The top 5 worldwide selling Games of 2008

Today I received my copy of The Leveller, I-Level's monthly newsletter. Apart from the comment about Martin Lewis and MSE as an affiliate (featuring Matt Bailey's apparent dating website photo) there was a good list some affiliate might want to use.



The top 5 worldwide selling Games of 2008

1. Mario Kart Wii -1.94m copies sold

2. Wii Fit

3. Grand Theft Auto 4

4. Super Smash Bros Brawl

5. Call of Duty: World at War

source - Chart Track, NPD, Media Crate, Feb 09



Why of interest to affiliates:
It is worth noting that these can all be rented from LOVEFiLM
3 of these are Wii games, matching the trend we see for Wii rental being more popular
Anyone with a more causal gaming audience could benefit from promoting these titles


P.S - in case you don't believe me about Matt's photo I have place below - does he not look like he's about to start talking about his hobbies?

Fast Growth Business Awards

The Fast Growth Business Awards recognise the most pioneering and creative businesses and entrepreneurial owners, and once again LOVEFiLM has been nominated and made the short list.

Last year we attended the event and won Retail/Leisure Business of the Year and this year we are up for Online Business of the Year.

The 4 finalists are:

Buyagift.com
LOVEFiLM International
Seatwave
WhiteLabelDating.com

Personally I think WhiteLabelDating.com will be strong competition having seen them around at the online events and shows.

Always nice to see us up for an award, but I want to see us showing up the A4U awards this year as a contender.

More info at
http://www.fgba.co.uk/2009_finalists.html

Brands that are thriving in a recession

Marketing Magazine has a nice article on brands that are thriving in the recession:

http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/news/886686/Case-studies-brands-thriving-recession/

Alongside Moneysavingexpert.com and The Economist is our very own LOVEFiLM with a quote from the always quotable Simon Morris.

The three words that repeatedly come up during LoveFilm's customer research are, says Morris, range, convenience and value. 'In this climate, range becomes less important [to consumers than] value.' Members are also returning discs faster and renting more of them, but this trend is as much to do with the long winter nights as it is the recession.

An article worth checking out as it has some other information on how we are doing right now.

LOVEFiLM Affiliate Activity - lets make some plans

I'll be asking some of you guys directly but I am putting out a general request as well. I am eager to agree some interesting CPA based activity through April-July so please send me your ideas.

I want to know what affiliates want to do with LOVEFiLM on loyalty, email, viral and anything else. If you get in touch now we can make sure we have everything set up and ready to roll around your plans as well. I would like to see LOVEFiLM integrated into any special promotion you might be planning.

Reviewing the previous years we have had some great success with different affiliates such as:
Ipoints Indy Jones competition
Quidco's Savvy Tips supporting TV coverage
The 1st Viral game on affiliate model with Tamba
Halloween Horror Downloads promotion
ChooseDVDrental reporting all the news and developments

It would be great to agree to similar activity in the upcoming months.

LOVEFiLM Payout Structure + Affiliate Groups

LOVEFiLM is adjusting its payout structure as we look to bring all program structures and promotions in line. This consolidation will also allow us to move onto the next stage of our affiliate marketing with greater understanding of the ROI and value of special promotions.

We are also looking at ways to integrate affiliates using APIs, Widgets, Content, Email and Mobile during these changes so please get in touch if you have a focus on these areas. I am hoping that we are developing our program in the right way so we can look at the different classifications of affiliates so we will be able to reward hard work and judge each on a more fair and consistent basis.

Please note this will be active from Sunday 8th March at 11.59PM and will be across all of the affiliate networks we work with.

NEW set up
Lead 0-49 @ £7.50
Lead 50-99 @ £10
Lead 100-199 @ £13
Lead 200-500 @ £14
Lead 501+ @ £15
Lead 749+ @ £17

Feel free to contact the guys at the networks or myself if you have any questions.

The top 10 Movie sites of 2008

Beta Labs has an interesting article on the Hitwise Top 10 lists of 2008 out:
http://blog.betalabs.co.uk/2009/03/03/hitwise-top-tens-out-today/
http://www.hitwise.co.uk/

This includes the top 10 Movie sites of 2008

1 www.lovefilm.com
2 www.odeon.co.uk
3 www.cineworld.co.uk
4 www.myvue.com
5 www.showbiz.sky.com
6 www.movies.uk.msn.com
7 www.empireonline.co.uk
8 www.tescodvdrental.com
9 www.uk.imdb.com
10 www.uk.movies.yahoo.com

Great to see LOVEFiLM being recognised as a source for all movie related news, cinema listings and interviews as well our DVD rental.

I wonder how much of this traffic is down to our affiliates driving people to the site to sign up?

More ways to promote LOVEFiLM - bonus rentals and screenings

Here is something useful if you want to promote the extra little things a member gets when they join LOVEFiLM

http://www.lovefilm.com/micro/nokia-5800.html

You have to be logged into your account to get to the page but then just answer the question and you get a bonus rental. This is a nice little treat of members and shows what else we give to improve the value of the membership. You can get the free rental during the free trial as well and this runs for the month of March.

We often give away these bonus rentals to our members alongside prize draws and exclusive screenings of the latest releases. We even give away film props as random as Jennifer Ellison's fake leg that was used in The Cottage.

Working in other European countries & Affiliate Opinions

I am interested in knowing how many of the affiliates on the forum also promote sites and services in Europe. LOVEFiLM also has services in Germany, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and I would be keen to refer you to our online managers in each country. It would be great to see how you differ your sites by country - do you change much other than the language?

The LOVEFiLM affiliate model varies slightly by country in terms of program structure but the offer is the same - Free trial and CPA payouts.

While on the subject - what does everyone think of affiliate marketing in different European countries? I know the markets vary in size by quite a bit and can be affected by currency, postal services and attitude to online buying. Has anyone seen results differ greatly by country?

Thanks in advance.

The Affiliate Census - the value affiliates can/want to add

In The UK Affiliate Census 2009, Affiliates ranked a range of affiliate methods by how much revenue they generate:
True content (SEO) (36%)
PPC (20%)
Price comparison (11%)
Blogs and forums (8%)
Email marketing (5%)
Voucher codes (5%)
Cash-back and reward (5%)
Shopping directories (4%)
Social networking (3%)
Corporate intranet (2%)

My impressions of this - I was amazed that so many affiliates have a focus on content and building their sites naturally. The industry gets a bad rap at times for just being voucher and incentive based, and most affiliates are looking to educate and add value.

It was also really encouraging to see this data just before we held a 'LOVEFiLM and Affiliates - Widgets and APIs' meeting at Tradedoubler Towers a couple of weeks ago.

Thanks to all that attended, I shall be working on the feedback with the team here to see what the next steps will be. It was great to see a group of affiliates passionate about taking what merchants would give them to improve their SEO rankings, while anyone from a comparison site to a new technology affiliate can use the same information. If we are able to open up our data as much as you all requested I think we could see some amazing new ideas in the next 12 months.

The 3 step Simple guide to LOVEFiLM - in technicolour 3D HD

Here's an example of content I want to start offering more often to affiliates:

The 3 step Simple guide to LOVEFiLM

This page is a video guide to our service that should answer any questions people would have that prevent them from signing up, covered in 69 seconds. The page also includes a trackable sign up button.

Let me know if you could use it, or any other LOVEFiLM content on your site or linked to. We are sitting here waiting for your ideas.