AffiliateStuff.co.uk from Kirsty McCubbin
Here.org.uk from Kieron Donoghue
Lammo.net from John Lamerton
LeeMcCoy.co.uk from Lee McCoy
OneLittleDuck.co.uk from Jason Dale

I have followed all of these blogs for some time now, so I can see why they have been nominated. All provide informative posts mixed with a bit of personality, which is what you need in a good blog. There are many other Affiliate Blogs out there that I love to read, for a full list of affiliate blogs, check out @KeithBond’s site Internet Marketing Blogs.

So, voting in the A4U Awards is really simple, the hard part is choosing who to vote for. Asking myself the question “How do I choose the best affiliate blog of 2009″ I found myself realising the best way to choose would be to interview each of the blog owners, from those answers I then may get a better idea of which Affiliate deserves it most! It’s so hard to pick from such a strong group of nominees, so I hope that this post may help you decide.

The shortlisted five…

Kirsty McCubbin @AffiliateStuff	Kieron Donoghue @KieronDonoghue	John Lamerton @Lammo77

Lee McCoy @GetVisible	Jason Dale @OneLittleDuck

As you can see, John has actually turned into a cartoon in a Roger Rabbit-esque fashion.

My original plan was to split the interviews into three parts/posts, but I’ve decided just to fire them into one big massivo Affiliate Bloggers Interview post!

Let’s getting onto the juicy stuff then!

Q1. Whats your name and where do you come from (in a Cilla Black styleee!)

	“Well hello chuck! My name is Kirsty and I used to live in Scotland but have recently moved to the Sunshine Coast in Australia.”
	“Kieron Donoghue, from Sexy Sunderland”
	“Hello Cilla, my name is John, and I’m from Plymouth.”
	“LOL – My name is Lee McCoy and I’m from, well, Durban – South Africa, but now live in Warrington, Cheshire.”
	“Jason Dale from Loquax.co.uk (or Swansea via Portsmouth, Warrington, Worthing, Sheffield and Newcastle if you want locality). Blogs at Onelittleduck.co.uk!”

Q2. How long have you been into Affiliate Marketing?

	“It’ll be 6 years in August since I went full time in the affiliate marketing world.”
	“About 10 years or so.”
	“Since the dawn of time itself. Actually no, just after that – about nine years.”
	“Since late 2002 – not as long as many, but I’ve cracked a lot into that!”
	“Although I started in 1998, it probably was 1999 or even 2000 that affiliate marketing appeared on the horizon when we started to promote a game company called Uproar. From then there was ukaffiliates.com and Magic Button and suddenly a whole new world opened out. Before that you could simply earn money just by adding banners – them were the days )”

Q3. What was your first affiliate site about and is it still running? We all love links, so don’t be shy! I might even dofollow

“My first ever affiliate site was about pets, it was a really spammy and embarrassing one promoting Petplanet.co.uk  There is still a site on that domain, but there was a nasty virus lurking on the server the last time I looked, so you can’t see it!”

“My first affiliate site was NorthEastCars.info. It was basically a listings of local car dealers. I built it just so I could learn how to use Microsoft FrontPage.”

“My first affiliate site was a crappy looking Geocities homepage all about how to make money on the Internet, written by someone who didn’t have a clue how to make money on the Internet. I made a few quid out of paid-to-surf programs, before the “site” evolved into a freebie site, which became Net Free Stuff, which is still going strong today, although no longer under my ownership after I sold it in 2007.”

“Get Financial. It’s not live anymore as I got bored with the financial market but was pretty poor to say the least. I think I also launched Get Booking about the same time. Before that I had a play with various bits and bobs.”

“Myself and business partner Kirsty Darbyshire started Loquax off as a demon homepage in February 1998 as the UK’s first competition portal – yes it’s still running, although in a much bigger and better format than the early days.”

Q4. Which one person (in the industry) has been the biggest help to get you to where you are today?

“Errr… if I say “Myself” will that sound a bit precious?  I’ve worked very hard to get where I am and I put most of what I’ve achieved down to complete bloody mindedness.  Other than that I have to say the lovely people who frequent the A4U Forum have been a massive help over the years.”

“Hard to single out just 1, however I do remember some MSN chats with Clarke Duncan (UK Internet Sites) from absolutely years ago. He was always available for a chat and didn’t mind a newbie bugging him. “

“There weren’t many people in the Industry when I first started, but one of them is still going strong today and was a huge, huge influence at the very start. If it hadn’t have been for Clarke Duncan, I would probably still be a Civil Servant today. He was happy to share tips and hints with me, even though I was a direct competitor, and proved a massive inspiration during those early days of putting in long hours after the Day Job with the hope of one day doing “this Internet thing” full time. “

“There’s far too many to mention them all, but there’s been a number of people that have either inspired me, kept me going or told me that my ideas are crap. But, my fondest memories are that with Luke Creigh who used to work for Affiliate Future and now runs Media Incentives at the time we were both making obscene amounts of money and even though we were actually direct competitors we both knew that the market was big enough and we’d tell each other what we were trying out and passing on the good tips. Luke definitely encouraged me to spam Google Today, I’d say that Purple is a great inspiration with everything he does in the social arena. There two people are quiet and unassuming – which is the right way to do business (when will I learn )”

“Difficult to name one person, but the original A4U crowd who used to spend late nights chatting online were a major influence. Clarke Duncan, John Lamerton and Paul Wheatley come to mind. I remember chatting to John at the first “Stormtrooper” pub evening and there were so many things we were doing wrong it was untrue. I think that was the epiphany moment that with Loquax there was an opportunity available that shouldn’t be wasted.”

Q5. What has been your proudest moment in Affiliate Marketing?

“Every second I’ve spent being self sufficient as a result of affiliate marketing is a source of immense pride to me.”

“Tough one. Being asked to judge the A4U Awards for the last 2 years and being asked to speak at the A4U Expo for the last 2 years running. On a more personal level I guess it was a few years ago when I first started making a full time living from Affiliate Marketing, my Mam was really poorly in hospital and she asked how it was going. She was a constant worrier, very traditional (i.e. thought I should be an employee and not run my own business) and was petrified I would end up homeless with nothing to my name. Anyway I told her I had just made more in a month than I did in a year in my old full time “real” job and she was so happy for me. At the time she was gravely ill in hospital and I have a very fond memory of the look on her face that her son was doing “ok” and wouldn’t end up in a cardboard box somewhere.”

“Probably the day I gave up the Day Job and started working on AM Full Time – From that day on, I was my own boss, and if I have my way, I’ll never go back to having a “proper job” again. That may seem a strange thing to be proud of, but 7 years later, nothing has come close to the euphoria and freedom that I felt having broken the shackles of working for the Government. “

“Now that’s a difficult one. I’m not one that’s un-naturally obsessed by money. But coming out of the situation I was in, where I had about £16k of debt and wrote that off very quickly after getting into affiliate marketing was a great thing. Another proud moment was when I tallied up all my income and expenses for a month and worked out I earned more in that month than I use to earn being employed by an internet company. Today, I’d say being nominated as finalist for the Best Affiliate Blog for the second year is also a proud moment. Not because I’m an attention seeker, just that I feel that if you’re going to do anything, give your best – and a nomination is an indication that you’re doing your best, even if I come last in that five or first. “

“The A4U award nominations for Loquax (2008) and One Little Duck (2008, 2009) were nice as was being asked to be a panellist at the first A4UExpo. But, I still like seeing commissions from new stuff we’re doing though – there’s something quite satisfying seeing an idea generate a few pounds. “

Q6. On the other foot, has there been a time where you’ve really been set back and thought about packing it in?

“Not ever.  Even in the darkest of times (of which there are relatively few) I know that the affiliate sun will eventually shine upon me again.”

“No. I can’t think of any reason why I would. I love what I do and I love the diversity and fresh challenges each day brings.”

“Thought about it? I’ve done it! I walked away in 2005 after getting well and truly hacked off with the entire Industry. It was a combination of exhaustion (I’d been working 100 hour weeks for 5 years without more than a week off) and frustration – The business I’d built in the early years was very different from the business I had in 2005 – It was much more “corporate” and I simply didn’t enjoy working in that environment. After a year out, I returned in 2006, changed the business back to the “pre-corporate” model I was comfortable with, and fell back in love with the Industry. I’ve been back nearly three years now, and I’m still loving every minute of it!”

“A couple of years ago I was seriously thinking about it and blogged about why (http://www.leemccoy.co.uk/2007/08/why-i-effectively-left-affiliate.html) but mainly it was because I was on the come down from immense earnings, I’d come through some personal issues and had started sub-contracting for a bit of sanity.  At that time I needed to step back and get myself out of much of the rubbish I saw going on in the industry. Now I’ve enjoyed a couple of really good years earnings-wise and have come up with a way of being an affiliate that I find both profitable and enjoyable. I’m not going hell-for-leather anymore as I’m trying not to burn out –like I did before.”

“Not affiliate marketing, no! I’ve often considered what we could be doing AM wise if we didn’t have a community site that requires a lot of time and “non-affiliate” attention on our hands, but have never come close to pulling the plug. “

Q7. What would you like to have achieved by this time next year?

“I’d like to increase my current profits by around 40%.  This isn’t really because I need the money it’s just that affiliate thing where you always feel you need to achieve more.  I think the root of that desire is that I want to broaden the areas I get my income from.  I got caught out a bit by Figleaves’ programme changes earlier in the year and I don’t like to see such a large chunk of cash falling away at the one time.”

“I’d like to build ContentNow.co.uk into one of the biggest online content providers in the UK. “

“I’d like Easy Content Units to have broken even. That might not seem like a very ambitious target, but it’s the single biggest investment I’ve ever made in one website/project – we’ve got a huge amount of cash and resources tied up in ECU, and it’s burned some serious money in the early days. It’s starting to repay a little now, but it still keeps me awake at night sometimes!”

“Well, I’m going through the process of rebranding a number of sites. Some of them are just aimed at getting search engine traffic and making a living off of those. Whilst, I’ve got one in mind that I’m putting a fair bit of effort in and hoping to build it up as a brand.  Hopefully by this time next year I’d have turned it into 1,000 visits a day site and it would have featured naturally in the offline media. “

“The main aim we have each year is earn enough and be happy – everything else after that is a bonus. However I’d like us to break into the vouchers market as a non-click to reveal system and I’d also love to double my blog readership to 4!  “

Q8. Everyone loves a good tool or resource. Which do you use on a regular basis to improve your productivity?

“A pen and paper!  Planning exactly what I’m supposed to achieve during my allocated work hours is one of the most powerful things I’ve ever done to improve my productivity.”

“Spotify. I work so much better to music.”

“I outsource all my content writing and link building – That’s the biggest thing that was dragging me down a few years back – I was spending all day writing content I had little or no interest in, and then forcing myself to go link building (I HATE link building with a passion) – end result was I wrote rubbish content, got crap links and didn’t enjoy my work. So if you want to increase your productivity – find the tasks that you hate doing, the ones you put off, and spend ages doing badly, and then find someone good to outsource that work to – It’ll free up your time to do what you’re good at, and the task(s) will get done better and quicker!”

“I created a list of tools that I used earlier in the year but I still haven’t found time to use the Easy Content Units tool . John, I promise I will when I get this backlog of stuff done”

“I read A4U and have RSS feeds from blogs, networks and marketing sources on hand but beyond that it’s simply just a case of knuckle down and work.  You also can’t beat coming up with your own initiative and ideas – so the old grey cells is probably the best recommended tool for any affiliate. We don’t do PPC or worry too much about SEO (although we probably should) so our focus tends to be what can we do for our users.”

Q9. Have you ever swayed to the dark-side and used any black/grey hat methods to get your site up the rankings? If so, how did it go for you and how do you feel about it now?

“I dabbled with spammy doorway pages pre Florida update but that was so much the accepted norm for web promotion in those days I really didn’t see it as spam.  It went well, got me hooked in the business and so I’m happy to have done it.  It also gives me a neat counterpoint to all the effort I put in these days.  I have to say I get more out of working hard for my money than I ever did from cashing in on 50,000 doorways. “

“No, never have and never will.”

“Nope, never. Two reasons: - I’d be scared sh*tless that I was gonna get caught, and lie awake all night waiting for the knock at the door from the Google police to come and drag me away. - I don’t know enough about SEO to figure out how to do anything dodgy”

“Hell yeh, I built up a Made-For-Adsense site. It was getting 8,000 visits a day mainly from finance and travel keywords. The CTR on the Adsense was often between 30% and 40% and had a good proportion on some good mortgage keywords. I also got a fair number of affiliate sales through that too. Those were the days when you could upload 40,000 new pages one day on a crap site and start earning from them over the next couple of days –bliss.”

“No.”

Q10. Being a successful Affiliate Marketer surely has its benefits, what’s your most prized possession?

“My freedom. “

“I could go all deep here and say my most prized possession is my freedom, the freedom and flexibility that affiliate marketing has given me. But I won’t. Instead I’ll tell you that it’s my white Range Rover Supercharged. I absolutely love it.”

“My most prized possession is my time. Sure AM buys you nice things – Big house, fancy car, exotic holidays etc. But they’re just toys. What’s the point in having 50 acres of land if you can’t spare an hour to enjoy it? Affiliate Marketing gives you money, but it also gives you the freedom and time to enjoy life, which doesn’t actually cost anything. If I’m having a crap day, I can just grab the dog, and bugger off out for a walk. If I want to meet up with a friend for a two-hour lunch, I can. We’re expecting our first child in August, and I’m going to be there to watch him grow up – something that many “successful” people fail to do when it comes to their kids.”

“I’m not one for expensive purchases, that’s really for people that don’t have anything intangible in their lives. One thing I have now is peace of mind and confidence – when I was deep in debt I had neither. Also I’m getting married, have a settled home-life and have everything I want. Why go and spend some cash on something flashy? Saying that, all of Laura’s family have Breitlings and I’m feeling left out.  I’ll resist for now.”

“Can’t say I have a “prized possession”. I do however have a lovely missus (Jude) and thanks to AM we’re comfortable and therefore get to spend time together – no amount of material items can beat being happy in life (although admittedly it’s nice to have them).”

Q11. Its all very well having a nice community and helping newbies by teaching them the tricks of the trade, but do you ever feel a little threatened by the amount of newcomers to Affiliate Marketing that are receiving excellent advice?

“Competition and new blood is what keeps the industry moving forward.  Personally I thrive upon it and think most affiliates probably do as well.  Staying ahead of the game is crucial.  I also think that the number of new entrants to the market won’t be affected by transparent advice.  You’ve either got it or you haven’t.  What we might see are fewer people getting ripped off by the dodgy MLM and rubbish make money product brigade.  All good and helps the reputation of the industry in my humble opinion.”

“No. The Internet is still a growth sector and as well as new affiliates coming on the scene there are also new niches, new technology and lots and lots of new opportunities.”

“No, I think it’s essential that we have new blood coming into the Industry. Many of them will fall by the wayside and get “proper jobs”, but there will be some real stars of the future coming through, and that has to be a good thing for the Industry as a whole. It may be bad for those that rely purely on PPC (You can’t ALL be #1), but for those that build useful sites that actually help and engage real people, there’s plenty of cake for everyone.”

“All the time. When I blogged about my Easter eggs site I saw a big influx of sites targeting the same niche? I wasn’t overly annoyed. I’m a strong believer in Karma and get a lot of satisfaction out of helping people, when I started off in this industry, there wasn’t enough people that were helping others without helping themselves first.”

“Not really. Whilst today’s affiliates do have access to some fantastic resources and opportunities it still takes initiative, effort and energy to succeed. I do think AM is a lot harder these days, most certainly if you take the brand route. New blood is always needed too, and even the old dudes can learn a thing or two from newbies.”

Q12. OK, so you have proven to be successful in the online arena. Do you think you could be a successful entrepreneur in an offline scenario?

“Jeez, I dunno.  I’d like to think so, but there are so many challenges in the offline world it would be a steep learning curve.  I’ve always fancied owning a youth hostel though!!”

“No idea. Haven’t tried it and have no desire to if I’m honest. Online is where it’s at for me.”

“Offline is a completely different kettle of fish to online. I know why I succeed online – It’s because I work bloody hard, online is a 24/7 business and I have very low overheads. I established an offline presence in 2004, and hated it. The red tape, the extortionate overheads (I remember the  phone call to the business rates people: “You want to charge me £4,000 a year, and you won’t even empty my bins?), the 9-5 mentality of both customers and employees. I believe I have some core business skills which do transfer well to the offline business world, but I think you need to focus your efforts on what you’re good at – and that means I’m gonna be chained to this computer for a few more years yet!”

“Well, I can play the piano, can rock climb, I nearly qualified as an Olympic swimmer  – I jest! I know what ever I try I’d be able to make a success of it as I plan and research in great detail but I’m flexible enough to know when its time to change strategies. I also used to be a manager in a PR company so I know about working with others and managing people. “

“Not a chance. I don’t even see myself as an online entrepreneur. I’m just an ex-scientist who started a website and it became successful.  “

Q13. If you could run any affiliate marketing network for just one day, which would it be and what would you change (if anything)?

“I go and run Paid on Results because it’s a network I like working with and people like Stuart, Carole, and Clarke make me laugh (and would probably take me out and get me drunk which I’d quite enjoy).  I don’t think I’d change anything.  My commission tiers with one or two merchants maybe!!”

“Tradedoubler. I’d hide the keys to their ivory towers and make them step out into the affiliate community and reconnect. Something they desperately need to do again.”

“I’d go to CJ and finally approve/deny my pending application to Marbles Credit Card from 2001.”

“I’d work for Affiliate Future because they have the best looking ladies (that’s what J Lil tells me anyway).  Thinking about it, I’d probably like to work for Paid On Results as they do wonders with the budget they have, they’ve taken a load of shit off a load of people and they’re good at what they do and I like to surround myself with people that are determined to do a good job and fight against entrenched views. I’m not sure about the lady situation though! If I could change anything, it’d be get the site tartted up a bit. But the functionality is rock-solid. I’d probably just make everyone coffee and talk to Clarke about shopping for clothes at Tesco!”

“I’d hate to run (or work for) any network. I know as affiliates and especially blogging affiliates it’s easy to give them a hard time, but often those in the front line are as frustrated by situations as the affiliates themselves. Jason in shock diplomatic answer ;o)”

Q14. What’s your secret? (I won’t tell anyone)

“Hard work, passion and never thinking I know it all.”

“Root beer.”

“After nine years working in Affiliate Marketing, I still know next to nothing about Web Design. And I still can’t fix computers.”

“There is no secret, just hard work and humility.”

“Work hard, embrace luck and opportunity when it arrives, keep your feet on the ground, be honest, don’t be too afraid to speak out and remember in the words of the great Take That “someday soon this will be someone else’s dream”.”

Q15. Congratulations on being nominated for the A4U Awards Best Affiliate Blog Category. If you could vote for one of your fellow nominees to win, who would it be and why?

“Oooh, that’s a tough question.  Chris Frost will be most upset!!  I’d actually like to see them all winning something. They all contribute to the great information being put out by affiliate bloggers in different ways, so it’s hard to pinpoint one I think is “best”. If forced to pick one, I’d go for John Lamerton he’s inspirational, his recent “how to guides” have been great, and he’s an all round good bloke.”

“Jason – purely for his cheesy “tabloid headline” blog posts. Plus he’s such a grumpy sod that I’d like to see him with a smile on his face for once.”

“I’d vote for Jason Dale, as he needs cheering up (he’s a Southampton fan)”

“When I thought about voting,  I discounted those who I believe didn’t have the primary purpose of helping others.  Now there’s a few in there, but I have an absolute huge amount of respect for Jason and Jude http://www.onelittleduck.co.uk/ – not only are they very successful but they do it with a smile on their faces, always willing to help others and are jolly good eggs. But then there’s Kirsty who does some cracking tip posts and John who can cut any issue into its constituent parts and cut through any crap that exists in any given topic. And Keiron who has made a popular brand out of his site.”

“I like all the blogs nominated as they all reflect AM from different angles. However I’d vote for Lee as it’s the one that has content more relevant to me as an affiliate. “

That literally took me two hours to copy and paste, so I hope you enjoyed the read! I certainly found the answers very interesting. I’ve made my choice for the awards and I’ve placed by votes. If you havent voted yet, you can vote @ http://www.affiliates4u.com/awards/vote.php

Thanks again to Kirsty, Kieron, John, Lee & Jason for taking the time out of their busy schedules to answers these questions. If you have any questions for any of the super bloggers, feel free to leave a comment.

Cheers,

Mark
(@hairycornflakes)