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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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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We’re spreading the lluurrrvvveee at Prezzybox.com and urge you to get involved.

As well as all the usual Valentines Day goodies we’ve launched our very own poetry competition. Are you romantic enough to jot down a sonnet? If so click here and send us an example of written creativity. You could be the winner of one of our great prizes.

If that’s not up your street then why not check out what type of couple you are in with our couples test. Alternatively if its fun you’re after check out our special Valentines Day Pairs game.

Finally, if you just fancy a bit of traditional romance (and fancy bagging yourself a nice goodie) then send your loved one an ecard or drop them a hint telling them exactly which gift you want.

Happy loving folks!

Zak.

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OK folks, this is purely a promotional post. So, if you’re looking for some words of wisdom or something insightful, then I’m sorry but you’re gonna be a tad disappointed.

So, what can you win?

Prize 1 - Win a 5* Holiday to Tunisia  with Prezzybox.

We’ve teamed up with our good buddies at The Co-operative Travel to give away a 5* holiday to Tunisia. Pretty neat hey! All you need to do to enter is click on this link and answer the pretty easy question.

Prize 2 - Win Prezzybox vouchers by answering this quick survey.

 We’ve teamed up with some more buddies - Carrentals.co.uk to offer some Prezzybox.com vouchers. All you need do is fill in this brief survey and Dougs your uncle, you’ll be entered into the draw to win some vouchers.

Good luck and toodle pip!

TBW.

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 I’ve been meaning to post this for a while but have been snowed under lately - slapped wrists - no excuse!

So, how did the Christmas in July show go?

Well, considering it was our first ever exhibition, and although it was pretty stressful in the run up, I feel it was a massive success. We made a LOT of contacts from lots of magazines, papers and blogs. This in turn gave us a good indication of what products will do well at Christmas.

We segmented our products into categories - for him, for her, for kids and for the home and this format worked really well as it enabled us to promote 20 products in each category which we feel will be biggies this Christmas. The journos seemed to like this format too and it’s one we’ll be adopting in the future.

A number of our affiliates popped over to see us and hopefully we made it worth their while by providing them with a goody bag and a look some of this Christmas’s big sellers. Thanks for braving the rain fellas.

I’ve included some piccies of the event for your perusal.

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 Christmas is merely 178 days away (and counting), so you really need to pull your fingers out and start thinking about what products you’re going to be promoting this Yuletide.

For this very reason we’re attending a “Christmas in July” exhibition where we shall be displaying all of our top selling products together with all of the big hits for this Christmas to 100’s of prospective journalists for national newspapers and magazines.

The event takes place over 2 days in July on the 9th and 10th at The Vinyl Factory, Foubert’s Place, Soho, W1 and we would like to invite all of our affiliates along to come see us at the event! It would be good to catch up with all of you and will also give you a much better understanding of which products are going to be big sellers over Christmas this year. It will also allow you to start creating and optimising your pages for Christmas earlier so that you gain maximum exposure (and commission!) over the festive season.

Fancy it? The event is free to enter and it would be great to see you there. If you’d like to book an appointment then please feel free to drop me an email or call 0870 1221 007 and we’ll get something in the diary. Alternatively simply drop in at the event between 9am and 6pm. It will be great to see you.

Toodle Pip.

TBW

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Prezzybox launched our Vidibox Video Content Units last year. For those of you who’ve not seen them, the Vidiboxes are basically banners with product videos embedded into them and look a little bit like this - below.

I’m convinced that the Vidiboxes work better than traditional banners for affiliates, so I’ve been meaning to do some analysis for some time now with regards to the success rate (and particularly the conversion rate) of products that have and don’t have demonstration videos, and thus confirm the validity of the Vidiboxes as affiliate content.

For the purposes of this research I’ve looking at 2 products - the original yellow Sun Jar, which has a product video (and a Vidibox) and the Sun Jar - Blue, which doesn’t and looking at how well each one converts.

The results are really interesting. I’ve compared visitors and sales over the last 3 (and a half) months and here’s my findings:

The main point that stands out here is the difference in conversion rate - with the original Sun Jar having an average conversion rate of 3.02% compared to the conversion rate of the blue Sun Jar of 1.27%. To me this is really interesting. The product imagery, product copy and retail price are identical in every way with the two products, apart from one product being blue and the other being yellow. The only differentiating factor is that the yellow Sun Jar has a product video and the blue one doesn’t. It appears at  first glance therefore, that the yellow Sun Jar has a conversion rate of 1.75% greater than the blue one because it has a product video. This fact is backed up by point number 2…

…The second interesting point to note is the product videos appearance on Youtube. You can see that by clicking here. In 9 months we’ve received 15,855 viewings of this product video, that’s an average of 1761 viewings per month. Now, even if only 10% of those viewing the video on Youtube (could be more, could be less - we’ve not tracked the clickthroughs) click through to Prezzybox and then buy the Sun Jar, then at the conversion rate of 3% we will have achieved an extra 48 sales and generate extra revenue to the tune of approximately £950 for literally shooting a product video and putting it on Youtube, all of which is free of charge. Now, obviously this isn’t going to make us our millions but if we repeat the exercise with every product that warrants a product video, the ROI will soon start to add up.

So - although I don’t have any specific figures as to our video content units increasing conversion, it would appear when analysing the actual product page, that conversion is significantly increased. I can only assume therefore that using a Vidibox will increase the CTR from affiliates to merchants and thus increase commission.

I really do advise affiliates to use video content. In the words of Peter Kay, “it’s the future”.

But how should you use the Vidiboxes? Well, that’s entirely up to you. Jason at Loquax, has been really ingenious with them, displaying them all for people to scroll through. You can see Jason’s handy work here or alternatively you can use them in place of traditional banners or content units.

So, in short, I’m really glad that we took the time and effort to produce our Vidibox content units. I’ll be pushing our creative team to do a whole stack more and also be pushing affiliates to use them more frequently.

Till next time. Toodle pip.

TBW

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I’ve spent a lot of this year doing in-depth analysis. Consequently I’ve been thinking of this question for a while now and whilst it is hypothetical I think it’s a valuable one to ask as an Affiliate Manager….

So. Would I promote Prezzybox if I was an affiliate?

Upon initial reflection this question seems pretty straight forward and I think the answer would be Yes.

Why? 

Well, Prezzybox have a reputation for being very pro-affiliate and attentive to affiliates needs. They offer lifetime commission, they always release creative and content early, they think outside the box (for example they were the first merchant to launch their Vidibox Video Content Units), they adopt all of the new initiatives that the networks provide and they’re generally good guys to work with.

But is this enough as competition in their sector grows?

Nowadays for example, more and more merchants are cottoning on to the fact that they have to produce a lot of creative in the form of content units, widgets Inter Alia. Consequently this isn’t as much of a differentiating factor for Prezzybox as it once was. Also, how important is commission rate, EPC, validation time period to an affiliate? And how much weight is attributed to this over all of the other ‘none-statistical’ personal factors?

Or, to put it another way, Would I promote Prezzybox instead of Merchant X, if Merchant X was paying higher commission or offering a longer cookie period?

Now, a lot of these questions are purely hypothetical and it’s difficult to look at them from a purely fiscal viewpoint. However, I think, in order to remain a proactive and popular merchant, we (and in fact every other merchant) need to be asking themselves these questions on a regular basis.

So, it looks like my current parlance with analytics is set to continue. I feel to maintain our position as one of the market leaders in our sector (in terms of affiliate marketing at least) I need to look at all of our competitors programmes (direct and indirect competitors) on a regular basis and analyse what they do better than us and leverage the areas where we are better than them.

And it’s just dawned on me…. that’s exactly what affiliates must do on a daily basis…

Over and out. ten ten.

TBW

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