AbeBooks UK Affiliates Blog

Holiday Shopping is Underway

Holiday shopping is well underway, we here at AbeBooks UK have seen a very nice lift in traffic and earlier today comScore released a study showing shopping traffic is up 23% over the same time period in October.  If you have any questions or would like some suggestions on you holiday promotions please let us know.

Affiliate Network Reviews

Lee McCoy, is currently running a great series over at his "Get Visible" Blog about UK affiliate Networks.  Lee does a great job of giving a brief history of the network, where they came from and then he highlights the staff and their roles within the company. I have enjoyed reading the webgains and the DGM profiles.  If merchants or affiliates are interested in gaining knowledge about the various networks I highly recommend reading Lee's posts.

Affiliate Summit London Review

Affiliate Summit London took place this past Friday.  I really enjoyed the smaller group of people and sessions compared to the much large events in the US.  The day started off with a nice breakfast and some networking, followed by the keynote and a discussion by the two co-founders, Shawn Collins and Missy Ward.  The first session I attended was "SEO for the New Google/ Yahoo/ MSN" this was presented by Wil Reynolds, who is amazing.  The session was full of great SEO tips, techniques and know-how, if you ever have the chance to see or hear Wil, make sure you get there early and get a good seat. You can view his presentation online.  Other sessions I attended were the Super Affiliate Panel, this session was OK, however, I found the "Super Affiliates" to be sitting off to the corner of the room and difficult to hear and see, I also agree with Geordie from Revenue Wire about this session.  The last session I attended was on domain names and the impact they can have on driving traffic, this was presented by Matt Bentley of Sedo.com.  I found the session to be valuable and informative concerning the issue of driving traffic simply by people typing in domain names.  Some of the metrics Matt shared were amazing, I can't believe how much money can be made in this sector, it goes to show how important a domain name really is.  Of course, the day was too short to see everyone and I missed out on talking to many people who I had hoped to connect with, however, the a4u Expo is coming up in a month and I hope to save more time to catch up on what everyone is doing.  I look forward to the next Affiliate Summit London

AbeBooks UK Out and About

Over the next couple of months the AbeBooks UK affilate team will be out and about at the following conferences and fairs, it would be great to meet up with as many of our affiliates and partners as possible.  Please let us know if you will be attending any of the following events.

OMD 2007- September 25 + 26 Duesseldorf, Germany

Ad:tech London- September 27 London, UK

Affiliate Summit London- September 28 London, UK

Frankfurt Book Fair- October 10 - 14 Frankfurt, Germany

a4uexpo - October 25 +26 London, UK

If anyone would like to setup a specific time to meet and grab a drink or bit to eat, please contact us.

New Feature Email subscription for blog

If you would prefer to read the blog via email, please sign up below.  The subscription sends you an email with the latest post.  This is a great feature for users who prefer email, or who don't use RSS feed readers.

Upcoming UK Networking Events

There are a lot of UK focused affiliate marketing events upcoming in the next few months, Chris Frost has a great page where he has listed, linked to and incorporated a countdown timer.

Interesting move by eBay

eBay made an interesting move after be upset by a party Google was going to throw for eBay sellers at eBay live in Boston.  Take a look at the post on Tech Crunch.

Zanox sold!

Well, better late than never, if you have not heard already, last week Zanox, one of the networks we currently have an Affiliate program with has been sold.  Take a look at the official statement/ video clip. There had been rumors (sorry for German readers only) for the past few months about this merger and now it has finally happened.  It appears there is something in the spring air with Online Marketing companies.

Merchant Communication

Merchant Communication seems to be a growing issue here in the UK or at least the issue has been getting a lot more attention in the past few weeks. My question to affiliates is how can we at AbeBooks improve the Communication to Affiliates?  Currently we are using this blog as the main stream of communication, however we are also sending out a summary email via the Affiliate networks email system once a month, as well as individual direct email communication with affiliates.  Is this enough or are there other communication channels you would like to see us use?  Would IM or Skype be benefit for you? What about a direct phone number or personal visits?  Do any of these additional channels interest you if so, let us know.  We definitely want to make sure our Affiliates have the means to get a hold of us.

mmacintyre @ abebooks.com
Direct line +49 (0)211 711 7069 47

New AbeBooks UK Creatives

As mentioned in an earlier post, we will be following up on the suggestions and ideas from the AbeBooks Affiliate Survey.  One of the suggestion was for new creatives and creatives in different sizes.  Below are two creatives that fit that request.  The first creative is based on one of our "Not Books" (300X250) and the second is incorporates a stack of books with some marketing copy (300X250).  This new size is great for: Newletters, Emails, Targeted landings pages, Homepage features and/ or Merchant specific pages.  Please post you feedback, are we on the right track? Or would you prefer something different?

To use these creatives PLEASE remember to incorporate your tracking urls from the networks.