Lions Tigers and BHOs. Oh My!

Logging on to ABW this afternoon I was greated by a thread that burst into life and racked up a mass of interest in the blink of an eye. The attention grabbing thread had the title "ShareASale and Toolbars / Call for Participation on Guidelines" . Yes Oh My indeed, the bastion of BHO free marketing is considering its' stance.

I highly recommend reading the thread and joining the discussion.

My thoughts :

A major concern I have with this idea, is that, all "BHO affiliate" tool bars, at the end of the day, do far more than just influence/decide which "BHO affiliate" gets the sale. They also canabilize merchants other sales channels, especially the ones based on loyalty, organic (direct to site/seo) and PPC. The bigger the brand the greater the the impact.

When I talk to merchants about tool bars I usually discuss the effect on the affiliate channel along side the impact to the above channels, large brand merchants (the ones that toolbars target) tend to get the majority of their traffic through the above (Toolbar targeted) channels, which ads no value and simply steals sales from the merchant.

How does SAS plan / propose to prevent toolbars that they allow on to Shareasale from cannabilizing a merchants other sales channels? If their plan is not all encompassing then they will simply be enabling tool bars to go to town on Shareasale merchants just like they do on LS, CJ and so forth, adding no value, but certainly adding to the BHO Affiliates revenue.

ESTA is here.

If you're planning to travel to the USA from now on for any affiliate conferences then make sure you're registered with ESTA, else you could face being turned back at the airport, this new system applies to all nations that previously didn't need a Visa and filled in an entry card on the plane. Canadians do not need to apply, there is a full list of applicable nations on the ESTA site.

Until now, registration has operated on a voluntary basis but it will become compulsory for all travellers from 12 January 2009. An ESTA, once obtained, will be valid for a period of two years, or for the validity of the traveller’s passport (whichever is shorter).

ESTA can be found here

From a personal stand point, this is great news, means I don't have to waste 4 months and a 4-5 hour trip to the US Embassy here to find out whether I need to go get a ticket! Wonder if I'm the only person who thinks the new system is great.

New Year and New Clients

Well 2008 is done and dusted. An interesting year over all, could have been better but overall it wasn't a bad year. We took on a range of new exiting clients and it'll be great to see them growing in 2009.

January we have a couple of new clients launching with AMWSO. Starting with Organic Bouquet, which kind of started in December but will be really powering up as we head towards Valentines and more "flower giving" focused events. Then we have Beer Machine, which is a very cool, "Beer Brewing" kit and machine. I bought one for my Dad for his birthday and he loved it, so we're really hyped to be working with Ian and Colin at BeerMachine, incredibly we've been talking together with tjhem for 2 years! The progam will be running in the UK, USA and Canada initially.

Our other launch for January, is Elance, a firm I imagine just about every affiliate is familiar with, eLance will be launching a brand new program in January on an inhouse platform.