Tuesday, July 13, 2010

I'm trying something new.

The BeFrugal website contacted me about becoming an advertising affiliate, and through that site I learned about Commission Junction. The registration process took a few minutes, and now I'm about to ad an advertising widget to my blog. I have Google Ads, but they're really not very targeted. I guess they key in on select words and stick up links, which I've never completely trusted, either on my site or anyone else's. I always figured it was worth having, even though hardly anyone visits my blogs. It can't hurt.

And so, it can't hurt to put in an advertising widget for something specific, and through BeFrugal and Commission Junction, I can choose what business I want to feature. I selected Entirely Pets, which is a website I patronize. They have a really good price on Pill Pockets, which are instrumental to getting my cat Remy to take his heart medicine without a fight. Remy's littermate died of a heart attack. Poor Quinn had a terrible time with all the meds he had to take after his first attack. Not only that, but we had to take him to a lot of different vets for tests, and at one of those locations he picked up a respiratory infection which he then passed to all the other cats in the household. Just about the time we though he was going to recover fully, he had another attack.

Anyway, between the heart meds and the respiratory meds, Quinn was taking pills around the clock. It broke our hearts that he would look sad and try to hide from us to avoid the pills.

A few months after Quinn died, Remy's heart murmur was diagnosed. He only takes one quarter of a very small pill every day, and at first we hid it in Pounce Hairball Treats. That can be a little messy, and I didn't necessarily like to give him a hairball treat every day.

Finally, we found Pill Pockets. A half a pocket easily hides his tiny pill, so a bag of 45 can last for almost three months. I say almost because we also use them as treats for everyone, and sometimes I'll break up an allergy pill into pieces and hide them in pockets for Trickster, when he's having a bad day.

Still, it's kind of pricey at the stores. They are anywhere from $7.99 to $10.99 a bag locally. When we were first getting them, I didn't realize they had expiration dates and a local (chain) store sold me two expired bags! When I opened the first bag, I knew there was something wrong, because they were dry and crumbly. Then I saw the date stamp. I still had the receipt and took them back to the store. They had two more expired bags on the shelf, so I felt it was easy to prove I had just purchased them and wasn't trying to pull something. They still didn't want to give me a refund! I finally convinced the manager to give me my money back, but I will never shop there again.

Entirely Pets has always shipped my product well in advance of the expiration date. It only takes few days to get an order filled. I'm on their mailing list, so I regularly get offers for free shipping over $25. I buy six bags at a time and they're about $5 each, so I easily meet the minimum. I've been really pleased with their service and the quality of the product I receive, so that's why I picked their company for my first affiliate ad.

Entirely Pets did not ask me to do this. I'll get credit for every click through on the ad in my sidebar, but that's all. I'm just happy to have the opportunity to help someone else save a few bucks and to help a business that does a good job.

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