Posts Tagged A4UAwards
Congrats To A4UAward Winners 2011
Posted by Jason Dale in Affiliate Marketing on May 23, 2011
Unfortunately I didn’t make it to the A4UAwards 2011, but I did have the “privilege” of being a judge for the second time. It was by no means an easy task. The quality of some entries was quite astonishing – it’s just a shame I’m bound by an NDA as there a couple of entries I’d really like to say “wow, that was pretty cool”. This year it was very clear to me that partnership, collaboration, strong ties to merchants and/or networks is vital for how a lot of the big guys now operate.
The fact that James Little has moved from Affiliate Future to head up a new London office for TopCashBack is indicative that if you’re involved in the higher echelons of affiliate performance marketing then you need a foothold in the Capital.
However (yeah you knew that was coming), two things did cross my mind when looking through the A4UAward 2011 Winners Lists!
Firstly, what happened to the gaming category?
We didn’t enter this year but were surprised to see that there was no award for either a publisher or merchant. In some ways it’s disappointing – in many ways understandable. Gaming/Bingo/Casino affiliates tend to have their own awards and conferences etc. and it may be that publishers/merchants don’t see an A4UAward in the same light as those involved in other sectors?
Secondly, how as an industry do we recognise new talent?
By new talent I mean small/medium enterprising affiliates. The one or two man bands who to even get a foothold in this behemoth of an industry now have to do something pretty special for any degree of recognition. A SME affiliate earning a decent income will still be eclipsed by the big cashback, voucher code and search players, so they’re probably not going to bother with A4UAwards.
What I’d like to see is a collaboration between A4U, The IAB, agencies and the networks (perhaps even the larger affiliates) whereby – perhaps six months after the main event – a selection of small/medium new affiliates are recognised by the industry. It doesn’t have to be a grandiose event like A4UAwards, it doesn’t even have to be an event… just some kind of public acknowledgement of good work by affiliates.
There must be, on radar, of every affiliate manager, merchant and agency – an affiliate or company that’s doing some cool stuff within affiliate or performance marketing. By recognising that in a public domain, that might just help them take the next step forward?
The A4UAwards did include a “Hot Shot Rising Star Award” this year, but I’m not sure if it was for affiliates? If it was then perhaps the question is are there any good SME guys coming through?
Anyway, that’s just an idea!
A big congratulations to all winners – hopefully A4U will have sent you your little icon to stick proudly on your website by now… and you don’t have to wait over a year to get one 
The 2010 Community Choice A4UAwards – Harder To Predict Than The Oscars!
Posted by Jason Dale in Affiliate Marketing on March 18, 2010
The shortlist for the 2010 A4UAwards Community Shortlists have been announced on Affiliates4U and there are some genuinely pleasant surprises in amongst the nominations. There’s also some good news for OneLittleDuck in the blog category, so thanks for the nomination.
This year the awards have taken a small leaf out of The Oscars and increased the number of nominations in most categories – not quite to 10 – but at least six! Only the Publisher of the Year remains on five nominations, which is bizarre as you’d think this should generate more nominees? Two 100% cashback sites (Quidco and Topcashback) will battle out with Vouchercodes.co.uk and Skimlinks (who won everything last year) for the award. The fifth nominee is Shopstyle and it’s nice to see something different in the group.
There are 8 nominees for “Affiliate Manager: In-House or at an Agency” including Naomi Brown from Firebox, Hannah from Existem AM and John Jupp from Affiliate Program Advice. Daniel Austin and Chris Worthy from R.O.EYE, Karen Clayton of Azam Marketing, Joanna Halstead of i-level and Joshna Patel of Red Letter Days complete the group.
Best Account Manager at a Network has 7 nominees and they include James Little of Affiliate Future, Darren Newmark from LinkShare and Aga Marchewka of buy.at! Helen Collins of affilinet, Chantal Williams and Julie Wood of Affiliate Window and Anne Budden of Affiliate Future are also nominated.
Both those categories are just about impossible to call! If Ladbrokes had a book on this they’d probably do better than they do with The Oscars where there’s always a 1/40 nailed on favourite for each of the main categories.
The Affiliate Marketing Blog of 2010 is possibly slightly easier to predict.
I’d be surprised if Kirsty doesn’t take top place again. However could we have an Avatar vs The Hurt Locker situation as the nominations bring up two surprises. Firstly well done to David Fiske who thoroughly deserves his nomination and also well done to eBay for their Partner Network Blog. I think that’s the first time a merchant blog has broken through in this category? Joining Kirsty, David and eBay are Lammo.net and previous winner Kieron. Plus there’s of course OneLittleDuck.
Finally there’s the best Affiliate Marketing Network. Affiliate Window, Affilinet, Affiliate Future, Commission Junction, LinkShare and Paid On Results will battle it out for this one. I think it’s fairly obvious which way this one will go but you never know do you? It’d be a surprise to see Awin not (A)win again.
All in all it’s quite an interesting set of nominations. The changes made by A4U this year most certainly have resulted in two fiercely competitive awards (Affiliate Manager and Account Manager) that you could really pick any one nomination as a deserved winner. Only one voucher code site in the publishers group could be seen as a surprise but it’s nice to see ShopStyle in the mix. No Loquax though – boo, hiss etc. It’s good to see a merchant in the blogs group though.
A big well done to everyone who’s been nominated and thank you if you nominated/vote for this blog, it’s really appreciated.
You can cast your Community Award votes over at A4UAwards from the 22nd March.
2010 A4U Awards Open For Nominations Plus IGB Affiliates & Bingo Awards
Posted by Jason Dale in Affiliate Marketing on February 2, 2010
Award season is well and truly upon us. The Oscar nominations are due, some bingo sites have done some back scratching, the IGB Affiliate Awards have passed and nominations are now open for the 2010 A4U Awards. This means it’s time for the great and the good in AM to nominate their favourite Publisher, Affiliate Marketing Blog of 2010, Account Manager at a Network, Affiliate Manager, and Affiliate Network.
Awards are funny things and are often the focus of some heated debate. Take the big bingo portals for instance. Every year they compete to offer bingo merchants an award for best site or newcomer. The merchants lap this up and encourage their users to vote and/or plaster links back to the portals on their site and newsletter with absolutely no regard for their other affiliates. Do I want to send my users to a site that has “Go to XYZBingo and vote for us” on it?
No I don’t! It’s understandable why it’s done, although imo it’s the bingo portal getting the most benefit with extra traffic and backlinks – but I guess that’s my cynicism coming through there. It’s a tough situation to work round with the only solutions being that bingo sites don’t add links or every affiliate runs an award set up each year and everyone gets treated a bit more fairly.
Staying with gaming, last week was the IGB Affiliate Awards. Loquax was nominated as best bingo affiliate, but had little chance of winning (or even getting to the final shortlist), but we were in there somewhere. The good news was that the awards were streamed live, which was an interesting experience.
The presenters weren’t exactly Ricky Gervais at The Golden Globes (or even Jason Manford at A4UAwards 2009), more Samantha Fox and Mick Fleetwood at The Brits after a few drinks. Hopefully they came across better ‘live’. Still the dance group interlude was good and perhaps streaming is something A4U can look into for 2010?
One more point about IGB! I guess it’s not good form to question winners, but for the life of me I cannot understand how Ladbrokes took the bingo affiliate awards. There must be a The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe type door on their affiliate system that takes people through to Narnia that I’m missing as what I see isn’t that impressive on numerous levels. Still, well done to all winners there – opinion and debate are always a close second aren’t they?
So awards and controversy go hand in hand, and that takes us back to this year’s A4U Awards. Who will win? Who won’t win? And how much blog mileage can we get out of questioning the judging, the voting, the vote for mes and the who I voted fors! To get the ball rolling head on over to the 2010 A4U Awards and make your nominations.
The 4th Annual a4uAwards will be held at the Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, Mayfair on the 9th June 2010.
Nominate Now for the 2010 A4UAwards
