Affiliate Marketing

The high street and ecommerce: friends, foes or something in-between?

Given the surge of ecommerce and the collapse of Blockbuster, HMV and Jessops, it seems bricks and mortar shops may eventually disappear.

As technology and delivery mechanisms improve, will we become a nation that stares at a screen, clicking away with a cup of tea?

Online shopping is convenient and simple. The way we research and buy online may be changing, but the High Street can still play a major part in this development.

Technology can enhance and rejuvenate bricks and mortar shopping, creating an interactive and enhanced shopping experience. 

Start Me Up! A profile of Convertable

Convertable is a web app which aims to improve the quality of information captured on contact forms for lead generation.

It grabs additional data, including keyword, geo-location, pages viewed, and visitor history for each individual contact.

I’ve been asking Chris Hull and Patrick Smith how the app works, and the company’s plans for the future… 

Post-Christmas sales and device trends: stats round up

With the festive break all but a distant memory, we have taken the opportunity to look back at our stats across the network for the run up to Christmas as well as the post Christmas sales.

As a company running affiliate campaigns for around half of the UK’s largest retailers as well as over 1,000 SMEs, we are able to interrogate our data to provide some insights into general retail trends over the Christmas and New Year period.

There were a number of predictions and subsequently reports of the largest online shopping days and in this post we are able to look across our advertiser base to identify the peak trading periods.

With consumer behavior shifting and mobile commerce playing a more prominent role, we also look at the device trends during this time.

State of the freelance nation: stats

At the end of last year, David Cameron demonstrated his commitment to boost the British creative economy, announcing plans to invest £50m of funding towards the construction of the Open Institute at the heart of Silicon Roundabout In London.

This busy tech hub is used by many startups where freelancers are often integral to their strategy.  

Online magazine Technorati claims the era of the freelancer will kick off in 2013 and last month we released quarterly online employment report that suggests the same.

The continuing growth of integrated marketing in 2013

With JUMP coming up in New York on January 30, 2013, we’re very interested in what is happening in the world of integrated marketing.

We’re tired of companies working in independent silos and not having the conversations that can save them time and money, as well as create a better customer experience and help grow their business.

Announcing the Econsultancy Innovation Awards 2010 shortlist

Ah, December. For many media folks it is a month of fat lunches and the parties. It used to be like that for me too, until we launched our Innovation Awards a couple of years ago. 

Since then December has turned into a month of hardcore reading. Our in-house judging panel (me, CEO Ashley Friedlein and Research Director Linus Gregoriadis) spent the majority of the month poring over the 350+ entries, checking out sites and apps, and generally trying to make sense of things.

Last year was a great year for innovation, based on what we read. There are some amazing things going on in our industry. 

17 digital marketing trends for 2011, by Econsultancy CEO Ashley Friedlein

Following are my personal views on what will be interesting and important in the world of digital marketing and e-commerce for 2011. 

I haven’t given extensive justification for any of these. It’s just what I feel to be likely from my many conversations with industry influencers.

I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts, or feel free to post a link to your own predictions.