Nice bit of positive news, and a superb list of Investors …

Fantastic news, it is great to see another UK startup getting funding. Well done to Alicia and the rest of the team.

Well done to the whole team – looks like a winner and very real for this timing and marketplace

Well done, great product, bright future

Congratulations to the team at Skimlinks – a really great product and what looks to be a great team of investors too!

The economy is teaching hard lessons even to the adamant ones.

http://www.nichea.info

Fantastic news and testament to the indomitable spirit of Alicia!

Be postive… evrything will be back on track soon.

I can vouch for the endless number of sleepless nights, tireless networking and promotion, and pure hard slog & money that Alicia has committed to get Skimlinks + team thus far…

Congratulations – you deserve it!

+1 for the above. Great product for current times, great team who put in the hours and dedication. I’m hopeful it will be an inflexion point for the advertising model. Does the world need more banner ads?

That is is a good job there. But these 16 affiliates networks, are all also links with Skimlink? There must be alot of competitions with these sites…

[...] una compañía dedicada al marketing de afiliados, ha conseguido una primera ronda de financiación dirigida por Sussex Place Ventures, el cuerpo gubernamental del Reino Unido NESTA, [...]

Said it before, will say it again; Skimlinks is one of my favourite UK startups! Congrats Alicia, Ciaran et al!

Well done Alicia and the team. Great news. They are smart people who are going to do amazingly well

Awesome news Alicia, well done and look forward to catching up @a4uexpo

Well done Alicia,

I have been following your blog with interest, are you still going to be running Skimbit? – what made you come up with your Eureka Skimlinks moment?

Congrats from me and the team at Sososher.com

Well done, Alicia, as well as to the rest of the team. What a progress since NMBX08 in November!!!

Fantastic news, brilliant to see good news coming from the London scene. One of the few companies that i’d personally invest in given the opportunity (and means)

Big congrats to Alicia and the Skimlinks team. Onward and upward.

Great news Navarro, well done. For what it’s worth I think this is a great business and opens up numerous doors for affiliate marketing.

We still have skimbit.com running for our existing users, but the focus of our development effort is Skimlinks.
We had been using the Skimlinks technology on Skimbit.com, and realised other websites could use our technology as a means to monetise their own content. We tested the waters, and lo and behold, it was something that websites valued, that merchants liked, and that networks wanted to work with. So, we restructured accordingly, and here we are Eureka!

Nice product for the masses, but I’m not sure how it’s much different from one a WP plugin I use (http://www.wpanchortext.com) to take care of the same thing. In fact, I think the plugin gives me more control but I’m sure that this is just v1 of Skimlinks and as they grow more will come to make it worth switching..

Your product seems interesting – I presume it is aimed at a different market. With your product, publishers still have to sign up for multiple programs across many affiliate programs, and there is a degree of manual work required to set up and administer. Skimlinks is aimed at publishers that want it all done for them, so they can focus on their content creation and community management. Thanks for your feedback, and yes, lots more on the near horizon

Congrats! Alicia. Its nice to see Uk startups getting funding and expanding into the global markets.

Weldone!

This seems to be exactly the product that Google’s Matt Cutts rants about. According to Skimlinks website it ‘provides a list of merchants so you can pick who you want to create content about’ then sets up a link so you can be paid by that merchant if you persuade a sale. How is this editorial and not Michael Arrington’s hated pay per post? ? Matt Cutts’ problem is with how this sort of product complies with OFT Consumer Protection Regulations – using advertorials (editorial comment to promote a product) without making it clear in the content or by images or sounds clearly identifiable by the consumer that the trader has paid for the promotion is deemed to be unfair in all circumstances. A trader carrying out this banned practice will have breached the CPRs, whether or not it had any effect on the average consumer and both the trader and publisher are liable.

Thanks for your feedback, Rasy. We are very aware of the issues Matt Cutts has with paid text links that are unrelated to editorial content, and are used as link bait and to unfairly alter SEO rankings.
We are also aware of the debate around PayPerPost.

For what it is worth, we care about these issues deeply, and have worked hard to manage the potential issues surrounding integrity and ethics (we even speak often at conferences about how to monetise social media in an ethical way).

Here are some of our initiatives to address your concerns:
1. We encourage all our publishers to write objective content and not be swayed by the fact that there is potential monetisation potential. We believe in the long run, a publisher retains a more loyal user-base if they write objective fair editorial: it may not generate revenues in the short term, but will result in their editorial containing more weight.

2. Some of our publishers do not share the list of merchants we work with with their editors, to not influence editorial integrity.

3. We encourage all our publishers to include in their About Us and Privacy Policy sections that they use us as a means of generating revenue, so there is full disclosure.

4. Many of our merchants are well-known generic online retailers, and publishers are seen to be performing a useful service to their readers when they link to a product they have just (fairly and objectively) reviewed on these sites.

5. We don’t create links where none existed before, we only automate the creation of affiliate links on behalf of the publishers based on the links they have already added to their content. Publishers could do it themselves, and most of our publishers have wanted to for a long time, but haven’t had the resources or technical skill to do it well. This is why we are different from the paid Text Links products Matt Cutts has issues with. Matt Cutts has also publicly stated he is ok with affiliate marketing (Google has an affiliate network!) as long as its contextual, doesn’t do cookie-stuffing, and doesn’t take the user to a page other than what the editor intended.

We differ from PayPerPost in that the publishers have complete control over their own content, and can write whatever they like. Merchants don’t solicit posts.

We are big believers that publishers need something new to help them stay afloat. Traditional advertising isn’t enough, and many publishers are now moving to affiliate marketing. All Skimlinks does is allow publishers to outsource the creation of affiliate links to us: we do it in a quality way that respects the user experience.

I hope that has answered your concerns – thank you for taking the time to raise interesting points. Feel free to contact me personally if you have additional questions?

Alicia Navarro
CEO – Skimlinks

[...] scored a healthy sum in its first investment round, the amount for which is assumed to be around £700K. [...]

I won’t be clicking on any links engineered by Skimlinks. I’ve gone off Mail Online totally. I’m with Matt Cutts ‘The reality is that accepting money to link to/promote/market for a product without disclosing that fact is a very high-risk behavior’. I want ads clearly labelled not hidden in editorial. I have no problem whatsoever with contextual ads. If it’s editorial and there’s a commission on offer for buying the product, I expect any decent journalist to direct me to a link that enables me to collect the commission. I don’t agree it’s a business model for editorial given 100% cashback websites and it leaves journalists with a horrrible conflict of interest from pressure to write about what generates revenue.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/19/insidious-new-seo-ad-product-will-be-hard-for-google-to-detect/

Congrats Alicia! I have no doubt that you’ll be very successful with this venture!

Hi Rasy, to me it sounds like you have a problem with affiliate marketing in general (I may have misread you though)? As Alicia has already said “We encourage all our publishers to include in their About Us and Privacy Policy sections that they use us as a means of generating revenue, so there is full disclosure” so if you don’t feel uncomforatble following our links please feel to avoid them.

As she has also mentioned Google also have there own affiliate network ( http://www.google.com/ads/affiliatenetwork/ )

You can even read more about Google’s stance on affiliate marketing here ( http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=76465 ), what they essentially say is that Google “believes that pure affiliate websites do not provide additional value for web users”. These are exactly the kind of sites that we at Skimlinks do not work with. Providing additional value and a good user experience is a keystone in our policies.

Google also goes on to say “If you participate in an affiliate program, there are a number of steps you can take to help your site stand out and to help improve your rankings.” … “Use your website to build community among your users. This will help build a loyal readership, and can also create a source of information on the subject you are writing about. For example, discussion forums, user reviews, and blogs all offer unique content and provide value to users.” This is an exact description of the kind of sites we do work with, sites that provide a great deal of added value to the user and help the user when they are looking for honest recommendations on decisions they are making.

“I expect any decent journalist to direct me to a link that enables me to collect the commission. I don’t agree it’s a business model for editorial given 100% cashback websites”. The cashback sites that you mention here are actually generally frowned upon and are indeed banned by many advertisers and affiliate merchants. They often offer little to no extra value to then end user and don’t generally add anything to the overall value chain from the advertiser to the customer. They also can result in commissions being effectively stolen form editors, writers and reviewers that will have sent spent much time reviewing and recommending a product only to have their commission taken due the “last click wins” model that most affiliate networks employ.

Ultimately our publishers have complete control over their own content, and can write whatever they like. Our Merchants do not solicit posts form any of publishers and there is no “paid links” being automatically created, only the links that our publishers choose to create.

I hope this has help eased some of your worries Rasy, we pride our selves on honesty and our ethical behaviour. If you do have any more concerns please feel free to get in contact with me personally ( Ciaran AT skimlinks DOT com) or reply here.

Thanks again for your input,
CIaran Rooney
CTO – Skimlinks

I think Skimlinks is a really interesting product so congrats on the funding.

However, I do wonder how neutrality will be maintained once an editor knows they will be remunerated for writing about certain retailers. The temptation, especially in this climate, to focus on favorable reviews of participating retailers will be significant.

Hi Rasy, to me it sounds like you have a problem with affiliate marketing in general (I may have misread you though)? As Alicia has already said “We encourage all our publishers to include in their About Us and Privacy Policy sections that they use us as a means of generating revenue, so there is full disclosure” so if you don’t feel uncomforatble following our links please feel to avoid them.

As she has also mentioned Google also have there own affiliate network (http://www.google.com/ads/affiliatenetwork/ )

You can even read more about Google’s stance on affiliate marketing here (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=76465 ), what they essentially say is that Google “believes that pure affiliate websites do not provide additional value for web users”. These are exactly the kind of sites that we at Skimlinks do not work with. Providing additional value and a good user experience is a keystone in our policies.

Google also goes on to say “If you participate in an affiliate program, there are a number of steps you can take to help your site stand out and to help improve your rankings.” … “Use your website to build community among your users. This will help build a loyal readership, and can also create a source of information on the subject you are writing about. For example, discussion forums, user reviews, and blogs all offer unique content and provide value to users.” This is an exact description of the kind of sites we do work with, sites that provide a great deal of added value to the user and help the user when they are looking for honest recommendations on decisions they are making.

“I expect any decent journalist to direct me to a link that enables me to collect the commission. I don’t agree it’s a business model for editorial given 100% cashback websites”. The cashback sites that you mention here are actually generally frowned upon and are indeed banned by many advertisers and affiliate merchants. They often offer little to no extra value to then end user and don’t generally add anything to the overall value chain from the advertiser to the customer. They also can result in commissions being effectively stolen form editors, writers and reviewers that will have sent spent much time reviewing and recommending a product only to have their commission taken due the “last click wins” model that most affiliate networks employ.

Ultimately our publishers have complete control over their own content, and can write whatever they like. Our Merchants do not solicit posts form any of publishers and there is no “paid links” being automatically created, only the links that our publishers choose to create.

I hope this has help eased some of your worries Rasy, we pride our selves on honesty and our ethical behaviour. If you do have any more concerns please feel free to get in contact with me personally ( Ciaran AT skimlinks DOT com) or reply here.

Thanks again for your input,
CIaran Rooney
CTO – Skimlinks

Congrats Alicia – the concept is really interesting and it could add a interesting new dimension to affiliate.

It’s great to see a UK start-up getting funding in this climate – I hope there’s more to come in the next quarter!

“We encourage all our publishers to include in their About Us and Privacy Policy sections that they use us as a means of generating revenue, so there is full disclosure”

You list ShinyShiny as a client, where is it disclosed on its website? If you were to point us to a skimlink so we can see how it is disclosed actually on the page, and when the link it clicked, that would be helpful thanks. I don’t have any problem with affiliate marketing, as long as it is clearly disclosed.

‘They also can result in commissions being effectively stolen form editors, writers and reviewers that will have sent spent much time reviewing and recommending a product only to have their commission taken due the “last click wins” model that most affiliate networks employ.’

You’re argument is idealistic, there’s no such thing in business and the market decides who the commission belongs to. Why should a review have a monetary value when the public creates this sort of content for free and shares it online?

I do see real problems with the OFT since the trader is paying, the editorial is written to earn the commision, how else does the business earn from that content, unless I have misunderstood.

[...] Skimbit is led by tenacious Australian entrepreneur Alicia Navarro who kept her company and vision alive by sheer force of will through a long search for the right business model and then for financing. Typical of the way we work at SPV we spent almost 10 months getting to know Alicia and her team before leading her first investment round and we helped  her develop her vision and execution well before we were ready to invest. Early stage investments of this type are rare indeed in the current economic climate and a testament to the confidence we have in the robustness of the SkimLinks proposition. TechCrunch covered the round here. [...]

[...] TechCrunch broke the news that Skimlinks has secured first round [...]

Great idea, simple business model, direct revenue. An example of a real business. Congratulations on the funding!

[...] – Skimlinks Gets $1m To Give Publishers Control Of Affilate Ads [...]

[...] can read about our funding announcement at TechCrunch, BrandRepublic, and the Affiliates4u [...]

[...] una misto. Skimlinks, un produs la care am pus masiv umărul în ultimii 2 ani, a primit finanțare $1 milion de la TAG. Ar mai fi ceva de adăugat aici dar nu vă zic, ca să nu ziceți că mă laud [...]

Interesting story here. So, Skimbit creates links for the publishers? What are the publishers doing?

I think I get it; very cool:
(a) publishers write reviews and other blog posts.. (b) and Skimbit creates automated? links that point back to the publishers article?

Nice.

I’ll check here and your site though to see what criteria you use to policy the creation of automated links? Thanks

Hi Christopher,
Thanks for your interest!
Just to clarify – we don’t create links where none existed. The editor writes their objective content, linking to products they are discussing. Skimlinks then automatically converts this link to its equivalent affiliate link when a user clicks on it.
Its effectively outsourcing the automation of affiliate link creation, but completely controlled by the editor, not by any external parties.
The editor only gets paid if something is purchased, not for the link just being there. And it doesn’t aim to affect anyone’s SEO rankings, so it doesn’t breach Google’s policies.
Simple solution aimed at helping publishers make money from affiliate marketing without the technical and admin overhead.
Please let me know if you have further questions.

Kind regards,
Alicia Navarro
CEO – Skimlinks

[...] into affiliate links, has closed it’s first funding round. The amount is rumoured to be £700,000 (just over AUD$1.5M) or slightly less, depending on the [...]

[...] Butcher   |   February 23, 2009   |   View article Funny how recessions concentrate the mind. In just over a year UK startup Skimbit has made the [...]

[...] Skimlinks Gets $1m To Give Publishers Control Of Affilate Ads (uk.techcrunch.com) [...]

Congratulations, well done on gaining the funding.

Hello,

Its Really Nice Idea, But would you tell me how did you acheive this ?

are you fetching data from affiliate netwroks ? or you have a special agreement from affiliate networks ?

What is the logic behined this product, how you actually creating normal link to affiliate link, also is cookie still be managed by affiliate network ?

Looking forward to hear from you

Thanks
Saqib

@Alicia Navarro

What’s the best way to get in touch regarding a possible new ‘system’ we have that would compliment your existing skimlinks system?

I have a ticket in your skimlinks system currently…

Congratulations, your team is doing good..

Well it’s a year now and your still going so you must be doing something right.
Andy @ Furniture Hire London

Congrats Alicia – the concept is really interesting and it could add a interesting new dimension to affiliate.

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