Moose on the Loose

IBG owns both Affiliate Future and IBG Media, which claims to run as a distinct division, have paid £120k, agreed in late January 2007, for NetFreeStuff (Owned by the John Lamerton).

They claim there really isn’t an attempt by Affiliate Future to compete with its affiliates, I haven’t really looked into it, except that maybe other freebie sites are the ones that maybe affected, and that in this industry can you really cannot distinguish the two?

Anyhow, many congratulations to John (who came out of retirement recently), I hope it was the right deal for him. Well done and good luck with your future projects & endeavours.

John has given an exclusive interview with Kieron over at his blog on www.here.org.uk

With some of it being well documented & other parts not so much. As a follow up to the NMA article about “super affiliates” (I dislike that expression) becoming small networks themselves, is it really surprising from the way some are treated.

More importantly the potential compromise of an individual affiliates data & worse still imagione that aggregated from the mass, whereby individuals from & even the network as a whole are affiliates of other rival networks. I don’t feel comfortable this private data that we are not privvy to can be freely accessed, yet they can manipulate as they desire to compete against affiliates.

I think it’s going to get messy.

With the exception of maybe half a dozen good networks, it really is about time there was an affiliate network owned & ran by affiliates, or do affiliates have more sense that to become entangled & embroiled in that area, since networks are often in an unenviable predicament and maybe taking on more than they can chew, but overall there has been a real lack of innovation.

Here is a simple way to ascertain whether Ebay UK is encroaching on your company trademark or url (website address) or other well known ones that you are aware off.

It’s Quite simple really:

• Step 1: Within Google UK, type in the URL’s of 10 well known charities & then search i.e. www.barnardos.org.uk, there are dozens of them.

• Step 2: Into Google UK, type in the URL’s of 10 well known retail or finance or holiday companies i.e. www.butlinsonline.co.uk, again there are hundreds of them.

• Step 3: Into Google UK, type in the URL’s of any sites you have which are popular or other affiliates you are aware of. i.e. one good affiliate site is www.reviewcentre.com

Remember to try the above without the prefix “www.” as well

Please note the results maybe geo-targeted and may not show for your specific location.

Objectives : Observe the number of sponsored ads featuring “Ebay” & even “Ask” encroaching on the owners of those trademarks or intellectual property.Where is the ethics on taking money away from charities?

Spread the word to any companies you work closely with. Because this has been directly addressed with Ebay, as well as Google who in my opinion have the same hypocritical mindset & was also addressed with the affiliate network Commission Junction (as it’s CJ links which are being used at the time of this post).

Yet still none of them have had the decency to address this effectively.

If it’s your company being affected are you too yellow (chicken) to take on Ebay & ask / insist they stop this practice, whether it be them or close associates?

Report Ebay UK to the following:

Advertising Standards Authority, Office of Fair Trading, Trading Standards or the DTI,

or Alternatively send an email to any Newspapers or industry trade magazines like NMA or Revolution then perhaps this may then cease.

They are potentially taking away business & customers away from you !!!

I am currently looking into obtaining a premium rate telephone number as our main business number. Over the years we have gradually discouraged irrelevant & time wasting calls by being NAV … Not AVailable.

One of the reasons was that over the years, we felt we could have earned a nice little packet. I have lost count over the number of occasions we have given free advice, basically consultancy to networks, about them or merchants they represent, only for them either not to implement them or worse still farm it out to their clients as their own innovative idea (combined & harnessed with other affiliates suggestions) & then charge a king’s ransom to their clients veiled in the form of a consultancy fee, making them look good.

I am totally confident that I am not the only affiliate who feels / knows they have wasted countless hours on the telephone & attended meetings at some networks offices to no avail.
Generally, there is a lack of loyalty out there as when push comes to shove, concessions normally always have to be made by the affiliate. Only recently a network sent an email pertaining to a merchant, I replied that I would like to speak directly with the merchant. Ever since then all I have heard is tumbleweed. No prizes to guess who the network is.

I will come back with the maximum rates which can be charged and the options available.

This blog entry stems back to Christmas 2005, and is why we feel that Comet is synomonous with Poor Customer Service.

We are, soon to be “were”, affiliated with the program Comet, who today delivered what transscribes to an ultimatum to us. As a customer, we have had two instances of extremely poor customer service which have never been resolved, even when we asked the affiliate manager at Comet, there was no assistance.

A synopsis, an independent review, of the experience is on our website(s) is simply as follows:

“From purchases made Christmas 2005 we have been extremely disappointed with the service received from Comet. With unpackaged items & damaged boxes, despite assurances from customer services & item being resent on several occasions! with the same or similar problems, which ruined a surprise christmas present for someone special, 12 months later Comet still haven’t attended to our concerns.

In addition to this a tumble dryer purchased became faulty after only 13 months, we were expected to pay for the repairs. We are in the process of claiming a full refund on repairs through the Sale of Goods Act”.

Over the years we have delivered millions of £’s in sales to Comet though thick & thin, but are we bothered .. in a word, NO. Their commission & conversion rates are fairly bog standard and I can remember not too long ago there was a reduction in commission which they said they would raise again. Plus the de-duplicating fiasco which is well documented on the A4Uforum together with last referrer problems, where in my personal opinion affiliates got the raw end of the deal. We continued to promote them on a significant lower scale, but still generated sales. This is a  program which is now a long way short of the dizzy heights of when Sam Bain was the affiliate manager & the program was a roaring success. Since her departure, the program has gradually slid to oblivion for such a major brand. Which emphasises the importance of a good affiliate manager.

A lot of the traffic was via pay per click on product & generic terms, supplemented by being widely populated through our websites. Comet had an issue with this negative copy being incorporated on our website with a general review, which is now over a year old. Comet didn’t want this from any of their affiliates. Basically the crux of it was, remove it or no longer be part of the program.

The dialogue was via a representative of Affiliate Window, who I don’t apportion any blame to. He handled the dialogue between the two parties just fine, but maybe didn’t appreciate enough it’s our site & our business, though not sure if grasped the fact that if i removed the affiliate link (but not the content) from our site, then it was no longer a matter of concern for the network as the only traffic would have been via pay per click activity. It seemed that the only compromises had to be made by me the affiliate, not the merchant.

Comet only wanted to be profiled in a positive light, not accepting that the truth sometimes hurt, by pleading for pity that because they are a big brand people are more likely to make negative statements, which still doesn’t get past the fact the customer service was appalling, it’s still not been resolved & the affiliate team at Comet didn’t want to know. Wake up smell the coffee & get use to it.

Merchants shouldn’t deliver ultimatums, basically their bluff was called and we didn’t wish to work with them under a false arrangement, we prefer to stick by our principles of free speech, honest opinion & never falsely sugar-coat anything we don’t believe in. Being a syphocant is the last think I would ever want to be.

Anyhow we could quite comfortably earn more via sponsored or price comparison listings or equovalent amounts via other merchants. We have a database of most of the products Comet sell, so we can easily source alternative merchants & compete with them on the sponsored search front by promoting other merchants.

The email response from the network was:

“Further to our MSN conversation, please take this as formal notice of Comet’s request to cease their affiliate relationship with” (our website). “This covers the use of affiliate links to Comet on ” (our website) “and all PPC activity either direct or indirect. All existing cookies will still be honoured.

Comet are aware of the time involved in removing all PPC campaigns and indeed adjusting your site and as such offer you a period of 30 days in which to action this request.

The decision has been made reluctantly as a result of the presence of negative comments about Comet on” (our website). “Comet believe that working with an affiliate that profiles them in a negative light is counter productive.

Should you wish to discuss any aspect of this further, please don’t hesitate to contact me.”

As for the review, well this will remain, even more prominent than before as one of our “soon to come ” projects will be an electrical product website we have spend considerable investment in. We anticipate that maybe a million people will see this review over the coming year. I guess Comet may have miscalculated, the only way to save face was to follow through & dissolve the relationship. We pointed out a few high profile sites with predominantly negative reviews who I can assume has business relationships with Comet, yet nothing will done.

On the whole, no loss, we are now just another competitor with good traffic levels & Comet have shot themselves in the foot. With no fault attributed to the network.

Forget it & Move on.

Favourite Networks

• 1st Paidonresults : Rock solid at number 1 obviously.
• 2nd Affiliate Window : Moving Up … Exciting developments expected. The dark horse.
• 3rd Affiliate Future : Steady as they go. No fuss pleasant network to work with.
• 4th Affilnet : Moving Down … Good team in place, but still need more credible programs to fulfill potential.
• 5th Webgains : Moving Down … Need to be firmer with some merchants. But a nice network & good team
• 6th OMG : No Improvement … Need to become a Moneysupermarket and be more assertive to claim finance sector. Still yes men by pandering to merchants on ppc policies, but a really fantastic bunch of nice people working there.
• 7th Deal Group Media : Out of the bottom three & given a sporting chance. I don’t know if they will ever recover or whether old habits still remain & wonde still if the left hand knows what the right hand is doing knowing. But you don’t want to feel sorry for a network, time will only tell whether they have enough staff who really “get it” and grasp affiliate marketing from an affiliates perspective. Perhaps Adrian Moss back at the helm may assist.

Least Favoured Networks

• 8th Buy.at – Rooted into the bottom three. In my opinion they have become the network they vowed they would never stoop to be. I don’t dislike them, I just have no time for them. Their lack of disclosure & upright refusal of closed programs within their network which we shall blog another time plus other aspects has for sometime lost our trust & faith in them.
• 9th Tradedoubler – Moving down … Just getting worse in my opinion. It just seems everybody else is beneath them, with a similar mindset to Ebay and Google. Perhaps that is the point & the secret to success.
  
• Last Commission Junction – Still last but the UK office have made an effort recebtly, as long as the US office stays out of the equation. Might not be long before they overhaul Tradedoubler & Buy.at. Don’t confuse CJ with Search 123. S123 are a terrific bunch.

At last I have got around to commenting on the Affiliate Census Report. Anybody will have their own inference of the data, but what new does it suggest and / or does it reinforce what affiliates have been saying all along? … rest to follow

Just a bugbear that quite a few affiliates involved within ppc advertising experience is the zero notification or lack of notification in changes to pay per click advertising policies. .. rest to follow

Following the recent article in NMA with reference to Super Affiliates .. rest to follow