Serious question to Affiliate Future about rejected sales

[Iskander]

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Hi Pete and everyone else from AF,

As I understand network-based affiliate marketing, the main role of the networks is to protect publishers and merchants' from each other's sharp practices. (Otherwise, publishers and merchants would just deal directly with each other without the need for an arbitrator, right?)

I notice with growing concern that in the last few months I have had the following sales rejected by Avro and Singapore Airlines:

28/05/2008 Avro £-12.90 29/05/2008 : 09:28:00 Fly Monarch booking
28/05/2008 Avro £-7.85 29/05/2008 : 09:27:00 Fly Monarch booking
07/05/2008 Avro £-9.05 08/05/2008 : 10:30:00 Order Cancelled
30/06/2008 Singapore Airlines £-6.06 01/07/2008 : 09:13:00 Payment Not Cleared - travel does not originate from the uk
13/07/2008 Singapore Airlines £-35.50 14/07/2008 : 09:30:00 Payment Not Cleared - travel does not originate from the uk
07/07/2008 Singapore Airlines £-12.00 08/07/2008 : 04:39:00 Payment Not Cleared - travel does not originate from the uk
01/08/2008 Singapore Airlines £-134.50 04/08/2008 : 09:08:00 Payment Not Cleared - travel does not originate from the uk

Now... let's see... we'll exclude the cancelled Avro order as a valid chargeback, but how much is left?

I make it GBP 208.81 in withheld commissions.

Affiliate Future, imagine for a second that you are a CPA publisher who only gets paid for the work they do when their traffic converts into sales for the merchant.

Think about the statistics I have listed above.

Do you have any comments?

[3wdl]

Hi Pete and everyone else from AF,

As I understand network-based affiliate marketing, the main role of the networks is to protect publishers and merchants' from each other's sharp practices. (Otherwise, publishers and merchants would just deal directly with each other without the need for an arbitrator, right?)

I notice with growing concern that in the last few months I have had the following sales rejected by Avro and Singapore Airlines:

28/05/2008 Avro £-12.90 29/05/2008 : 09:28:00 Fly Monarch booking
28/05/2008 Avro £-7.85 29/05/2008 : 09:27:00 Fly Monarch booking
07/05/2008 Avro £-9.05 08/05/2008 : 10:30:00 Order Cancelled
30/06/2008 Singapore Airlines £-6.06 01/07/2008 : 09:13:00 Payment Not Cleared - travel does not originate from the uk
13/07/2008 Singapore Airlines £-35.50 14/07/2008 : 09:30:00 Payment Not Cleared - travel does not originate from the uk
07/07/2008 Singapore Airlines £-12.00 08/07/2008 : 04:39:00 Payment Not Cleared - travel does not originate from the uk
01/08/2008 Singapore Airlines £-134.50 04/08/2008 : 09:08:00 Payment Not Cleared - travel does not originate from the uk

Now... let's see... we'll exclude the cancelled Avro order as a valid chargeback, but how much is left?

I make it GBP 208.81 in withheld commissions.

Affiliate Future, imagine for a second that you are a CPA publisher who only gets paid for the work they do when their traffic converts into sales for the merchant.

Think about the statistics I have listed above.

Do you have any comments?

Hi Iskander,

We usually encourage affiliates to contact us directly to dicuss issues like this, but are happy to be transparent about the reasons for these individual cancelations.

We pride ourselves on our 5 day validation and believe we have one of the lowest cancelations rates in the industry when you compare it to other networks who can reject sales up to 60 days later.

There are some very valid reasons for these cancelations so let me explain.

Firstly - the Singapore Airlines example. The offer text for Singapore Airlines states the following:

Singapore Airlines will initially offer 1% commission on every booking made from either London Heathrow or Manchester.


This has always been the case on this campaign and this is the reason for the rejection. Flights going from outside of the UK are run by a different team in the business who hold a different budget & do not run an affiliate campaign with us.

The Avro issue is quite different - some tracking was put on the charter flights for Fly Monarch, who we don't have an affiliate program for. This led to some mistaken sales / tracking taking place which were cancelled by the merchant and this issue has now been resolved. A small percentage of sales were canceled due this and it was fixed a while ago.

I hope this clears it up for you - if you have any further questions please feel free to get in touch.

Thanks
James

[Iskander]

Thanks, James, for such a quick response - appreciated.

We usually encourage affiliates to contact us directly to dicuss issues like this

Yes, I know. CJ encourages the same, but having these sorts of conversations with networks transparently and in the open is one of the only defences the publisher community has. I know you understand that.

happy to be transparent about the reasons for these individual cancelations.

Excellent. I very much appreciate your candidness. I will say in advance that some of my questions will come across as confrontational, but they are not intended in any belligerent sense - merely that I feel that there are some difficult questions which need to be asked of Affiliate Future and answered in public.

There are some very valid reasons for these cancelations so let me explain.

Okay, thanks I read your explanation. It was no more than I expected - essentially your line appears to be: "The merchants don't track those categories, so commission will not be paid out on them."

You spend a lot of time with publishers, James, so you must see what is wrong with this.

If I invest a lot of time and energy bringing high-quality traffic to my site and then channelling it to a merchant where the traffic will convert, it's a bit dismaying to find out that there are sales categories on the merchant side on which commission will not be paid out - and that these categories are essentially indistinguishable from those which do pay out.

That's pre-meditated, covert leakage, isn't it?

Is the merchant saying: "We'll take advantage of all converting traffic, but we'll only pay for some conversions," in your opinion?

If so, why do you permit this?

If not, what do you think the merchant is saying?

[3wdl]

Okay, thanks I read your explanation. It was no more than I expected - essentially your line appears to be: "The merchants don't track those categories, so commission will not be paid out on them."

I don't think that's really the case here - there are two particular merchants, so we'll go over them again.

Singapore Airlines are an international company with offices around the world; they have been quite clear about their terms from day 1 due to the way the company is setup; obviously we'd be happy to work across the board but that is not always possible. At least the merchant are being completely transparent.

We don't have an affiliate programme for Fly Monarch so can't really pay for the sales that came from it by them putting the tracking on the checkout - we have spoken to them about an affiliate programme and hopefully this is in the pipeline but I'm sure you can appreciate that we can't pay out for a different site that we don't have a relationship with.

You spend a lot of time with publishers, James, so you must see what is wrong with this.

If I invest a lot of time and energy bringing high-quality traffic to my site and then channelling it to a merchant where the traffic will convert, it's a bit dismaying to find out that there are sales categories on the merchant side on which commission will not be paid out - and that these categories are essentially indistinguishable from those which do pay out.

That's pre-meditated, covert leakage, isn't it?

Is the merchant saying: "We'll take advantage of all converting traffic, but we'll only pay for some conversions," in your opinion?

If so, why do you permit this?

If not, what do you think the merchant is saying?

I appreciate where you're coming from and as someone who's been a publisher in the past do understand what you're saying, but I think the case is quite clear here on this occasion and both programs convert and payout well.

In these two instances there is not much we can do as a network - Avro have removed their links to Fly Monarch as far as I am aware (that were previously hidden from affiliate traffic as per our best practice guidelines) and fixed the tracking issue and Singapore airlines have been upfront about the way in which the programme works so it's the affiliates choice if they want to work on this basis.

We do as much as we can to ensure that we protect our affiliates, sometimes losing merchants because of this and are proud of our ethical stances - we'll continue to do this and hopefully this follow up post outlines the reasons for the rejections on these two cases; if we could do anything about them then we would!

Thanks
James

[Iskander]

I don't think that's really the case here

It is very much the case. Both merchants have sales categories for which they do not pay commission when traffic converts. That's established. I think we can both agree on that, don't you?

We do as much as we can to ensure that we protect our affiliates [...] and are proud of our ethical stances

Okay, good, I'm glad to read that Affiliate Future consciously pursues an ethical position, because it reassures me that your network is probably an innocent party in these shenanigans. If you are an innocent party though, I need to warn you that some merchants may be making a fool out of you.

Here's how. You said:

Avro have removed their links to Fly Monarch as far as I am aware (that were previously hidden from affiliate traffic as per our best practice guidelines) and fixed the tracking issue

Avro, I'm afraid, is having a laugh with you. It is perfectly possible to book Monarch flights through the Avro interface. Try booking a return flight from London Luton to Gibraltar and see what you come up with, James.

I'm sure you can appreciate that we can't pay out for a different site that we don't have a relationship with.

As you can see, end-customers don't buy Monarch flights after clicking through from the Avro site - they buy Monarch flights directly from the Avro site.

What this means at this stage is that a publisher can send live, qualified traffic to Avro, the traffic can convert on the merchant side by purchasing an Avro flight or a Monarch flight... but Avro only pays commission to the affiliate (and the network, presumably) on the first of these categories.

Please can you confirm that Affiliate Future had no knowledge that Avro was still acting in such a manner and please can you indicate what your network intends to do with respect to this situation. Thanks.

Moving on swiftly...

Singapore Airlines are an international company with offices around the world

Yes, I am aware of that. Lots of international airlines are in the same position, but they don't appear to be hampered by the same technical problems as Singapore Airlines.

Please confirm which of the two following round-trip itineraries (or both, or neither) Singapore Airlines pays commission on:

1) London - Singapore - London
2) Singapore - London - Singapore

Thanks for your assistance.

I look forward to your responses and to continuing our productive discussion (and to continuing to point out where some merchants may be pitching Affiliate Future a curveball - it looks like you guys might need some help if the merchants are running rings around you like this).

[3wdl]

As you can see, end-customers don't buy Monarch flights after clicking through from the Avro site - they buy Monarch flights directly from the Avro site.

I'll double check this in the morning, but I am pretty sure that if a flight is purchased directly from the Avro site, be it by Monarch or not, then commission is paid on this. I believe that the rejection that you received was due to a separate issue which has now been resolved.

Yes, I am aware of that. Lots of international airlines are in the same position, but they don't appear to be hampered by the same technical problems as Singapore Airlines.

This isn't a technical issue - it's how the campaign is setup and has always been setup - this has been very transparent and in the programme terms from day one. As I mentioned, it's obviously up to affiliates to decide if they feel this is a leakage and if they still promote the programme, but it's not something that will be changed anytime soon.

Please confirm which of the two following round-trip itineraries (or both, or neither) Singapore Airlines pays commission on:

1) London - Singapore - London
2) Singapore - London - Singapore

Again - I'll double check on this for you but from what I read of the programme terms the first (1) would payout but (2) would not. I'll confirm when i'm back in the office tomorrow.

Thanks
James

[3wdl]

Hi again,

To confirm (as I have heard from the revelant account manager) - both points are as stated above are correct.

- Avro DO pay out for Monarch flights booked via the Avro site
- Singapore Airlines only pay commission on flights that originate from the UK.

Thanks
James

[Iskander]

Avro DO pay out for Monarch flights booked via the Avro site.

Thanks, James.

So, you are confirming for the record that Avro is now paying commissions on all Monarch flights purchased directly from the Avro website, right?

If so, that will be a weight off my mind. (Though I'd like to know what's been going on for the last few months).

Moving on.

Singapore Airlines only pay commission on flights that originate from the UK

I'm less clear on this one.

Which of the following does "a flight which originates from the UK" include:

1) Both legs (inbound and outbound) of a round-trip flight which commences in the UK (ie. London-Singapore-London)
2) All legs of a round trip flight which commences in the UK (ie. London-Singapore-Sydney-Singapore-London)
3) Just the outbound leg of a round-trip flight which commences in the UK (ie. London-Singapore, but not Singapore-London)
4) The return leg of a round-trip flight which commences in Singapore (ie. not Singapore-London, but London-Singapore)

Which of these count if the flight is booked from the US Singapore Airlines website?
Or the Dutch website?
Or the French website?

If a visitor is tracked for the SIA UK affiliate programme and later finds their way through organic search results to the SIA NL website (for which Affiliate Future also has a CPA programme) where they purchase a flight, is any commission paid out on that flight? On both legs or just one?

If there are two SIA adverts side-by-side, one in English and one in French, and a Paris-based British executive working for Eurostar clicks on the English advert and purchases a round-trip flight from Paris to Singapore from the SIA UK website is any commission paid out?

Similarly, if a London-based French executive working for Eurostar clicks on the French advert and purchases a round-trip flight from London to Singapore from the SIA FR website is any commission paid out?

(Once again, I probably need to stress, my intention is not to come over as excessively combative, I merely wish to ask some direct questions and have them answered unambiguously in the pubic domain)

Thanks again for your ongoing participation in this dialogue.

[3wdl]

Thanks, James.

So, can you please confirm for the record that Avro is now paying commissions on all Monarch flights purchased directly from the Avro website?

Once again, I probably need to stress, my intention is not to come over as excessively combative, I merely wish to ask some direct questions and have them answered unambiguously in the pubic domain

Thanks again for your ongoing participation in this dialogue.

Hi Iskander,

That is correct - Avro do (and always have) paid commission on Monarch flights purchased directly from the Avro website.

So that you're aware, I thought that it would be good to give you some further understanding of how this campaign works and show how we do work closly with our merchants to protect our affiliates traffic.

If you visit the Monarch Holiday site via an affiliate link and click on flights it goes to the Avro site and cross-tracks. If you don't go via an affiliate link then it would go to the Monarch Flights site instead, this ensures that we remove all possible unmonetised leakage and we see see a lot of sales cross-track this way.

Thanks
James

[Iskander]

Sorry, James, my fault - I re-edited my post and added a stackload more questions about Singapore Airlines while you were replying to my question about Avro, if you could come back on those, that would be great.

If you visit the Monarch Holiday site via an affiliate link and click on flights it goes to the Avro site and cross-tracks. If you don't go via an affiliate link then it would go to the Monarch Flights site instead, this ensures that we remove all possible unmonetised leakage and we see see a lot of sales cross-track this way.

That's exemplary. Very cool indeed - thanks for making me aware of that.

Phew. That's Avro sorted out then. The one that's really nagging me though is SIA. I have been affiliated to Singapore Airlines since 2006 and have never done much work to drive traffic to them, because of their (apparently) god-awful restrictive, conditions. I am nearing a point in website development where I will be in a position to drive a lot of qualified traffic to SIA and I don't want to find that half of it or more gets sucked up by the airline which displays zero intention to recompense me for my work.

[Iskander]

On which note, perhaps you and the SIA account manager at Affiliate Future can invite the relevant representative from Singapore Airlines to come on this forum and respond directly to my questions above, explaining what they do and don't pay out commission on - and why they don't pay out on the categories they choose not to pay out on.

I think I'd very much like to hear Singapore Airlines answer for their CPA programme conditions directly.

[pistol101]

On which note, perhaps you and the SIA account manager at Affiliate Future can invite the relevant representative from Singapore Airlines to come on this forum and respond directly to my questions above, explaining what they do and don't pay out commission on - and why they don't pay out on the categories they choose not to pay out on.

I think I'd very much like to hear Singapore Airlines answer for their CPA programme conditions directly.

Hi Iskander,

Just to confirm, on the UK programme the flight has to be a UK departure and booked on the uk site. We cannot cross track programmes across our international networks, however a booking made on the Dutch site that originates from Paris would cross track into the French account.

SIA run as seperate operations internationally with different budgets. Unfortunately i can't give out the information about the proportion of sales that don't originate as this is commercially sensitive information. I'm sure an affiliate or two may post their cancellation rate.

[Iskander]

Hi Pete,

Thanks for coming back to me on this one.

on the UK programme the flight has to be a UK departure and booked on the uk site.

Okay, that confirms that the conditions are exactly as I understood them to be.

So, this means that, for a publisher who forwards a website visitor to SIA UK who then converts, to receive commission, the visitor must:

i) Purchase their SIA flight from the SIA UK website.
ii) Purchase a one-way or round-trip flight where the starting point is in the UK.

What doesn't count:

i) If the visitor purchases a flight from any of the many other Singapore Airlines websites out there.
ii) If the visitor purchases any one-way or round-trip flight where the starting point is outside the UK.

I hope I have this straight so far.

A few questions to Affiliate Future then as the party who - as I outlined in my initial post - I understand who protects the merchant and the publisher from each other's sharp practices.

1) Are you okay with the fact that a London-Singapore return flight consists of:

A London-Singapore flight + Singapore-London flight

while a Singapore-London return flight consists of:

A Singapore-London flight + London-Singapore flight

And that SIA pays out on the former but not the latter?


2) Are you okay with the fact that any SIA UK CPA advert for Singapore Airlines takes a website visitor through to a site where there are hundreds of items on sale for which commission will not be paid out?

3) If you are okay with either of these, please state why.

My basic position is that I am quite happy with CPA-based advertising within my business model. It enables long-term trust to be established because the merchant can immediately see I am not overcharging for the advertising that I put on my site - any advertising they purchase on my website has already shown its worth.

However, I would make the argument for CONGRUENCY between what the advert advertises and what the merchant pays commission on.

If the merchant will only ever pay for advertising when the advertising results in a sale, then surely it is the network's job to ensure that the advertising and the sale items match up?

In a scenario where Merchant A has a web-based shop window with six items available for purchase, and a CPA programme with adverts bringing visitors from publisher sites to that shop window, is it reasonable that Merchant A should only pay commission on sales of Product 1, but not on sales of Products 2,3,4,5,6, which are the same type of product as Product 1 (just different colours, specs etc.)?

As a network which looks after both merchants and publishers, do you think it's reasonable?

Wouldn't it be more reasonable to ensure congruency between the advertising and the commission payouts? That is to say: if the merchant does not wish to pay out on sales of Products 2,3,4,5,6, then the CPA advertising provided only links to a shop window which contains Product 1.

I have been waiting for Affiliate Future to demand this of SIA on behalf of its publishers for some time now but since nothing has materialised in the last 30 months, I thought I'd just go ahead and ask explicitly myself (now that my worst-case scenario of rejected commissions is actually being realised - see opening post).

The thing is, if I have a visitor on my site, that's my visitor not SIA's customer. If the visitor has a preference for flying with SIA but is quite happy to fly with BA if the former is unavailable then I want to offer SIA as much as I can, but, if the intended itinerary is going to be one which does not pay for converting referrals, then I want my visitor back, so I can explain to them that such an itinerary is unavailable and suggest they fly with BA as an alternative.

Is that reasonable, from your perspective as a network?

Do you think you could get SIA finally to produce a CPA-specific front end which only allows flights to be booked from the UK, which the CPA-ads can then link to?

I hope I haven't beaten around the bush too much in finally getting to my point, but I would have thought that the concept of congruency would have been a major point-of-concern for affiliate networks without anyone having to bring it up. In fact, the way you work with Monarch Holiday and Avro etc. shows that this kind of thing is a concern for you guys. Which is good - otherwise, I imagine, that merchants would have effectively destroyed the CPA model a long time ago.

Please: adverts for UK-outbound SIA flights should link to a site which has UK-outbound flights.

Thanks.

[3wdl]

I'm sorry Iskander - but whilst I understand your concerns there really isn't much more that we can say on this matter.

The merchant has made it clear in their terms and conditions of the programme how it works; due to the fact that each sector of Singapore Airlines is a different opperation (with seperate marketing departments) this is not something that I can imagine will change.

In an ideal world a UK only version of the site would be great, but that is not always a possibility.

As a network we are happy to work with Singapore Airlines in this manner - we've been completely transparent about it and it's reasons and ultimately the campaign still converts well and has a low rejection rate - if you're driving UK traffic it's more likely than not that the flights will originate from the UK.

It's obviously your choice if you promote it or not - if you are getting a high volume of rejections on the campaign then it may be an idea to check your stats and see where the majority of your traffic originates from and look at a GEO-IP solution to better send your non-uk traffic to other relevant / non-uk programmes.

Thanks
James

[Iskander]

In an ideal world a UK only version of the site would be great, but that is not always a possibility.

Errrm.

Well, I'm a journalist, I'm certainly no programmer, but it looks to me like a two line snippet of javascript would do the job, no?

If... then... else...

If the departure point is London Heathrow or Manchester then allow the booking, else return the visitor to the publisher so they can offer the reader an alternative.

Does that seem to okay to you?

Can you think of one dignified reason why that wouldn't seem okay to Singapore Airlines ?

Surely someone at Affiliate Future is exercised about this?