Next try to start building bridges – It’s been interesting to see that i-level, the agency “managing” Next on Buy.at and Affilinet have this week announced a couple of events to try and address the uproar that they caused a few weeks ago arrogantly branding affiliates as “polluters” and kicking established affiliates off their program and even dropping their network – see comment from Kevin Edwards) because they dared to voice concerns about the program.

Normally, I would have linked to a thread on affiliates4u which gives full details of these events, however that thread attracted some critiscm of the Next Affiliate program, so has today been deleted by i-level. What I can tell you is that there are two conference calls next week, and an invitation to i-levels office in London on 25th April. Anyone interested in taking part in either of these events should email nextaffiliates@i-level.com to book their place.

I’m out of the country for the Conference Calls, and I certainly won’t be spending hundreds of pounds and taking time off work to go see i-level in their fancy London offices, but I hope that those who do take part (and I really hope that those who are willing to work with Next or i-level in the future do take part in these sessions) get some answers to the tough questions – I asked a simple question three weeks ago, but appear to have been ignored by i-level, despite me asking it twice more.

TD introduce contextual content unit More - I spotted the other day that Tradedoubler had launched AdMatch, a contextual content unit that will scan the content of your page, and display relevant products or ads based on the content of your page. I’ve seen a few of these before, but the issue has always been relevancy – I still think that the only decent contextual tool I’ve seen that is actually relevant to the content is Adsense.

But I thought I’d have a quick play with AdMatch anyway, and see what products it threw up.. I tried on three different pages (using the same code) – the first came up with an error “Request entity too large”, the second didn’t display at all, and the third showed ads for Bollywood DVDs… on a page about Golf Clubs. Erm, think you’ve got a way to go with this tool guys…

I pity the fool – Of course the news yesterday about a new network paying 0% commission to affiliates was just an april Fool. I certainly don’t think it was subtle enough to really fool anyone, but it also demonstrates that there really is no place in Affiliate Marketing for 0% commissions. If you’re losing money on a product, then don’t stock it! If you intend to sell items at a loss for loss-leader tactics, then you should factor your normal commissions into this when calculating your prices.

My point about LoofLirpa.com was that even charging 70% over-ride, the networks earn nothing from 0% commission too (Yes, Phil, it was part of the joke!), so it’s in their interests to forbid this practice from merchants

The Funniest program on Telly is back - Yup, of course I’m talking about The Apprentice! It’s really not fair to call it a business program anymore, only the Trump version from across the pond lived up to that title. Of course they’re not going to attract “real” entrepreneurs to the show – A true entrepreneur wouldn’t work for someone else – These guys are just Carphone-Warehouse quality salespeople looking for a better paid job, and to get their massive egos on TV.

And that’s what makes it truly unmissable telly – Get them to big themselves up on camera “I’m the best Salesperson in Europe”, “I’ve never failed at anything in my life”, “Everything I do, I succeed at”, etc. then keep the camera on them whilst they fail to make £10 profit each despite being handed stock and a roaring trade on a plate. Finally, get Sir Alan to give them a great one-liner before “firing” them.

It’s a brilliant format, and the only thing funnier than The Apprentice is “The Apprentice – You’re Fired!” on BBC2 immediately following the BBC1 show, as Adrian Chiles spends 30 minutes ripping the **** out of the contestants, to their faces. Karen Brady was one of the guests last week, and summed up the show when Adrian Chiles asked her if she thought Sir Alan was right to fire Nicholas – “Oh God yes. You were awful” she said to a crest-fallen “Never failed at anything” Nicholas. I can’t wait for tonight’s episode!

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