It’s nearly the weekend, and what better way to drift through the last hour of the working week than by reading our top article recommendations. Here are the five pieces that caught our eye this week

5) …and our survey said…well, actually what did it say? With no shortage of industry questionnaires in 2011, Owen Hewiston revisited the result of three big reports to see what their findings could tell us more when read together. Read part one of his holistic approach to identifying trends by clicking here.

4) Have you checked your Facebook profile at worked today? With a reported one in five online minutes now spent on social networks, you probably have! While you were there, could you hear the clamour for mastery of E-Commerce 3.0? As businesses around the world fight to get smarter with their online presence, the BBC takes a look at how we got here and just what E-Commerce 3.0 might look like. Read me here. Read the rest of this entry »

It is with great pleasure that we announce the winner of the competition to attend PerformanceIN Travel & Leisure conference for free!

Please join me in congratulating Martino @WhichBudget for winning the free pass to the best Travel and Performance Marketing Event, happening this March 13^th at the Hurlingham Club, London.

Thank you very much to all those that got in touch and took part! You all provided me with so many good reasons on why you would like to attend. I have picked out just a few of my favourite ones:

-  Sounds like a great opportunity for travel advertisers & publishers to check-in with each other.

- To understand merchant challenges, 2012 trends, to network & see how we can help achieve their goals. Read the rest of this entry »

After picking up Best Advertiser Incentive at the A4U Awards in 2010, Red Letter Days set out to ensure that they continued their success by putting together an even better incentive for the following year. Previous prizes have included a trip for two to Bali and a trip for two to South Africa. For 2011, Red Letter Days needed to choose another destination that would have the “wow” factor, as well as achieve a significant cut-through amongst the sea of retailer Christmas incentives. After careful consideration, the prizes selected for Q4 included a trip for two to Beijing, a 16 GB iPad 2 and 3 Overnight Wine Tasting Breaks, as well as the standard quarterly incentive prizes and hampers.

It was important to ensure that the incentive was accessible to all affiliates and not only to those that generated a high volume in sales, so for the Beijing holiday there were weekly tasks to gain extra tickets into the prize draw. The campaign has further reinforced the popularity of running incentives, as affiliates, such as David Fiske, find it attainable to be in with a chance to win. Edwyn McFarlane, Head of Publisher Services at Affiliate Window adds; “What’s impressed me most about their incentive this year (and has helped to achieve unprecedented levels of engagement) has been the sheer volume of potential winners! Their incentive covered the entire publisher base; the top publishers had to make more, whilst the longer tail publisher were rewarded for simply engaging and putting affiliate links up. This wholesome approach is a fantastic way of invigorating an affiliate program and has been eagerly taken up by huge numbers of publishers.” Read the rest of this entry »

From sports marketing to algorithms and from cashback to SOPA, it’s time for our Friday afternoon count down of the week’s interesting articles.

5) Being top-heavy might work for Jordan, but apparently Google is not a fan. They have announce that they will now penalise sites with too much static ad content above the fold. Don’t panic though, Search Engine Land have helpfully put together the info you need to understand why you need to spread it around and how to do just that. Read me here.

4) Couldn’t afford the flight to Vegas? Affiliate Tip has brought the action to the comfort of your own desk, with a video of the keynote speaker at this month’s Affiliate Summit West, legendary sports marketer, Joe Spoelstra. Read and watch here. Read the rest of this entry »

Barbados, Berlin, Benidorm or Bora Bora, wherever you are dreaming of jetting off to this year, travel is on everyone’s mind throughout January. Things are also now gearing up for A4U’s PerformanceIN Travel & Leisure conference, which will be hitting the Hurlingham Club on March 13th. If holidays and trips are your bread and butter, then this is the event for you. Not only will Affiliate Window and buy.at be in attendance on the day to support our travel advertisers and publishers, but we can now announce that we have a great opportunity for one lucky affiliate to join us there for free! Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to Affiliate Window’s first instalment of Top of the Blogs, our weekly round-up of the best industry articles that have been published in the last seven days. Keep up to date with hot topics being debated within performance marketing, by reading our recommended posts each Friday.

Here are the pieces that have had the Affiliate Window office talking this week:

5) Are you dangling the right carrot? If you’re making the most of the affiliate channel, you probably are; but now it’s all about where the carrot is being dangled, as online incentives get on their bikes and head out on to the streets via smartphones. Matt Swan’s latest article for TheMarketingLounge looks at how the growth trends in mobile traffic is being driven by these opportunities. Read me here.

Read the rest of this entry »