A Tale Of Two Merchants – Or Why Communication Really is The Key
Affiliate Annoyances, General Add commentsGreetings Affiliate Stuff readers! How are you all? Are you well? As you’ll note I’m now back from holiday where I was unfortunate enough to contract a lovely dose of the flu from my Father in Law. This has left me moderately grumpy and sleep deprived so I thought I’d treat you all to a wee moan-ette / cautionary tale about merchants who don’t respond to their mail!
Setting The Scene
OK, so before I headed off on my jollies it sort of occurred to me that I don’t often Take My Own Advice and ask merchants for an enhanced commission structure. It further occurred to me that considering the amount of work I’ve been putting in recently that this was extremely stupid of me.
With that in mind I duly wrote to two merchants I think I can do much better for on one of my sites and asked for their thoughts. Now, in the above linked treatise I said the worst you could get was “a polite no”. Oh how foolish and naive I was – it is now clearly apparent that the worst that can happen is that you get no response at all.
What’s happened in this case is that one merchant whom I’ve only recently started working with has opened a dialogue with me and the other, whom I’ve been working with for almost a year, has chosen not to respond.
But Isn’t It Obvious What Will Happen?
Merchants be warned. For should an affiliate of yours mail you with a query you may well think “No chance. We’re not doing that, away with them! I shan’t even dignify that with a response!!”
But what if one of your competitors with very similar nay almost identical product lines DID respond? Furthermore, what if they said “Sure. We’ll look into this. We’d love to work with you more. What can we do for ya?”
Merchants who don’t communicate or respond to their affiliates risk losing their loyalty.
Me personally, I am a very loyal affiliate. I value a decent relationship above all else and I will frequently opt to send traffic to merchants whom I’ll make a lesser return from in terms of EPC but will ultimately profit more with in the long term from the benefits of a close working relationship.
If You Run a UK Based Affiliate Programme And…
There’s a hole in your stats where £5,000 of monthly sales I was sending to you used to be in the next few weeks then you can reasonably assume that this article was about you 
July 20th, 2009 at 11:17 am
yep Loyalty is the key here – but, I’m thinking of ditching that in return for cold hard cash – ‘cos loyalty is sometimes replaced with complacency and then the fur flies and bad feelings abound – I’ve been stung lately too, so I’m on the hung for new merchants to promote.
July 20th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Its like any relationship isn’t it? It can go off the boil if you take each other for granted! Oooh, cue another blog post likening affiliate / merchant relationships to a long term love affair or marriage.
July 20th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
All I can say is hopefully that’ll learn them!
July 20th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Whilst I agree that direct communication counts for a lot, I’m just thinking that in July a lot of people are away on long holidays and those that get left behind can get snowed under . . .
July 21st, 2009 at 3:38 am
You’re absolutely right of course Rob, but it’s been over 3 weeks since I contacted the merchants now so I think I’ve given ample time before launching a moan!
If it was a holiday related issue, then this would be a great example of how important it is to get your holiday cover right. It doesn’t take much to sour an affiliate relationship.
July 21st, 2009 at 7:52 am
This reminds me of a Dilbert comic strip that I’ve cited in the past, admittedly with a hint of sarcasm, when experiencing the old “email / voice mail into the abyss” scenario. See storyboard #7 about the horizon concept
http://www.dilbert.com/2009-04-05/.
July 21st, 2009 at 8:02 am
LOL, so true!
July 21st, 2009 at 12:28 pm
At what point do you start to build a relationship with merchants or networks?
I am in the early stages of AM so don’t really have any relationships with anyone but at what point should you start? How much in sales do you need to be sending?
July 22nd, 2009 at 6:07 pm
loyalty and communication are the key to any relationship
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:51 am
A few a week to get the ball rolling I guess! You start to form a dialogue to improve things and increase volume. Where there’s smoke there’s fire! You need to get that fire burning so it will smoke out the place!! Sales = $$-)
July 24th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
Whilst i do totally agree with you, i do find that agencies, and networks play a part, as you’ll probably already know i work at an agency, and there’s still a lot of stigma against affiliates, which whilst still around is gradually changing, on the same token there are good agencies and bad ones, and the same goes for networks. point to note about networks, some networks allow you to email the merchant, but at the same time don’t alert the merchant that they actually have mail, one US network in particular that begins with a ‘c’ is particularly bad at this, AWin on the other hand send us (the agency) an alert as soon as an affiliate emails meaning we can respond immediately..at this point, its down to how responsive and good an agency you’re dealing with.
given your predicament i’d switch my links, the only way merchants, agencies and networks will learn is when their forecasts get mucked up because they haven’t been managing affiliates correctly…after all affiliates are effectively business partners and should be treated as such! (rant over)
July 25th, 2009 at 1:31 am
Hey Ken, yes you are dead right. I do feel its my responsibility as someone who is often one of the larger affiliates on a programme to demonstrate that I behave professionally and expect to be treated the same. I do have a choice of people to work with and am increasingly intolerant of unprofessional behaviour. I’ve just switched links away from one merchant permanently which will probably cost me a few hundred quid a month – but if I don’t stand up and show them they can’t just pick up and drop affiliate marketing on a whim I’ll be doing myself a long term injustice!