The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) Affiliate Marketing Council launched its guidelines for best practice in affiliate marketing at the end of November, 2008. Recently, they revised the best practice guidelines, to now include the voucher sector as well.

These are the IAB’s affiliate marketing code of best practice:

1. Affiliates must not use a mechanism whereby users are encouraged to click to interact with content where it is unclear or confusing what the outcome will be. For example:
   • Using “click to reveal code” and opening the site when no valid code is present or an offer/deal/sale is presented instead, without this being made clear before the click.
   • Using “click to copy code” and opening the site when no valid code is available
   • Opening the merchant’s site without making it clear that this will occur
2. Voucher code affiliates must clearly detail the nature of the voucher or offer/deal/sale before a user clicks to interact with it (by revealing, copying, visiting the merchant site etc)
3. A valid code is defined as a code that has been legitimately issued by a merchant for your use online. This code will have an activation date and, where provided, a deactivation date. When a code has expired it must either be removed or the fact that it has expired must be clearly stated in writing, not simply by listing the expiry date.
4. Sites displaying voucher codes must contain clear categorization and separation between deals/offers/sales and voucher codes.
5. Any affiliate judged by one of the participating networks to be contravening the code will be referred to the IAB’s Affiliate Marketing Council and all members will agree on a course of action. The discretion of the council will be used when determining what is judged as misleading or confusing and is not confined to the examples above.

It is a positive trend to see guidelines for affiliate marketing, an industry that has been lacking that for some years.
Image courtesy of tanakawho

In the series of listing affiliate networks in Europe, the turn has come to the UK. British advertisers obviously have a lot more affiliate networks to choose from than countries like Sweden and Denmark, but the competition is a lot tougher as well. In general, if you are a UK-based business, consider the age, size and growth rate of each affiliate network, before you join.

This is a list of affiliate networks available in the UK.

• TradeDoubler. Europe’s largest affiliate network has its largest market in the UK. This leading affiliate network should be considered when opening an affiliate program in the UK.
• Affiliate Window. The Affiliate Window network has gotten good reviews in the UK and are on the top of the list of affiliate networks in the UK. If you are a UK only e-Commerce advertiser (Business-to-Consumer), Affiliate Window should be evaluated.
• Affiliate Future. You can see Affiliate Future’s current clients on this list. If you are in a related business or industry, you may find affiliates that perform well in your industry at Affiliate Future.
• Commission Junction. The one European market where CJ is doing well is in Great Britain. If you are targeting the English speaking markets, globally, then CJ might be an option for you. Otherwise I would recommend a different network.
• ClixGalore. An affiliate network in English speaking markets, as well as Japan and India. They make bold claims of their own size on their website, but then again, don’t most affiliate networks?
• WebGains. WebGains is AdPepper’s solution for an affiliate network. The UK is WebGains’ largest market, although they are not the biggest UK affiliate network.
• Zanox. Zanox are expanding in the UK and *may* be an affiliate network for you, if you want a pan-European account management of your affiliate programs. In that case, evaluate Zanox side by side with TradeDoubler, WebGains, and perhaps CJ.
• Buy.at. Buy.at claims to be the second largest UK affiliate network – measured in number of affiliates, advertisers, revenue or something else, I don’t know. However, it’s certain that you should include Buy.at when evaluating which network(s) to start up in. Similar to CJ, Buy.at has precense in the USA and the UK.

There are too many UK affiliate networks to review all, but here is a list of additional affiliate networks you may want to consider, especially if you are not a general B2C advertiser. Some affiliate networks have specialized in niche areas, like Holiday Affiliates below.

• Paid On Results claim to have exceptional reporting and metrics for advertisers.
• Click2Sell. The Click2Sell offers a very non-objective comparison of itself and “everyone else”.
• OMG UK. OMGUK.com has a few hundred affiliate programs, with a majority in the Finance industry, like insurance and credit cards.
• Profitistic. This affiliate network boasts no set-up fees.
• Filinet. US-based affiliate network.
• FastAdvert. Small affiliate network, although it’s been around since 2001. For most advertisers, not the best choice, since a lot of ads include pop-ups and non-standard scripts.
• ClickBank. US-based product marketing affiliate network.
• StellarAds. This affiliate network has the US as primary focus, although it’s available in the UK.
• FireLead.
• Z-Mirage.
• Mirago offers Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and Contextual advertising.
• ePurple Media. Affiliate network in the UK, US and India.
• IncentaClick. US-based affiliate network.
• Clash Media. Affiliate network in the UK, US, Scandinavia and Germany. Started in 2006.
• ClickXchange.
• NetKlix.
• Holiday Affiliates. Affiliate network specializing in Travel affiliate programs.

Although there are other affiliate networks listed for the UK on various websites, the ones not listed here were unavailable at the time of writing. If you know of an affiliate network in the UK that is not listed here, please let me know by commenting below or sending me an e-mail.

There are a number of misconceptions and mistakes made when it comes to affiliate marketing. Here are 10 common mistakes that I have collected from my time at TradeDoubler, Europe’s largest affiliate network.

1. Limited time frame. Affiliate Marketing differs from ad campaigns in that they have a long term focus. It is an ongoing process to build relationships with affiliates. If an affiliate program is shut down at any point, affiliates will see it as unstable and you will have a difficult task in winning them back again.
2. Providing generic ads. An attractive affiliate advertiser is able to provide attractive content for the netizens visiting the affiliate. Generic ads that do not target specific audiences will perform badly.
3. Limited budget for an eCommerce program. An affiliate marketing program is not a campaign. Campaigns have limited budgets and time, whereas with the right commission model you can let affiliates sell you as much as they like. You pay them per performance, which means that you need to have a flexible budget. Do not make the mistake of using a marketing budget for affiliate marketing – it should involve your sales budget as well, as long as you sell online. Some marketers close their affiliate programs temporarily or permanently because of too much success – affiliates have generated “too many” sales, which costs too much. The fatal flaw in this scenario is that the advertiser sells a lot less by closing the affiliate program.
4. Not communicating with affiliates. You cannot expect to open an affiliate program and let it manage itself. You have a lot of competition that is trying to get each affiliate’s attention. As long as you stay in affiliates’ top-of-mind, you will be able to manage a successful affiliate program.
5. Blocking access to products. If you have a webshop and do not give access to a product feed (or data feed) to affiliates, you are severely limiting your success potential. A product feed lets affiliates download your products to their databases and link directly to each product. The conversion rate of product feeds is several times higher than banner ads, and they need to be in your portfolio if you sell products online.
6. One price fits all. Affiliates need to think they are special. Reward the ones that are doing well, by upgrading their commission structure. Be specific. If an affiliate that is doing very well asks to be rewarded per click only, set that up. Just remember to keep track of your own ROI, but as long as it is profitable for you, humor the affiliates in what they ask for.
7. Not keeping your ads up to date. Ads have a tendency to become stale and outdated after a while. Make sure your ads are updated, even if you are displaying the same message. In affiliate networks, affiliates can sort ads by the latest updated ones – you can benefit by making sure yours are frequently on top in that list.
8. Not keeping your offers up to date. If you run a campaign offline or through other online channels, make sure your offers in the affiliate marketing channel is up to date. The affiliate channel is frequently forgotten or not prioritized when it comes to campaigns. You will see a good benefit in always keeping your offers up to date with affiliates.
9. Forbidding keyword buying. You, or your media agency, may be really good at SEM (Search Engine Marketing). However, you cannot cover all bases, and affiliates frequently come up with ideas you haven’t thought of yourself. Use a smart keyword policy, keeping your own brand to yourself, and let affiliates bid on keywords in general. Pay them on performance (CPA) and let them choose the keywords they buy for you.
10. Not measuring performance. The most important part of online marketing is being able to measure results. You keep track of your affiliate marketing channel and compare its results to your other channels. Probably the single worst mistake you can make is not keeping track of your results.

Affiliates can work as your sales force, where you reward them on their performance. This is a win-win situation, where your customer hopefully shares the benefit. It is not difficult to be an affiliate marketing manager, but it requires a lot of time, communication and management of resources to be successful.

Use an affiliate network (like the ones I’ve mentioned in Denmark and Sweden) and make use of their expertise. Affiliate networks know their field well, and can help you be successful in affiliate marketing.

photo credit: itsray

In this series with affiliate networks, the turn has come to look at Sweden.

As with affiliate networks in Denmark, you can count on a good knowledge of English when you contact them – although it is strongly advised that you create any ads and other creatives in the local language. Here are the affiliate networks that are available in Sweden.

• TradeDoubler. Europe’s largest affiliate network was founded in Sweden, and the affiliate network has a very strong foothold in the market. Although a couple of competitors try hard, TradeDoubler still counts as the leading affiliate network in Sweden.
• Affiliator. Sweden’s up-and-coming affiliate network started in 2006, and has a little way to go to catch TradeDoubler in features and reach (TD started in 1999). Affiliator tries hard to push to the number one spot and are very aggressive in their aqcuisition of advertisers.
• Double.net.
• Zanox. The Berlin-based Zanox tries hard to be a European – and global – leader in affiliate marketing. They work hard at acquiring clients in Scandinavia, but do not have the size of network of the top 3 in Sweden. However, Zanox is a viable alternative to TradeDoubler on a pan-European level, although their interface and functionality is somewhat scaled down.
• Webgains. Established in 2006, Webgains aims to be the best affiliate network. With 23 advertisers in Sweden at the time of writing, the network has some way to go to be the biggest, but they have some features that can compete with the bigger European players.
• Commission Junction. As with many American companies, CJ has trouble creating success in non-English speaking markets. CJ announced some time ago that they would focus a lot on Scandinavia, but there are other affiliate networks that are better in these markets, that have more of a local focus than CJ.
• ComClick. Also started in 2006, ComClick is a Hi-Media owned affiliate network. Hi-Media is large in France, but does not have the largest foothold on Sweden.
• Agent Interactive. A small network with limited reach.
• NenoAd. Another smaller affiliate network in Sweden.

Worth mentioning

With the increased popularity of social media, a new advertising ‘channel’ has appeared. Advertising networks like Tailsweep targets social media and blogs, which may be an alternative to the traditional affiliate networks in Europe.

Which affiliate network do you use? One across Europe or several, selected per market?

Here are a few ways to get into Internet Marketing, and build a long term Internet Marketing portfolio.   

Affiliate Marketing

Engaging in affiliate marketing is almost by default a long term marketing practice. Your affiliates function as your sales force, or lead generation representatives, and you pay them on the performance they deliver to you. As long as you set up the right commission model, you won’t be paying commission unless you are making money. It’s a win-win model for everyone, where the customer finds your product, you get the sale and your affiliate gets a percentage commission for generating the sale.

Join 2-3 affiliate networks in each market you are in. Use a tool to compare all of them on the KPIs that are important to you. Run a test period of three to six months, then evaluate which affiliate network works best in each market. You can use one network across all markets, however I would only advise that if you are short on resources. The more suboptimization you can allocate per market, the better. If you use an MRM tool to keep track of all markets, you don’t need to use the same affiliate network cross-markets, regardless of what affiliate networks tell you.

Search Engine Optimization

There are many techniques, tricks and hacks to get pages listed high in search engines. If you ask an SEO consultant, you can easily get the impression that SEO can make or break your business. Well, it’s partly true, since you can generate a whole lot of traffic if you rank high on search engines, but if your website does not perform in terms of usability and delivers value to your visitors, you will not benefit in the long term.

If you are in it for the long term, there is an easy way to boil down SEO to three focus areas, for the long term benefit.

1. Make sure your technical structure (html) on your website is readable by search engines. I use a 100+ point evaluation scorecard to optimize websites, but in essence, all you have to do is make sure it is readable in a text-only browser.
2. Write theme-based content – keep all your content on the same theme, and subpages on your website keyword-optimized for one phrase each in the same theme.
3. Build links to your website from authoritative sources. It not only helps search rankings, but also adds to the number of places where your customers can find you.

That is long term and you can do it yourself. If you have the resources for it, hire a consultant or SEO professional in your marketing department to work for you, but make sure you have covered the first three steps on your own.

Internet Advertising Campaigns

Essentially a switch-on, switch-off type of marketing, with fixed budgets and/or a fixed time frame, campaigns are do not get the long term focus from a lot of marketers. A lot of times it’s about burning the last of a budget for a period or testing out various media. For larger corporations, giving total responsibility to media agencies lets the marketing staff wash their hands of the responsibility and just allocate (often considerable) budgets for media spend. That is not long term, that is blindfolding yourself.

However, there is a way to make campaigns long term. Through measuring results from each channel and media provider, you can identify the ones that perform well, even though you don’t pay them on performance. Using a Web Analytics, an EMM or MRM system, you can measure the revenue, sales and/or leads generated by each campaign channel.

Measure a lot of campaign channels to test their performance, keeping your ROI in focus on each of them. Out of all the ones you test, you will have some with negative and some with positive ROI. Select the ones with positive ROI and rank them based on KPIs like generated sales/leads, margin or revenue. Stick with the good ones, and put as much into these channels as you can, depending on your budget. If you can see that a campaign channel is generating a lot of sales and you still have a positive ROI, keep putting money into it.

Search Engine Marketing

Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing and the like. Closely related to SEO, SEM campaigns can help you identify which keywords to optimize for and add credibility to your organic search results. Since you generally pay per click, you need to keep a close eye on the performance of each keyword, remove poor performers and add new keywords as you go. The long term SEM plan requires resources to monitor performance on sometimes thousands of ads, so you’ll need a professional dedicated to that administration. Hire the right people, and they will more than likely pay for themselves through sales generated through SEM.

News and Offers Marketing

In this case your own newsletters and RSS feeds – not e-mail advertising campaigns (for that, see Internet Advertising Campaigns). Leverage the power of your database of collected e-mail addresses from opt-in subscribers, members and customers. Send out offers every week or month that is highly relevant to your user base. You can evaluate relevance on simple things like CTR, or use advances KPIs in your web analytics tool. The long term effect occurs when you have built a considerable subscriber base that generate a lot of revenue – and it won’t cost you a cent (other than perhaps a little for your e-mail system).

Social Media Marketing

There are two strategies for marketing through social media. One is to place (more or less) relevant banners and ads on pages where your target audience is browsing (the Facebook model). This model has not worked very well for most advertisers, so far. The other is to actually get engaged in conversations and contribute to discussions online, in blogs, social networks, and through social utilities. In SMM, there is no substitute for manpower and time. However, it is easy to learn, and you can probably hire someone straight out of school, that is already deeply immersed in SMM techniques in his or her free time.

Social Media Marketing is long term, in the way that you are building your company’s image through the people that are engaging in social media conversations online. Integrate SMM with your website, and you will have a powerful advantage over your competitors.

The Key to Long Term

The key to reaching long term results in Internet Marketing is measurement. Always keep your eye on the KPI.

The way to measure results online (on external websites, your websites, RSS feeds and your newsletters) is through adding tracking codes to measure the amount of times any of your content (news, banners, text ads, web pages, videos, and other content) was displayed, how many times it was clicked on, and what results came out of it. Use a tool that lets you compare channels side by side – even though each requires unique administration, you can still compare them on the revenue they generate.

Jon the conversation. Add your comments to this post.

[UPDATE] 2007-06-12. I have added two additional affiliate networks that I didn’t know about at the time of writing this post. The affiliate networks are Clash Media and Mikkelsen Media.

• TradeDoubler. Europe’s largest affiliate network has a solid footprint on the Danish market. There are a large number of publishers in the TradeDoubler Denmark network, and quite a few programs. TradeDoubler is the place to start, unless you have quite a low budget.
• Partner-Ads. This DK only affiliate network covers the low-budget end of the Danish market. In terms of affiliate programs, they have quite a large number, but they have fewer publishers and lower revenue than TradeDoubler. The cheap alternative, with fewer reports and features.
• Webgains. This AdPepper network is gaining in the number of affiliates and programs in the Nordic region, but they still have some way to go to gain market share.
• Zanox. The aggressive German affiliate network gets good reviews from both publishers and advertisers in Denmark. The number of programs are limited (there are more in Sweden, where Zanox’ Nordic manager sits) and so are the number of publishers, even though some big ones are
• Commission Junction. Like many US companies, CJ has a challenge in non-English speaking markets. CJ has very few Danish programs and publishers, and a few others that list DK as a market they sell to. It is obvious that CJ is not focusing on Denmark.
• Mikkelsen Media. This affiliate network based on Fyn in Denmark includes five languages on its website. However, its affiliate advertisers are quite large Danish companies – some of the biggest affiliate advertising spenders in Denmark. It is worth opening a discussion with this Danish affiliate network if you are considering affiliate advertising in Denmark.
• Clash Media. Clash Media launched in 2006. It serves primarily the UK, US, Scandinavia, and Germany – even though they claim to cover all of Europe and to be a leading network and so on. On the Danish market, they do not have the biggest footprint, although they are aggressively trying to compete with bigger European players like TradeDoubler and Zanox.
  

For publishers, it’s a good idea to sign up for all of them, and pick the advertisers that fit your niche.

If you’re looking to advertise only in Denmark, choose TradeDoubler since they have the largest network, or Partner-Ads if you have a low budget.

For Nordic or pan-European advertisers, select TradeDoubler as the primary network, since they are the largest, and secondarily Zanox, since they try hard, or optionally local players for each market. Compare the networks side by side, per market, in your MRM or web analytics system. For DK, TradeDoubler should be in the mix, and you can test another network for reference, if you like.

Are any networks missing? Add your comments below.