a4uAwards 2008 - Community Choice Shortlist

[ian]

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OK so if they are the "established big boys in PPC" I can presume that they are big because they are successful and generate a lot of sales for the merchants and networks. So isn't that a good enough reason for them to be nominated? Or should small affiliate sites that generate little sales be nominated? Remember affiliate marketing is a business and business is traditionally measured by sales, volume and profitability so what's wrong with that?

Absolutely nothing wrong with that at all, and I don't have a problem with them being nominated. My reference to "the big boys in PPC" was to establish the reason for the publisher award rather that use it as a reason to exlcude them from the awards.

I don't really understand what you are saying when you say "a content affiliate hadn't made enough of an impression to get listed". Maybe UK Web Media were nominated as they were one of the first affiliates to launch a cashback site that gives to charity? They spent a small fortune building it and marketing it so aren't they worthy of a nomination for that? Just because these guys spend a lot of money buying traffic to their CONTENT sites doesn't mean they shouldn't be nominated does it???

Nope, but based on the shortlist being among the top earners in the industry, it would appear that its a volume thing, and it would have been nice if other criteria could have been included to get onto the shortlist for ultimate consideration. Maybe one award can't cover all eventualities.

OK we're maybe getting to the point a bit here. I think what you are saying is that there should maybe be an award for "best newcomer" or "affiliate innovation". I agree.

However just because the guys listed as nominees spend a lot of money on PPC doesn't mean they shouldn't be rewarded and recognised. And who's to say that they don't utilise their PPC budgets to send traffic to their own content sites? Let's not jump to conclusions. Trust me, I've seen some of their sites and they are very good quality content driven sites. We all know that Google have cracked down on "thin" sites so they have to be, in order to buy traffic from them.

I have said below that they produce some nice sites, and I hope you can see that I agree they should be recognised, it just comes down to how you see the criteria used for the "publisher award 2008"

[aclarke656]

What does brand bidding, or PPC of any kind have to do with an affiliate publisher award? Isn't it placing advertising on a content site ?

[ian]

nope, 'publisher' is just our side of the industry. ppc'ers do have to produce websites as well.

[ian-d]

Trouble with this award I guess is knowledge of those affiliates with content sites etc! Some ppl do not wish to share their best content sites at the risk of someone copying etc.

[rm94531]

It would be interesting to consider new a4uAwards catagories for 2009, e.g. Best New Affiliate of the Year, Young Affiliate of the Year and Innovation of the Year.

[Hero]

What does brand bidding, or PPC of any kind have to do with an affiliate publisher award? Isn't it placing advertising on a content site ?

It's usually merchants saying these sorts of things ("ppc affiliates are not real affiliates" etc) - hearing it from other affiliates is disquieting. Whose value is bigger, which type of affiliate is more important for each merchant - that's a completely different question. But they all are affiliates, therefore they all qualify to be nominated, since there are no conditions saying otherwise. If people felt that these guys represented the best affiliates for the year, why wouldn't they nominate them? Should people skew their voting by nominating content affiliates, just so that the industry looks better or should they vote for who they believe is the best?

Futhermore, it's inevitable that ppc/cashback sites would get the majority of the votes. These guys work with a vast number of merchants from across the board. Personally, I voted for a great guy with fashion blogs I work closely with - but he works with, what, 20 merchants and another 20 account managers? Is he less worthy of recognition? Of course not. He works his arse off and does a great job for everyone. But, in this case, it's the volume of votes that makes the difference, like with elections - Boris had the majority of votes, so we're stuck with him.

[shyguy0507]

It would be interesting to consider new a4uAwards catagories for 2009, e.g. Best New Affiliate of the Year, Young Affiliate of the Year and Innovation of the Year.

Wasn't there a new publisher of the year award last year (or something similar)? If I remember rightly it only got 2 or 3 nominations in the short list - maybe this is why it wasn't a category this year?