Moose on the Loose

One of the ways to really improve your ROI in affiliate marketing is knowing the answer to this simple question:

Question: How long is a piece of string?

Answer: The answer can be found by searching in the original question. Think about it.

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 Kangeroo Court. They epitimize 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 disatisfied 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 hestitation. 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 kpaid 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!

Unfortuately in my opinion CJ Network Quality will always be a Kangeroo 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 neccesitate 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 irrate. Now granted errors can happen both sides & affiliates will inadvertantly 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.

Which nicely points to these blogs.

Blog 1

Blog 2

Adware Class Action Lawsuit – Could You Make A Claim?

One problem is innocent merchants get caught in the crossfire with some affiliates reluctance to promote via CJ, perhaps this lends itself to the arguement to why merchant programs should be on at least two networks, so that affiliates can promote them via network they can trust.

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 togther 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 intefere 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 disposible 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.

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 assertivness, 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 contraints 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 unwaivering & 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 grammer is probably quite poor, but you should be able to interpret the underlying message.

The Worm Has Turned

PPC Brand Name Bidding – The Need For Proper Guidelines

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!

As you are aware I firmly believe Ebay UK and/or their associates are in collaboration to bid on a vast number of urls of major retailers & organisations, basically infringing on their trademarks or intellectual property rights. And quite possibly using the reporting on CJ for their own campaigns.

So here is an example of one of literally hundreds: On Google UK, Ebay UK are bidding on the url “www.rspca.org.uk” which is an animal charity site known as the RSPCA which stands for the The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

Click Here : Note Geo-targetting may effect what you see so we shall put the screen grabs up soon.

Now you may have read my previous posts & comments about Ebay UK

Click Here for The Ebay Challenge

Beforehand they were using CJ (Commission Junction) links, now are they are doing it themselves with Ebays own rover technology (i realise this is also available to their affiliates as well & is currently compatible with the CJ system). When you view the link properties it reads as follows:

By the way, will the real PID=2021892 please stand up

www.rspca.org.uk

SID=r_uk156_39883 suggesting someone is tracking a lot of keywords

Ascertained from:

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=L&ai=…zQmLpZuPAvv4hp
QF0IYDEAUYBSC2VCgFMAE4AFCz-bJgYLsGmAGHiAGYAcyeBqoBGm9yZy5tb3ppbGx
hOmVuLUdCOm9mZmljaWFsyAEB2QNQpQUqIqSdl-ADCA&num=5&q=
http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/710-5232-2978-1/1%3F
SID%3Dr_uk156_39883%26AID%3D9479574%26
PID%3D202189 2%26loc%3D
http%253A//search.ebay.co.uk/search/rspca.org.uk*_W0QQfclZ4Q
QfnuZ1QQflocZ1QQsaslcZ3&usg=AFrqEzcJtdJdwnCBAg7cgkyJtILSp-9KPg

However, analysis of other links might suggest it’s Ebay own paid search activity, once the full database is compiled is presentable enough, we should be forthcoming with it.

eBay Announces their own affiliate infrastructure

I do wonder if CJ are still reluctant to pursue any further because of Ebay being one of their main clients.

Anyhow, back on track .. this is the landing page

Click Here for Landing Page

As you see there is no relevancy, which illustrates another of non-existant Google’s Quality Score Algos. Plus Google have declared in communication by email & telephone that in their opinion there is nothing wrong with Ebay bidding on other organisation url’s and don’t see anything wrong with page relevancy, when all its displaying is yet another bunch of Google Adense. Hence, an MFA.

We have come across not only numerous url’s but many other obscure terms, some so strange maybe only one or two people bid on (where did they acquire this data from?) Whereby all of these simply point to Google Adsense Ads.

Now I have no objection to MFA sites and as for ourselves we don’t use Google Adsense. They have contacted me intermittently to try and persuade us to adopt it on our sites which we have always declined .. in the current climate there is no chance when there are better & more flexible options available … however examing the vast number of keywords we are aware off … Ebay seems to be a Glorified MFA Site!

The brand intrusion is my biggest gripe when “some” networks and merchants are too yellow to take on or question Ebay, yet they will happily yield a big stick & ride roughshod over affiliates, whilst Google simply permits the big boys to do as they please whether ppc or seo.

Here is a related thread from KirstyM, which may eleviate part of the problem.

No More Blue Bums & Fanny Magnets For E-bay Affiliates

Microsoft Affiliate Network BETA, seems to have slipped in under the radar. An interesting development but probably nothing to get too excited about yet, it’ maybe simply a question of how long before Google launches theirs? I might aim at finding out more about it & try & post here accordingly in due course.

Is Microsoft Affiliate Network BETA an affiliate network in the sense of how we traditionally understand it or something slightly different.

Further news today suggested that Microsoft is paying $6bn (£3bn) to buy digital marketing firm Aquantive in its biggest ever acquisition. BBC News

Possibly like any other affiliate, our inbox is continually bombarded with emails from merchants on various topics.

However as an affiliate & within affiliate marketing my time is my most precious commodity, a majority of the information sent through is superfluous to my requirements.

I appreciate that merchants or networks obo of merchants sending out promotional emails is proactive, but when you are signed up to a couple of thousand programs, an affiliates inbox can become overwhelming & time consuming to plough through. Maybe a couple of years ago, we might have been saying that we were not receiving enough, but the pendulum has swung to the other extreme.

Therefore as an affiliate I don’t wish to be automatically opted in to receive emails I am not interested in order to have to opt out, if that is at all possible.

Mandatory emails which should go out are PPC or keyword policy changes, programs opening & closing. Cookie period changes, commission changes or promotional emails should be optional. Thus networks should maybe start categorising emails more i.e. don’t blend a keyword policy change within some promotional email.

However, all in all it’s probably got to a stage where we should now opt into emails & specfically what type of emails these pertain too. Obviously direct communication emails still apply.

I think over the next week or so, we will approach each network with our instructions to ascertain who is accommodating or not & report back, quite possibly some may not even have that facility.

As a side note, internal mail systems should maybe run simultaneously with emails sent out, as proof of delivery is not proof of receipt.

Anyhow, back to my inbox now it’s about 3:41am and I only have another 607 emails to go … now where is that mass delete button, there’s a good film on the box.

Clarke wrote his first article on the new Affiliates4u forum today, called How to instantly kill your Affiliate Program (PPC side)! by Supercod

Which I thought was another angle to look at affiliates using paid search to promote merchants.

“I was told by our PPC Agency that Affiliates are bad and that I should not allow them to use our sites URL in any direct to site PPC activity. After I done this our Affiliates deserted us in droves including the guys I thought only done SEO. Our sales took a nose dive and I was fired as you don’t need an Affiliate Manager if you have no active Affiliates. I am still looking for a job, but no one will hire me after they heard what I done :-(”

Click Here for Rest of Article

My Comment: The introduction of brand name bidding restrictions, on what is a low hanging fruit, I have no problems with, except for the cartels, lack of notice in changes etc.

However, as for display url restrictions, well that is simply castrating the program, along with what Kieron mentions in his blog

But going back to Clarkes article, what is the “longtail” of it all? Quite simple really, the income derived from the override networks receive will diminish. There are possibly a couple of networks who’s survival is probably dependent upon this (apart from the revenue generation from good quality cashback sites). Why do you think that the odd one has their own little cartel op in progress? Unless networks innovate of course.

Therefore with a few networks, if you take away brand bidding closed groups, they possibly don’t actually have a sustainable business model.

The heartbeat of the UK affiliate marketing industry has always been the community around the A4UForum.

Today, it has taken that next revolutionary & evolutionary step by relaunching as Affiliates4U

I am still finding my way around and have been impressed with the extra features that are now available from covering everything from creating your own Communities on any topic you desire (or join others, if nobody joins yours, you could always create one called “Billy No Mates”), News & Articles, Blogs (where feeds are pulled from registered users & aggregated), The Traditional Forum Structure, Events (related to the industry) & Providers.

It certainly feels like there will be more social networking between members not just on affiliate related topics but anything & everything where the common denominator between us all will still be our enjoyment of affiliate marketing.

Matt & his team must be applauded for this … Bravo old bean!

But for the time being, take a look for yourself and join in the exciting development at Affiliates4U.

Just thinking out loudly … Which is never a wise thing … I am not 100% convinced the whole presell philosophy always works or is always necessary, especially conversion wise.

Unless after the presell on you website or within a pay per click advert, following the affiliate link actually inserts the product in the shopping basket by prefilling the basket or taking the user directly to the checkout.

I have yet to come across enough programs which prefill the basket after we have presold them on our sites or ppc activity.

Surely this would increase conversion rates as they (meaning the customer) are taken further down the corridor of the sales process … otherwise in effect the customer has to be presold twice?! Once on your site & once again on the merchant site. Where is the logic in that?

I suppose what I am rambling on about is that affiliate links should have the ability to take customers to the checkout and/or shopping basket … for improved CR … they may even soar!

Correct me if i am wrong, but who says you cannot presell a product in 3 lines of ad copy on a ppc search engine and do ppc > merchant?

What’s the better user experience in terms of time & bandwidth for a customer and conversion rates for the affiliate?

a.) ppc > publisher site > merchant … noting no basket prefill thus a product is effectively presold three times

b.) ppc > merchant ….noting again no basket prefill but a product is only presold twice.

That’s why in a.) ie those merchants who allow use of their display url will always have priority over those who don’t permit it. Less leakage & higher % transition of traffic … unless the landing page has an option of several products and ALL take the customer directly to the checkout on the merchants site.

We have the ability to deep link as as we know these generally convert better most of the time, so why don’t networks and merchants take that next step.

btw this is something I brought up on a forum back on January 2nd, 2005. Maybe it illustrates that the industry still hasn’t evolved enough to at least give us the option and try on a larger scale.