We’re pleased to announce that Azam Marketing is now working with Jim Kinloch at Signature Gifts to manage the affiliate programs for Gone Digging and Historic Newspapers, two of the UK’s fastest-growing brands for personalised and unique gifts.

Having grown to discover he is one of the most ambitious and proactive marketing managers in the industry, we asked Jim to tell us about a typical day:

07:45am – The alarm goes off. I pretend it hasn’t happened and turn over… it doesn’t work. I rally my bones and get breakfast and a shower.

08:30 – I drive to work whilst a) admiring the autumnal Hertfordshire countryside, b) wondering when I’ll be able to buy an Alfa Romero Brera S, and c) trying to remember where I left that leaflet about Tai Chi in St. Albans.

08:45 – Arrive at work, make strong black coffee and log on to the PC. Read email and reply to a couple of affiliates who have featured GoneDigging in an offline publication. Chat with Sam, our in-house SEO guy, about the competitions currently running on our blog. Exchange banter with Tim, the top designer and pun-engine. Sip coffee and plough through more email including new sign-ups to our Facebook Fan Page, Tweet alerts and Google alerts on competitors.

09:15 – A bit later than normal, I check our stats on Webgains and see that a lot of sales are coming through from voucher code sites. Sunday was a good day – I wonder whether this is just seasonal or whether our decision to increase affiliate commissions in the run up to Christmas has made our sales tiers more achievable? Historic Newspapers is also performing well through PPC.

GoneDigging are due to run more advertising in national newspapers and TV listing magazines later this week. With an email campaign due to go out as well, everything is looking positive.

10:00 – Paul, our PPC guy, arrives and we discuss our latest search campaigns. We also reflect briefly on October’s stats which saw our traffic percentage rise above one of our competitors for a full month for the first time.

I ponder on the upcoming email sendout for our new range of Personalised Christmas Cards. We’re testing a full-length email with 14 gift spots against a smaller ‘post card’ version. My money is on the shorter version winning the A/B test.

11:22 – Call Nadeem at Azam Marketing and run through our current action points, including sponsoring affiliate competitions using our best selling personalised Football Club History Books. We also arrange where we’re going to meet tomorrow for an affiliate networking event.

I field a sales call from an email list provider touting for business before phoning David Vince, our Webgains Account Manager, to discuss affiliate recruitment.

13:00 – Rather promptly stop for lunch: a tasty salad made for my South Beach Diet regime followed by a short walk outside to get some fresh air.

13:32 – Return to desk refreshed and talk to Sam about picking the winner from over 500 entries in our blog competition. The winner receives a bottle of personalised Champagne, and two runners up get a choice of Daily Mirror spoof newspapers.

Spend the next couple of hours answering emails and reviewing some software to help our affiliate marketing efforts.

15:30 – Time for a black tea. I take 5 minutes to look at our Twitter streams. Nothing to re-tweet so far, so move on to looking at our dashboard of stats and a particular segment that has potential to grow next quarter.

15:44 – Check out the A4U forum for interesting blogs and forum posts. I contemplate offering some exclusive short-term offers to encourage sales. I’m pleased with the growth of the GoneDigging affiliate program since the start of October but there’s still a lot to do…

18:10 – Drive home in the dark. No countryside to look at, just the occasional burst of headlights. De-brief myself on the success of the day and what needs to be done tomorrow and the rest of the week. I make a mental note to write some more posts on the forums, promote the increased commissions for Christmas, and push the new Easy Content Units that we’ve made available.

19:00 – Eat and wash up, followed by the news on TV.

20:00 – Answer an email from a writing friend. We’re both entering a comedy writing competition called the Sitcom Trials and are working on our scripts. This is our second attempt, having failed to get into the competition last year. I wonder why I keep entering these competitions when I never win, but remember that you have to keep plugging away…

23:00 – Time for bed; I seemed to have packed in a lot today. I dream about Alfa exhaust notes, my trousers being too big, giant coffee cups, Tai Chi in the kitchen and a fading memory.

The Gone Digging and Historic Newspapers affiliate programs are on Webgains, and pay up to 20% commission on sales. For more information please contact jim.kinloch [at] signature-gifts.co.uk or nadeem [at] azam.net.

STOP PRESS: Readers of this blog can take advantage of free embossing on all Gone Digging sports books with voucher code AZAMXMAS until 17/12/2009. Enter code at checkout to redeem this exclusive offer.

• 0 Comments

With Christmas drawing ever closer, it’s tempting to overindulge in all the scrumptious party food and drinks that the season brings. However, it’s shocking to learn that in the UK around 43% of men and 33% of women are overweight with a further 22% of men and 23% of women falling into the obese category. A fact which should make most people think before reaching for those delicious but calorie-ridden mince pies!

We asked affiliate manager Joseph Hammond-Hagan to tell us more:

How long have you been working with Cho-Yung?

I’ve been with Cho-Yung since June this year. I’ve been working in the online industry for a number of years across search, affiliate and media sales.

Why did Cho-Yung decide to launch a slimming tea onto the UK market?

The UK, like the US, is facing an obesity crisis and many people are looking for methods to help them lose weight. Our tea is a unique, all-natural product that offers customers a real opportunity to lose weight without drastically altering their lifestyle.

How does the tea work?

The simplest way to explain it is that Cho-Yung works by oxidising fat and passing it out the body. During the first couple of days of drinking the tea, some people find that they need to go to the loo more often than they had previously which shows that the tea is working (and don’t worry – the need to go will lessen as your body gets used to the tea!)

How much weight can people expect to lose?

That really all depends on the individual. Cho-Yung is not a magic potion: if you’re eating lots of junk food then the beneficial effects are obviously cancelled out. However, by drinking two cups a day and making small changes to your eating habits, customers can expect to see an improvement in their weight and general wellbeing.

How do we know that the customer testimonials on your site are genuine?

Customers need to feel secure in their purchase and one way to to do this is through independent testimonials. Each customer is interviewed before their testimonial goes live on the site and they have to give us their permission. We also have video testimonials on Youtube.

How is Cho-Yung tea different to all the other slimming products in the market?

Cho Yung tea is synergistic, which means that the effects of the various ingredients are greater than the sum of their parts. In addition to the tea itself, we include lotus leaf and Chinese Hawthorn to optimise digestion, Alisma to reduce bloating, Jiaogulan to regulate the digestive system, and Cassia seeds and Poria to support the internal organs, notably the heart, spleen and kidneys.

Why do you think Western people are cynical of products like Cho-Yung tea?

I don’t think it’s Western people per se. In the USA, wellbeing products are big business but in my experience, UK audiences are less willing to try new things and take more convincing. If someone takes the decision to lose weight, it’s a considerable undertaking and if that person has tried a number of different diets without much success, then there is bound to be cynicism about what might be perceived as the next ‘wonder’ product.

On our website customers can read a research document which shows that our tea does work.

What can affiliates expect?

We have put a lot of energy into the affiliate program and provide affiliates with instructional videos, free monthly webinars, and a wide range of supporting banners and links. Affiliates can earn up to £90 CPA and no sales validations are required as long as conversion rates remain above 50%.

Do you have any other diet and weight loss products in the pipeline?

We are looking to launch a number of complimentary products over the next few months, so watch this space!

The Cho-Yung affiliate program pays up to £90 CPA for valid sales. To promote the program, please sign up on Affiliate Future or DGM. We also have samples of Cho-Yung tea available – please contact karen [at] azam.net if you would like to receive one in the post and try it for yourself!

• 0 Comments

I see most affiliates starting their journeys in this industry making the same misjudgements I did and it frustrates me because I don’t want them to waste months of their precious time as I have done. So the purpose of this talk at a4uexpo London was not just to embarrass myself, but to enable people to learn from my mistakes and thereby save themselves many thousands of hours on their journey to affiliate marketing riches.

I am flattered hundreds of you chose to turn up for the presentation when there were what seemed to informative talks by others such as Google at the same time, and thank you for the many kind remarks afterwards. And my apologies for assaulting your ear-drums with the most appalling karaoke you’re ever likely to hear!

Here’s the slides for the talk I gave on the following day: The Affiliate Sales Kit – Writing Killer Proposals and Selling Yourself to Merchants.

Check out my colleague Karen’s write-up of the conference here. There are quite a few reviews of the event in the blogosphere, such as here at GeoffBlog.com.

You may leave feedback about any of the speaker sessions on the a4uexpo website here.

• 11 Comments

I’ve had a lot of people contacting me requesting the slides of my talks at the A4U Expo and so am making them available in this and the next post.

I am not a disciple of the ‘Death by Powerpoint’ school of thought and firmly believe Powerpoints should help annotate a presentation, not be the presentation itself – how tedious is is it when a presenter spends an hour reading out his Powerpoints to an audience?! – so my slides never impart most of the information in my talks, but hey ho, it’s all we’ve got for the meanwhile (I’ve read in the A4U Expo blog the videos of all the presentations are being edited and will be online in a few week’s time).

I’ll start with the talk which was entitled ‘The Affiliate Sales Kit – Writing Killer Proposals and Selling Yourself To Merchants’. This was presented with the terrific Grant Reid, Senior Consultant at Stream:20.

Here are Grant’s slides:

And here are mine:

Here’s an example document showing how to project oneself professionally to advertisers that I referred to in the talk:

• 0 Comments

After two and a half days of networking and seminars, the 2009 London A4U Expo is over… and what an event it was! This was my first year at the Expo, and I feel privileged to have spent a few intensive but enjoyable days in the company of so many interesting and dynamic people.

Chris Johnson, from event organisers Existem, revealed over 1,000 people had come through the doors on day one alone which proved that, despite some complaints about ticket prices amongst the affiliate community, the Expo is regarded one of the key events on the affiliate calendar and worth every penny.

I agree with this wholeheartedly – the time went by incredibly quickly with unmissable seminars every hour. With three streams of presentations running at once, it was often difficult to choose which of the tantalising sessions to attend. Luckily, I was joined at the Expo by five of my Azam Marketing colleagues so we were able to attend most of the key talks and share feedback afterwards.

I pushed myself to attend as many varied seminars as possible, knowing that the opportunity to learn from the industry’s finest is invaluable. One of my favourites was “Meet the Super Affiliates” on day two, a panel-style Q&A session. After a hesitant start, the questions soon came thick and fast by way of a Twitter feed on the big screen – an innovative way of allowing the audience to grill the panel without raising their hands and revealing their identities (although the avatars were often a giveaway!)

Speaker Tina Judic from artemis8 estimated only around 50% of all new projects and ideas succeed; but was quick to point out the key to success in the industry is persistence and having the drive to keep trying new things.

Another inspiring session was “The Affiliate Doctors Live!”, hosted by Duncan Jennings of eConversions, affiliate and blogger Kieron Donoghue, Jamie Harwood of UK Web Media and Dixon Jones of Receptional. The superb line-up of panellists generated thought-provoking discussions and struck an ideal balance of giving practical advice with insights into their own experiences.

Audience members were also invited to submit their websites for critique, and it was fantastic to see the panellists were willing to share their secrets and tips with newbies. I came away from the presentation with a notebook full of hints to pass onto my own clients and colleagues.

Further highlights of the Expo for me included getting my caricature done by the Gone Digging artist on the Webgains stand, and watching Nadeem take to the stage to speak at the A4U Expo for the first time. His two seminars, “My 12 Biggest Affiliate Marketing Mistakes in 12 Years” and “The Affiliate Sales Kit – Writing Killer Proposals and Selling Yourself To Merchants” were among the best received of all the sessions, and Nadeem was mobbed by audience members afterwards all wanting his business card!

I was also pleased to catch up with two of Azam’s new clients, Signature Gifts and Cho-Yung. The exhibition hall, which had over 40 stands this year, provided the ideal backdrop for us to meet and chat with relevant network staff and affiliates. Cho-Yung produced and distributed an excellent mini handout for the Expo with a free sample of their Chinese slimming tea (if anyone would like to receive one of these, email karen [at] azam.net).

To read more about the event and to download all the presentation slides, visit the a4uexpo blog. On behalf of the team at Azam Marketing, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the organisers for putting on another excellent event, and the sponsors for all the complimentary drinks and food we enjoyed whilst at the Expo networking parties. We can’t wait to come back next year!

Related Link: A4UExpo 2008 review and pictures

• 1 Comment

In spite of the economic woes the past year has been a bright one at Azam and our eCRM division has seen rapid growth, with the agency managing activities for clients ranging from Trinity Mirror to Purple Parking.

I am therefore delighted to officially welcome two colleagues who joined the Azam team a while back as eCRM Managers, James Hunt and Ryan Ranaweera. The duo have nearly a decade of industry experience each, having held senior roles at The Media Buzz, Acxiom, Vertis, Hawksmere and Howitt. They have managed email marketing activites for the likes of O2, Domino’s Pizza, Bentley and HSBC.

Following an extensive interview process over several months, James and Ryan were chosen from over 300 applicants after impressing us with their undeniable talents and enthusiasm. The pair are responsible for overseeing all aspects of Azam Marketing’s existing email client base and implementing technical and workflow developments, as well as continuing our eCRM division’s expansion in North America and Europe.

James and Ryan are already proving invaluable to the team and they look forward to taking Azam’s eCRM division from strength to strength!

If you are attending the A4U Expo London, both of them will be present on all three days from Monday to Wednesday.

To gain some insight into what makes them tick, I invited them both to share a bit of info about themselves and here’s what they had to say:

James Hunt

Describe yourself in three words: Friendly, driven, optimistic

Favourite Quotation: “All things are difficult before they are easy” – Thomas Fuller

Favourite Book: ‘The Raven’ – Edgar Allan Poe

Favourite Film: The Godfather (Parts I & II)

Favourite Website: eBay

Hobbies and Interests: Crystal Palace FC, the French language and playing golf

Proudest Achievement: Getting married

Most Embarrassing Moment: Modelling for a childrenswear catalogue at 6 years old

Interesting Facts: I used to live in France, and am a trained chef.

Contact James:
Email: james [at] azam.net
Windows Live Messenger: james [at] jameshunt.info

Ryan Ranaweera

Describe yourself in three words: Funny, sporty, thoughtful

Favourite Quotation: “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” – Martin Luther King

Favourite Book: The BFG by Roald Dahl

Favourite Film: Enter the Dragon, 1978, Bruce Lee

Favourite Website: Arsenal Football Club

Hobbies and Interests: Gym, football, cycling, badminton, martial arts, cinema, technology, cars, girls!

Proudest Achievement: Playing the saxophone at the age of 13 with the Queens Royal Orchestra

Most Embarrassing Moment: Whilst working as a waiter in a hotel, I once slipped and spilled a whole plate of soup onto a little girl’s dress!

Interesting Facts: I can leg press more than 3 times my body weight and have a serious passion for banana and marmite sandwiches, my favourite snack!

Contact Ryan:
Email: ryan [at] azam.net
Windows Live Messenger: ryucoup [at] hotmail.com

Would you like to work alongside Ryan and James in our eCRM team? Due to recent major client wins, including the eCRM contract for one of Britain’s biggest newspapers, Azam Marketing is hiring more email marketing and database management experts. You must have at least four years experience. For more information about these and our other vacancies please contact Melissa White: hr [at] azam.net.

• 0 Comments

Being a ‘new media’ geek, I was thrilled to read a new report published by the Internet Advertising Bureau which shows online advertising expenditure in the UK has overtaken television. Internet spend grew by 4.6% to £1,752.1m/$2,791m to a record market share of 23.5%, while TV spending collapsed 16.1% to £1,639m/$2,610m.

It beggars belief to think that the internet has already taken over the all-mighty television when online had almost a 0% market share as recently as 1999 as the following chart depicts:

This pie chart shows where advertising budgets were spent in the first half of 2009:

The recession has accelerated the migration of advertising spend from traditional media such as print, radio and television to online according to the report. IAB chief executive Guy Phillipson says online advertising will continue to grow: “We could see absolutely see it grow to being a 30% medium (of ad share spend), to go past £4bn to even £5bn annually”.

The UK remains the place where it’s all happening, with the world’s highest market share of ad spend going online.

When I ditched a long-standing career in old media to start a pure play dot.com company in 1997, most people were critical of my decision. Not understanding the internet or appreciating its potential, many of my journalist colleagues stuck to their cosy jobs while I thrust myself into cyberspace because I was adamant the internet would destroy much of traditional media.

It’s not a decision I made with any pleasure, and every time I hear about a newspaper closing down or a book publisher shedding staff, it upsets me because I always have been and always will be an aficionado of print, but one can’t be a Luddite and has to move with the times.

In the same way, is your business still clinging to some antiquated and ineffective forms of marketing just because that’s what you’ve always done? Big and small companies alike are shifting their advertising budgets to the web, because it is cost-effective, accountable and measurable. Azam Marketing has not jumped on board the internet advertising bandwagon in the last few years, with staff who are learning the ropes, but has been at the thick of the action since 1997, and so if you would like to acquire new customers by advertising on the most powerful medium in the world, we are the people you should contact.

New Sponsor Offer: Get 250 free business cards and a free business card holder. Click here to visit Vistaprint.

• 3 Comments

I’m delighted to report that Azam Marketing has passed another significant milestone for one of our clients, V A C Media, having recently helped them to win their 100th white label cashback partner, Newsquest.

We’ve worked with V A C Media since 2006 and are proud to have played an integral part in their meteoric rise to the very top of the digital marketing industry, winning an impressive portfolio of high profile clients for them.

Partners recruited to date include The Daily Mail and General Trust, Admiral Group, the Daily Star, and nine out of ten of the UK’s largest prepaid card companies including Payzone, IDT Prime Card and Bread Card.

The landmark 100th contract for Newsquest, who own 217 publications and boast a weekly readership of 13 million, demonstrates our client’s increasing dominance within the cashback sector, with other companies having won less than six white label partners in the same period of time.

Speaking about our agency’s achievements, CEO of V A C Media, Dr Senthil Kumar, says: “Azam Marketing has been pivotal to V A C Media dominating the market for white-label cashback services in the UK. Azam’s Business Development team has shown tremendous ability and drive in being able to recruit dozens and dozens of major partners for us. They have worked assiduously to help us become a market leader.”

V A C Media’s reputation within the cashback sector was further strengthened in June with a win in the Commercial Partnership category of the prestigious Association of Online Publishers Awards for their partnership with the Trinity Mirror on Mirrorcashback.com; see photos from the event here.

We’re delighted to be working with V A C Media’s hard-working staff, and congratulate them on their continued success in the cashback arena. No time to rest on our laurels however – our sights are already set on reaching the next milestone and signing up the 200th white label partner!

Email us at results [at] azam.net or call +44 (0) 20 7436 4496 if you’d like to make use of Azam’s Marketing’s outsourced Business Development services.

Further information about owning your own cashback site can be found here:
white-label cashback website proposition.

• 0 Comments

Over the years I’ve had dozens of people encouraging me to do more public speaking, but I’ve simply not been able to find the time among all my commitments. However, after not an inconsiderable amount of arm twisting from a few sources, I have finally relented and agreed to speak at the a4u expo taking place in London on 13 and 14 October.

Here are the talks I’ll be giving. The first one is by myself and the second with the fabulous Grant Reid from Stream:20:

“Day One – 13th October 2009 – 16:00 – 17:00 – Platinum 3

My 12 Biggest Affiliate Marketing Mistakes in 12 Years

Affiliate marketing guru Nadeem Azam provides an in-depth, informative and sometimes humorous insight into the biggest mistakes he has made each year since starting out in affiliate marketing in 1997 and also shares some of the secrets of success. “I see most affiliates starting their journeys in this industry making the same misjudgements and it frustrates me because I don’t want them to waste months of their precious time as I have done,” says Nadeem. “Hopefully, by learning from the mistakes I have made, people will be able to generate a healthy income from affiliate marketing a lot quicker than I was able to!”

Topics covered will include: lack of focus; entering too many and not the most profitable sectors/verticals; lack of delegation and outsourcing; poor eCRM; lack of mailing lists and newsletters; promoting low CPA/CPS merchants; being too dependent on certain merchants for income; poor time-management. Followed by a Q&A Session.”

“Day Two – 14th October 2009 – 17:15 – 18:15 – Platinum 4

The Affiliate Sales Kit – Writing Killer Proposals and Selling Yourself To Merchants

Hear two experts within the affiliate sphere talk about how to power up your sales armoury. Nadeem, with 12 years experience in the sector, has often won pitches against larger companies, winning contracts from the likes of Trinity Mirror, Newsquest, Tesco and Virgin Holidays. He will be giving a presentation entitled ‘Writing and Presenting Killer Proposals and Pitches’. In this must-attend session Nadeem will go into detail about how to hit the right buttons to win lucrative deals from big brand advertisers and their agencies.

Meanwhile Grant will be presenting on how affiliates must influence the key decision makers within the respective online teams. He’ll discuss how you need to ensure you sell your business and the sales benefits to the client and that affiliates need to promote the efficient use of budget and try to pull budget from other less efficient marketing channels to grow, develop and survive! Topics will include; Talking to the decision makers, selling your services, PPC, SEO & Twitter, Targeting, The importance of regular contact, other RTM’s as competition and the risk reward model.”

As usual there will be a few members of the Azam Marketing team at the event. We look forward to seeing you there!


Related Link: Write-up of a4u Expo 2008.

Client Announcement: Help stop cruelty to children. Promote the NSPCC affiliate program on AffiliateFuture.

• 2 Comments

Latest Hitwise data (August 2009) reports a significant 47.5% uplift in UK internet searches for discount voucher terms over the last year (July 08 – July 09). Interestingly however, actual visits to specialist voucher websites have decreased by 5%, whereas traffic to retailers for the same keywords has increased by more than 10% from 28.2% to 41.5% over the same period.

Hitwise attributes these trends to the emergence of the “Maximising Consumer”, a new breed of internet shopper immune to the quick fix of generic voucher and discount advertising, instead choosing to extensively research and seek out exclusive offers and concessions for certain products and retailers.

This assumption is supported by research from the IAB Affiliate Council, which states that 95% of all voucher code publishers are now compliant with best practice procedures for the use of voucher codes. Could the 5% non-compliant publishers account for the 5% drop in traffic to specialist voucher websites – having been identified and eliminated by the savvy Maximising Consumer?

The same Hitwise report reveals that the share of total UK internet visits going to transactional websites (i.e. retail, business and finance and travel) has declined over the last three years, eclipsed by the growth in visits being driven to content websites in the entertainment, social networking, news and media and lifestyle sectors.

In July 2006, transactional sites accounted for 5% more UK internet visits than content-driven ones. Fast forward three years to 2009 and content-driven sites are now generating up to 73% more UK visits than transactional sites.

Hitwise concludes that the current recession has led to an increasing proportion of online time being spent browsing content, communicating and networking rather than shopping.

So what does this mean for the future of ecommerce, especially in the lead up to and beyond Christmas 2009? Will we see retailers and voucher code publishers start to form serious strategic alliances in an attempt to ignite consumer spending again? Or will a new type of affiliate appear, specifically targeting and capitalising on the rise of the maximising consumer? Things are about to get interesting, watch this space….

• 2 Comments