Posts Tagged Awards
A4UAwards 2010 Double Duck Delight
Posted by Jason Dale in Affiliate Marketing on June 10, 2010
Last night’s A4UAwards 2010 was probably the most glitziest and glamorous affiliate marketing event ever held in The UK. The Grosvenor Ballroom was an amazing venue, yet for a few minutes the whole place was a very scary place to be – and that’s when this blog was announced as Best Affiliate Marking Blog 2010 and Loquax picked up Best Casino/Gaming Affiliate.
I have never shaken so much in my life. The distance from seat to stage seemed like a mile. I did wonder whether I could safely collect each award without passing anyone who I’d upset on this blog. No wonder Duncan Jennings and the eConversions team took at least 60 people up for every award they won – there’s safety in numbers.
In all seriousness, thank you!
For the blog award I’m especially pleased as it’s a community choice. Thank you for voting and for reading. Thanks for the comments too made last night at the event and also today via Twitter and Facebook.
Big hand too to the other shortlisted blogs – KirstyM at AffiliateStuff, who was Highly Commended and who sent me a lovely message via FB, and the eBay Partners Network Blog.
I thought the only way OLD was ever going to win this award was to try and outblog everyone else. Most affiliates give up blogging after a while, so I was banking that by around 2015 award they’d be just me left and this award would be a shoe-in!
I only started blogging because it’s cheaper than therapy and it saved Jude hours of earache about what I thought of affiliate marketing. So, a big thanks has to go to Jude who gets to read things before they’re published and for her love and support (ooh Gwyneth Paltrow moment *sob*).
As well as the blog award, Loquax also picked up the Best Casino/Gaming Affiliate award from the amazingly talented Mr Chris “Tubes” Johnson. In 2008 we were the only affiliate shortlisted for this category when there was no merchant/affiliate split so this year’s win kind of makes up for that.
Our background has always been competitions and so we know more than most that “you’ve got to be in it to win it”. The award is a nice accolade for the company and it’ll give us a boost for the next 12 months.
However, what I hope the Loquax win will do is encourage other affiliates to have a look at entering the A4UAwards 2011. Putting together a quality entry doesn’t involve that much time and it’d be nice to see more affiliates getting involved. I’d also like merchants/networks encouraging their affiliates to have a go.
There must be campaigns where merchants/networks know a particular affiliate has done well, perhaps on limited means, or been outstandingly innovative?
Vouchercodes thoroughly deserve their plaudits in 2010, but in 2011 wouldn’t it be great to see a range of winners across the whole affiliate spectrum? Or at least more affiliates giving them a run for their money? They’ve set a high standard for this industry which can be competed with in terms of innovation and inventiveness if not in monetary scale.
A big congratulations to all A4UAward Winners 2010 and also to all those who made shortlists.
And a massive well done to Matt, Chris and the Existem team for the event. It’d have been brilliant whatever the outcome of the awards… but the two wins just made it that bit sweeter. And being on a table with Jude, long term affiliates like Kieron, Dave, Elaine, Ray and original Buy.at guys Mal and Paul just added to the night.
Thank you.
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
The Affiliate Awards That Got Turned Down
Posted by Jason Dale in Affiliate Marketing on December 3, 2009
The A4UAwards are back for another posh black tie event in 2010. They’ll be taking place at The Grosvenor House Hotel in London on June 9th and there’s a few changes in award categories from 2009. The mix of awards seems to be well thought out, but it’s a shame that some of these affiliate awards won’t be on offer….
The Affiliate Guru Award
This could could to the person who’s knowledge of affiliate marketing is so immense they’ve no time to actually do anything other than be a guru and tell other people how to do AM or online marketing. To qualify the nominees must have loads of followers, be well known and demonstrate what it is they actually do or have done – ah, so that’s why this award won’t work then!
The Ethical Affiliate Award
We should be celebrating those affiliates who are whiter than Snow White, Mr White from Reservoir Dogs and Gandalf the White at a Winter Wonderland Party at White City all being serenaded with White Wedding by Billy Idol. They must be clean, transparent and can sit up and boldly say “we’ve done nothing wrong”. Any suggestions for this one?
Pushing The Boundaries Affiliate Award
This could go to the affiliate who’s looked (or not looked) at the terms and conditions of various affiliate programs or networks and then bent them in to a boat like shape so that they can sale as close to the wind as is possible. Some in AM insist affiliates should stop moaning and start innovating… so perhaps it time to reward those who are really pushing the boundaries and challenging the very foundations of the marketing channel?
The Brand Bidder Award
What better way to expose the best in brand bidding than with an award? Of course those affiliates who are allowed to brand bid wouldn’t be able to qualify for the award. On awards night when the nominees and winners announced everyone would be made aware of who the naughty brand bidders are! Hooray!
The Doctor Who Network Regeneration Award
David Tennant’s Doctor is about to regenerate into Matt Smith’s version and it could either be brilliant or a pigs ear… hence the title of this award. It could be awarded to the network who have gone from pants to brilliant in the last 12 months, or as in the case of (put in your own suggestion) has turned into such a Turkey they’re actually worrying about ending up on the dinner table on the 25th December.
The Champions League Agency Award
Once upon a time to qualify for the Champions League you needed to be the Champions of the First Division or Premiership. Now you can win the overall title by finishing fourth. As Existem AM will most likely win “Best Agency” this award is an opportunity for other agencies to get their hands on something. Whilst essentially they’ll be second, they can still claim to be first.
The Affiliate Duck/Latin Brand Name Award
Why this never made the cut I’ve no idea. Seems a perfectly reasonable idea!!
Of course all the above are purely tongue in cheek and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental.
Fortunately for the affiliate industry there’s a nice bundle of sensible awards on offer including Innovation Awards, Best 3rd Party Affiliate Application (ECU please), Best Advertiser Incentive, Best New Entrant in Affiliate Marketing, Best Paid Search Partnership and Best Lead Generation Campaign.
Find out more and submit your entry at A4UAwards!
