Please, please, please will merchants with keyword restrictions stop using inappropriate wording & stop being so mellow dramatic in the choice of words they use, which only gives the perception they are treating affiliates like naughty, little, adolescent school children with reference to the pre-warnings in their keyword policy sections which only sounds like they are scolding affiliates from outset.
“The use of the official URL: www.whatevermerchant.com for any affiliate activity is strictly forbidden.
… how about saying “please do not use” or “it is disallowed”.
What if we, as affiliates, starting making demands like the following and having them inserted into contracts, saying it is for example … strictly forbidden for the merchant to be ever late with payment or it’s strictly forbidden for your tracking to EVER go array & it’s strictly forbidden not to pay remuneration for when tracking is down … etc … etc … etc ……. otherwise you’ll be chastised or hung, drawn & quartered.
“Rogue affiliates who refuse to adhere to the keywords and url terms and conditions will have their commissions voided and will be suspended from the campaign immediately.”
As for the term “rogue” … please will they grow up, it sounds more like some blood elf character class out of the game World of Warcraft.
It’s fine having keyword restrictions & mentioning it, but please, please, please use appropriate wording & treat affiliates like professional mature adults.
When I see wording like this, imho it simply creates the perception that the merchant has got a potential attitude problem & it’s preferable to avoid even if we did want to promote them via a non ppc route. As a side note we automatically do rank / order merchants on our website according to their epc’s & wording of keyword policies, so inappropriate wording does add a negative rating to their overall scoring … Yep, we have introduced our own quality score too which is applied to merchants.
PS Apart from a small handful of programs, we haven’t signed up to or promoted any new programs this year because of the trend we were noticing, except in the past week or so where we are signing up to most programs on various networks for incidental income , however we are starting to notice the wording of keyword policies are becoming more frequently frivolous than before.
Last night I was simply going through the process of signing up to a few programs on various affiliate networks & occasionally you see terms & conditions like these.
In this example we shall use AXA PPP “H“ealthcare
“Affiliates are not permitted to have the AXA brand in their URLs, display URLs, sub-domains or folders “
The part that grates me is “sub-domains or folders” when are networks going to tell merchants or their agencies, no to unacceptable “sub-domains or folders” restrictions. An affiliates website is their domain & it’s down to their own integrity, whether it be site architecture or sub-domain, folder structure, & that of the merchant or agency representing that merchant. Please, get the message that it is an affiliates property & a merchant has no claim to imposing undue restrictions upon this.
Some UK affiliates might remember the debacle for Marks & Spencers when they insisted on affiliates using the ampersand “&” rather than “and”. That was very petty. So in addition to AXA PPP “H“ealthcare affiliate program they had these little clauses too. I think there is a photo knocking about somewhere from an affiliate event with regard to Marks and Spencers. Is it the same agency which or did represent both?
“Our company name should always be written as AXA PPP healthcare (with a lower case ‘h’) and never split over two lines or abbreviated. Wherever possible, Helvetica or Arial should be used for body copy, if not then verdana. Eras demi should be used for headers.”
Cough … excuse me Mr / Mrs / Miss / Ms Agency, please get a reality check with the special conditions for the AXA PPP “H”ealth care program. Fine represent the merchant in a favourable hue, but please will they stop being so pedantic. There are other examples out there, but this one was used as actual T&C’s for illustration purposes.
Though not pertaining to this particular program, you quite often see PPC restrictions saying along the lines of “you are permitted to bid on generic terms and send them to your own affiliates site” … How gracious of you sir! – we surly say … it’s our site, off course we surely can … so go away. Will some of these merchants & networks please get a grip.
Side Note : Article working atm .. is called “Join the Dots” … It won’t win many friends & may end up as “Billy No Mates” 🙂
PS Just saw this one for Time Out … “Affiliates are NOT permitted to appear higher in the SERP than the merchant listing” … they just keep getting better .. erm well every affiliate will rank for something better, whatever that term maybe.
posted in Affiliate Marketing | Comments Off on Say No! to Restrictions to on Brands in the Sub Domains & Folders of an Affiliate’s Website
An Orwellian Society, hmm maybe a little melodramatic & out of context, however Facebook is continually the hot bed of conversation with regard to acquisition rumours for those on the path to becoming another of the “Praetorians” of “The Net”?
Are the figures quoted for acquisitions currently becoming a little overvalued?
Now, think about it, with all these social media sites cropping up left, right & center like rabbit holes, it never ceases to amaze me how the general public quite willingly allow relatively loose acquaintances the ability to pry a little deeper into their private lives. Is this because of vanity or ignorance or simply the innocence of wishing to socially participate (the desire to socially interact) in perceived friendly environments, which is human nature after all, however this is where our natural guards & common sense are generally lowered & go on walkabout.
I do think we are potentially opening ourselves up not only to privacy issues but also personal security. Not from friends, off course not, but anyone who could casually glance over their shoulder or have access to the central database for more sinister intent. Granted, it is fun to keep up with friends, joining in & sharing their enjoyment & happiness of life’s experiences, but it could get misused / abused.
Think about it, no I am not scaremongering, but lets get realistic about it.
Think about who the acquisitors are, who do they really have loyalties with? On the face of it … it is or is it simply a means of mapping ip addresses & names to deliver advertising, or is there more to it?
Now, I like Facebook, then again I have only been on there a few weeks or so, thus it is still at the stage of being a novelty factor for me. It does possess the potential for greater longevity than it’s predecessors until the next king of the hill arrives. Ask me the same question in 6 months, on how often I log in Facebook then.
Off course like keeping up with what friends are up to, even though it consumes your time, when time is an affiliates most precious commodity … “there’s thousands of people wasting good surfing time petting virtual rabbits” – Loquax
Make what you will off the above linked articles I am neither condoning or supporting, there are probably other articles around, but they are there just for an additional read, if you have others please feel welcome to submit them in comments. There is no intent on my behalf to create a conspiracy theory thread, but to simply step back & examine the bigger picture & address accordingly.
At the moment it seems like a fad, a better model than predecessors and will probably enjoy / endure greater longevity. I realise Alexa rankings are to be taken with a pinch of salt in some respects, but if you look at some of these charts, it supports this case. So the timing for them for optimum sale price is essential, if that is their intent.
Has Beens
1. My Search 2. Friends Reunited
Current Crop
3. Flickr 4. Facebook 5. Youtube (Utube :P)
Web 2.0
I am still sitting on the fence with regard to any firm opinions of Web 2.0 and certainly not dismissing it out of hand, but looking how this maybe somewhat slightly pretentious buzz word / coined phrase fits into the grand scheme of things & how it can be applied from my own business perspective. I don’t think I am being blinkered, but being more objective by assimilating the information available without it running away & leaving me behind, just in case.
However, I am not wholly convinced by Web 2.0 as anything truly innovative, but readaptations of existings ideas aggregated together, except, and I may be wrong on this that it is merely “user generated / degenerate content” in the sense they provide it all, i.e. the user does all the work for you & you provide the platform for this. Like content is king & creating website stickiness by forming a community with quirky bells & whistles & widgets & applications. The platform maker earns to wonga & the content providers diddly squat … generally.
For affiliates jumping on Web 2.0 … What are the thoughts on the monetisation of these sites for affiliates apart from hoping to be bought out? Yesterday was Myspace, today is Facebook, what is tomorrow? Web 3.0 was that referred to as virtual realms and mentioned Affiliate Summit (which was a very good event btw)? Don’t we have that already with World of Warcraft & biting Facebook members by turning them into Zombies … note I am currently a Ninja Zombie 🙂 … Social media sites … are the rage … are fun, but how do we monetise it? Social media sites are just that, the mindset of the user is not to purchase at the time when they are using these, unless you deliver CPM or allow for a very low CTR with low ROI (might as well brand build) on ads or develop applications to piggy back on the existing current fad sites.
“There are so many strands of social media. Social networks in the form of blogs and newsgroups … This content has allowed a more open dialogue between consumers and between consumers and business. Review sites and blogs, and sites like this, enable people to openly discuss the merits and faults in businesses and play a huge part in influencing people’s buying processes.” Lee McCoy
Lee presents his points well.
Also from a your own personal perspective, you have to consider if your business revolves around your lifestyle or vice versa, if you prefer the freedom of the former, then the full implementation of so called Web 2.0 ideas may be inhibitive to this, as I guess you would have to be more hands on to ensure that nothing offensive is being published, as it grows it will become more demanding. Thus, it’s down to individual needs & to what scale you want to manage this.
If the concept of so called Web 2.0 is the future demand, then we will have to look at doing more work for the equivalent income, unless innovative ways of monetising are come up with. Then how long will it be before privacy issues become more of a concern?.
Now, I am not dismissing “Web 2.0” out of hand, nor the opinions of those strongly in favour, it’s just that from a personal perspective, it hasn’t grasped my “rollocks” and inspired / impressed me yet. Though I will consider ideas which can pigeon holed as Web 2.0 cos it sounds cool and see if it fits in with our sites.
I think that is enough waffle on this for now …
I will quite gladly add links to this blog entry to those who are firm believers of the Web 2.0 concept, as I like to read opinions of those which differ from my own by considering other perspectives.
These articles may provide an alternative & equal view point to the discussion:
Segmentation of Affiliates, Social Networking and the ‘Thick Long Tail’ by Matthew Wood
Post For Facebook Lovers and Haters
All Those Social Media Knockers: Start Listening
Matt Wood quoted to me saying it’s “Evolution” and to check this out which some of you may have seen already.
Summary:
With Web 2.0, keep an open mind either way. With Social Sites like Facebook .. Think! .. Sites like these show a how users are easily seduced into letting strangers & organisations know too much information about them. For example, if you say on one of these that you are going on holiday, when you come back you might be burgled. Just don’t be over zealous in what information you volunteer as it’s not your friends you need to worry about, but who else is reading.
BTW The Film “The Net” was back in 1995 and Praetorians are fictitious.
Social sites can be used for good or fun or bad or to counter bad. I won’t spell everything out as the idea is to think & read between the lines, as well think about time lines. So will Facebook for example be acquisited or become the acquisitor or both.
I will update grammatical errors later 😛 as I am off to build a Web 2.0 widget, whatever that maybe.
First & foremost … thank you to Matt, Claire and the Existem team for organising a “most excellent” event in Bristol, and as usual a massive thanks to the sponsors Affiliate Window, Buy.at, Prezzybox & Yahoo Search Marketing for their continued generosity at these affiliate events.
The weather which bestowed down upon us on the 20th July was literally a freak of nature, the heavens opened and parts of the country experienced 2 months of rainfall in the space of 24 hours causing chaos & flooding.
But, this didn’t prevent the steel, resolution, grit & determination of a number of attendees persevering, by ensuring they reached the Affiliates4U Summer Networking BBQ in Bristol .. so a massive thumbs up for them. For those that didn’t make it, some my have had to make a judgement call at some point in their journey, so respect for that. Those who deep down know didn’t really make much of an effort, shame on them but so what.
Well done to A4UEvents for organising a good Get2Gether, apart from it always being a pleasure catching up with friends & making new acquaintances plus a very good Soul / R&B band & decent food, I think this event will at least stick in the mind for the different stories some have to tell about their journey. From James Avery cycling all the way from Coventry to Bristol in torrential rain which took I think about 7 hours (after a 7 hour shower he was probably the least grubbiest affiliate there) … to Dave, Elaine, their son “Our Kev” & Keith Bond which took at least 15 hours and actually missed the event but still arrived to socialise .. so that Elaine was able to show off her new shoes at least. Let’s not forget those who had to endure being stranded at various parts of the country & having to find alternative modes of transport which was limited or not available. Many peoples journey were twice, thrice, four times or longer than what should have been expected.
One of the highlights for me was Zac from Prezzybox straddling a guitarist from the band on the dancefloor. A funny guy indeed.
Like always with these one day events, they seem to go by very quickly and one day doesn’t seem enough to catch up with everyone or you don’t get around to chatting with everybody you would like to.
Plus a massive well done!! to all those affiliates, merchants, networks & agencies who encountered difficult & cumbersome journeys down to Bristol for making it an enjoyable event & displaying some fine British Gumption and hoping they all had a safer & more straight forward trip home.
Okay, many of us affiliates are a portly bunch, we sit behind desk most of the day with inadequate or no exercise if we are honest with ourselves. One simple way to lessen the acceleration of gaining those few pounds or stone, is to remain hydrated. Below I will briefly go into the importance of water in a weight loss program.
To achieve a weight loss and for our bodies to function at optimum rate, our bodies must be well hydrated, known as optimal hydration. Though most may think below is fairly obvious, most do not realise how much water we really need to take on board.
The body consists of approximately 70% water and our brain, the most important organ, the is made up of over 85% water.
Water is, in fact, the regulator of all major functions of the human body and is the fundamental core of any healthy weight lowering program. Water is required to get rid of toxic waste from our body. The whole process of nutrition is stimulated because of the paralysing effect of the toxic waste being removed in a solution, yep you have guessed … in our urine … there is no point in getting prudish about it as I shall be mentioning the word a few more times yet … and subsequent excretion by the kidneys, bowel, skin or lungs. If, on the other hand, these toxic materials are allowed to accumulate in the body, all sorts of diseases or illnesses could develop.
In other words, water is a necessity in assisting the body in the dilution and elimination of toxins. Stated differently, in order to avoid disease, achieve healthy weight loss, and maintain optimal health, the body is required to be at optimal hydration.
Water serves other purposes within the body aside from waste removal and disease control:
Regulates body temperature.
Transports nutrients to all vellums of the body.
Necessary for all chemical reactions in the body.
Maintains the body’s acid-alkaline balance.
The importance of water in any weight loss program is often under stated by individuals
As a society we drink too much coffee and tea, too many fizzy drinks, too much alcohol, and too many sport drinks. These fluids are both high in caffeine and/or sugar. This combination raises blood sugar and insulin levels and creates a state of DEhydration.
So, to achieve the desirable healthy weight loss results people may seek, you simply must drink more pure “soggy” and the right kind of pure water. Tap water isn t really recommended as it contains chlorine, antibiotics, pesticides, and other contaminants that our bodies can do without.
Therefore the types of water we should be drinking is distilled water, miracle water & sparkling water that has no carbohydrates.
Although drinking water by itself is by far the best strategy, you can also obtain a considerable small amount of water from eating high humid content foods. Watered-down rich foods such as fruits, vegetables, and sprouts will supplement a little in addition to what you are drinking on a daily basis and will assist in any weight loss plan.
A good indicator of how bulge hydrated you are is the colour of say your urine. Urine especially when dark yellow or orange indicates that the kidneys are working very hard to rid the body of poisonous toxins. If your urine happens to be this colour, it is an indication of dehydration. If your Urine is clear at least once a day, it is an indication of optimal water consumption. i.e. optimal hydration.
Remember: Any old fluid will not suffice, it must be proper water, not tap water.
Therefore check the colour of your urine!!!
For living longer, looking better, a healthy lifestyle & weight loss. Here are some recommended water consumption levels:
Body weight in pounds divided by 2 = Minimum number of ounces of water to be consumed separate day.
For example if you weigh 16 stone the minimum, note minimum is (16 x 14) / 2 = 112 ounces
As 20 fluid ounces = 1 pint : this equates to about a minimum of 5 and a half pints of water needs to be consumed per a day
So here are a few other weights as estimates:
8 stone requires a minimum of 3 pints of water to be drank per day.
10 stone requires a minimum of 3.5 pints of water to be drank per day.
12 stone requires a minimum of 4 pints of water to be drank per day.
14 stone requires a minimum of 5 pints of water to be drank per day.
If you weigh more you can do the calculations.
Drink enough water until your urine runs clear at least once a day!! And don’t confuse any old fluid as water.
posted in Affiliate Marketing | Comments Off on Health Tip For Affiliates : Number 1 : Keeping Hydrated
On the whole, with regard to Affiliate Summit in Miami, for me it was a satisfying event, and I can confidently & thoroughly justify the trip as having been worthwhile venture.
On this occasion, unlike Las Vegas, I deliberately made sure I went out of my way & to make more of a concerted effort by taking advantage of the networking opportunities presented to me by ensuring that I visited almost every single exhibitors booth or table. By listening to their pitch on what they had to offer & how it could possibly fit into my existing business model.
This time I did’t feel there was the slight xenophobia & false assumptions which was experienced at the Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas, with myself immediately establishing the fact that I was a UK affiliate looking to considerably increase our presence in the US market with US focused websites & US paid search activity.
With the above in mind I am looking forward to forging relationships with a number of companies by working together proactively, as long as that is reciprocated of course.
Basically, what I am suggesting, is don’t rest back on your laurels at these events, always make the most of the opportunity whilst there are so many potentially waiting to happen at a single event. As a result, I hope that US merchants & networks take that giant stride across the pond to pitch themselves to inquisitive UK affiliates who maybe interested in the US market at forthcoming London affiliate events.
Though it was maybe a little disappointing there was a lack in attendance of British affiliates for a purely social aspect, perhaps they are indeed waiting for forthcoming events this autumn.
What was quite noticeable to myself was that there is definitely a plethora of untapped opportunities in the US market for UK affiliates to exert their prowess & marketing skills.
Affiliate Summit Miami really re-ignited my creative juices.
For location, I did naturally prefer Las Vegas, but what I did like about Miami was the Latin American influence. People were generally very polite, for example in one the nightclubs a doorman escorted me to the toilet when I enquired where it was, then escorted me back again (impeccable manners). Where would you experience anything like that in the UK? Also, I especially liked the fact that their musical taste whenever visiting the mall or a restaurant or a club was predominantly stuck in the 80’s which was really up my street.
Though I maybe didn’t learn anything of significance from the seminars, they did stir the creative juices, on the whole they were generally of a much higher quality than Las Vegas which in many ways reinforced some of our own existing ideas & methodology. Sometimes I find certain aspects within the seminars like a refresher course, reminding me of what I am doing & what should be doing by never neglecting my roots & core foundations.
My favourites included the opening keynote speaker Ze Frank purely for the comedy aspect, his dancing widget had my spleen wobbling purely for the fact it reminds me of myself dancing naked in front on the bathroom mirror. Urgh, what traumatising visions that induces.
Then in order of merit maybe Kristopher Jones (President & CEO of Pepperjam), who’s crowd seem to be larger than life characters who enjoy the fruits of their labour & good for them too, his presentation on “The Confluence of Search & Affiliate Marketing” was pretty much spot on for anyone interested in search engine arbitrage and I did appreciate that one & would like to hear him at any forthcoming events.
Then there was Amit Mehta with “The Secrets of a PPC Super Affiliate”, red pill or blue pill, his presentation was pretty much on the ball too, I believe both are quite workable and with affiliates applying the tips they have learned from Affiliate Summit can truly learn “how deep does the rabbit hole go.”
My only suggestion generally, which does not necessarily apply to the above three refined & excellent speakers, would be to touch more on the hands on application of these ideas & suggestions that are presented.
For the record my favourite speaker in Las Vegas was without a doubt Will Reynolds from SEER Interactive.
Now, myself being pretty much a wall flower with the Hawaiian shirt to match, the evenings social gatherings were friendly and quite good fun, so thanks for the generous hospitality of the sponsors for those events.
The nicest people we met were definitely the crowd from Share Results Network, from the “land of maple syrup and back bacon”, what a pleasant bunch of people like Sarafina (even though she supports Arsenal), Jamie, Daniel & Julia.
For my colleague & wingman Eric, this was his first affiliate conference, I hope he learned a lot & had an enjoyable time.
I am still in Miami at the moment and won’t get back to England until Sunday. Though Miami hasn’t impressed overall me as a City, though that could simply be because of my preconceived images of Miami Vice back in the 80‘s. South Beach didn’t live up to expectations, thus, I must have been on the wrong section of beach. However, I did have a nice trip to The Everglades (tourist trappings) to catch a few Alligators & tomorrows intended shopping spree at Aventura will set me right by purchasing enough clothes to fill the wardrobe for the next year, plus a few things for my adorable children. I usually palm off the freebie swag to them which mounts up from the stalls in addition to what I can find in the shopping mall.
Now, it’s about 2am here and I am not particularly lucid, so I might update & edit this entry later on by chucking in a few meaningless buzz words to liven it up. But, before I finish, re buzz words on the Exhibitor Guide we all received which had summaries of the various exhibitors, they were generally full of superfluous superlatives, which didn’t really say if they were a network, agency, merchant etc. All I suggest is that within that document it should say exactly what they do on the tin & in layman’s terms too. But let’s not get away from the fact it was a good event & an improvement on Las Vegas.
Well done.
posted in Affiliate Marketing | Comments Off on Feedback on the Affiliate Summit 2007 East at the Intercontinental Hotel in Miami
It really is about time CJ’s Network Quality was brought down a peg or two with regard to their attitude which can only be described as a draconian dictatorship with an approach alikened to a Kangaroo Court. They epitomize some of what can be wrong in a network by dragging the reputation of the whole network down with them. Affiliates are immediately deemed guilty via intimidating emails & internal mail correspondence & have to prove their innocence. Even after that Commission Junction’s Network Quality fail to acknowledge their own errors and fail to have the common courtesy to take telephone calls.
If you are dissatisfied with their Guantanamo Bay interrogation techniques, simply don’t tolerate it and the inform merchants you work closely with, with enough collective effort from affiliates they will have to reconsider their approach.
There are quite a number of instances we could refer to, a few we shall list a little later, but here is the latest episode :
We have just had another issue with Network Quality whereby they were wrong yet again for a merchant called Freemans, we don’t even use CJ links for that merchant nor promote them via MSN. It looks like either CJ Network Quality have balls’d up again or it’s ineptitude from the new ppc company Freemans are using. And, yet again the manners of Network Quality at Commission Junction, the dismissive attitude & refusal to take calls or provide contact names is denied, by remaining anonymous behind this pathetic & mysterious charade. I’m glad I’m not the one calling in, whilst I play the good cop, I have sent bad cop in instead. So, please explain to me why are CJ getting involved when we don’t even use CJ links for this merchant, albeit we were signed up to the program, but we have just deactivated the merchant because of this. Now, we do intermittently appear for the the keyword freemans.co.uk but that is a broadmatch on the word “uk” going to the homepage of our site, not a merchant landing page or category specific or direct to merchant. We have hundreds of campaigns and don’t use CJ links for this merchant on the site. We prefer to use Paidonresults for obvious reasons.
After speaking with MSN Adcenter (very polite), they acknowledge, after searching our account for themselves, that any keywords relating to Freemans or Freemans.co.uk are NOT in our account, we explained to them the issue we had & requested an email to be sent to us mentioning to the effect that no Freemans related terms were in our account, they duly obliged that afternoon without hesitation. I have so far been quite impressed with MSN Adcenter’s customer services.
Since CJ Network Quality refused to speak with us, we proceeded to forward the email to a representative at the Otto Group, who own Freemans, who said they would forward on to get Commission Junction in order to get them of our back. Now, if you have been an unfortunate victim in the past, you’ll find that your whole payment cheque gets held back, affecting your relationship with ALL the merchants on the network, not just the one merchant in question.
Being in Portugal at the moment, and having to refer to the UK to conduct searches for us, the ad shows intermittently but it must be a broadmatch issue. However, why is their ppc agency or associates wasting their clients spend advertising in foreign territories for other keywords I can see here in Portugal? The broadmatch issue is not our problem, otherwise we could ask them to append our brands and or domain names as negative keywords to all their paid search activity when a search for their “generic term + our brand term” are searched for, in fact let’s insist on all those belonging to all affiliates.
Once again reiterating, we don’t use CJ links for this program (albeit we were signed up via that network, however have now deactivated the relationship), we use Paidonresults, so why are CJ getting involved with this?
As you can see these are indeed familiar problems that occur occasionally & something you just have to get used to when dealing with clueless / ignorant parties in the industry & it goes with the territory like a mosquito in your room at night that won’t stop bothering you and go away. However, should we have to tolerate this? No we shouldn’t!
Unfortunately in my opinion CJ Network Quality will always be a Kangaroo Court, but if you can get communication via the UK office this might help & insist to them that any communication from CJ Network Quality HAS to come via UK office first or your account manager. But, this still doesn’t resolve the issue of a courteous apology from Network Quality or acknowledgement of error, and the only way to see is to put the UK office to the test. But, the UK Office seems to have failed us on this one again and I am beginning to wonder if there is also a Network Quality department at the UK office which is just as incompetent as the USA, I will have to verify if that is so.
Previously I have suggested it would be prudent to acquire a dedicated account manager at the UK office, so that communication comes via them, rather than the US Network Quality team that leaves a lot to be desired, it might help channel concerns & diffuse situations.
Myself & other affiliates have been through similar experiences. The latest was when we were being vocal about Ebay’s url brand infringements, then Ebay UK complained to CJ that we were brand bidding where ads showed on a small search engine that was only a couple of weeks old, we offered to acquire communication from that search engine to confirm we were not brand bidding… however what they failed to realise was that we actually owned that search engine, which left egg on Ebay & CJ’s face.
In theory establish communication with the UK office who are maybe more amenable than the US .. it’s a shame that the US Network Quality team hasn’t improved .. we have a number of stories we could tell .. it’s just a shame that the US approach is guilty first, then proving your innocence .. and then when you are correct, no apology. They need to work on informing affiliates properly when keyword policies change or are added. Fortunately, most UK networks send out courteous emails allowing for genuine errors (which do happen) or give adequate notice to changes, then you get the odd one (not CJ) who cowardly slag untruths about you behind your back, even to your good mates, this individual at a certain network will be blogged, no prizes to guess who.
Back on track, it’s been requested for years that keyword policy changes & program closures, need to be effectively communicated and not be inserted after the event or not communicated at all.
Now whilst out here in Portugal, it looks like I am not making any significant headway at all, now I only live a short drive from their CJ’s UK office I just hope it doesn’t necessitate that requirement to get hold of the CEO or Office Manager where CJ UK are currently refusing to discuss further. The last time, earlier this year we had an issue, and we were vocal, CJ suggested that we shouldn’t work with them anymore, which amplifies their approach to how they deal with issues & the deplorable network they are in our opinion.
Here is their latest email, but you just have to love the slant on it
“”Response (CJACCESS) 06/13/2007 05:02 AM Dear Affiliate,
It was brought to our attention that you are requesting an apology from Commission Junction. I am sure that you will understand that we are only doing our job here in order to maintain a compliant and quality environment to all parties.
We will be willing to void the warning sent to you if you can explain why your sponsored link was triggered by the keyword “freemans.co.uk” on MSN. Furthermore, we will also need to contact your MSN rep to make sure that this was not due to a brand bidding issue.
Regards,
Network Quality””
If there ever was a misuse of the word quality this was it.
They have no right to speak with our MSN Adcenter rep when firstly an email was received & forwarded to merchant clearing us. Also as mentioned CJ Network Quality don’t allow you to speak with a real person.
They Say “I am sure that you will understand that we are only doing our job here in order to maintain a compliant and quality environment to all parties.” So please explain why they always seem to accuse affiliate first before establishing the facts, holding back the affiliates payments so that “to all parties” wording is so inadequate.
If they are saying it was the merchant or their ppc agency making a complaint then an apology would be required form them also.
This illustrates the different approach in politeness & etiquette between networks to enquiring whether an affiliate is bidding on a brand or not. However when you are dealing with unhelpful imbeciles, you can’t help but bang your head against a keyboard & get irate. Now granted errors can happen both sides & affiliates will inadvertently make mistakes, but the way CJ Network Quality deal with matters is the how things should NOT be done.
My suggestion, possibly, is if CJ Network Quality is holding your cheque back without due reason for all your earnings, then email every merchant you deal with on the network, explaining to them that you are unable to promote them further for the time being or ask if they are on an alternative network or deal direct. A network cannot be allowed to treat you like a second class citizen and I look forward to the day when an affiliate takes on a network in a court of law, the way things are going it could well be us and we have been that close before. Perhaps only then will CJ Network Quality get the message. Because every previous occasion they have failed to deal with it fairly & amicably.
If there is an issue, CJ should only hold back the payment elements of a particular merchant, not the whole lot otherwise potentially hundreds of relationships are being jeopardised. So as a suggestion to merchants, is this how you want a network to alienate affiliates? Are you losing the full marketing potential of your affiliates as there are probably a number of affiliates who would like to promote you, but because you are on CJ, they are reluctant to push to any great degree because of this type of attitude & continual cloud of threats.
To reiterate, it’s not as if this is a once off occasion, but a number of times.
I will expand on this later tonight or tomorrow morning, as I am still away on Affiliate Fat Camp in Portugal.
btw if you are unfamiliar with their initial standard email, here it is.
“Dear XYZ,
Your promotional methods have been identified in breach of the Commission
Junction Publisher Service Agreement, specifically the misuse of trademarks or
copyrights.
Search Engine: xyz
Keyword: xyz
You are obligated to immediately cease all promotional methods that result in
such breach, including but not limited to securing the delisting of any paid
placements in search engines and delisting in any natural searches (or natural
search caches). Also realize that any confirmed future trademark violations
may result in account deactivation and/or the reversal of all commissions.
An immediate response is required to return your account to good-standing.
Please respond by replying to this specific e-mail or if you are reading this
notice through your CJ Account Manager (Mail tab) and do not have access to the
e-mail notice, please respond using the Ask a Question, available through the
“Contact Us” link available in account manager feature available in your
Account
Manage>Contact Us and include this original message.
Sincerely,
Network Quality”
Don’t you love this part “delisting in any natural searches (or natural
search caches)” they really do need a reality check.
If payment is held back then we will simply go via a small claims court with immediate effect & post accordingly, with a copy notification going out to all their merchants.
Additional Waffle : Beforehand there have been several broadmatch issues & false accusations of brand bidding, together with being accused of instigating a desire to deal a direct relationship with a merchant which I can expand on if anyone is interested but basically we said to merchant we couldn’t do additional business with merchant because we cannot trust CJ & invest heavily in any merchant on CJ because of this threat always overhanging affiliates. There are so many merchants we could serious revenue with on CJ, but we cannot take the risk & these merchants need to be made aware of this.
We were also accused of owning a domain name with a merchants brand in when a simply Whois search would have establish who owned the domain. Oh, and maybe not Network Quality related, I musn’t forget when our cheque ended up in somewhere like Croatia, fortunately the affiliate who received it was honest enough to inform us, however it took a while to receive a replacement & not even an apology. Late cheques on a number of times, but this is tolerable, several gone missing not so much. Plus 2nd tier override for over $100,000 which was never received. Remember eToys & KBToys, where a number of affiliates got stung, yet they remained on the network, look how unhelpful were CJ in that! The list goes on & on. However one of the best was about 3 or 4 years ago at CJU Santa Barbera when UK affiliates were fighting Adware & Spyware, I brought it up in one of the seminars, they tried to be dismissive of it & quickly change the subject by claiming it was not illegal nor anything wrong with it.
One problem is innocent merchants get caught in the crossfire with some affiliates reluctance to promote via CJ, perhaps this lends itself to the argument to why merchant programs should be on at least two networks, so that affiliates can promote them via network they can trust.
posted in Affiliate Marketing | Comments Off on CJ Network Quality at Commission Junction Needs Taking Down A Peg or Two : www.cj.com
It’s a sad day in affiliate marketing and the prevention in the freedom of speech when the bullies cry wolf & claim to be bullied in an attempt to suffocate comments, opinions & a few home truths about certain networks by possibly applying leverage of their own. The latest request on the affiliates4u forum may have brought this to the fore with regard to networks being asked to simply disclose which programs on their network have closed bidding groups with some being reluctant or refusing to do so like Buy.at (refused), DGM (reluctant), Affilinet (refused) & Commission Junction (no reply). You can see for yourself where comments may have been removed, but we have a copy on notepad for safe keeping to publish later pertaining to each individual network.
Unfortunately it may possibly be that Matt, who owns the forum is indeed in an unenviable position … caught between a rock and a hard place … a gentleman to core & a friend who I have the upmost respect for.
Some of the networks involvement on the forum have traditionally been lacklustre or failed to address issues adequately, some have been very good, however it’s understandable that without network support the forum would not be able to continue with get2gethers, and events, and a4uexpo would certainly not be possible – these are all good things Matt & his team have done in helping to develop & shape the industry together with the networks generosity.
Affiliates with blogs lend themselves to freedom of speech & to be unnecessarily censored which allow those affiliates to freely express their educated thoughts & experiences within affiliate marketing, they also cast a larger net capturing a wider audience. Something which certain networks are maybe trying to prevent from happening on the affiliates4u forum via their own leveraging & crying to mummy.
Affiliate marketing is a fantastic industry, more pros than cons, but it won’t mature & be respected unless there is trust & transparency.
Any of my observations are from personal experience & commenting, is not attacking, most of the time I am probably being quite placid and doesn’t interfere with my day to day workload, I could quite merrily skip through the daisies & daffodils and ignore it all, but sometimes aspects need to be commented upon. There are ways of doing things slyly or more openly. So are we now required to pretend that all is light & fluffy in the world of make believe with sugarplumb fairies & pixies dancing on the breeze? … cos some networks say so … what Twerps!
It just strikes me that some networks are trying to censor & gag the affiliate community with their own repressive actions and maybe about time they shed their excessive narcissisms and start actually realising that affiliates may actually have a point.
I think instead, I’ll keep my most of my opinions on the blog, but with the disposable income we have available, I could simply do paid search advertising and generate enough eyeballs via that route if we desired, most probably a lot more too, together with aggregating other affiliates comments or pointing to their blogs with their interesting observations . Maybe we could publish the programs we think might have closed groups too after we have contacted the merchants directly, if we can find the time & anyhow they are already in the public domain if you do a bit of searching, so most probably that task will be delegated.
PS Now it’s not purely pertaining to this closed group thread on the forum, though questions can now possibly be asked, how dependent is their fragile business model on closed groups? Do they have anything to hide? Is their reluctance to disclose can in part be inferred that they actually don’t wish to be transparent and thus untrustworthy? It’s not exactly spyware, but I wonder how they would react to more serious or probing questions than something which can be gleaned from the public domain.
posted in Affiliate Marketing | Comments Off on A Sad Day in Affiliate Marketing
Program restrictions & additional t&c’s of various descriptions have perpetually been trying to decrease the borders of the operational envelope of what is considered reasonably acceptable to the point where so many are now unreasonably unacceptable, with the boundaries being continually breached by encroaching on the free enterprise & marketing skills of affiliates.
We are now entering an interesting period where the tolerance levels of affiliates is encroaching their limitations, where previously they had remained relatively passive, the worm may well soon turn so that they will be become considerably more assertive in re-addressing the balance.
Unfortunately, we are still discussing the same or similar issues to those we were back in 2000, whereby no matter what spin or false sincerities a network may remark, when it comes to the crunch between a major brand & an affiliate, the affiliate will always be considered the second class citizen.
Will this change? I doubt this very much, whilst there maybe a vociferous few within the community with a selfless rather than selfish approach, most affiliates … and I will get flamed for this … have a weak backbone who lily-liveredly accept being rode roughshod over, thus without a collective effort, circumstances will not change, except some of those with financial leverage gradually moving their business away from the networks whilst simultaneously pulling clients as part of the collateral damage. With networks generally beckoning to the whims of larger brands or their appointed agencies, it won’t be just those networks but the industry as a whole which will be deemed as weak by nature & never gain the respect of being strong business people with a fine blend of assertiveness, humility, good ethics, strict morals & professionalism.
The mindset of the average affiliate is so distinct from other business environments, it’s totally unique & a fine attribute that many just don’t comprehend.
As for an affiliate association, this is unlikely to materialise in the foreseeable future primarily due to time constraints of individual marketeers (what with time being an affiliates most precious commodity) and inertness of most people associated in affiliate marketing. Yes, regulation is required and it’s better that the industry becomes self regulated rather than being regulated by an outside body who is ignorant of affiliate marketing, unfortunately in the current climate, the latter may probably happen first, if at all. Perhaps there is an opportunity for one network to take the lead, by addressing the more critical aspects of affiliate concerns and adopting into new & existing contracts with merchants. Some merchants will oppose these & the network may lose some clients, but realistically are these merchants, no matter how big or small, the kind we really want onboard? The phrases “fair & best practice”, “transparency”, “trust”, “honesty” are being used to liberally without substance or conviction.
There is no disputing there are shady practices currently in effect & palms being crossed with silver, some call it nothing but conspiracy theories, but that is a firm opinion I am unwavering & resolute on, these folk have already & will continue to reap their fortunes, but if efforts are focused on going back to the roots of what affiliate marketing used to be, the better the future standing of the industry will be, before we lose site of what the true meaning of the term “affiliate” is .. and thus totally lost.
You only have to peruse through the history of the affiliate forum to know what is required.
Here are a couple of personal blog entries, the grammar is probably quite poor, but you should be able to interpret the underlying message.
In affiliate marketing you either “get it” or you don’t, some proclaim the former but really don’t, and it really is a question of time before affiliates turn around and say “no more!”
Will we be having this same conversation this time next year? .. probably yes .. but I would like nothing better than to be proved wrong!
posted in Affiliate Marketing | Comments Off on Thinking Out Loud – Never A Good Thing
