Moose on the Loose

Once again let me begin with another quoted Parable: In this example assume the farmer is the merchant/agency & the donkey is the affiliate.

“One day a farmer’s donkey (the affiliate) fell down into a well. The animal lay quietly for hours until the farmer (the merchant) eventually noticed him, as the farmer (the merchant) couldn’t be bothered to figure out what to do. He finally decided the animal (the affiliate) was old & useless, and that the well needed to be covered anyway and that it just wasn’t worth retrieving the donkey (the affiliate). So he invited all his neighbours (other merchants & maybe the network) to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well.

At first, the donkey (the affiliate) realised what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone’s amazement, he quietened down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer (the merchant) finally looked down the well and was astonished at what he saw. With every shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey (the affiliate) was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer’s neighbours (other merchants & maybe the network) continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal (the affiliate), he (the affiliate) would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey (the affiliate) stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off!

Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up.”

There are various interpretations which could be derived from this little parable, feel welcome to offer yours.

But a couple which come to mind immediately are when ass- minded merchants / agencies & occasionally networks cull non-performing affiliates. Perhaps the affiliate hasn’t got round to that merchant yet or may have existing or other prioritised work in progress, especially when there are a couple of thousand other programs out there.

Rather than making efforts to communicate effectively with non-performing affiliates, culling their base (an easy & futile option) somehow makes their stats look better for example those affiliates which actually drive sales but may have a lower epc. It doesn’t cost the merchant anything and eventually that page or link might get indexed.

I don’t think culling happens too often in affiliate marketing and there are bigger issues, however it’s one of those minor irritants which needlessly occurs.

The most importantly thing I inferred from this Parable is never under-estimate the resolve of an affiliate.

I have been particularly engrossed by this particular thread on the forum, where actual affiliate links are being indexed in search engines. The discussion has been quite interesting, in the sense that white hat has been mistakenly considered black hat in what appears to be a Google bug or possibly questionable / poor seo techniques by the merchant concerned & not the affiliate.

One thing I will endorse is the openness of the network Webgains to bring this matter to the attention of the forum for an open debate which is a plus credit to them when maybe some other networks would shy away.

There does seem to be divided opinion amongst affiliates & we have to be careful this doesn’t set a precedent for future restricted T&C’s for affiliates in relation to SEO and/or Natural/Organic listings.

The lock is already undone on Pandora’s box, lets not open it … please.

Full Story is Here … Help me with a serious Google problem!

After feedback given to Matt Wood, I am really pleased to see an update to the categories for the Affiliate Marketing A4UAwards … with the addition of:

Best Agency or Network Publisher Manager – Which agency account manager or network account manager (publisher side) goes the extra mile? – Again vote for your favourite.

There are a number of Affiliate Managers who are doing a sterling job and I think this may well prove to be one of the most competitive & interesting categories in recognition of the hard work & sterling job a number of them do. In some instances acting as a buffer by being pummeled from all sides, but more importantly how genuinely proactive and helpful some of them are.

I am a little spoilt for choice here, but I will be initially looking at someone who engages & contributes to the forum and whom’s personal injection of comments is not doctored or gagged behind corporate plc policy in what can & cannot be said, but also quietly & efficiently goes about their job, resolving issues amicably & forging relationships between parties .. as well as being a grafter.

Time to adorn that sandwich board which has been collecting dust in the closet and get those placards raised 😉

In addition to this there is also some voting guidance to other categories.

This blog topic stemmed from a conversation I had with a merchant the other day. This is maybe best illustrated by giving a hypothetical example.

Merchant A, Merchant B & Merchant C sell the same product at the same price & their conversions are equal & their shipping costs are £3 per order. On the program information page on the network it says each offers 10% commission. However on chatting with each merchant you find that merchant A offers 10% on the NET value of sale (less VAT), Merchant B offers 10% on the GROSS value of the sale (inclusive of VAT) and Merchant C offers 10% on the GROSS value of the sale plus the same % commission on shipping costs.

Lets assume 100 orders of £100+vat are sent to each merchant and see the difference in commissions an affiliate would receive.

Merchant A

Commission = Total Net Value of Sales x 10% = £10000 x 10% = £1000

Merchant B

Commission = Total Gross Value of Sales x 10% = £11750 x 10% = £1175 (A £175 improvement in commission on Merchant A)

Merchant C

Commission = (Total Gross Value of Sales + Shipping Costs )x 10% = £12050x 10% = £1205 (A £205 improvement in commission on Merchant A & £30 improvement of Merchant B)

It’s an old adage & prerequisite which is still required on all information pages pertaining to commission. Affiliates need to know the actual commission they are being paid .. a % of what exactly … by doing exactly what it says it does on the tin.

A merchant who offers a % commission of the Gross sale value can use this as a selling point to affiliates, which they should shout from the roof tops, when rates are compared with other programs. No network can turn around exclaiming that the assumption should be made it’s the net sale value, because this is not the case. We simply need clarity which has been requested before, several years ago. Oh the familiarity one exclaims.

You can scale the figures up or down to suit your volume levels.

Pet Gripes This Week:

a) Merchants changing their display url without notification.

b) Merchants altering their deep linking structure, again, without notification.

c) Merchants changing their trading name, yet again, without notification.

One category I feel I am really limited for choice on from the list below is, btw for those that have been on a different planet for the past few days, the Affiliate Marketing a4uAwards can be found here

Innovation in Affiliate Marketing (Network Award)

I think we are really limited for choices in this section and maybe only limited to a couple of good options which is really disappointing on the whole considering. Paid On Results for their platform, content units & various useful tools and then there is Affiliate Window for their Shop Window. Though both are very good it is disappointing there doesn’t seem much to choose from as alternatives. With a few acquisitions by various networks from bid management tools to telephone tracking systems, it makes you wonder whether these actually will be made available for affiliates? Now, some might suggest Ebay API as a possibility, but whilst Ebay seem to unethically & continually breach trademarks in paid search advertising, I don’t think they are worthy See Here

One award I would like to see added is

Publisher’s Choice Award for an Account Manager at a Network – we should appreciate there are a few account managers who do work tirelessly, they are very good at their job, participate on the forum & are very pleasant people. Whether you agree with their opinions all the time or not, I do feel their role in the industry should be recognised. These could include several from Webgains like Hero, Ryan, Kier to Peter or Chris at Affiliate Future to Adam or Kevin at Affiliate Window to a few others.

Firmly laying my cards on the table, here is my own shortlist of candidates, though the beauty of these things is that they are all open to opinion & conjecture

• Innovation in Affiliate Marketing (Merchant Award) – A real shortlist for this one, though I might not be thinking out the box on this one but my personal three candidates are Buyagift, Prezzybox & Euroffice.

• Innovation in Affiliate Marketing (Network Award) – The aforementioned Paid On Results & Affiliate Window

• Innovation in Affiliate Marketing (Publisher Award) – Certainly not us for sure, though I rarely visit other affiliates websites to ascertain what they are working on, unless invited to offer an opinion. Though perhaps this could be maybe renamed to Best Publisher Website (for which by my own admission we wouldn’t qualify for either by a long shot). Though from the few affiliate sites I have seen, some are excellent & well marketed, to a few which if I had the inclination I would offer to buy out as they are extremely good, yet go unrecognised or are not marketed to their full potential.

• Publisher’s Choice Award for a Network – Down to your personal preference & relationship with respective networks, so for myself the four contenders are currently Paid On Results, Affiliate Future, Affiliate Window & Webgains. I do hope affiliates simply don’t just go for the ones with the big brands or ones they currently do most business with.
  

• Publisher’s Choice Award for a Merchant – A few considerations here as there are some really nice merchants, but my personal unwavering option will boil down to a head to head battle between Buyagift & Prezzybox.

• Publisher’s Choice Award for an Agency – Tough call. There a few nice agencies, though I don’t necessarily consistently agree with them, however, they participate & remain proactive on the forum. Some options could be from R.O Eye, Equator, Summit Media to Mitch at BigMouthMedia. However my runner-up would be Jess at Affiliate Program Advice. My winner would be Existem.

• Affiliate Manager of 2007 – A duel between Graham Keen of Buyagift & Zak Edwards at Prezzybox. They both continuously liase with the affiliate community, catering for & asking what we would like & more importantly they actually deliver, plus the fact they are both terrific people.
  

• Merchants Publisher of 2007 – Look at the guys which are selfless (not selfish) & contribute positively & proactively to affiliate marketing & the community. Notably, those who also have blogs. A list of whom can be viewed in the right hand column on this page.

• Best New Merchant of 2007 – I was a little confused on this selection on who the “NEW” merchants are. So nobody really stood out. Thus on existing ones, guess what .. Buyagift & Prezzybox stood out again. So on the basis of an award title, it’s a weak category. However, just being launched on Paid on Results is the program Children’s Rooms being run by Dave & Elaine.
  

• Best New Publisher of 2007 – From the recent Affiliate Get Togethers, we have noticed an influx of the next generation of Performance Marketeers with some very bright minds amongst them.
  

• Affiliate Marketing Blog of 2007 – What a terrific choice to choose from. I thoroughly enjoy reading & being totally absorbed with Affiliate Blogs like those listed in the right hand column, with various perspectives, insights & topics of discussion. The best part is that generally we are singing off the same hymn sheet in relation to the industry. But my favourite is Fraser Edward’s Affiliate Marketing Blog & his Podcasts.

• Best Agency Account Manager – My winner would be the big gentle giant Mark Russell at Existem closely followed by Jess at Affiliate Program Advice

• Best International Publisher – Not sure who to classify in this one & whether it includes UK Affiliates. So there are a few in my social circle of friends who I would like to vote for.

• Industry Champion Award – Fraser Edwards !!!
  

To reiterate again, for your vote go to the Affiliate Marketing a4uAwards Ceremony 2007 … “Rewarding Excellence & Innovation in Affiliate Marketing.”

Let me start with a folk tale:

“The story is told that there once was a blind beggar (the merchant) 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). The great one stepped down, and the beggar (the merchant) 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). 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) 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), 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!!!”

Now this was a story I sent to a merchant (the beggar) sometime back, that merchant (the beggar) was Linkword Languages who was looking for more business from affiliates (the kings), so I politely asked him whether I could have a sample of the product to learn Portuguese & properly test the product. His direct response was that we will have to purchase our own via the commissions in the sales we pushed to him! So I sent the story & heard nothing more.

So for some merchants (the beggars), think about this Parable. Free product samples can go a long way.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are quite a few generous merchants (this time the kings) out there from Buyagift to Prezzybox to occasional freebies we unexpectedly receive to sponsors of Affiliates4U events … and more recently a massive thanks to the sponsors of the Affiliates4U Fantasy Football Competition which Mark at Existem has organised like Historic Papers, Best of the Best & Subside Sports.

Definition: Parable … is a brief tale intended to be understood as an allegory illustrating some lesson or moral.

Definition: Allegory … the representation of abstract ideas or principles by characters, figures, or events in narrative, dramatic, or pictorial form.

Even though I am not over keen on being overloaded with promotional emails from or obo merchants, there are some which do make a considerable effort which are either created by the network affiliate (manager) or the merchant themselves, with pleasant images & copy pertaining to some of their products.

Which makes me think to myself that if they have gone the extra yard in the effort of a creative, good looking promotional email, why don’t they also simply produce a content unit to insert on our sites or solus email based on this same content / information that we can send out? It would take only minimal changes, saving us all time.

You may argue, that the affiliate could do this themselves by extracting the information, but again “less is more”, as one person making the changes is more time efficient than a number of affiliates making those same changes, thus affiliates can focus on the marketing via email or site implementation of this latest information.

Or is this solution too easy?

There are quite a few things I admire about Paid On Results, and one of them is being innovators. There is one tool you may have neglected to use, forgotten about or just simply didn’t know about which we find useful not only for ourselves but possibly for you affiliates as well … and that is their

Deep Link Generator

Using their browser based Deep Link Generator you can now create Deep Links for any Paid On Results Merchant at the click of a button.

The way it works is you add a special page to your browsers Favourites or Bookmarks menu and then, when you want to create a Deep Link you simply browse to the Merchants web site, navigate to the page you want to deep link to and click the link in your Favourites or
Bookmark menu.

You’re then be taken to the Paid On Results web site and shown the Affiliate URL you’ll need to deep link to the Merchant!

This tool requires either Internet Explorer or Firefox, with Java Script enabled.

Log into your affiliate account and see Tools > Deep Link Generator for full information and another demo video showing how it’s installed

It’s been around since December 2005! Try it out at least & see for yourself.

Okay, hear me out on this one, it might not be as daft as what you may originally think, then again it could be.

Have we been going about this affiliate marketing malarky all the wrong way, shouldn’t merchants be applying to affiliates & not the way it currently stands with numerous in depth additional T&C’s & over zealous keyword policies ?

Thus, affiliates could then post their own reasonable terms & conditions for a merchant to apply too. I don’t think it would quite be the “anarchy” or mutiny maybe predicted, but it would certainly put relationships on more of a level keel, than the unhealthy way it’s drifting towards at the moment.

“you would think most Merchants have products no one else has for sale the way a few of them act… but you know it’s not going to change any time soon, sucks but that’s just way it is…” – an affiliate

“some merchants think affiliates are disposable …” – another affiliate …. yep & so are these same merchants

“it’s a merchants prerogative” – a network … no it’s not entirely & this is part of where it’s currently falling down

I am not quite sure on the angle I am approaching this from, but the concept might just be food for thought before it all goes awash & sinks into the abyss? But an affiliates operational envelope is being ever increasingly reduced which does need to be addressed & debated.

I was & wasn’t surprised, but definitely disappointed, to find out from different networks that when a merchant changes their keyword policy, they still don’t have an automated alert method to ensure that both the affiliate or network are made aware of any keyword policy changes, no matter how significant or insignificant they maybe/seem or deemed.

On a merchants information page these are too easily merged or at a later date appended into the program description, or if a merchant has a specific keyword restriction or keyword link, changes can all too easily be made without anybody knowing, unless of course you’re a psychic / clairvoyant or have some form of extra sensory perception by feeling a disturbance in the force.

Countless times have keyword policies been changed or sneaked in without notification, most networks are very polite about any breach of keyword policy you may have not known about, a few are not, or alternatively you are kicked off a program because your psychic abilities are not finely attuned or your Midichlorian count is too low.

Because some networks, merchants & agencies are so protective & over sensitive with keyword policy, & have been for quite a while at an increasing rate, it really is about time some basic parameters are implemented.

Firstly there should ONLY BE A SINGULAR POINT OF REFERENCE with regard to a merchants keyword policy and ONLY whatever is written in there should be applied / enforced. Yes, we know about not having ambiguous keyword policies & the need for it to be written clearly, concisely, politely & never in a forthright or dictatorial manner.

Any changes for keyword policy can ONLY be made within the SINGULAR POINT OF REFERENCE keyword policy section & nowhere else!

Lastly & most importantly, whenever the slightest change, no matter how minute or subtle it maybe, is made within the SINGULAR POINT OF REFERENCE for keyword policy there MUST, MUST, MUST be an automated communication sent out to both affiliates & the network via normal email as well as any internal mail system on the networks admin area which affiliates access.

This is a simple request & something which is well overdue within the industry. Come on networks, it’s not exactly rocket science to set up.

Right I am off to have my Midichlorians levels boosted.