (very comically in my opinion) got in on the act with their “no frills” version of the event. Classic chaps! We have even been partial to running the odd competition ourselves - normally at Christmas.

However, do affiliates want these competitions? Don’t get me wrong, I think the incentives are fantastic and I know for a fact that the winners of the Buyagift trips to Vegas have had a fantastic trip. So, let me rephrase the question….

As a merchant we only have a certain “margin” to work with, lets say for the sake of argument the standard margin is 25%. Most companies - unless they have a huge marketing budget - have to work within these margins with regards to all of their activities which consequently includes commission, prizes, network override, credit card processing charges etc.

So, my revised question is this…

Do affiliates prefer the chance to win a prize or would they prefer a higher commission?

I honestly don’t know the answer to this. some affiliates are commission junkies (cash is king), whilst others I know like the thrill of the chase. This obviously makes it pretty difficult for us Affiliate Managers. Do we splash out on a big prize or do we try and raise the commission by a % or two? In an ideal world we’d be able to offer huge commissions, massive cookie lengths and fantastic prizes for all of our affiliate buddies, but then we’d probably go bust very quickly.

Secondly how much impact do these super dooper prizes have?

If Buyagift for example (sorry Graham) didn’t run the trips to Vegas would affiliates still promote them because they are a good merchant, convert well, offer decent commission etc? If the answer is “Yes”, then there’s half an arguement not to run the competition so as to save themselves £ (x lots) in marketing expense. If, for example the trip to Vegas cost £20,000 (a complete guess) and Buyagift make 20% margin (again a complete guess) then to pay for the trip they will need to turnover an extra £100,000 just to break even. To flip this over completely, if they didn’t run the competition would they turnover £100,000 less? If the answer is no, then it’s difficult to justify the trip from a fiscal viewpoint.

As I say I’m completely flummoxed as to the right way to go on this one so answers on a postcard please…

 Over and out.

TBW.

1 Comment »

Hello folks,

I hope you are well.

Whilst talking to Julia from AWIN today, we found ourselves talking about the length of time that it takes for some merchants to validate commission. (For the record we validate commission every 8 days which I think is probably slower than some merchants, who do it daily but quicker than others).

So why don’t we validate orders quicker?

It quickly dawned on me that (probably) nobody has explained WHY we don’t do it quicker, so I thought I’d post a little blog posting on TBW and explain our stance…

Because we have a lot of automated and manual fraud screening we (fingers firmly crossed) don’t get a lot of fraudulent orders, so this isn’t the reason why we don’t validate quicker. However, I can understand why some companies who sell high end expensive gadgets like digital cameras and camcorders, take a while longer to validate orders as they are more prone to fraudulent orders.

With us, the primary reason for not validating orders quicker is returns. Under certain legislation (Distance Selling Regulations predominantly) and also through goodwill, we have an obligation to accept back returned products - up to a period of 30 days. Obviously then we have to fully refund the customer.

So potentially, if we validate orders too quickly, we may be paying commission on an order that has actually been returned to us and consequently we’ve received no money on. I don’t mind this if the commission is only a few quid, but if the commission is on a £500 football table then it gets a little hot beneath the collar.

But then that got me thinking. What about PPC affiliates? Do they factor in returns in to the equation and thus none payment of (in their eyes) legitimate commission? Is it fair to not pay commission on returned items?

Thankfully this doesn’t happen very often with Prezzybox as I’m pleased to report that our current approval rate is 99.76%, but it’s definitely an issue which needs bringing to the public arena.

Toodle pip.

TBW.

4 Comments »

Hello folks,

There’s been a lot written of late about how some merchants (including some MASSIVE ones) seem to make an absolute pigs ear of Affiliate Marketing. Now, I’m not an Affiliate Guru - far from it - but Prezzybox always seem to do OK within the Affiliate Marketing arena. Why? Coz it’s not chuffin rocket science that’s why!!!

So, with it not being rocket science, here’s some basic tips which we adhere to which seem to work pretty well for us…

1. Provide Affiliates with all the tools/information/data they require to sell your products.
2. Do this early - not like the competitor of ours who sent out their Fathers Day creative on the Friday before Fathers day.
3. Pay people for stuff they deserve. If the Affiliate has driven a sale or lead to your site then they deserve some credit for it , right. So for example when somebody purchased 50 hammocks on Prezzybox through an affiliate link we were happy to pay the affiliate £500 commission.
4. Don’t do stooopid things which would be annoying if they happened to you. Reducing Commission/not paying commission during key selling periods on key lines/leakage on your site are all no-no’s. Affiliates are like elephants. They have lllloooonnnngggg memories.
5. Work with your affiliates. It’s an ‘us and us’ situation, NOT an ‘us and them’ scenario. I’ve heard sooooo many merchants (and affiliates) berating the other side.
6. Own up to your mistakes. If you’ve made a cock up, own up to it. Affiliates are humans too you know (even if some of them don’t look it!). Tell them if you’ve made a mistake and work through it with them. Honesty is the best policy.

I reckon that’s about it. 6 easy steps to running a half decent Affiliate programme.

One other thing. If you are looking to close your affiliate programme then do it honourably. Tell affiliates that your programme is closing in X days (making sure X is longer than 3 nanoseconds!!) so they can manage the changeover. I can understand ‘in principle’ why some big companies - who have to answer to a big board of Directors/Shareholders - close their programme, but surely it can be done with a modicum of professionalism.

Anyhoo. until next time…

TBW

14 Comments »

 Hello good people of blogsville. Hope you are well.

I just wanted to write a short post to see how prepared affiliates are for Mothers Day. On the whole I’m reckoning not very!

This isn’t me having a dig, moreover, I think a lot of merchants and affiliates have been caught out by the close proximity of Mothers Day to that commercial bastian of an event which is Valentines Day. Really however this is no excuse, as Mothers Day is one of the big retail occassions of the year and if marketed correctly will, in my opinion,  only be eclipsed by Christmas and Valentines Day in terms of sales.

Is this the fault of the Affiliate? Or should we, as Affiliate Managers, be doing more to help get our affiliates promotions and time table organised? I reckon it’s a combination of the both, but I certainly think there’s more Merchants can do to encourage their affiliates to launch promotions in plenty of time.

So this then leads to the next question - when should merchants launch their promotions?

Well, in my role as an affiliate manager, I try and pre-determine what I would be doing were I an affiliate. Using Christmas as an  example, if I were an affiliate I’d want to start my Christmas promotion in October at the latest, so this would give me time to optimise my pages, promote the years hot selling products, update creative etc.

Then I work backwards. If the affiliates need the creative/promotion in October and it’s going to take us a month to put together the creative/competition prizes/product sales reports etc, then we need to start the work at the beginning of September to make sure the affiliate gets their sales tools in time.

I then give myself and our designers and techies a couple of ‘extra’ weeks grace just in case something happens which delays you a wee while.

…now, I know this isn’t rocket science but it amazes me to see how many merchants and agencies actually launch their promotion a matter of days before the actual event. One of our competitors (via an agency) launched their Fathers Day promotion last year on the Friday before Fathers Day. Now, even if some affiliates had bothered to promote the merchant at the 11th hour, any customer who purchased products wouldn’t have got them prior to fathers day because the postal service/couriers don’t collect and deliver on a Saturday. In short therefore a complete waste of time, effort and dosh.

So, to conclude this, now not so short post, I think we, as merchants need to be doing more to drive promotions forward with our affiliates. Lets provide them with tools, nice and early and work with them to promote the best products for the specific occasion.

(blatant sales pitch…) and if you still havn’t put together a Mothers Day promotion then you need to be quick. Mothers Day is on the 2nd March (less than 2 weeks) and you can find details of our creative by clicking here.

Ten ten. Over and out.

 Zak.

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