No sooner had I touched back on English ground from my Sunshine holiday, I found out (via the forums?) that I had won another prize - this time from Maximuscle and to the tune of £200. (The luck didn’t end there - I also received two cheques from HM Revenue & Customs giving me back money I had wrongly paid in tax!)
So, first of all, I just want to thank Sam and Maximuscle for this lovely prize, which will no doubt be donated to the pubs and clubs of Leeds in exchange for one or twenty intoxicating beverages.
Upon catching up on my favourite blogs, I decided to use this example of my affiliate winning streak to put forward my opinion. Jason asks if incentives are nice prizes, or impossible tasks that most affiliates won’t bother with. Zak questions whether affiliates really do want incentives, or would higher commission be preferred. Kieron, not discussing incentives per se, used my Barcelona site as an example of a thin site created just to win an incentive.
At this stage in my affiliate career (!) I’m not overly fussed about commissions - I’m just happy seeing the pounds rolling in. I’m also not bothered about incentives - as I’ve said before, I simply don’t think I’m worthy of them.
The truth is I’m developing a portfolio of sites to explore my design, creative, copywriting, SEO and affiliate skills and that, to me, is my biggest reward. My discount code site jumped two units to a PR3 this week, a site that was exposed to Google probably about six months ago. I know TBPR means sod all, but I’m still dead chuffed. A few other of my sites also received PR. I enjoy seeing my new sites being indexed by Google, seeing traffic coming in organically and, of course, seeing commissions rolling in.
Whilst browing the A4U forums I spotted the Maximuscle incentive and realised that I wasn’t promoting them on my discount site. So I built a Maximuscle discount code page, broke my virginity with the Affiliate Window branded widgets and thought it quite pretty, so sent an e-mail to Sam with the URL.
But my plans for Maximuscle don’t end there. I used to use whey protein and went to the gym before turning into a lazy student. I still have some in the cupboard, and I’m adamant I’ll start training again. This, in turn, will inspire me to create a website tracking my progress with tips for others doing the same thing, thus having unique and interesting content and this, in turn, will have Maximuscle banners and links, therefore creating more promotion and (hopefully) mo’ money.
The number of sites with traffic I have is growing, the amount of commissions I’m earning is growing and one day I may (and hope) be a well performing or ’super’ affiliate. Now that I’ve been to Benidorm, I can (and have started to) build a fatter affiliate site dedicated to Benidorm. Sunshine will, naturally, be promoted. Now that I know Maximuscle has an affiliate program, I will promote them on my future training site.
Naturally, incentives where only super affiliates can win will put me off - but only the competition itself. But incentives can peak (or pique?) my interest, expose an affiliate program and initiate a relationship. Who knows, maybe I and other smaller affiliates who win incentives will become super affiliates and bring in lots of dolly for the respective merchants.
Regardless of the prize (I’d be happy with a keyring), winning stuff is fun and motivates me to promote the merchant more. I will still promote merchants on sites I think they would fit and all that jazz, but with so many ideas floating around my head and so many of my sites floating round the web, a nice incentive can tie down an idea and receive my full time and attention.
And if the super affiliates don’t want to play, I’m willing to win anything else thrown my way 
P.S. Thanks again to Maximuscle!
Tags: Incentives
Posted in Affiliate Stuff, C'est Moi | Post a comment »
Sunday, May 18th, 2008 
C'est Moi 
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