If you’re keen to get some reciprocal linking going on, simply add your details below and a way to contact you. If you don’t want to reveal your actual URL at least give some info on what area/niche your site covers. While you may be swapping links with other affiliates theoretically in competition with you, there’s plenty to go around!

One of them was Ian Ebbs, a very successful affiliate who “Didn’t Do Travel”, is now the proud owner of an excellent travel site which is going to produce sales for a long time to come.

Christina Mould was already a travel affiliate but created http://www.find-prague-hotels.com/ for the missions and also celebrated her first sale last week. Christina was also lucky enough to get sent on a “fam trip” of her own to Prague as a prize from one of the Barbados missions.

If you need a push to get you into doing travel with sunshine.co.uk, catch up on our latest incentive and let us help you research your new website by sending you off on a fam trip! You can gather content for your new or current website at a location of your choice with this working holiday.

We’d like to send you on a fam trip to keep those creative juices flowing and submerse you in the area you’re going to be writing about. Here’s the cool part - you get to set your own itinerary! Yup, you can pick where you stay and when. We’ll even let you take someone along for company! Obviously there are a few rules which are as follows…

• include the URL of the site you’ll be using to promote this resort/region
• submit a full itinerary with choice of dates for flights and hotels
• stay in at least 3 different hotels in 7 nights, each with a different rating on our site 
• include a sentence or two on why you’ve selected each particular accommodation
• taxis/transfers between your hotels are your responsibility, so don’t wander too far!

If you still haven’t gotten around to starting that travel site, this is the perfect excuse to finally get it up and running. The closing date for entry is the 10th July, where we’ll draw at least one of the entries out of the hat, so make sure you’re itineraries start after that date! To add your itinerary simply add it to the accompanying thread on a4u, on your own blog with a trackback to this post or add it in the comments section below. Simple. ish?

Need help deciding which area / resort to have a go at? Pick one that you think you’ll have an interest in, or get in touch and we’ll point you in the right direction.

Here’s an example itinerary based on Fraser’s new holiday site Paphos Guide -

Depart Edinburgh Airport the 19th August flying to Paphos (PFO)

19th-22nd Aug:  Nereus Apartments (Rating: 3)

These apartments are based in the heart of the resort and a good starting base to gather info and photos of the amenities in the resort centre.

 

22nd-24th Aug: Azia Club and Spa (Rating: 5)

A couple of nights in the 5 star Azia complex, a favourite for families and couples at the top of end of the budget for this area. Sales would have a high basket value, reason enough to visit!

 

24th-26th Aug: Daphne Apartments (Rating: 4)

Located in the Kato part of Paphos which has seen more recent development, with a lot of new hotels built recently.

 

26th Aug: Flight home to Edinburgh

There you have it, a fairly intense week of content gathering and photo taking, with the odd opportunity for a bit of sunbathing. Build your own fam trip for your current or new holiday site and we’ll help you get all the unique content you (and Google) could wish for!

As you may be aware we were the sponsor of the Affiliate Marketing Blog of the Year award, which we added the bonus of a week’s holiday to the winner leaving the day after the event. Congratulations go to Kieron Donoghue who was one of a select few to defend their title from the first awards last year. Kieron held off stiff competition from Kirsty McCubbin who took the highly commended and I’d also have to mention Jason Dale who was unlucky to have missed out this year.

In a stunningly nice gesture Kieron has decided to pass on his prize of a holiday to Kirsty; we’re happy to accommodate his wishes and as Kirsty is in Australia until she returns after the summer to get married, we’re going to sort her out with a mini-honeymoon immediately after her wedding. I’ll be in touch this week Kirsty!

So come Monday it’s back to work and we’ll be working on more super duper stuff to make sure next year we scoop some more awards! Keep your eyes open we’ve got loads more up our sleeves!

On a side issue I’d like to apologise for my superfluous use of exclamation marks since assuming the role of Affiliate Manager! Zak and Graham both tell me it isn’t actually necessary to add them to every sentence and that I’ll grow out of it with practice!

An API is now available and includes some great sample code on how to get up and running. Please drop us an email if you’d like a copy pinged over.

If you’ve never played with XML before don’t be afraid to ask, we’re happy to help you along the way!

The event is now sold out and tickets are in high demand. Rather than try and come up with a clever incentive to give the tickets away, we’re going to auction them for charity! This gives us a warm fuzzy feeling and also means I don’t need to come up with anything creative while suffering from jetlag.

We have two auctions for a pair of tickets each. All proceeds go to Cancer Research.

• Affiliate Only auction - starts at £0.99
• Open auction - networks, agencies, merchants - starts at £330 (face value of tickets)

 You’re only bidding for the event tickets; hotel and transport are all your own costs! We may buy you a beer or two.

So if you’re really keen to go, get your wallet (or expense account) out and get bidding.

For our mission incentives draw, our winners are -

Ian Ebbs (Kandevil)

Chris Frost (Frostie)

For our sales incentive draw, our winner is -

Peter Taylor - who can’t go! So we chose another mission winner - step forward Mr Bond!

Keith Bond (Keith)

All three will be flying out from Gatwick to Barbados on the 22nd June for a week of affiliate marketing seminars and discussion groups. There may be some alcohol involved I’ve heard.

You can see the full list of winners here by logging into Affiliate Future.

Mission #10 we’ve got a free Full Affiliate Pass to give away, worth £299 (£199 before the 31st May). To get your hands on the pass and gain entry to our Barbados draw, we want to see search boxes!

Add one of our search boxes to your site and email/comment with the URL. Our search boxes are available here; you can choose your own colour scheme and branded or unbranded.

Mission Ends: 00.01 Thursday 8th May

You’ll find our self updating offer banners in our affiliate area, and you can choose a banner to suit your choice of country, resort or just our top offers - with or without flights. These banners are updated every few hours to reflect the best offer we have available for that location, neat huh?

What’s this got to do with chocolate you may ask? Never let it be muttered we don’t listen, and we’re always looking for opportunites to make our missions more attractive! The winner of this mission will win a one year subscription to the Hotel Chocolat Tasting Club aswell as entry to our Barbados prize draw!

Mission Ends: 00.01 Tuesday 6th May

Mission #8 - Deeplink from a hotel, resort or country themed page to the relevant page on sunshine.co.uk

Pretty simple stuff, just add the deeplink to the url= parameter on your AF tracking url and you’re good to go. Drop me an email or comment below with the page or pages that you’re entering for this one and you could get in the prize draw for our Barbados tickets.

Mission Ends: 00.01 Thursday 1st May