Lammo.net: Affiliate Marketing Blog

It’s a bumper “Day in the life of” this week, as we take a peek at the typical working day of the hardest working man in Affiliate Marketing, Nadeem Azam. Nadeem is CEO of Azam Marketing, and one of the friendliest people I’ve ever met. So without further ado, it’s over to Nadeem:

9:15am – The alarm goes on my bedside clock and I am shocked to see it is 9:15am. I was working again until my usual 4am last night and so getting up at 9:15am is a struggle nevermind 8:15am. If I had gotten up an hour earlier, I would have had time to shower, shave and have breakfast and go to my first meeting of the day without rushing, but now it’s a case of getting the first two done with haste and skipping breakfast.

9:50am – Some of the treasured sights you’ll enjoy in central London on a crisp spring morning are the City-slickers striding to their high-flying jobs, clusters of German students on their way to Camden market, American families on their first vacation abroad waddling to McDonalds, and a loony online marketer hurtling down the street to go a critical meeting he should have left home for half an hour earlier.

10:00am – Thankfully I reside smack bang in the middle of the West End of London and many of the media and marketing agencies are but a 400 metre sprint away, so I arrive at the office a mere 10 minutes later. Entering the offices of these fancy agencies is like being transported into another world. There are 300 inch flat-screen televisions bowing down at you from every wall and zipping along the marble tiles glistening with precious stones are Beautiful Young Things dressed in ripped jeans and sandals.

10:00am – 11:00am – I have a meeting with an Account Director and Business Development Director at the agency. Many of the mega-agencies have dozens of people with expertise in offline marketing but relatively small teams devoted to online marketing as it’s hard to find experienced people in what is a nascent field, so they employ Azam Marketing to carry out work on their behalf. I present a progress update on SEO and PPC we are doing for two clients and then we discuss the division of labour for a joint pitch we will be conducting in three weeks time to try to win the marketing contract for a French retailer expanding into the UK.

11:30am-12:45pm – Meet up in a hotel in Paddington with two representatives from a company based near Reading looking up to set-up a cashback website. They are keen on eDealsUK’s white-label cashback site service, but require significant customisation and are asking for some unique features to be integrated into their cashback site. The work will take considerable programmer time, but I am willing to satisfy their requirements as they are a fairly well-known brand.

1:30pm – 3:00pm – the meeting with the potential white-label cashback partner overran, so it’s a mad dash across London on the tube to the offices of a client in the City who would like us to completely revamp the website we did for them a couple of years earlier. I meet our Director of Design and Development, Ather, 20 minutes before the meeting and we go through the pitch documents we have prepared the day before. When we enter the stockbrokers’ offices on Gracechurch Street, for once I feel in my element as everybody is wearing a suit unlike the t-shirts and jeans that seem to be de rigueur in online marketing! They are asking for all the bells-and-whistles for their website this time, including showing real-time share prices and a live online trading platform for customers. It will be a mammoth project, but is exciting. We promise to send them detailed documentation about how we will handle the project, costings and a time-line.

4pm – the day’s meetings are over and I head back to base. I tell myself I’ll quickly look through my emails for 15 minutes before I grab a bite to eat as I’m starving.

5:30pm - I’m still sitting there tackling the email mountain and frantically trying to get matters resolved before everybody else finishes work for the day. There’s all kinds of pressing concerns to deal with, from a rogue affiliate of our Affiliate Management client Purple Parking using spyware to try to generate leads which has lead to abusive phone calls to Purple Parking’s office, to our webmaster asking who he should replace the dozens of links selling DVDs via Benson’s World with as they’ve closed down their affiliate program on Tradedoubler, to having to contact one of our domain name registrars for the sixth time to fix the bug which will not allow us to renew one of our most valuable domain names which is expiring in five days.

6:00 – 6:30pm – Lunchtime! Today it’s hummus and salad in pitta bread which I grabbed on the way back from the meeting in the City. It’s a bad habit of mine, but I always read a magazine such as Marketing or Precision Marketing while I’m eating.

6:30pm – 8:00pm – Everybody in the UK may have gone home, but it’s the middle of the working day in the Americas, so I have a conference call with one of our clients in the United States. I follow it up with a Windows Live Messenger conversation with one of our designers in Argentina. Although most of our staff are in the UK, we have a designer and programmer in South America. I follow that up with composing a six page spec. sheet for a new website and fire it off to the guys in Argentina.

8:00 – 11pm – After a tea break I ring Dave, our Search Marketing Director, and fill him in on the meeting with the agency this morning. He agrees to send them some metrics and other information they are asking for. Then I have a conference call with eDealsUK to fill them in on the meeting with the white-label client earlier in the day. I write-up and send eDealsUK the potential partner’s requirements. I then have a long phone call with Ather to discuss progress with several design projects we have on the go.

11pm – 12 midnight – I spend an hour reading and posting on various affiliate and online marketing forums and blogs. I’ve heard from many people that online marketing forums and blogs are a waste of time and they are “too busy” for them, but I am determined to have more knowledge about my industry than anybody in the world: that is what will allow my agency to continue prospering, not watching Pop Idol or reading about the antics of Pete Doherty in Grazia magazine which “too busy” bods often have more than enough time for.

12:00 – 2:30am – The post-midnight zone is my favourite time to work. The whole world is sleeping, and the only people online are three of our UK team who are also workaholics and my night owl affiliate buddies. Apart from an occasional phone call from the Americas or one of my graveyard shift colleagues, there’s little in the way of distractions and me and Marilyn can really focus on our work. It’s a mixed bag tonight: I have about eleven windows open and am studying CVs from prospective new staff, writing an article for our blog, posting on the Affiliates4U forums, searching for ex-flames on Facebook to see if they’re with someone (they are), reading what’s happening in the world on the BBC News and FT websites, and dealing with outstanding emails. I also chat on Messenger with some affiliates. It’s not like seven years ago as many of the old timers have gotten married and had kids, and no longer work ACT (Affiliate Central Time), but there’s still a few of us who’ll be there every night at 2am swapping tips, working on joint projects and gossiping about what’s happening in the industry.

2:30am – 4:00am – Just as I’m about to have an ‘early night’ by hitting the sack at 2:30am, I remember I haven’t added some charts I have received from Sinead Hernen, who heads the Affiliate Management division of our agency, to a Powerpoint presentation. It’s for a pitch I am giving at 11am tomorrow morning in Canary Wharf to a prospective Affiliate Management client. I start integrating the charts and then realise there’s another slide I could improve… and then another and another… I am known for being a perfectionist and, an hour and a half later, I am still making small tweaks to the presentation; I am determined to win the client and want the presentation to be pucker. I eventually finish it at 4am.

4:00am – 4:15am – I used to check our affiliate statistics three times a day, but now it’s just once. I login to the interfaces of the advertisers we are promoting – most of them are on independent platforms or those of the agencies we work closely with – and look to see how much money we have made.

4:30am - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Wow, what a day! I don’t know how you manage to cram it all in without burning out Nadeem! Huge thanks for sharing your day with us.

Don’t forget, if you would like to share your typical day with Lammo readers, then just drop me a line (johnATbigideamediaDOTCOM) with the details.

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Can you hear me now? - First of all, my apologies for the silence over the last two weeks. Things have been so manically busy as we approached the end of some major projects that it’s been very difficult to find even 5 minutes to post to the blog. Normal service will be resumed from here on.

Proud to be Fat More and More - No, I’m not talking about my ever-expanding “affiliate belly”, although I do believe there’s a link between the size of your stomach and the size of your commission cheques - All that time sat at your computer writing content and blog posts means both get a little bigger each day.

I’m not going to pretend that I’m a 100% fat affiliate, as over the years I’ve had around 50 “thin” affiliate websites that offer nothing whatsoever of value to the end user, all of which made varying amounts of money. I’ve still got a couple of “thin” sites now, and I do partake in Brand Bidding where allowed (I know, boo! hiss!), but I also know that those are not sustainable revenue streams that I will be able to live off in 5 or 10 years time. And for that reason, I’m also slowly building a couple of “brand” sites and publishing somewhere in the region of 100,000 words of unique content every single month.

The “thin” stuff pays the bills today, and enables me to concentrate my time on the “fat” stuff that will pay the bills for the rest of my life. It’s naive to assume that people will ignore the easy low-hanging fruit that brings in shedloads of short-term money, but it’s also foolish to ignore the benefits of building long-term, sustainable revenue streams. Maintaining a sensible weight is the key to a healthy affiliate lifestyle.

Call me Mr. Chairman More - Two weeks ago, I was a humble affiliate. Now, however I am co-owner of a football club, having invested quite heavily (£35) into Ebbsfleet United Football Club. I’m so pleased to have been asked to form part of the small consortium, and I’m sure I speak for the other 28,249 co-owners in saying that we’re sure this is the start of a very bright era for the football club, and we have complete faith in Head Coach Liam Daish (until we lose a few games, and then we’ll be ready and waiting with the dreaded “poll of confidence”)

Does AM need its own UK Magazine? More - It’s a tough one this - I subscribed to Revenue magazine, but soon found I wasn’t actually reading each issue as it was too US-centric. I’d certainly support anyone who took the risk and published a UK Affiliate Marketing magazine. I’ve known so many publications go bust due to lack of advertising/low circulation/high publishing costs that it’s a hell of a risk. But there hasn’t been a decent read for the UK Affiliate since Internet Works went pop, and the Industry is much bigger now, so perhaps the time is right? I certainly won’t be risking my own money to bring out a publication, but will happily support anyone who does.

Dragons Den looking for Entrepreneurs - If you’re unable to handle constructive criticism and think that your business that earned you £20.79 last year must be worth “about a million”, then why not apply for Series 7 of Dragons Den? The BBC are currently looking for entrepreneurs, and have specifically targeted Internet entrepreneurs this year as some of the biggest investments from last series went to online companies such as Hungry House and Gaming Alerts.

If you’d like to take part, then please email dragonsden@bbc.co.uk call 0870 200 3003 or visit their website for an application form. Will I be taking part? No chance - I’d be far too nervous!

Buy.at coming to Plymouth More - After mucho campaigning, the buy.at team are coming to Plymouth this Friday afternoon for a day of networking and fun. So if you fancy a day on the Sunny south coast, taking in some Clay Pigeon Shooting and an evening of fun with the guys and girls from buy.at (as well as the chance to talk turkey with them of course!), then make sure you email events@buy.at to register (it’s free) before Wednesday to grab your place at this top event.

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Content is King again More - It looks like Affiliate Marketing is going full circle, and as a content affiliate that publishes in excess of 100,000 words of highly-researched unique content every month, I certainly hope it is! As more and more affiliates are being squeezed out of PPC by Search agencies and merchant’s in-house campaigns, affiliates are realising that good unique content is the way forward.

At a4uexpo last year, I spent the entire week talking to merchants, agencies and networks and asking for regular unique content that we could publish, or shared content that we could re-write. The initial responses were very positive, with pretty much everyone promising the earth. Just one merchant/agency didn’t deliver anything at all despite their promises (Shame on you Stream:20/Sky), so I had quite a lot of great content that I could use over the first few weeks. Three months later though, and the only people I’m still getting unique content from are… DGM…. Yup, *that* DGM - They of the broken promises and false dawns. Perhaps they really have turned the corner?

I also still get non-unique content that I can re-write from Oxygen and Jackpot Joy. As with so many things, the gambling sector tends to adapt a little quicker than other sectors, which is why the likes of Oxygen and JPJ, as well as Betfred Gaming and Bingo.com have provided me with one-off unique content articles, as well as a huge amount of shared content in their login areas that I can re-write to my hearts content.

Webgains pay CD WOW’s bills More - This shows that there are still some good guys in Affiliate Marketing. I had missed this news until Jason pointed it out, and you really have to applaud Webgains for doing this. Many networks would have said “tough luck” and wiped out the commissions, but by doing this (and you would imagine at some considerable cost), I will be sure to remember their actions when given the choice of working with Webgains or A.N.Other network.

That’s compliments for two networks now - I’m turning into a network-lover! Better slag some off next week so normal service is resumed!

Rogue Trader loses bank £7bn More - You have to question why the Bank’s system allows any trader, rogue or not, to rack up losses anywhere near this sort of scale - Surely alarms bells should be ringing as soon as they’re approaching £100m of losses, and systems should automatically suspend trading authority once they’re above £500m. To allow one man to lose £7billion is just crazy, especially when you consider that Nick Leeson only managed to lose £860m.

Argyle sunk by Portsmouth More - Yet another heartbreaking cup exit from Argyle, where we threw everything we had at a Premiership team, only to be foiled by a top keeper. Last year it was Watford and Ben Foster, this year it was Portsmouth and David James. It could have been so different however had blind referee Andre Mariner awarded Argyle a penalty in the latter stages for the most blatent handball you’re ever likely to see. Even Les Ferdinand on MOTD called it a “nailed-on pen”.

So heartbreak for Argyle, but a great day out. Everyone we met from Pompey, from Police Officers, Stewards and fans were incredibly friendly, and whilst the old stand at Fratton Park is a bit antiquated and creaking, I think the ground looks fantastic when full - A proper football ground, not one of the plastic bowls you see being build these days. Not a prawn sandwich in sight, and all the better for it!

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