Why do merchants still insist on culling their affiliates?
21 Oct
I’ve not blogged in a while, but after a few people moaned at me at the rather excellent Expo about it, I thought it was time to try and get a bit more going again.
So I’ll start this with a rant. As regular readers will know, as well as now working for a network I still operate a couple of affiliate sites which pay for some beer tokens every now and again – not as much as I would like, but with a wife, three kids and a full time job it’s difficult to find the time!
Anyhow – when I apply to programmes it is generally with the explicit aim of doing some revenue with them, perhaps I’ve purchased a niche domain and want to use them on this site for example. I don’t sign up to every programme under the sun as some affiliates will do.
Today I received notification that I had been suspended/removed from one of the programmes that I am signed up to due to lack of activity. It’s not the first time that this has happened but does lead me once again to ask why there is such a lack of understanding from merchants that do this? Do the networks advise their merchants that it’s a stupid idea? I believe they should…
The only good reason I’ve ever heard for this is that some networks charge merchants on a CPM for their banners being displayed, and the costs for this are sometimes more than the commission being paid – but this is more of an issue in the states from what I understand.
I challenge anyone to give me another decent reason for this, especially for a retailer.
I would suggest that any merchant who has thought about doing this thinks again for the following reasons:
- Just because I’m not promoting you currently doesn’t mean I won’t in the future
- If you reject me, I will just use your competitors in the future and you’ll be the ones losing out
- If you communicate with your affiliates via newsletters then just by being signed up I’m likely to receive and read these looking for more opportunities – surely the more affiliates that read this the better
I’m all for rejecting specific affiliates if their harming your brand / reputation but just culling all the non-active affiliates really is stupid.
I think there can be some valid reasons. I personally sit on the fence on this one as I fundamentally believe in the long tail value of affiliate marketing however with my client hat on I can also see why a brand may want a smaller, manageable campaign. It all comes down to brand control and the challenge is that you can not control your brand on thousands of websites. There is an issue with out of date copy and offers on affiliate sites and the perception, whether right or wrong is that affiliates not delivering sales are not updating their sites. Which is a huge concern from a brand perspective. The challenge is having a long tail affiliate base but also providing brand protection across all of these sites. So I can see a good reason why brands may want to reduce the number of affiliates on ther campaign.
Hi James, I am with you on this one. The amount of times Merchants come saying stuff like, “I am thinking of removing my non-active affiliates to improve my stats” ah? Or threaten to remove them so they stick up a link up in x days, is just stupid. Thankfully most will listen to reason, heck we can even have a “hide Affiliates who do nothing from your pages” option with Paid On Results if it bothers them that much, but boy I am I disappointed when they go and do it against my advice, happened a few times now and they wonder why when people ask publicly and I don’t defend a bad decision.
Anyway, it really has to stop, I am starting to think that maybe, just maybe some Networks make it really unmanageable to deal with loads of Affiliates, if you have tons that are not doing anything cluttering up the place.
I doubt any Network would say to clients removing Affiliates is a good idea and I would put money on it that many Merchants go ahead and do it without asking or saying to the Network they are with first.
Hi James
It’s one of those frustrating things in affiliate marketing just like merchants who operate their programmes with a capped budget.
We certainly always advise against it but it usually stems from concerns over brand protection. Merchants want to feel they have control over where they are being promoted. I think it’s a failing on the part of networks that merchants don’t appreciate who their affiliates really are, how many sites they might own and therefore the risks associated with terminating a relationship. More needs to be done to instil confidence in merchants and take away the fear of having a plentiful and diverse set of affiliates joined to their progranne. Inactive affiliates should represent opportunities not threats.
It’s one of the things we hope to address with Darwin but a best practice/educational piece from the IAB AMC would also help.
Adam
There’s going to be a bizarre shortage of bean bags this Christmas…
@Geoff – Was actually not that programme (I had the post half-written in my drafts folder for a while)…. but noticed that on the forum and was disapointed with all the work Existem had put into it, perhaps it was an error their end though.
@Adam – agree what what you’re saying – and your right that it’s not always the networks fault and that most advise against it! I see your point about Dawin and think another easy fix is for more affiliates to have a corporate site – just a few pages that shows what they do and a list of their websites… May follow that up with another blog post later. Def concour about the oppertunity and not threats.
@Helen – Thanks for your viewpoint from a client perspective, certainly appreciate it but obviously from a merchant persective when worrying about out of date content, etc, then culling all inactive affiliates probaly won’t make much difference here. The content aspect is actually really interesting to hear, after all, old news articles (be it on large sites like the BBC or smaller news blogs) that are not affiliates are kept online, so is the main difference here the risk of someone like Sky paying out on old content, rather than the content itself being old, or more to do with not date being on the content?