A huge amount of negative publicity and indignation was generated throughout the affiliate community when Nick Robertson of ASOS referred to his programmes former affiliates as “grubby little people” and inferred that many affiliates really did not add value to his business, ostensibly because they were engaged in dubious practises. A comment Mr Robertson remains unabashed about.
From the general furore about this in the Blogosphere at the time, one would assume that his was an outdated opinion of the affiliate sphere. But is it?
Over the last couple of weeks, I seem to have read the same story over and over in blogs detailing situations where affiliate networks or merchants assume guilt first and ask questions later. There is also a lack of protection of affiliates by networks in scenarios where merchants move the goalposts on programme terms with no notice period and summarily remove affiliate commissions as a result.
My gut instinct on the reasons behind this continuing issue of affiliates being unequal partners in the business arrangement is what I’d like to name “Grubby Affiliate Syndrome”. We are still viewed as non professionals who are not valued as the professionals we are by a staggering number of merchants.
A small selection I’ve found….
Chris Frost falls foul of Broadmatch issues twice and discovers complete lack of knowledge eminating from the affiliate network: –
Affilinet Accuses Again
Breaking Merchants PPC Rules
Paul Wheatley falls foul of CJ’s network quality department, where it appears they have solved their staffing problems and the overcrowding in the baboon house at the local zoo in one fell swoop: –
Network Quality At Commission Junction Needs Taking Down A Peg Or Two
A thread over at Abestweb highlights the issues involved in networks not protecting the interests of affiliates against merchant reversals where they change T’s and C’s without warning and retrospectively remove commissions
http://forum.abestweb.com/showthread.php?t=90874
Jessica Luthi has some very interesting thoughts on this issue over at her blog also.
http://www.affiliateprogramadvice.com/blog/
From the Affiliate Stuff crime files: –
Primary Insurance change the brand name bidding goalposts and get my account payments stopped.
Primary Insurance – Clueless and Uncommunicative
And finally my ode to CJ bemoaning my $4300 clawback. This isn’t entirely relevant to this post as it did involve bankruptcy, but I’m pretty damned upset about it and CJ’s handling of the matter was, well… “Pish” as we say in Scotland!
Ode To CJ
So what’s all this about? There is a nasty smell in the air IMHO. It is not the grubby odour of grubby little affiliates, but the smell of affiliates being poked with the poopy end of the stick. We definitely have a problem with the way we are perceived as marketing professionals, which I must confess is no doubt partially engendered by frustration at the undesirable presence of a small minority of affiliates who still insist on habitually breaking programme rules or engaging in outright fraud.
However I do feel I have to stand up here and now on behalf of all honest affiliates and point out that there are a great deal of highly skilled pros amongst our number. It’s painfully obvious we often have much more knowledge and experience than the merchants themselves. Why are we not treated as the professionals we are? I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been forced to educate a programme manager (or even members of network staff) who are managing affiliates based on flawed principles.
The most memorable of these was when I was working as an affiliate manager. I informed a well known UK network of fraudulent affiliate activity and described exactly how it was being perpetrated. The fraud involved affiliates registering multiple accounts under false names with sites the did not own listed. The sites in question were big name sites such as Telewest or Virgin Mobile. They would then put through large value cheque orders for which no payment would arrive. The hope was that merchants would not validate their orders and that erroneous commissions would be paid out on.
I discovered a huge number of these accounts, and passed them on to the network. The response I got was staggering. “This is not affiliate fraud”, was the smug and condescending reply. “These are ‘PPC’ affiliates who drive traffic from search engines. There is nothing untoward going on here, don’t worry about it.”
I will not record the words I said out loud when I read this response from an allegedly well-trained member of network staff. What if I hadn’t had the knowledge to contact his superior and politely suggest some retraining? I should have won a medal for self-restriant that day!
On another occasion I had £400 of valid sales removed from an affiliate account because the merchant had gone “overbudget” on their campaign. The network did nothing, presumably in the hope the merchant would allocate more budget in the future.
Yet another time I was removed from a programme for which I generated £14,000 sales a month for with no notice. The reason given by the manager who had started just that week? “Affiliates are affecting our in-house PPC”. When I pointed out 30 days notice was standard practise I was told that the e-mail I’d just been sent was all the notice I’d be getting. I then pointed out he could not possibly have analysed the effect of affiliates on in-house PPC. No reply. 6 weeks later the network quietly announced that affiliates were once more allowed to participate in PPC activity.
What I’m trying to point out in recounting these sorry tales, is that within networks and programmes there is still a woeful misunderstanding (dare I say mistreatment?) of affiliate marketing and the people who make their living from it.
Now, I would like to point out there are a huge number of programmes and network employees who are absolutely exemplary and hugely knowledgable. This post is not designed to mindlessly slag off these guys en-masse or suggest that they are uniformly running roughshod over affiliates. I am merely trying to point out that as things stand, the playing field is not even.
However, affiliates are too often considered the enemy, and I do not know of any other industry where a business partner is so often treated as a second-class individual or where contractual obligations only protect one half of the business partnership.
As things stand, affiliates often suffer from removal of earnings without notice, and the networks who are so happy to collect a third of their earnings do not stand up and protect their contractual rights (I’m all too aware we just don’t have any). As the industry has matured, affiliates have been required to jump through increasingly complex hoops to be allowed to promote merchants and to deal with ever-more exacting requirements from search engines such as Google. In essence, we have lifted our game considerably.
On the other side of the fence, merchants can still reverse commissions for any reason. Merchants can still change terms of promotion with no notice and remove earnings RETROSPECTIVELY. Merchants can do all of this FOR ANY REASON. In what other area of marketing can you treat suppliers like this? I’d love to see what happened if you tried that with the Times advertising department. “Sorry, despite the fact that the ad you ran for us on Sunday generated 3,000 orders we can’t pay you for the advert. Our budget’s run out. You’ll just have to lump it guys”. Yeah right.
So, here’s a challenge to the networks. Who’s going to be the first to stand up and protect your affiliate workforce?
I wait with baited breath.
