Doug’s Mouthpiece – Droug.co.uk

Hum Bug

What we are doing written by Doug Scott

In days of old when I was the MD of the company I used to get loads of pressies:):)

Alas since I stepped aside and let Gareth/Andy/Simon run things whilst I just became arguementative I get bugger all:

Merry Christmas everyone

Doug

Ps. I wonder what Andy/Gareth/Simon got and did not tell me about:):)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Our Server Overloaded – A First Ever

What we are doing written by Doug Scott

Looks like out discount voucher site is doing something right:) www.discountvouchers.co.uk today stopped working…..that never ever happened to me:)

Our estimates are the server will have had almost 200,000 visitors today…so a bit upset as the revenue loss is considerable. But when told I actually laughed:

“Looks like we have created something that works then:)”

Hope your Chrismas ia an interesting as our’s is becoming:)

All the best

Doug

Popularity: 1% [?]

Been busy busy busy

What we are doing written by Doug Scott

Finally we launched www.recycle.co.uk which is sort of a freebay…ie you can list stuff you wish to get rid of and people can call you to take it off your hands. Only about 12 months late but alas the other main money making parts ofthe business took priority.

The sexy bit of it that I love is the mobile phone recycling comparator:)

Back to the grind

Doug

Popularity: 1% [?]

Carrentals.co.uk to Run Co-op Travel Car hire Business

What we are doing written by Doug Scott

Carrentals.co.uk has signed a deal to power Co-op Travel car hire business. This is the first large white label deal we have signed…….more to come:):)

Doug

Popularity: 2% [?]

Adfero News Competitor?

What we are doing written by Doug Scott

We do loads of news on sites like www.mns.co.uk, www.carrentals.co.uk, www.fly.co.uk, www.recycle.co.uk and lots more sites and wonder if anyone would be interested if we setup a service to run news for people.

The service would involve managing everything from setting up a subdomain, getting content written and getting it into google news.

Would anyone be interested? If so add a comment and we will get back to you.

Cheers

Doug

Popularity: 4% [?]

Discount Voucher Sites and Why Bother?

What we are doing written by Doug Scott

As someone who is heavily involved in this arena I can tell you now not to bother unless you have decent amounts of traffic or want to go after the traffic quite hard.

Lete me explain to you the issues:

1. The overheads just on keeping on top of the codes/offers is quite something. We now have a team of people just collecting deals/offers/codes. Without all the latest offers on your site it’s a pointless exercise. At last count we had close to 3000 offers/codes/deals in our system including Game discount vouchers, Argos discount vouchers, Dixons discount vouchers, Play discount vouchers, Lovefilm discount vouchers, Boot discount vouchers
2. The next issue is keeping on top of the merchants and the rule changes, being approved/disapproved for affiliate schemes etc etc.
3. We run our own site www.discountvouchers.co.uk which ranks quite nicely but we have been doing a lot of work. From the data we see from this site we see conversion rates running at double or treble normal content site rates, but no where near the 10% plus that people talk about. Mind you the IAB guidelines have definitely affected click through rates ( what do you say Mark??:):)
4. You will also find that you do not make much per visitor, be aware

Admittedly there is lots of long tail traffic, but you will need masses of content and power links to not get caught by the Google duplicate content penalty and many of people are after that, generally including the merhcnats themselves who have natural power.

Anyway just my little bit of knowledge, but if you already have a lot of grunt Google power and/or traffic then the effort may be worth doing. If you want a feed then kick the guys at promotions atleast that may save you a lot of  work and effort.

Doug

Popularity: 4% [?]

Our Staff – The Vouch

Fun, What we are doing written by Doug Scott

Some of the guys in our office as you may know or may not know are in a band, well yesterday they had a bit of a breakthrough and were playing on Radio 2 with Janice Long.

The Vouch with Kid Rad

Many people have already met them at the A4U events in the bandanas.

Good to see they have not quite finished there website, that bit sounds familiar.

The Vouch

I was genuinely surprised how good they sound, I am a hard man to please as they know. But well done Joe, Josh, Adam as it was brilliant.

All the best

Doug

Popularity: 4% [?]

Merchants, Networks and Affiliates Open Disclosure

Affiliate Money Grabbers, What we are doing written by Doug Scott

I was at the IAB meeting last week and an issue was raised. The issues was that merchants and networks sometimes reject affiliates from a program as they do not really know what that affiliate does.

There were numerous suggestions to fix this including:

affiliates to have a simple site showcasing their main sites
affiliates to update their profiles on the affiliates4u forum

We already run www.asapventures.co.uk but I have also updated our a4u profile

Seems like a good and simple idea.

Now we wait for the merchants to disclose what the rules are that they use to remove sales…deduping etc:) Seems only fair that affiliates can see when they will be paid and when they won’t be. Disclosure can’t only be one way.

Doug
Ps. Sorry to Paul Lowndsy as I met him on Thursday and he seemed a nice bloke.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Burn a suit for Comic Relief

Fun, What we are doing written by Doug Scott

Burn baby burn

Popularity: 3% [?]

Carrentals launches multilingually and globally

What we are doing written by Doug Scott

Well we have been tinkering in the background and are almost ready to launch car hire in local languages around the world:) So if any potential car hire partners who we are not talking to wish to contact me please do. The list of urls we will be using are listed below:

Australia – comparecarrentals.com.au compare car rentals
Austria – carrentals.at autovermietung
Belgium – carrentals.be autoverhuur
Czech Republic – 123carrental.cz autopůjčovna
Denmark carrentals.dk biludlejning
France – locature.fr location de voiture
Germany – carrentals.de autovermietung
Hungary – carrentals.hu autóbérlés
Israel carrentals.co.il השכרת רכב
Italy – autonoleggio1.it autonoleggio
Latvia – carrentals.lv car rental
Liechtenstein – carrentals.li autovermietung
Lithuania – carrentals.lt automobiliu nuoma
Luxemburg – carrentals.lu location voiture
Netherland – autoverhuur1.nl autoverhuur
Poland – 123wynajemaut.pl Wynajem Samochodów
Portugal – carrentals.pt alugar carro
Romania – xmasini.ro Maşini de închiriat
Russia – carrentals.ru аренда автомобилей
Slovakia – carrentals.sk autopozicovna
Spain – cochesya.es alquiler de coches
Sweden – carrentals.se biluthyrning
Switzerland (french) – location-de-voiture.ch location voitures
UAE carrentals.ae car rental
USA/Canada – comparecarrentals.com compare car rentals

Plus:)
vanrentals.co.uk van hire

The hassle you will know is language-translation so ping me if you can help:):)

Cheers to all involved, especially Alex who has been running the European stuff:)

Doug

Popularity: 2% [?]