The Hitflip UK Blog

We have just published a release on the appointment of Clear Communications as our new PR agency for the UK.

Looking forward to loads of press coverage and a great relationship - they are really fun to work with. So if you are looking for a good PR agency in the UK - check them out.

Looking back at this years CJU EU in London I can put it in the words of Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe and Benjamin Franklin:

” Every second was of infinite value” as “lost time is never found again”

CJU EU was a great place to be and had deep value for all participants.

	Tim Waterstone - Founder of Waterstone (the largest book chain outside the US) held the the opening keynote and shared his thoughts on launching entrepreneurial businesses. It was great listening to Tim and his thoughts on entrepreneurs in general. An interesting thought was that he never wanted employees around him who wanted to work for him till the end of time but fellow entrepreneurs who would one day develop their own projects and companies.Tim pointed out that traditional bookstores haven’t really lost out due to Amazon & co. as online book stores are great for the long tail which traditional bookstores can’t deliver to in-house due to lack of space. He believes that the future will see the end of traditional sales channels for music - even though he believes it will take longer than some may hope. I totally agree with Tim on this point. Tim Waterstone pointed out that charisma is one of the most important characteristics for leaders - He has loads of charisma and I believe he left the stage looking at a ballroom full of inspired faces.
	Liz Jackson - Founder of Great Guns Marketing held Fridays opening keynote. Liz gained experience as a tele-marketer and had a wise boss who told her: “You have got 2 ears and 1 mouth - use them in this ratio.” Liz listened and performed. When asking the bank for a loan so she could start her new business there was only one side laughing - the bank. Liz was lucky though as the Prince’s Trust supported her with a kick-off of GBP 4000. When it comes to human resources Liz believes in intuition - even though her first hire was because she felt sorry for the woman, a mistake she didn’t do twice. Liz says “You can’t await people to invest in your visions unless we invest in theirs” and how right she is. “Luck is where hard work meets opportunity” - Liz worked hard and she believed in what she could achieve. In the first year after she founded Great Guns Marketing she turned blind - but she still has her voice and with her believe that she can change the world if she only wants to she can “see” more than many can dream of. Her main guideline is a quote from Henry Ford “If you think you can, or you think you can’t you’re right.”
	Not only the key-speakers were fantastic. I especially loved Catriona Campbell from Foviance. This girl is so full of power and she has stories to tell. One great story was the story of travelocity and a great example for translation vs. localization. Travelocity launched on new markets just translating the sites language files. When they launched in France the US management was wondering why the site wasn’t taking off. So they asked for a French peer-group. This lady comes in for the peer-group and they tell her that she is to test the french website “travelocity” and she says “no way!!!”. “Travelo” means transvestite in French… so the travel-site had launched with the name “Transvestite City” in France - I would say that this is very long tail
	On the publisher/advertiser breakout sessions Andre and myself attended the advertiser breakouts. On day 1 Martin (CJ), Karianne (CJ) and Andre (Hitflip) presented how you can use the technology of CJ for various innovative advertisement formats. Andre introduced Hitflip to the audience and how you can use web 2.0 sites for innovative affiliate marketing opportunities. In the next few days we will publish an extra blog entry on this topic - so don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feed to keep up2date.
	CJU EU had loads of opportunities for networking and eating chocolate. On a sidenote: If you love chocolates you need to work for Adobe (just search for “click here” on google to find them) [I love insiders]. The champagne reception was great - the girls reminded me of the last James Bond movie “Casino Royal” and I really needed to watch my consumption as it just tasted great. Dinner was a dream and a signature for the landmark hotel in which CJU was located this year.
	Raffle tickets were sold for charity and we were more than happy to buy some to support “Kids Company“. Kids Company was founded in 1996 and provides emotional, practical and educational support to profoundly vulnerable children and young people in London. The great thing about charity raffles is that you can help and win at the same time and WOW DID I WIN!?! Thanks to Duncan at e-Conversions for sponsoring a fantastic prize: I will be driving a Ferrari and a Lamborghini - two Italian beauties for a day. A quarter million worth of cars - I hope they have a good insurance. Chris from Hotel Chocolat offered me the equivalent of the weight of the car in chocolate as a swap. He sure has understood how Hitflip works and his offer is really tempting

I would have loved to have headed to the airport in my new Lamborghini but life just told me that the time has come for the tube and Stansted Express - Life sure knows how to bring one back down to earth. Andre has noted down his thoughts in German and uploaded some pics of CJU EU to the internet. If you have also uploaded or posted your notes on the net let us know by leaving a comment

P.S. Oogolo.fr were brave enough to let a SEO panel discuss their new website They are in desperate need of links. So here you are: voyages en Egypte

As you know we acquired Swopex at the start of the year in order to have a good launch base in the UK. Through the acquisition we became UK’s No. 1 swapping site over night.

The logo has gone through some evolution in the last months and now has finally reached the final version. Hitflip is Hitflip

Check the time warp:

Is your New Year’s pledge to look for a new job or a great internship? You are an internet person and want to work for a promising start-up? Check out Hitflips German jobs-section because we are already hiring for our expansion to the UK. We are looking for a country manager for the UK and offer internet marketing internships. Please send your application to jobs@hitflip.de

To learn more about the UK advertising market and to meet some key players before our expansion I went to AdTech and the Affiliate Get2Gether. I was especially looking for differences compared to the German market. I can compare Ad Tech (German) to the corresponding fair OMD (German) in Germany.

At OMD you will find more CEOs of the companies who actually advertise, rather than the big websites where those ads are published. At Ad Tech I had the impression that there were almost only intermediaries. By that I mean companies who offer advertisers their services. I also had the imporession that there were many companies “of the same kind” with hardly anything differentiating them from their competitors. There were at least 20+ companies who offer to manage your emailings for you. We don’t need one of those companies because we do that ourselves. I wonder whether UK online-companies tend to outsource more?

You can find all my pictures from this occasion on our Flickr-Account. Here’s a selection with some comments.

The Dixie Queen.

I think it is a great idea to “mark” everybody according to their “role”. Haven’t seen that in Germany yet.

There was heavy networking going on on two decks.

In Germany Affiliates gatherings are actually never this big. Usually there will be 50 to a max of 100 people but the meetings are more frequent and take place in many different cities. In Germany the online market is not concentrated in one city as in the UK (I’m talking about London! ;-)). There is a lot of action happening in Cologne, Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt and a couple of other cities.

On the other hand the affiliate to “other” ratio is different. There are more affiliates compared to the “others” wanting to talk to the affiliates. Luckily I didn’t need to be on an “affiliate contact hunt” because talking to other merchants or networks was also very valuable to learn about the UK.

At German Affiliate Mettings there is usually no entrance fee and either sponsors who pay for one or all drinks or everyone pays their own bill.

Actually I found the Dixie Band very entertaining.

I also shot some movies while being on the boat to capture the vibes of the event.

In Germany we have seen quite a funny phenomenon happening where you would see many women and some internet celebs wearing a Hitflip Merchandising Bag. It really seems to be a fashion item in the German affiliate marketing scene. For me as a Hitflip founder it was so great to see that this fashion trend has alredy reached UK even though our website hasn’t even launched yet. Here’s some pics to prove what I’m saying:

If you see anybody else walking around with this trendy bag we’d be thankful for a short message.

Afterwords I found it a pity I coulnd’t make to the after boat tour meeting at the hotel because I had to catch my flight. I’m looking foreward to visiting UK / London again for further market research.

Here’s some other blogposts reporting on the event:

• Fraser
• Jessica Luthi
• Azam
• Patrick
• 5Star
• Paul Wright

So Hitflip is a German company. Business in Germany is fine and additionally we are ambitious to expand internationally. Our Austrian branch should be starting business this month. Sure that’s a nice and new and a big thing but it also is not that complicated. Austria is not that different from Germany when it comes to prices of media products, media consumption behaviour and online marketing and that’s some strongly influencing factors for our business model. In UK all these factors differ quite a bit!!! In Germany we have to blogs: one targeting our barter-community-members and one for our affiliates. As we have neither members nor affiliates yet one could ask: why already blog? Well. We see quite some differences between the countries and we think it might be interesting and worth a read for people from the UK as well as Germans to read about these differences. For this reason we’ve installed a category called “Going to UK” that we will primarily be writing in before our launch of the UK branch.
P.S. Please excuse if my English is imperfect.