Prominent telephone numbers - Offenders

[Bionic]

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I know this has been talked about loads, but I am sick of seeing these damn telephone numbers on the landing pages. As far as I am concerned it is just straightforward commission nicking.

Thought I would start a thread that lists the offenders. Cane me if this has been done before.

So, as I have just been looking at it.

Laithwaites wine merchants.

Others as I come across them again!

[Shane]

Yes it is a bit annoying especially as the technology is there to track telephone sales.

Empathy from the merchants would be nice...

Wonder how the merchant would feel if we were dropping their cookies on visitors landing for other things and then at a later date they had to pay us for sales that were made naturally without our assistance just because we dropped a cookie, eg...for a wine merchant when someone came looking for cd's or something..

time it was sorted

[Brains]

maybe the merchants do not accept telephone sales.

On the AutoMart site we have a telephone number but only help the customer through the process - we will not accept payments over the telephone.

BRAINS

[Bionic]

Fair enough, but then it could be clearly labelled 'Helpline' and in the merchant info on the networks a clear statement that they do not accept orders over the phone from this number, otherwise it is just words.

There is no good excuse. It is just plain cheating.

[Brains]

Cheating.....get real!

BRAINS

[Qui Gon Jinn]

This could be a long list

[Bionic]

Cheating.....get real!

So what do you call it then, Brains?

lol Qui Gon Jinn, I think you could be right. Think it is worth doing though. Mind you no one has added anyone else yet! So we will see.

[Brains]

If a merchant does not take payments over the phone then how can they be 'cheating' by advertising a phone number?

Our phone number increases conversions by 10 - 20%....just by having it displayed. I'm sure affiliates would not be happy if we took 20% commission OFF them.


BRAINS

[drivetowin]

I dont think anyone should object to merchants having a 'helpline' number as long as that is what it is - as you say Brains anything which helps conversion has to be good.

The problem is when the helpline becomes a sales line - this isnt aimed at you as I'm sure yours is a genuine helpline - but there are plenty of merchants who offer a sales line (and a few unscrupulous ones who offer to let callers cancel their online order and place a new order over the phone (always a danger where the telesales people are paid on commission))

As far as I'm concerned merchants have three ways of dealing with this:

1. Remove sales phone numbers from site (apart from contact us page where it is a legal requirement to have a telephone number)

2. Add telephone tracking so sales can be traced back to the originating affiliate (not that difficult to do)

3. If (1) and (2) are not possible then calculate what percentage of sales through the website go via the phone and increase commissions across the board accordingly.

All 3 are acceptable to me - having a phone number which simply leaches sales is not

While we're on this thread - congrats to Empire Direct for finally removing their phone number - they used to have it everywhere so if they can do it - anyone can

[Brains]

Sales line....we deliberately do not have one.

In fact we are inundated with complaints about other companies who pose as us and take payments over the phone. Hence one of the reasons we do not operate sales lines - absolutely no confusion then!

BRAINS

[Bionic]

Brains,

Just to be clear, I am not aiming my posts at you. You are being a tad sensitive. All I am saying is that a telephone number that isn't a helpline and doesn't state that as such, is not acceptable. I have never been to your site, and didn't aim my comments about your outfit. I would rather take some potshots at the real culprits. If you ain't one of them, then cool.

[Bliss2]

Any telephone numbers on the landing pages are likely to affect our commissions, so lets gets the list started!

Laptopshop
Portland Holidays
Going Places
Hotel Pronto
Haven Europe (Siblu)
Hoseasons
Days to Amaze
Find me a Gift
Flowergram
Dream Direct

.

[EupaLeeB]

Just putting my point re the merchant angle. We display our phone number on a 'contact us' page. We do get the odd order over the telephone but in our experience it is less than one percent of the total orders we do. A number of the calls we get are customers just checking that we are a 'REAL' company before they place their order. In our experience customers like a telephone number so they can shout at someone if something goes wrong with their order. I beleive that if customers can't find a telephone number on a site then they are less likely to place their order in the first place.

We also run another site that prominently displays the telephone number on the homepage in the right hand corner, this site is a high volume site in terms of orders yet the amount of orders taken on the telephone is much less than 1% and when this site is launched with a network in the comming weeks we will not display the number if a network cookie is detected.

I think there are more concerning issues to worry about, for example a number of the calls we get are because customers are unable to order on-line due to spyware and adware stopping them getting to our sites in the first place. I'm not saying this happens a lot but it certainly does happen.

EupaLeeB

[Supercod]

As far as I'm concerned merchants have three ways of dealing with this:

I like to add a 4th way.

Install a “local cookie” style setup so any people who have come via affiliate traffic and revisit later only see “buy online” where the phone number would have been. This way merchants can keep the phone number in place for traffic they have got themselves. Of course the other methods are ok also.

And other thing I like to point out people buying online verse phoning a number is vastly different depending on sector, for example an expensive holiday could see someone calling where as buying a sex toy would probably put you off wanting to call

[asr_guy]

I've seen merchants post a coupon code next to the phone number, but it only shows when the visitor has an affiliate's cookie. The coupon is basically the affiliate's id and there's some deal like "get 10% off when you mention this code". Otherwise they just get the phone number on the screen and no special deal.

The bottom line is that smart merchants who understand the affiliate concept will do everything possible to ensure the affiliates are credited. Trying to cheat affiliates just undermines their whole affiliate strategy as it always comes back to trust, no matter how technical you make it. If you see a merchant trying to cheat then you might want to "help" them by pointing out how they have forgotten this fundamental rule and how it will result in less ROI for them. Then give them your ultimatum - fix it or you walk away.

Cheers,
Peter