Moose on the Loose

Microsoft have just unveiled some of their features for IE8, apart from introducing some VOIP compatibility enhancements together with a browser enhancement which applies a sense of context to content in order to make searching for related information faster and more accurate. IE8 will pull out the old seven shooters and block Google Adwords & Google Adsense Adverts by default, this will definitely ruffle the feathers of the G$oogle’s Ivory tower who will no doubt be squealing all the way to congress. This may not only just affect Google Shares, but may actually affect a number of publishers MFA (Made For Adsense / Arbitrage) websites and may now force these affiliates / publishers to look at more viable & flexible alternatives i.e. sites with decent content, now that the gravy train may have come to a grinding halt.

An update later today just after midday PST (Pacific Standard Time).

Updated 21:15pm GMT : Yep, fairly obvious, it was an April Fool, not a particularly good one, but one nonetheless. But you never know it maybe a possibility in the near future as a standard feature with IE or any of the internet security packages commonly used like Nortons, McAfee etc or other popular ad blockers. It doesn’t matter what scale Adsense is used by affiliates (whether we approve or disapprove of MFA’s) or Adwords used by advertisers, it’s always worthwhile having a contingency plan, if either suddenly falls down ovenight.

Basically, don’t allow yourself to be over reliant on either and actually start to think outside the box, by looking at alternative solutions as your own insurance policy. You’ve heard all the expressions before i.e. prevention is better than cure, don’t put all your eggs in one basket, cover your bases etc. However you maybe pleasantly surprised that some of the alternatives may actually prove just as profitable. I am not suggesting not to use adsense / adwords, but simply use other alternatives in conjunction with your current activities.

If I was asked whether I think it would be a good thing if it did happen, flippantly I would probably say yes. I primarly use Firefox as my prefered browser. I don’t use adsense, in my opinion it lacks flexibilty & I don’t like the master & servant attitude Google adopt. Especially when you hear stories of other publishers & even friends who get falsely accused of clicking on the ads on their sites & subsequently get kicked of the program. These sites belong to the publishers / affiliates & they should determine some of the rules. Google Adsense have been pestering / badgering (maybe too strong a word lets say “assertive in their pursuance”) us directly for sometime to incorporate on any of our websites, we are still reluctant to do so. Do we use Adwords, yes we spend a few million $/£ every year which is peanuts compared to a number of other affiliates. Do we only use Adwords? hell no! Do I like monopolies? nope I’d prefer to see a more level playing field in the search space.

I have just awoken to the world in my hotel room with a massive hangover with wine lips to match, bless my cotton socks, somehow I don’t think the hair of the dog will be a suitable remedy for me on this ocassion. It looks like this time I shall be the nominated driver going home.

Last night I both had a terrific evening an event called The Vaudeville Experience “Expect the Unexpected” at the Vinopolis in London UK, with approximately 200 to 250 guests in attendance. Organised & hosted by Affiliate Window and generously sponsored by themselves and e2save, DRL, Comet, Play.com, LowCostTravel Group, ELC, Next, CD Wow, Heals, B&Q, Woolworths, I Want One of Those, Party Gaming, Holiday Extras, The Body Shop, Provident Financial. All of whom also donated some excellent prizes in the raffle, in I won a prize too which was a £100 Gift Voucher for Next, which we will share between our children, plus about £55 in vouchers from Play.com which will go towards my daughters books who is studying English Literature at University.

This event certainly has raised the bar with regard to being an excellent soiree & a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

The title to this blog entry was prompted by a very apt comment provided by David Hall of Affiliate Window at the beginning of the evening.

Don’t Affiliates Scrub Up Nicely

If you are currently aware of the current “hot topic” considered in some areas of affiliate marketing, you’ll realise this was indeed an apt & amusing comment.

Last night was certainly a classy affair, where everybody seemed to made concerted effort, with practically all the men wearing tuxedos & bow ties, whilst the ladies looked extremely elegant in their ballgowns & cocktail dresses, such as a friend Jude who wore a dress for the first time since her graduation night and whoms husband Jason had never seen her in a dress before (not even on their wedding day at the Little White Chapel in Las Vegas.

Once again kindly thanks for the invitation to Affiliate Window and the sponsors.

I was having a butchers at the new keyword restrictions for Game.co.uk, on Tradedoubler. Well I recently received an email saying they had been updated, but knowing Tradedoubler & the merchant, I just had a feeling it would be something ludicrous in the sense that they would try to prevent affiliates on generic terms. My instinct yet again proved correct.

The following list of words must be added to the NEGATIVE LIST or Excluded Words of your Pay Per Click advertising campaigns. game, game.co.uk, game store, game stores, game.com, game online, game site, game website, game store, game stores, game shop, game shops, game online store, game group, game uk, game uk, game.net, gamestores.co.uk, gamestore.co.uk, gamestore, gamestores, game uk online store, game store online, game stores online, game the next level, game.uk.com, game store uk, game stores uk, game shop uk, game shops uk, game first place for games, first place for games

The obvious brand names you can visibly like see domain names or tag lines. However, since when do they have the monopoly to the generic word “game”. I wonder if they have managed to sneak a trademark restriction onto Google Adwords as there doesn t seem to be any other ads, nor many on the other pay per click search engines. Though I appreciate it’s indeed avery generic term to convert with a decent ROI. However, not that I am going to consider promoting this merchant on these generic terms, I will use what I consider generic terms to promote whatever I like. As far as I am concerned the generic word “game” is fair game.

Subservient Affiliates to Rebel Against Self Proclaimed Masters

Before you read this blog entry, I am actually in a good mood today. Lump-Lard is not playing for England tonight, one of my favourite players Aaron Lennon is playing on the right wing. Hopefully we will now have more balance in the team. And my kids received the photos & dvd of when they were mascots at a reent match.

Anyhow lets continue …

Is it my imagination or is the industry slowly becoming worse, well the signs have been there for a while, most networks are lagging behind with their innovation & are currently stuck in the dark ages, leaving the entrepreneurism & cutting edge ideas to the performance marketeers of the industry who are the affiliates.

The rules and regulations imposed on affiliates by some merchants & permitted by some of the yellow bellied nodding dog networks is progressively getting worse. This could be anything from:

• Programs closing at a moments notice, thus cookie periods are being not being honoured or worse still merchants leaving without paying invoices.
• The lack of protection for affiliates when a merchant goes out of business. Legally is the network liable for outstanding payments.
• Prepayment by merchants should be prerequisite if they are serious enough about this industry.
• Some of the merchants terms & conditions would require a skilled solicitor to interpret them. There shouldn’t be any additional legal jargon outside the scope that which is acceptable & generally laid down by the network & the affiliate.
• Affiliates should be allowed to enforce their own T&C’s.
• When a merchant updates their site, often the first thing to come out is the tracking and “if” remembered is the last thing to be placed back in.
• There should be a compulsory remuneration deal written into any merchants contract with the network when tracking goes amiss or when the program closes suddenly.
• Any reduction in commissions, cookie periods, changes in keyword restrictions for pay per click for example should be given with adequate notice of 30 days. None of this immediate notice rubbish. Since they are actually changing the terms of a contract.
• Most networks are still stuck in the dark ages of banner creatives, where are the streaming media tv style ads with the tracking embedded or white label product search sites?
• Some networks still cannot handle product feeds correctly.
• How difficult is it to get a simple logo of the size you want?
• As for merchant reviews, we don’t want to read reviews on the network interface on how the merchant think they are the best thing since sliced bread and that we shall all make mega £££’s or $$$’s. How about creating reviews of various lengths written in the third person which project the merchant in a favourable hue without over pitching.
• If a merchant is late paying an invoice, then the network should pay an interest surcharge whether a fixed fee or form of % interest to the affiliate and to be predetermined by an individual affiliate. If the merchant doesn’t like it then they don’t have to have us as an affiliate. However, if they had every intention of paying affiliates up to date, then this wouldn’t be an issue in the first place. The network can always claim this back from the merchant, or do some already, but don’t pass this on to the affiliate? I do suspect that most networks pay themselves first prior to paying the affiliate.
• Have you noticed that if there is ever a merchant affiliate dispute, 9 times out of 10, the only compromises are those that have to be made by the affiliate.
• Why is it that affiliates who tends to notice non tracking first?
• Lack of response to emails, especially if something is wrong.
• Lack of communication when they know something is wrong i.e. just hoping they can fix it before anyone notices.
• Lack of resolution to problems. Some networks play the waiting game, especially Tradedoubler, doing an ostrich impersonation, by burying their head in the sand. Can you hear the sound of tumbleweed? Then over a period of time more often than not the affiliate loses resolve and the problem disappears unresolved.
• All networks should utilise ticket based system or something similar so that any affiliate communication can be tracked and accountable. This can be extended still further whereby any communications of a priority nature like changes in any terms or conditions are copied on an internal mail system & not just sent out by normal email.
• I dislike no reply email address, these are filtered by us to go straight in the bin & deleted. It’s impersonal & arrogant.
• Affiliates should have the option to receive emails from whichever merchants or networks they desire /pertaining to specific programs, not be unduly bombarded.
• Some networks still refuse to publish merchant / agency contact details. How’s that for paranoia? How can a synergy develop with this obstacle?

As a result we have moved most of our business away from some of the networks & focusing on other forms of monetisation. Affiliates are generally not standing up for themselves apart from the occasional blasts of hot air. If some merchants & networks are not careful the tolerance levels of affiliates will be breached … and .. THE WORM WILL TURN.

It’s seems symptomatic within the industry at the moment, that affiliates are being shafted at every opportunity. Where it is deemed by most networks & merchants, that they are always right … the Lord & Master … & affiliates must subserviently obey. Unfortunately, you do get a minute few are quite content with being the subservient scyophant, without naming names its fairly obvious who the networks & affiliates are within this particular inner sanctum.

Surely much of the above contravenes contract law for small businesses, and until an affiliate picks up the gauntlet & pursues this in court, the situation will unfortunately get progressively worse. What is disappointing is that many of the aforementioned grievances have been discussed for several years, it seems.

I would appreciate any input from affiliates what their top gripes are within the industry at the moment, that could signal for THE WORM TO TURN. However its likely most will simply accept it & that is where Humpty Dumpty falls off of the wall, except this time there will be nobody to put him back togther again.

Just got accused by Tradedoubler for brand bidding on PC World, the term in Google they highlighted was “pc world business gfskjhf” when infact we were only bidding on the term “pc” on a broadmatch. True to form the unlikeable network Tradedoubler and PC World are, all they do is sanctimoniously accuse without establishing facts with their self righteous attitude. Have you noticed how complex the phrase “pc world business gfskjhf”? Google doesn’t even show any natural results for that. It illustrates what lengths Tradedoubler have to to come up with that term just to cause aggrovation.

You may want to read this thread on the A4UForum how bad their program really is.

Click Here for the Forum Thread

I think this really summarises how bad the merchant & network is & part of what is wrong within the industry. Whilst on the forum, you may as well peruse the threads pertaining to their customer service.

For the record we had these negative terms were our account -[pc world], -[pcworld], -[p c world], -[p cworld], -[p.c world], -[p.c. world], -[p.c.world]

btw Tradedoubler habitually change keyword restriction rules without proper notification to affiliates.

If you view the network league table in the left hand column, Tradedoubler have been demoted from 2nd last to officially last place.

Why don’t they just cruel back under the stone from where they came from?

The IAB Affiliate Network Council (ANC) will draw up an affiliate code of conduct before the summer. The announcement follows this week’s appointment of David Hall, Affiliate Window head of communications, as its chairman. The ANC was set up in March last year to represent the interests of IAB members in affiliate marketing, offering advice and information. But a year on it hasn’t set up any industry best-practice guidelines. The issue of affiliate standards has been making headlines…

Read Here for NMA Article

Do I find this bit worrying? The ANC was set up in March last year to represent the interests of IAB members in affiliate marketing

Firstly, has the ANC actually made any formal approach to affiliate community as a whole to discuss this in any detail? Well, not to my knowledge or anybody I have asked. I just find it quite bizarre that there has been no consultation with any affiliate that I know of, and/or who’s opinion I respect. Without any direct input from affiliates themselves, I don’t think whatever they decide to implement will be a viable solution. They would have to careful that they don’t the affiliate community if it progresses further.

The IAB ANC are not on the front line of affiliate marketing, whilst examining their own members list, a number of their own members could possibly be brought into question, if anyone was pedantic enough to clutch at straws or pick holes.

However, there is no point in affiliates lashing out yet, until we are fully aware of the substance of their proposals and to what their actual agenda is. Whether it be for themselves or their members to try & dictate to affiliates or on a more postive note promote the affiliate marketing industry as a real solution to be part of their members marketing mix.

Is the IAB being exploited for somebdy elses agenda? Should affiliate marketing be within the remit of the IAB.

It reminds me of the following : I clearly recall attending a meeting on Anti-Spyware measures at the IMRG a couple of years ago. Tradedoubler at the time were very defensive in favour or Adware & Spyware. The IMRG had avenues into television, and an opportunity was lost to really let the consumer know the threats that pertain to them & protecting them online. Yet, all they achieved in two years was a definition of what spyware was (a short sentence), even that wasn’t very accurate. I guess they felt that bringing the topic of spyware into the public domain would simply affect the revenue of their members, when several of their members were considered partied to spyware at the time.

On the whole, I think it illustrates that affiliates have been maybe a little slow of the mark in establishing their own Affiliate Association for a code of fair & best practice, which has lost practically all of it’s momentum from last years preliminary meeting when a statement was issued. It has been foreseeable by the affiliate community for some time that the affiliate industry maybe regulated from an outside body rather than regulating ourselves.

If all this is a genuine attempt to bring all parties closer together, then it will probably be warmly welcomed, however not without full & proper consultation with the affiliate community. I hope it doesn’t resort to being deemed as a clueless bully yielding a big stick, especially if some may feel intimidated that rules are being imposed on affiliates from less knowledgeable outsiders.

Do affiliates only have themselves to blame? Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later, since generally there is a real lack of selfless attitude out there apart from the same vociferous few. People seem to get more embroiled in a silly quip remark from an irrelevant person, like those from ASOS, than the core fundamentals of affiliate marketing.

If the IAB ANC does not include the affiliate communities input, then any proposed Affiliate Association, who would have to exclude those same members by reciprocation, which in turn would further fragment the industry. A possible solution would be as single Affiliate Association, brought under the umbrella of the IAB or IMRG, embracing all parties & the likes of e-consultancy on a unified front. This would demonstrate a greater unification within the industry as long as selected affiliates were themselves were at the forefront.

A note for the ANC / IAB: An affiliates door is generally always open, but you must be prepared to actually listen & implement. Affiliates move, adjust & evolve rapidly according to the environment & cannot be caught up in any bureaucratic red tape.

Just look at how some networks are still languishing in the dark ages with their lack of innovation & protection of affiliates from corporate bullies or unfair practices. It’s the affiliates with drive & self motivation who are pioneering the creative edge, it’s affiliates who are the true Performance Marketeers in the industry.

I have held back from posting on forums for a while now, as you can lead a horse to the water, but you cannot make them drink it. What we are seeing is possibly just a precursor to an inevitable cycle of events through ignorance and not engaging in debate or acting upon it, by being quite placid in accepting what unfair rules & regulations are reluctantly thrown upon us.

The ANC IAB cannot claim to be the voice of the affiliate community & should’t proceed as so, if indeed that is their intention, but they cannot claim to represent us in any shape or form, nor infact represent the affiliate marketing industry. Please note the word “affiliate” in “affiliate marketing”. How many networks have actually signed up with this? … and is part of the agenda simply to win favour with members within the IAB or is it to truly to educate them?

But couldn’t they impose it on us as the IAB and their members are more powerful than individual affiliates?

Affiliates have more resolve in communicating their messages & opinions online to a wide & varied audience, it would be foolhardy to assume otherwise.

If anything there needs to be a merchant code of conduct, we don’t want anything lop sided as is the current situation within the indutsry. At the end of the day we can only sit back and see what they “advise” or “propose” before making any final or adverse judgement.

In my opinion NMA is not a publication that has yet grasped an accurate perception of affiliate marketing and don’t actually “Get It”. Has the IAB or NMA actually attended any affiliate G2G’s (Get Togethers) on a regular basis? Probably not, therefore reporting, opinions & rules can only be derived from a perspective of ignorance. It’s about time they came along to mix & mingle with us “grubby” affiliates on a regular basis if they are to be taken seriously. We can only sit back, await and observe what definitive impact this will have, if any.

But before any index finger is pointed at the affiliate community, remember when you point with a finger, there are always three pointing straight back at you!

Affiliate Marketing isn’t exactly rocket science, it’s about having a certain individual mindset peculiar to oneself & a matter of application.

For more comments read my Karaoke Partners Blog One Little Duck

What exactly is the deal we affiliates reiceive on commission and are you entirely sure? This was discussed in general conversation many moons ago and unfortunately there is still lack of clarification generaly in the marketplace.

Scenario: A customer makes a purchase and the affiliate is duly rewarded a % percentage commission, but a % of what?

Is it the total gross value (including vat) of the item(s) or the net value (without vat) of the items(s). Does the affiliate receive commission on the delivery / postage or gift wrapping charges if applicable which are subsequently added to the shopping cart / basket? It seems there is a possible number of permutations & combinations.

Is there a mis-sell, where the affiliate correctly or incorrectly presumed it was a % of the total value of the basket OR on the flip side are merchants double paying on vat or paying additional increments of commission they shouldn’t be.

I really do think that in this day and age it’s about time this is re-addressed and proper clarification if provided on the merchant information pages of all networks.

I will leave my buddy Clarke to give you more details on this confusion over on his blog

Clarke’s Affiliate Marketing Blog – Not All Commission is Equal

As you are no doubt aware, I am not a fan of Tradedoubler for a multitude of reasons. Affiliate Support being one of their flaws.

See Are Tradedoubler “The Borg” in Disguise?

Apart from ignoring emails they also ignore telephone calls, something we are all guilty off at sometime, but not constantly.

If you are finding your phone calls are being avoided too, try getting somebody else to call as themselves, then have the phone passed to you once they get through, it’s miraculous how somebody can suddenly be available.

Perhaps with the AOL deal “apparently” hitting a brick wall, some senior major shareholders are perhaps wallowing in their sorrows after their cash cow didn’t quite come home.

At the end of the day, there are plenty of good merchants & networks. If one merchant from a particular merchant is keen on dealing with you from a network you don’t receive adequate service or support from, simply express your thoughts, and hope that the merchant moves to a more amenable network.

There’s not a lot more you can really do apart from that, since so many of the familiar problems are still rooted, if things haven’t changed now after all these years it’s unlikely they ever will, you cannot change free will like a leopard cannot change it’s spots.

However Tradedoubler have just provided a link for their account manager contact details

Tradedoubler Contact Details

My only comment is that after all these years, its about time merchant contact details were made available too, however I guess they are too paranoid. For example only recently (and this has happened on a number of occasions) we received an email from Tradedoubler about promoting eBags, we requested to speak with the merchant directly as we felt we could do good business with them. After a phone call & two emails we are still being ignored. I wonder if the merchant knows this?

If this list goes a small way to assisting you with whatever problems you have, then you have faired better than me.

By the way, I post a similar comment on the A4UForum, yesterday. Guess what? Yep I had an email from Tradedoubler, not relating to eBags though. Just another hollow attempt by Tradedoubler to reconsile.

As you are well aware i think Google’s Quality Score is absolute Poppycock.

Have you ever tried bidding on your domain name & variations plus a few obvious keywords pertaining to the site & sending this traffic to your homepage.

If bidding on your own domain name & sending to that site, your minimum bid should be 1 pence / cents not 30 pence / cents.

We conducted a simple experiment for a site we own where we hold both the .co.uk & .com extensions. All traffic within this account for PPC currently forwards to the .com domain which has been obviously labelled & discriminantly flagged by Google as an affiliate site, in our opinion. The content & structure of both websites are identical by the way.

I will get around to publishing the table another time so you can make your own inferences, but here is the results summary which we observed.

To send traffic to the .com site (i.e. the one Google knows about) the average minimum ad cost is 253% more than sending to co.uk !

So within the same Google adwords account (note the same account, as this is something we shall come onto at a later stage), we sent the same brand keywords (including our url) to a totally irrelevant site. Now listen to this, to send to the .co.uk of our own brand costs 62% more & to send to .com costs 87% more i.e. It’s cheaper to send to another unrelated website. Figure that out for relevancy?

We have experimented with this on other generic terms & the figures became more extreme.

Our Conclusion: Google Quality Score simple flags particular domains so that they pay more, especially if you are an affiliate or don t have a shopping cart /basket on your site.

So next we created a new Google Adwords account & allowed the same ads & keywords to settle, to see whether Google not only penalises domains but also accounts. In each instant, within the new account a very significant saving could be made, unfortunately is was still cheaper to send our own brand terms to an irrelevant site, not only on our own brand but generic terms too.

Our Conclusion: Google Quality Score also flags particular accounts so that they pay more. More notably if you are recognised as an affiliate.

The next test we shall conduct will be using the same phrases & ads but with a shopping cart / basket within the site. Something to note is that even merchants with an off site shopping cart, Google assumes you are an affiliate when you could well be a merchant. How do I know because when questioning other direct to merchant campaigns we run which initially got disapproved, this is what Google Adwords reps informed us.

As a suggestion, in every Google Adwords adgroup & campaign you write that sends traffic directly to your site, simply insert your url (as a keyword phrase) & notice the differences in prices. If you are lucky enough to have the ad active at the minimum bid, remain silent, keep your head down & don’t let Google suspect.

Next time we shall be looking at & revealing the solutions on how we actually cracked this from theorised solutions and remedied the problem, thus significantly reducing our adwords advertising spend.

Summary: All the above simply confirmed our suspicions & reaffirmed comments we had already made on the A4UForum, in that the Google Quality Score is Poppycock and is primarily nothing more than a hand edited tool to be increasingly more bias against affiliates. This is my opinion of free speech.

On a final note, part of this solution is some instances may mean, letting go of sites you may affectionately hold close to your heart, in this industry sometimes you may have to be ruthless which is unfortunate. Whenever publishing websites you sometimes have to consider them as disposable assets, even if you have sweated blood & tears over them.

Is content king, well YES for visitor retention, stickiness, visitor return rate & brand building. For Google Adwords NO.

Thus you may have to be prepared to continually close first, then create a new account & copying the content from one domain to another sacrificing the former one with regard to generating traffic from Google Adwords. Automating the process to a certain degree will assist.

Google Adwords still haven’t had the common courtesy to come back with suitable answers about from the same old chesnut excuses from their book entitled “Googles Book of Chesnut Excuses”, because they know they are in the wrong. If they won’t play fair, then why should anyone fight fair.

Arose to the world today to be a little bemused by the latest blog read on Clarke’s personal blog about ASOS calling affiliates Grubby. Go over there & have a read at Clarke’s Affiliate Marketing Blog . Real handbags at dawn stuff & relatively unsurprising that ASOS should refer to affiliates as unfastidious or unkempt though perhaps if anyone saw what attire I sat around all day in, it would be enough to give anyone a traumatic nightmare, the wally might actually have a point.

Cantbarsed (who was their affiliate of the year), sums it up nicely about ASOS taking their ball home & quote : “ASOS turned their affiliate program into a virtual torture chamber and by no co-incidence shortly after affiliate marketing superhero Jess Luthi escaped her corporate shackles and took the ASOS brain cell with her.”

However, is this the perception that a small handful of networks & some merchants actually perceive affiliates, but Nick Robertson at ASOS (A Silly Old Sausauge) is the only one to publically have the gull to come out and say by denouncing affiliates. Perhaps this little insight may bring out more uncouth Ratner style comments by jumping on the bandwagon.

It will be curious to see which network, who will discredit themselves in the process, takes them onboard in the future, claiming they will be able to sort it out with affiliates, so much so it might be worth running a book on it. Who’s my money on, hmm well, here’s a clue “way hey man, we have them sorted”

Does this lay down the gauntlet to challenge affiliates to readdress the comment, well no not at all, sticks & stones & all that stuff. Treat them like amoeba brained pond spawn, if they come knocking at your door. Let the fool wallow in his zest pool of self-righteousness … Forget them & move on.
However I do wonder how a more volatile forum in the USA like ABestWeb may react.