Yesterday I generated four iGaming players from 15 clicks. That’s great, however with the data that was available to me, I had no idea which pages on my website was sending the clicks that were driving converting clicks.

I have event tracking labels on all of my outbound affiliate links, so in Google Analytics I can drill down to some level to understand what keywords and landing pages are driving those sales, but beyond that, on my affiliate portals, I cant tell which traffic my site gets actually converts.

So I thought, wouldn’t be great if I could see which pages on my affiliate website were the clicks that converted?

1. On affiliate portals, create a different campaign URL for each of your main landing pages
2. Cloak each URL using .htaccess
3. Replace all of your outgoing links with variables
4. In a PHP file, set a URL variable using the  $_SERVER function
5. Write conditional statements that set the outgoing link based on matching the URL function
6. BOOM!

I’ve been working on affiliate site, online betting offers. It compiles free bets for users. It’s based on WordPress and I started off with a pretty simple theme and over the weeks have been modifying here and there until it looks rather unique. I’ve put together some nice CTAs that will hopefully boost conversion. Haven’t really started to link build for it yet, as I’m so busy with work at the moment. It’s a long term project but hoping to get some traffic for the 2010 World Cup that kicks off this week.

In the previous few weeks a large amount of attention in the digital marketing industry has been given to a directive approved by the EU council. If you are unaware of the Directive in question, check out the Econsultancy article who provide a good general introduction to the topic. With consideration to further analysis of the politics behind the directive, read the out-law article. If you have the time, you can even read the directive for yourself!

I completed a Masters in European Business which focused largely on the institutions of the EU and the process of ratification of legislation, but the EU can still be confusing. With decision making powers shared from codecision to consultation with the EU Parliament, one can be forgiven for getting apathetic with engaging politically with the EU. One important fact to note is that this is a directive as opposed to a regulation. The fundamental difference is that it is upon the member states to implement directives, and the manner in which they do so.

There is some disparity between member states in how timely they implement directives. The EU permits a deficit of 1.5%, but even among all member states the average is 1.9%. Countries who are the slowest at implementing directives include France and Germany. It’s unfortunately bad news for those in Denmark and Spain who have the lowest deficit – meaning they implement directives the quickest.

I have contacted my local MEP to inquire as to how I can get further involved in the decision making process and exert my democratic power. I’m not a fan of the protectionist trade values of the EU, but I’m a fan of political and cultural integration. However on this one directive, I think the EU have got things firmly wrong.

Peter Singer

If advertising as a vehicle promotes consumerism and contributes to the traits of capitalism that has adverse affects on society then it’s a sure bet that digital marketing, a career I’m starting conflicts with my aspirations to live a lifestyle consistent with preference utilitarianism.

In this article I make no defense  of the industry, but provide arguments that my own particular career path at present is one that minimises these adverse effects.

Firstly I would make the case that working in search marketing, a field of marketing that is a little more distant from traditional advertising. It is the case that with search marketing, the consumer knows what they want and my job is merely to help them find it. Whether or not that product or service that they are looking to buy is a necessary purchase or represents value is a different matter, but at least I am not creating false wants – only fulfilling them.

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