Blackwell, one of the UK’s largest academic booksellers with over 40 shops nationwide, is to invest in affiliate activity for 2010 in a bid to drive more traffic to its customer-facing retail site.

The bookseller, which was established in 1879, launched its website in 1995 selling factual and educational books, and offering services including podcasts featuring author interviews, a student reading list locator and thousands of eBooks.

Responsible for growing the brands affiliate marketing channel will be Manchester-based R.O.EYE who took over the account from Edinburgh digital agency Equator.

Jessica Armishaw, head of online at Blackwell UK, said of the activity: “Affiliate marketing has always been attractive as our brand name is so widely known – we have a great deal of affiliation with universities and corporate institutions through our academic bookselling heritage.

“R.O.EYE is a specialist agency which has an incredible amount of expertise in the affiliate channel, a professional approach and concentrates on excelling in what it does. The programme it has developed for Blackwell UK will lead the growth of our affiliate channel and create some strong sales opportunities.”

And Mark Kuhillow, director of R.O.EYE, commented: “Blackwell UK is a specialist bookseller and well established in key British cities such as Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh and London. We’ll be working to build online awareness of the website; engaging with appropriate audiences and taking the brand’s affiliate marketing programme to the next level throughout the next twelve months.”