chris dalrymple - blog

Tuesday, 30 December 2008

Think Visibility conference - cheap and northern*

DaveN recently blogged about Think Visiblity, a new mini SEO/SEM/digital conference being held in Leeds on the 7th March which looks pretty good.

Dave himself will be speaking, as well as a few other notables, including some who spoke at the far more pricey A4U Expo this year.

My ticket's bought already and I'd recommend if fancy attending you do the same sharpish - they're only allowing 100 attendees and rumours are there are less then 30 tickets left. See you there.

_{*Well, £30 and in Leeds - see what I did there?}

Labels: conference, marketing, sem, seo

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Thursday, 25 December 2008

Why I (almost) don't feel bad about blogging on Christmas Day

Come on, you're all doing it. Admit it.

Labels: blogging

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Sunday, 21 December 2008

Affiliate marketing still low in marketers priorities

Just read a post by Lee McCoy highlighting a report by Epsilon. It shows where marketers are (or aren't) likely to cut advertising spend if they have to and it's not good reading for affiliates.

Unsurprisingly CMOs are more likely to cut directories, radio, magazine and telemarketing which is understandable - cut spend you can't track and keep the spend you can.

However somewhat strangely (and worryingly) affiliate marketing seems to be pretty far down the list of those to keep, after Direct Mail, TV and online display.

Why cut a marketing channel which guarantees returns at a predictable rate in favour of above the line spend? I supect a few reasons come into play:

- Lack of understanding, especially in the upper echelons of marketing - affiliate marketing is still pretty unknown to a great deal of marketers, whereas SEM has managed to establish itself. I've spent many a meeting trying to explain exactly how affiliates work to exec-level marketers with mixed results.

- Belief that the sales aren't incremental - and this links to the third point, but there's still an underlying belief that these sales would have come naturally if the affiliates hadn't referred them.

- And finally, and this is the biggy, inability to de-dupe from other sales - It's the old referrer attribution issue again. Where do affiliates sit in the referrer process? Do search affiliates cannibalise SEO and PPC sales?

There's no easy solution to this - it will be helped by better technology and better awareness, but until there's more buy-in from senior markers into the channel there will always have an impact on affiliate and merchant relationships, and problems like this one.

Labels: affiliates, marketing

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Tuesday, 16 December 2008

The perils of affiliates and voucher codes

Figleaves aren't having much luck with their affiliate campaign at the moment.

Seems that someone at figleaves HQ has decided to kill comission rates and cookie periods at very short notice after a sudden realisation that the majority of affiliates sending voucher code-wielding customers probably isn't profitable.

In this climate customers are hungry for voucher codes so merchants need to be careful that theirs don't go viral (if they don't want them to), especially after commissions, shipping and othe acquisition costs are taken out.

The most important lesson? Don't piss off your affiliates before your most important trading dates of the year. Unless that is you're planning on closing the programme altogether?...

Labels: affiliates, marketing

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Monday, 15 December 2008

SeaDragon on the iPhone

Much blogged elsewhere, but what the hell, Microsoft launches SeaDragon iPhone app - the nifty tool which allows you to view gig-pixel images on any device, without biblically long load times.

And it's rather nice too - with a 3G connection it's amazingly smooth at displaying images and the all important zooming in and out. There's something very satisfying about being able to zoom so close, so quickly and it's a great fit for the iPhone's multi touch interface.

Unfortunately the browse PhotoSynth function isn't working so we have that to look forward to but hey, it's free right?

If you've not seen the original TED presentation of SeaDragon and PhotoSynth (PhotoSynth is particularly impressive), it's worth watching, and the app is free from the iTunes store:

Labels: applications, iphone, microsoft

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Cdiscount.co.uk launches

Cdiscount.co.uk launched last week after a few delays and it has the potential to cause waves in UK online retail.

Owned by the French retail giant Groupe Casino, Cdiscount was initially promising massive discounts over the likes of Amazion and DSG group.

Looking at the site, the prices seem to be comparible to other retailers (although they are offering 15% cashback), however what does stand out is the interest free credit available on the site.

Items over £75 qualify for '3discount', the option to pay in 3 installments interest free, and without a credit check. Given no other big retailer is currently offering this, and it makes a Sony Viao available for just £133.33 a month I suspect this may be a clincher for customers once it becomes more well known, especially as it seems to avoid the need for a credit check.

One to watch...

Labels: retail

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eConsultancy relaunch site

eConsultancy have relaunched their site over the weekend, and rather spiffy it looks too.

As well as a much clearer design and layout, the site has pushed focus towards user profiles, encouraging visitors to update their account information using a 'your profile is X% complete' status on the front page - similar to that used by LinkedIn.

End result? My profile is now fully up to date, complete with dodgy picture. Works, then.

Labels: design, usability

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