Are Affiliates Too Willy-Nilly About Accepting Reduction in Cookie Periods
posted in Affiliate Marketing |
Are affiliates generally too accepting of reductions in cookie periods without objection because its not headline news?
Somehow I think this is the case.
We hear excuses alikened too … “The reduction in the cookie window is in a bid to bring affiliates in line with all other media. Before making the final decision whether or not to implement this change, customer journeys were examined and it was found only a small % of sales were completed outside the new cookie period. “
Poppycock I am afraid.
That extra small % is better in an affiliates pocket than that of the merchant own. To put a different slant on it, are they going to increase the commission by the same % as a proportion of the current rates? … Thought not!!!
It seems that little offence is taken when the cookie period reduces, which though not of the same scale, is still effectively reducing the commission that can be potentially earned .. akin to dropping the commission rates.
Some merchants are too gun-ho in reducing cookie periods, to increase their own bottom line by a few %. Look after the pennies & the pounds will look after themselves. Therefore in theory there should be an increase in commission by the same minimal amount, it’s just something networks / merchants implement without a secondary thought for the affiliates.
Then we hear excuses from a network like “the rest of their online media strategy runs with this and despite putting across our arguments it is very difficult to get a client to change their whole strategy to fit around our affiliate’s expectations. Either it levelled up to the affiliate cookie period or it levelled down to the search, display and partner cookie period and affiliates are not the biggest stakeholder in that strategy”
Which doesn’t answer the question of whether they will inversely reciprocate this reduction in cookie period with an equal increase in commission.
Before we know, we have a domino effect, with merchants using excuses of coming into alignment with others in the same vertical sector, then what happens is one reduces still further & there becomes a knock on effect whereby others follow suit & so forth.
But hey ho, in what seems to be an ever increasing apathetic industry on the whole, it gives more reason to look at hybrid commission structures or CPC models.
It would interesting to know though, on the whole have cookie periods generally gone up or down, because it’s not documented enough & often goes under the radar of grabbing an affiliate’s attention. Sometimes these cookie reductions can be perceived as simply a “shameful tactic in the clawback of commission” & squeezing the affiliate that little bit more.
Not a massive outburst, I am illustrating how affiliates are too often secondary in others thoughts and how affiliates generally don’t question cookie reductions or worse still session cookies … like when a merchant revamps their site, first thing out is affiliate tracking, last thing in is affiliate tracking … that’s if it is remebered.
Statement of the Day : We are not a good news bible.
