Affiliate Marketing Blog

Whlist at the affiliate pub gathering yesterday a fellow peer pointed out a new blog to me called Affiliate Bitch

Affiliate Bitch is a no holds barred approach to blogging & posting anonymously. dedicated to telling it “how it is?” in affiliate marketing.

“Affiliate Bitch is fed up of people moaning about anyone and everyone involved in affiliate marketing. Affiliates moan about merchants, merchants moan about networks. Well, tough! You chose the job you do, so do it, and deal with the c***, moaning about it won’t make it better. The deed has already been done.”

Affiliate Bitch is a place to ask a question and get an honest truthful answer without the sycophant tendancies or exaggeration. Affiliate Bitch takes no prisoners, so it’s not going to be a good news bible or politically correct censored posts.

How will it be received? This will depend on it’s readership & author contributions. Will some quarters deem it as unprofessional or simply an echo of how it is in the industry in private conversations at any affiliate gathering (which is sometimes veiled on other forums ) or simply a bit of fun … You decide … Most blogs don’t have rose tinted glass opinions but do hold back in various degrees of discretion / circumspection some of what they would really like to say, I guess this is potentially going that extra yard in the ouch factor.

If you’d want to become a bitch then you simply email them, and your anomnimity shall be retained. They’ll monitor posts, and anything that’s way too dodgy may be ammended.

It seems to be in the very early stages atm, so check out yourself at Affiliate Bitch.

Since the recent AOL buy-out of Buy.at. There have been recent departures by the former Buy.at foundation building folk of Steven Brown & Malcolm Cowley who I can only assume have moved on to pastures new with a somewhat silent withdrawal, as if ushered out of the tradesman’s entrance & soon to be followed by Kevin Cornils.

Pushed? Shoved? Made their fortunes? Ran with the cash? or Gardening leave? We can only speculate. Differences to one side, it was anticipated but the quiet manner without fanfare it wasn’t.

Is Buy.at becoming the Titanic or the Mary Celeste? or is it a hybrid of the twane? As for the preceding showering of petals I scoff at the very notion.

In my humble, yet, vociferous opinion Buy.at veered off the correct navigational course many moons ago. On their maiden voyage the bearings seemed correct and the crewmen (affiliates) shouted “ship ahoy” in unison with what seemed a welcomed & fresh approach to the industry.

It soon became apparent, in my opinion, that they (the company) became pirates & plunderers as the Jolly Roger was hoisted (derived from “Old Roger” which was the nickname for the devil). Whether they were charmed by the mermaids or in the immortal words of Elvis … the “Devil in Disguise”… there is still barnacled driftwood floating about in the crows nest and whether the recently commissioned Captain AOL request that a few (not all) walk the plank or if newly recruited deckhands can steer them back on course is another question or will they eventually sink into the abyss.

Good luck Steve & Malcolm … Drink up me hearties, yo ho.

PS Do they lock away the nice people in a closet? Where are the likes of techie Paul,  horse loving Louise Green & Chris Tradgett.

Following on from Matts Blog Post … TradeDoubler Appoints IAB Affiliate Council Head Ben Wood as UK MD and the forum discussion IAB AMC Chair Ben Wood Joins Tradedoubler.

Some fellow respected peers who have attended the AMC meetings have commented about Ben’s positive attributes & his appointment at Tradedoubler as being quite an inspired choice. However though, he is guaranteed to be on a rapid & steep exponential learning curve to acquire knowledge of the affiliate marketing industry, it will be a question of who influences who. We have all too often seen personnel in the industry who have the willingness to listen, learn and adapt, but yet are misguided or incorrectly trained & thus not attuned to the mindset of the affiliates.

By being my blunt self, about Tradedoubler, we have not yet seen any leopards changing their spots and I would be quite offended if we see any repeated charm offensive develop again. The sound of tumbleweed in addressing affiliate concerns on the forum & the service I have historically received myself in general is poor enough, let’s hope Ben Wood doesn’t get assimilated by the Borg & exercises his own positive attributes & transferable skills to turn things around at Tradedoubler.

Ben, I don’t personally know you, but good luck, you’ll going to need it.

P.S. My missus says “he’s a very nice man, a very very nice man, a very nice man indeed.”

Realistically, how long should programs be permitted to remain suspended? Whether it be due to tracking problems, budgetary restraints, invoice payments (not paying).

Perhaps there should be a best practise to the maximum period allowed before closing the program rather than wasting affiliates traffic.

Yes, this thread was spurred by the recent announcement of the Harrods program closure on Tradedoubler, it’s a program which doesn’t really concern me, though taking over 7 months to sort out is a liability for those affiliates that do.

However, I have noticed historically on a couple of other networks that some programs remain perpetually suspended when they should be perhaps closed, rather than leaving affiliates in the lurch for extended periods of time and the indecision of whether to keep the links up, in vague hope or anticipation that the program will go live or be reactivated.

To those networks it concerns please stop wasting affiliates most precious commodities … their time & traffic. So networks, please (with a cherry on top) make a decision one way or the other on your current suspended programs.

“Apologies for the inconvenience” in emails don’t really wash anymore, because they more often than not lack sincerity and are employed to simply try & suppress backlash from affiliates.

Come on networks, share the lurve, by giving affiliates backlinks for those who would like them, you’ll be helping them help you! Set up some directory structure on your site.

And merchants can share the lurve with a virtual cyberspace cuddle by rewarding their successful affiliates with a courtesy backlink too.

Refer to this parable and swap out the reference to a freebie gift with a backlink
Lets get all warm & fuzzy inside.

Let me bring up a parable from an earlier blog.

“The story is told that there once was a blind beggar (the merchant or network) who sat beside a road, fingering the rice in his little bowl. He wore only a loin loth and sat in poverty beside the road that stretched nowhere in both directions.

The scarce travellers occasionally gave him a little rice. One day he heard the thunder of a chariot in the distance. It was the grand entourage of the king (the affiliate). This was a moment that had never come before and probably would ever come again. Surely the great king (the affiliate) would stop and give him baskets of rice.

Indeed, the golden chariot of the king (the affiliate) stopped before the poor beggar (the merchant or network). The great one stepped down, and the beggar (the merchant or network) fell before him. Then the sky seemed to fall in.

Give me your rice, please” politely asked the king (the affiliate).

A fearful and hateful scowl masked the face of the beggar (the merchant or network). He reached into his bowl and thrust one grain of rice toward the king (the affiliate).

“Is that all?” said the king (the affiliate).

The beggar (the merchant or network) spat on the ground, cursed and threw the king (the affiliate) one more grain of rice, then got up & walked away in a huff. The great king (the affiliate) then turned, entered his chariot and was gone.

The beggar (the merchant or network), angry, empty & crushed, fingered the remaining rice he had hoarded in this bowl. He felt something hard, different from the rice. He pulled it out … It as one kernel of gold. He then poured out the rest of his rice, caring nothing for it now … He found one other grain of gold.

Had he trusted the king (the affiliate), he could have had a grain of gold for every grain of rice!!!”

So for some merchants & networks (the beggars), think about this Parable. A backlink can go a long way.

Definition of Backlinks

“Backlinks (or back-links (UK)) are incoming links to a website or web page. In the search engine optimization (SEO) world, the number of backlinks is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page (though other measures, such as PageRank, are likely to be more important). Outside of SEO, the backlinks of a webpage may be of significant personal, cultural or semantic interest: they indicate who is paying attention to that page.

In basic link terminology, a backlink is any link received by a web node (web page, directory, website, or top level domain) from another web node. Backlinks are also known as incoming links, inbound links, inlinks, and inward links.” - Wikipedia

Related Blog to Read : Big Up The Content Affiliate Massive Aiii!

Today I am going to illustrate how Google hasn’t yet monetised their organic listings to their full potential, a Gold Mine, it’s something we have been utilising for a few years on our own small dummy search engines with moderate success & if scaled up will be relatively successful for any affiliate … for Google this would be immense.

When you conduct a search on Google you are presented with natural / organic listings & sponsored listings.

Say a potential customer was looking for a merchant, lets use Marks & Spencer as a hypothetical example, assuming the user doesn’t click on any sponsored listings, if they click on an organic listing this is deemed “free” traffic for the merchant. You see the display url as www.marksandspencer.com (we shall call this the anchor text for familiarity) and if you view the link properties (target url) as www.marksandspencer.com too.

Remember: Google is the property of Google, and not the jurisdiction of merchants, affiliates or anybody else apart from Google themselves. Such that no publisher has any divine right to appear organically & that this “free” traffic is taken for granted.

Remember: I’ve long advocated the need for affiliates to develop their own search engines and keep web search on their site rather than the user returning to the search engine i.e. retain users on their own site.

Sometime ago (a few years) we developed small insignificant “search engines” utilising available backfills & implemented an idea called … “URL REPLACEMENT”

This initially involves creating a simple three column spreadsheet database containing merchant names, their website url & the affiliate link if they have a program on a network.

Before the organic results are displayed, all you simply do is match the display url with the database, if the display url matches, then the link properties (target url) are changed to the affiliate link. So in the case of Marks & Spencer, the display url / anchor text will remain www.marksandspencer.com, but the link properties (target url) will be replaced with the affiliate link.

Just for Marks & Spencer alone, Google could be making a six figure sum a month, now multiply this by the number of merchants with affiliate programs & the result is an absolute Gold Mine in additional income to possibly compete with their existing revenue via Google Adwords. Obviously Yahoo and Microsoft can do the same thing, why not it’s their search engine & property. The downside is that this could decimate affiliate marketing with regard to visitors returning via cookies who may return to the merchant via organic listings.

It might be interesting times ahead, when organic listings for retailers & services no longer becomes a “free” ride, currently these are being taken for granted, it’s misguided to have the perception that anyone has some divine right to acquire “free” traffic via organic search on their brand. I guess in essense a bit like the old “pay for inclusion”, if you remember those days.

If Google ran their own affiliate network or applied to a program on a network (that thought itself is quite peculiar), do you think a merchant would refuse them being a member of their program?

Obviously the same theory can be applied to customers searching for any generic phrases or product related terms whereby ALL matching display url’s within the organic results are substituted using the “URL REPLACEMENT” theory.

This is partly why in a previous blog I mentioned search engines like Google as the achilles heal of affiliate marketing unless the industry creates something itself, not to compete head to head, but outflank, maybe via niches & vertical sectors.

In the meantime affiliates & publishers can easily implement themselves within their own web sites utilising free & paid backfill results on a smaller scale to gain a moderate amount of increased revenue, scale it up and reap the rewards of your labour. The concept is simple but effective, you can even tweak the results by bringing merchants with an affiliate program to the fore in the organic results & even order them according to their EPC.

This is something we plan to do a lot further on a sizeable scale & maybe looking for trusted affiliates work alongside with & emabark on this bold venture.

At the moment it’s just a pie in the sky thought, but I had the notion that the concept of a merger between DealGroup Media (DGM) and Paid On Results (POR) might be quite successful.

In a nutshell, with POR’s technology & DGM’s sales staff for recruiting merchants & affiliate support, it might just actually work.

Paid On Results overall has the following plus points:

• Trust - POR is highly respected in the affiliate marketplace amongst affiliates. POR really do “get it” & are trusted by affiliates to do the right thing.
• Technology - Excellent interface and technical ability.
• Innovation - Great understanding of the market and willing to lead the way in different areas (voucher stuff is a recent example). Plus they are continually developing neat little tools.
• Reliable Interface - An impressive user interface affiliates & merchants to use.
• Support - Able to deal with issues and get them resolved to the benefit of everyone and not simply role over to merchants / affiliates.
• Reliability - Tracking & reporting considered amongst the best in the industry.
• Flexibility & robustness to expand.
• Promote content affiliates by providing support and tools while still carting for PPC and Cashback sites by providing the tools they need also
• Don’t like brand bidding groups (BBGs)

We have the unsung hero at POR who is Graeme, the tech whizzkid, an absolute genius & a guy who as even helps with support at unearthly hours of the night without expectation to resolve any minor issues, who with the right team underneath him & under his guidance could perform further & bigger wonders.

The main problem is Paid On Results don’t blow their own trumpet, too humble / modest maybe, thus not assertive in bringing the so called larger merchants onboard to look impressive on their portfolio & consequently sometimes getting overlooked by merchants / agencies when they shouldn’t be. What you see is what you get with POR, no hollow promises & false assurances or aggressive sales techniques when pitching to clients, but honesty & integrity who have the trust & respect of the industry as a whole.

They currently don’t seem to have enough sales staff or an abundance of resources that they could direct in affiliate development and maybe it would be beneficial to have some more technical staff that Graeme could direct on what to do. Yet POR still manage to provide better interface & tools than most other networks who have an abundance of staff.

It’s that last sentence where DGM could potentially fill the void. With the pros & cons of each network these could mesh quite neatly/snuggly. Firstly DGM would need to oust the BBGs they currently have within their network, it’s a disease & a tag they need to lift & get rid off quickly & in a lengthy previous conversation with one of their directors earlier this year, this hasn’t seemed to have materialised yet. I don’t think going it alone as they are will quite work.

Let’s be frank, DGM will never really have the technology to compete with their fairly inflexible interface, a subject of ridicule in the past, which is maybe the only tangible thing that separates them as being a network from a management agency to bring clients onboard i.e. the “clincher”. I would also need to ascertain if senior management / directors whoever they are have the “mind set of” affiliates to bring them forward in the correct capacity.

For they have had more lives than a cat & at this moment in time are possibly one down in the bottom of the ninth innings with two outs & need a big play (baseball if you were unsure) .. “babe ruth” style as they take to the plate & point to the stand signifying the next ball is a home run.

Before, someone from DGM picks up the blower to moan at me, hear me out. I think there is the sincerity at DGM to do the right thing, I don’t know if there is anything inhibiting that at the moment, but they have an opportunity for a big play. Some of the bad elements (not all “were” bad eggs) within the company have gone onto pastures new (some of the respected ones gone onto where the grass is greener). There are some very pleasant & proactive staff on the affiliate side trying to offer good support & be proactive in the community. They have a sizeable sales team to prospect for clients too, but don’t have the technology to back them up. Their reasonable client base would compliment POR’s quite well & with Clarke “Legend” Duncan & Graeme from POR together with some of DGM’s team under their guidance they could develop quality API tools to compete with the impressive ShopWindow at Affiliate Window. To do this you need the volume of merchants.

From chatting with a few affiliate peers, I also get the impression that they actually want to see DGM do better, a kind of big uncle / aunty fostering mentality, wishing them to eventually succeed.

Where POR maybe lacks is an assertive sales team, fancy sales presentations & resources. DGM would compliment it. Both networks need something to boost them further into the spotlight of prospective clients & forefront of affiliates minds, it will just mean DGM relinquishing their visibly poor platform & interface, but they mustn’t hang onto their apron strings forever.

It could be a synergy that might just work? What do you think?

Okay, I’ve sowed the seeds, it’s up to the others to explore the possible opportunities whether they agree or disagree in public, but wish both well and it’s food for thought.

It’s sometimes disappointing to see there is lack of decorum being displayed on the forum by fellow affiliates & peers who don’t congratulate those affiliates who win incentives which are generously provided by merchants & networks.

Is it because they didn’t win? Spoilsports? Or simply too lazy though there maybe good intent? or Lack of manners? I still wish incentives were highlighted more, some do pass by without actually realising they were there in the first place.

Most (not all) merchants deserve recognition for running these and any additional public recognition & incremental sales that are generated should hopefully be the fruits of the reward by their generousity, so that we may potentially see more generous incentives being run (without expecting or taking for granted).

So next time an affiliate wins an incentive, take a brief moment of your time & post a couple of words of congratulations on the forum to the winner & maybe even a thank you to the merchant (even if you didn’t win), sometimes being nice gives you a warm & fuzzy feeling inside. You never know, we might see more incentives because of it.

So in one fair swoop for those I have in the past inadvertently omitted, congratulations & thank you to those merchants too, though if you can please use a megaphone so more affiliates can take advantage of your generosity.

Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today, well you cannot anymore anyhow.

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If you want to know a little more about a4uexpo 2008, Click Here which will convince you that this will be the hottest, must attend Affiliate Marketing event of the year!

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The A4UExpo is quite simply the one event every affiliate should write in their diary at attend, it truly represents the many great aspects in affiliate marketing to educate yourself & implement, synergize & network with like minded professionals to forge flourishing business relationships, listen & participate with high quality speakers in the seminars, engage & debate in round table discussions, socialise with your peers .. the list goes on … To Register Click Here

If you’re shrewd enough you can even earn a generous 10% commission as they have an affiliate program on Paid On Results.

“This year there are two different types of passes available to purchase for a4uexpo;

The Conference Pass includes full access to all of the Workshops, Conferences, Networking Sessions and Exhibition Hall, complete with Luncheon & Refreshments. This pass includes a place on the Thames River Cruise during the second evening, plus networking opportunities at the pre-event Networking Party as well as the After Event Party on the last night.

The Networking Pass includes unlimited access to the Exhibition Hall & all networking areas, access to the pre-event networking party plus Luncheon & Refreshments on both days. The Networking pass does not provide access to the Thames River Cruise or the After Event Party.

Affiliates can earn 10% commission on all sales, with the cookie period custom set to reward all sales up until a week prior to the conference.”

They even pay you commission on the VAT element. Keep an eye on their blog, and press centre to acquire ideas on how to promote the event to their audience.

Click Here to Join the Affiliate Program

Yes we have used affiliate links on this blog entry, but if you sign up to the network Paid On Results, you can get your own.

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.