Private Agreement with Merchants?

[jd77]

I have two merchants who I tend to send about £250,000 worth of business every year for the past three years.

Now I know that Affiliate Window and Affiliate Future are taking somewhere between 20 and 30% markup on the commission - money that would be better in mine and the merchants pockets.

Wouldn't it be much better for both me and the merchant to cut out the middleman?

Has anybody ever brokered a deal direct with a merchant and removed all the tracking code links etc and just sent straight to the merchant?

What length have these deals been - monthly, quarterly?

I'm just interested to hear people's thoughts on skipping the networks, and hopefully from those who have also done it.

[Markup]

Don't know what sector you are working in but if you are getting (on a good estimate) 10% from each and you try to cut out the network, who is going to pay for the tracking technology that ensures that you are both (you and said merchants) (and I bet they will want seperate technologies in place or are you going to let them dictate how many transacters you have referred) happy with the figures.

This is a dodgy path you are treading mate, take the 250k and say you earn (you wasn't clear) 25 or 50k per year, are you going to be happy with that as your targeted ceiling for income ongoing because one thing is for sure if you do something like this the networks will see you as just trying to use them as an introducing agent and not approve you for zilch - and why would they?

The overide has long been a contentious issue on all sides of the fence, but better you consider that it comes on top of your commission and is charged to the merchant AFTER YOU HAVE BEEN PAID.

It does happen (all the time in fact) that an affiliate who has proven his worth can approach, or be approached by, a merchant for this kind of deal but you had better be very confident that you are of such worth to the merchant that they are willing to risk their relationship with the network before you consider opening any dialogue - at 250k per year (whatever your commission level) I don't think you should risk what is a steady little earner for you.

Fair play to you for the thought but you worry about your commission and let the network and the merchant worry about the override.

I suppose if the merchant is on dual/multi networks you could approach them (the network) and ask for a cut of the override with the threat of switching links if you don't get it, but after 3 years with one network (if it were me) I would be grateful that I was taking that kind of amount out of 2 merchants and better spend my time on planning how to get more of the same from more merchants - preferably with the same network who've done so well for me thus far.

[fizzbird]

Couldn't you approach the network about improving your commission?
It would be fairer and more ethical than just hijacking their client.

[leebandoni]

Originally Posted by fizzbird Couldn't you approach the network about improving your commission? It would be fairer and more ethical than just hijacking their client.

Thats the route I would take as Im sure the network does not want to lose you. As your AM for a better deal and what else he can offer you to keep you onboard

[channel5]

It depends on how much you trust the merchants reporting capabilities. We have direct deals with several of our merchants and in the main it works very well with those that have an open and transparent reporting system (many use Atlas) that allows for good tracking.

Others just tell you an amount to invoice at the end of every month, and that is a little less ideal as a) it's impossible to track which users actually converted, b) it gives no transparency.

One merchant we had a direct deal with, but after a while a network was offering the same commission, so we switched back to going via the network (so we could get better tracking, this was an "invoice value at the end of the month" type direct deal) and we were credited a lot more sales the next month via the network, so I don't believe that merchant's own tracking was up to much.

If you feel you are driving significant traffic then always try and negitiate better rates whether direct or via the networks.

[jd77]

Thanks for all your replies. All raising some interesting points.

With one of these merchants I did actually move away from Affiliate Window to AF after discussions with the merchant because AW refused to budge on their override whilst AF would. The merchant saved a little, I gained a little, AF got new custom and AW lost out for removing to budge.

I think what I was wondering if anybody had ever signed a sort of cash up front type deal for say 3 months after which if the merchant or yourselves was unhappy you could move back to using a network and all the tracking features.