Affiliate transparency is a good start
One of the most interesting panels at the recent buy.at speakeasy was the Agency/Super Affiliates panel chaired by Tyson. There were a few of the usual questions about what it actually is that agencies do and how they fit in before getting on to one of the key topics at the moment – de-duping.
After I initially asked about this topic there was some debate about how de-duping should work and how potentially the “last man in” approach should be changed in the future but Doug shouted out something from the back of the room that sums everything up for me at the moment.. Give affiliates transparency.
Is that really too much to ask for? Surely the networks just need to have a little snippet under the program details with information such as:
Does the merchant allow brand name bidding? Yes / No
If yes… Is the brand open to all affiliates or via a brand group? All / Group
Does the merchant de-dupe on their affiliate sales against other channels? Yes / No
If yes… Is the de-duping also across brand terms? Yes / No
Perhaps a few more too but I’m sure that would be a good start.. The question is why don’t more networks do it? I raised this topic at one of the first IAB sessions that I went to and unfortunately the majority of the networks around the table at the time (you can probably guess who) openly refused to do so, saying that this information was confidential.
If affiliates are openly losing out on sales because of a harsh de-duping process then surely this is something they should be aware of, ideally before spending time and money promoting the campaign? Unfortunately I fail to see why this is too much to ask but I will (perhaps stupidly) hope that this kind of transparency starts to be the norm as merchants and networks realise that being honest can actually work in their favour.
May 20th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
James I think you will unfortunately find out that if your volumes are big enough you can find out the data.
Doug