If you couldn’t get enough of listening to Mr Gramshammer then you are in for a treat because Day 2 sees him speak twice more. At 11.OO Andrew Firmin of Argos will be speaking with Florian on the subject of retailers and their affiliate programmes complimenting advertising push. Then Florian and Andy will join forces again at 13.00 on a panel discussing the eConsultancy Affiliate Survey.

To be honest we think these words of wisdom are going to be worth the entry fee alone – but I did get paid to say that. If you feel like congratulating Florian on his speaking performances then look out for him and the CJ team at one of the Expo’s networking parties, details here.

Don’t forget to come along and visit both the Commission Junction and ValueClick media teams at stand 36. In addition Argos, Legal & General and Air France are among some of our clients that will be exhibiting this year.

Networking at the A4U is a must, and there will be a range of opportunities to do so from speed networking to the official A4U party. You can find out more about these activities and more by clicking here.

If you’re still struggling for an excuse as why to come-well there is good news. All CJ clients get a 10% discount on tickets when registering with the code: CJCLIENT10. You can register by clicking here.

As you probably know, the IAB (www.iabuk.net) is the UK’s leading trade association for online and mobile advertising.  It represents the interests of its members, which includes Commission Junction, in developing best practice and promoting the growth of these channels. One of the ways that this occurs is through the management of councils for different disciplines which includes the Affiliate Marketing Council.

The IAB AMC, currently chaired by BskyB’s Helen Southgate, has been in existence for five years and has been responsible for promotion, self-regulation and education around affiliate marketing in the UK. Examples of work carried out and information about getting involved can be found here : http://www.iabaffiliatemarketing.com

The survey has been developed to understand and promote affiliate marketing in the UK, the IAB AMC need your help. The survey will only take five minutes to complete and is anonymous so there’s no need to worry about potential ramifications. In addition, we are looking for a small number of merchants to spend ten minutes talking face to face with a member of the IAB AMC at this year’s A4U Expo in London in October. This will just be a chance for us to ask some more qualitative questions to discuss the survey. If you’re keen to be involved then email Chris Probert on chris@iabuk.net.

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO COMPLETE THE SURVEY

You have some time as the survey will close on Monday 10^th October – but make sure you get involved.

If you’re keen to read more about the AMC and the survey then you can visit the IAB website here.

This is a fantastic opportunity to share your opinions and viewpoints with your peers so make sure you take part.  The deadline is on Friday and completing the census only takes ten minutes.  So grab a coffee and take part – you get a free copy of the report if you do.

Two years ago a similar report was compiled which provided unique insight into affiliate marketing, the time has now come to revisit the subject.  The online world moves so quickly that the research is sure to bring different topics and new perspectives to the forefront of the industry; mobile is now on the scene and video has developed as a leading proposition within affiliate marketing.

We’ll be discussing the findings at the A4U Expo in London in October, along with Andrew Firmin, affiliate manager at Argos. So you can hear more about it all there – questions are always appreciated as well.

If you’re planning on heading to the Expo please do come and visit us, we’ll be at stand 36.  We would love to meet you for a chat or even just to say hello.

Wait, there’s more!  Florian Gramshammer, UK country manager for Commission Junction and Andrew Firmin, affiliate manager at Argos, will be speaking at the conference.   Pop along at 11.00-11.45 on the 19^th to hear them discuss how retailers can use their affiliate programmes as a resource, integrating and complimenting activity with any advertising push.

Florian and Andy will also be on a panel with Chris Johnson from A4U talking about the eConsultancy Affiliate Survey and discussing results of research conducted on this year’s affiliate landscape.  This is at 13.00-13.45 on 19^th as well.

It’s the perfect time to purchase your tickets to ensure you don’t miss out on such a great event. If you’re an avid microblogger, you can also receive further news by following the event on Twitter, @A4UEXPO.

Click here to go to the website and book, and don’t forget CJ clients get 10% discount on tickets and can register with the code: CJCLIENT10.

We hope to see you there.

That said – the first thing I saw when I ascended up the escalator on the first morning was a short, menacing squirrel. Scary, really scary. The picture is blurry because my hands were literally shaking with fear!

It felt very familiar when we all got to the stand. We have had the same spot for a few years now and most of the CJ staff have been with us for all the Expos so we all knew what to expect. This year we were next to our good friends and client Argos who had their own stand for the second year running so that they could meet with existing and new affiliates.

David Harding at the Argos Stand

Daniel Powel was speaking in two sessions. The first, on the first day was ‘Feeds can do WHAT?!’ which basically went in depth into the importance of feeds in the industry. He spoke with Robert from FusePump and Charlie from Thomson about the new Thomson feed. Any worries about scheduling conflicts with the Affiliate Doctors proved unfounded – the room was packed out. I am sure that the Existem boys and girls will be sharing the presentations if you missed out, or if you want a copy just email on admin@cjblog.co.uk.

The second session was the IAB panel about what the IAB’s Affiliate Marketing Council does for the industry. Lots of hot debate here – a bit disappointing that there wasn’t more time to field more questions but a good session none the less.

We had a good CJ crew out for all the networking, some sore heads were on display both in the office and on the stand. Lots of excited chatter about ‘I had a great conversation with so and so….’, ‘did you know that this person is developing…..’ as well as the obligatory industry gossip so all in all a great show once again.

As always A4U team, a job well done. Congratulations on another great show and thanks for keeping us involved!

As well as just exhibiting at the event we will also be speaking. Along with FusePump and TUI we will be talking  in a session called ‘Feeds can do WHAT?’. This is an overview of how feeds can be crucial to the success of an affiliate marketing programme. It is at 12 midday on the Tuesday so do try to pop along if you can – we have been working with the FusePump guys on some really interesting innovations.

Commission Junction and FusePump recently joined forces to develop advanced feed solutions. You can read about it here. In addition, FusePump have deveworked with TUI to develop an AdCreator tool which you can read more about here.

We hope to see lots of you there.

When asked to provide a topic this one seemed fairly self-evident. We were sure that not only would it be relevant but that we would have tons of information from which we could draw. It was also clear that based upon past and current performance Argos would be the ideal partner to talk through this. I’ve also done presentations with David Harding in the past so I was confident of it running smoothly.

The presentation followed a set framework. We would discuss current economic conditions and then we would correlate the Argos/CJ efforts back to suggestions on how to beat that particular trend through affiliate marketing. 

Market Conditions and discounting :First we discussed the market conditions in the UK and how they were impacting businesses. Without too much detail (as I am sure most of us understand the key trends), one key point of note is how discounting has impacted business and how Argos sought to turn that into their advantage. Primarily, many business have been discounting broadly where Argos have been discounting tactically to move inventory or take advantage of particular affiliate business models and their ability to target particular demographics.

Excellent Communication: This of course led us to the first of two key drivers of the programme: excellent communication. Argos has made it a point in the past eighteen months to engage at a greater level with the affiliate community and become ‘less anonymous’. Their broad-based communication strategy encompassed: one-to-many, one-to-one, and face-to-face channels.

• One-to-many: This was mainly newsletters and community advertising/marketing and was typically directed at increasing the reach of the programme and casting a broad net to pull in affiliates.
• One-to-one: For larger affiliates in targeted demographics/channel segments, the communication became much more focused and direct, specifically tailored to their needs and with an absolute focus on relevancy
• Face-to-face: Argos sought to engage with affiliates on a more intimate and direct level which CJ was happy to facilitate.

All of these communication initiatives drove greater affiliate loyalty and enabled Argos to target their needs in the appropriate direction. Optimisation was so successful that Argos currently has an active publisher base of over 42% and 37% of publishers actually drive sales. All of this on a programme with over 7,000 publishers.

Internal Management – The final pillar of success for Argos is the effective internal management of their programme. As we all know it is critical not to turn programmes on and off. ‘Blown budgets’ kill programmes. It negates hard affiliate work and drives down volumes even when the programme comes back up. By selling the affiliate marketing programme internally and treating it as an effective point of sale, Argos has been able to drive volumes forward without having to put on the breaks. The keys to winning the ‘internal sales pitch’ for the Argos affiliate team were:

• Working with a network which provides ample metrics to support any incrementality scrutiny
• Effectively using the affiliate channel to move inventory on a tactical basis.

Overall: Whilst affiliate marketing can’t offer a magic tonic for what ails many businesses out in the marketplace it, is clear from looking out there in the community that many affiliate programmes can underperform in an underperforming market. Times of distress are the exact times that you need to increase your reach and consider new business models – not close down avenues for growth. Affiliates are customers and need to be sold to, not just for their own selves but also so that they can share their learnings with their users. Finally, merchants must learn how to sell the affiliate programme internally – the budget should be forth coming, the margins correct and the ROI communicated outwards and upwards to key stakeholders. That way growth does not become an issue.

In summary, it really comes down to communication, incrementality, margins, budgets and reach. Getting all these facets in harmony will ensure that an affiliate programme can sell to the three target audiences that count – the affiliates, the customers and the internal organisation.

What struck me instantly about the event was just how much it had grown in one year. I have run many events in the past and was really impressed by how well executed and organised everything was. I know how hard Claire and Matt worked and it all paid off in the end

We managed to have about 20 or so staff taking it in turns to attend over the two days and we were all kept very busy on our stand.

As ever, the networking was great at the event, in particular the boat party on the Tuesday night which saw much fun and merriment.

Conference

The conference was even better this year and Commission Junction had four slots. We kept Daniel Powel very busy with three sessions:

On the Tuesday Daniel moderated a panel about securing internal buy in for your affiliate marketing budget with Chris Bishop, Online Aqusitions Manager, House of Fraser and Chris King, Head of Affiliates, BT. Chris Bishop has blogged about it here.

On the second day, Daniel headed up a panel about the value that incentive sites bring to programmes. Speaking with him were representatives from Argos, TMN Media, Mindshare Interaction and aGoodCause.

Daniel also spoke on a panel about the IAB affiliate council and what benefits it brings to the affiliate marketing community.

Our fourth speaker slot was occupied by Cheryl Ingram, our Client Development Director. Cheryl spoke with our clients TUI and lastminute.com about technical innovation in the travel sector.

We had great feedback about all of our sessions and if you would like to receive the presentations then just email in at industyinformationuk@cj.com.

Thanks to everyone who met with us at the event and we will see you in Amsterdam in April and back in London in October!