Digivate - More money for your blog

More than three-quarters of UK businesses have increased their affiliate marketing spending since 2005, according to a new survey by E-consultancy.

And the same proportion said they expected spending to have increased by a similar amount in two year’s time.

It is not hard to determine why, with 95 per cent of respondents deeming affiliate marketing to be cost-effective.

The survey suggests that multi-channel retail is now the norm, with 78 per cent of those questioned working for organisations which sell both online and offline.

Kevin Cornils, chief executive officer of buy.at, said in a statement: “As broadcast advertising has started to decline, performance marketing has emerged as the silver bullet of the marketing industry.

“Within that search marketing has reached its peak, but affiliate marketing is still in a high-growth phase.”

The survey shows that the vast majority of organisations are generating at least £1 million in online sales every year, with 42 per cent earning at least £10 million.

Stumble It!

Google’s £1.5 billion acquisition of DoubleClick is likely to be delayed for months by the European Commission, according to the Times.

The European competition watchdog has until October 26th to decide whether to launch a full investigation into the takeover.

This move would stall the process by at least four months and could potentially lead to its abandonment altogether if the investigation were to reveal significant competition issues.

The search engine giant defeated Microsoft in a bidding war for DoubleClick earlier this year. It has been suggested that Microsoft matched Google’s bid but was rejected by Helman & Friedman, DoubleClick’s private equity owner.

Google maintains that the online marketing deal is “positive for users and advertisers and fosters competition”.

Meanwhile Microsoft continues to lobby against the acquisition on competition and privacy grounds.

Google and DoubleClick together account for a staggering 80 per cent of all adverts.

Ireland is today hosting a free online marketing seminar at which industry experts will share their experiences and knowledge.

Digiweb Network Operations Centre, College Business and Technology Park, Blanchardstown will host the event, the aim being to provide an interactive forum for delegates to gain practical and creative ideas.

There are three keynote speakers, the Irish Developer Network reports.

Alastair McDermott, a log-on internet marketing expert, will dispense advice including how to make the best use of Google AdWords and discussion forums.

Damien Mulley of the Sunday Tribune is to discuss what blogging can do for a business in terms of both SEO and increasing website traffic. He will also consider the potential of blogging and how to run a successful online PR campaign.

Finally, Barry Hand, an online marketing specialist from Digiweb, will look at a range of topics including the best practice in web analysis.

Nearly nine out of ten consumers have experienced problems when making purchases online, according to a new study.

The Harris Interactive research revealed that 37 per cent of customers found websites difficult to navigate, 34 per cent of people had received error messages and 29 per cent felt they had been given insufficient or incorrect information.

Other bugbears included endless loops that block transactions (22 per cent), search functions that do not work properly (21 per cent) and being automatically logged off the page (20 per cent).

The findings suggest companies should make ecommerce website design a priority - 42 per cent of those who faced such difficulties either switched to a competitor or abandoned the transaction altogether.

Nor was customer service rated highly. Some 49 per cent of those who had been in touch with customer services said that their complaint had never been resolved and 68 per cent were convinced that the person they spoke to knew nothing about the website.

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