God Bless America - bit of a rant!

08-07-03

Last week I decided I would try to create a website aimed at a US audience, just as a bit of an experiment really.

Anyway, two things struck me.

Firstly the average commission for the product I am looking to promote in the US is double the average over here. In fact it's probably more, the lowest commission I could find in the US is higher than the highest commission available over here in the UK!

Secondly, I emailed a company asking for some information regarding their program and within 24 hours I received 3 emails from 3 different people at the company, all offering help and advice. They even offered to call me here in the UK at a time of my convenience. And this is a major name company.

Why oh why can't it be like this in the UK? Over here emails go unanswered, the commission structure with a few exceptions is poor. Merchants launch a program on one of the networks and let banners go out of date etc. And in general there are very few merchants who recognise the revenue stream that affiliates can bring.

Of course there are exceptions to the rule as shown by the merchants who frequent these boards. But compare this forum with the US affiliate forums and you'll see the difference.

Rant over, they say we are generally a year or two behind the US and it looks like it's true when it comes to Affily Marketing.

Kieron

08-07-03

I suspect it goes hand-in-hand with customer services in general over here compared to the US and Australia - it stinks! (Emporio customer services excluded <img src=http://mindscraps.com/s/cwm/cwm/spiny.gif ALT="

"> )
Ben

07-08-03

This may sound a little obvious, but this being the internet and all, why have you restricted yourself to UK companies?

Don't be mislead into thinking all stateside companies are angels by the way, they are only whipped into shape by their affiliates in the same way that the best UK focused affiliates shape the way that UK affiliate managers adapt their products... Just a bit of a time lag.

The US has always been a good source of income for me, you just need to learn how to spell badly

07-08-03

Hi,

The speedy service is also probably a sign of the fact that
affiliate marketing has been going longer in the States.

So affiliate marketing is more developed, and merchants
realise that you have to provide this kind of support
otherwise affiliates will go elsewhere.

So perhaps this speedy service and 'taking affiliate marketing
seriously' attitude awaits UK affiliates in the next few years???

(Well, it's a thought, anyway!)

07-08-03

Interesting posts, but I still haven't found a US based travel websites which converts anything like as well as Opodo, or Expedia UK, or even Last Minute for that matter.

I go for 2% CR in the UK (1% is still ok) - have yet to do better than 1 in 400 for the US - and the comm rates are lower. No doubt, with the right programme, I'd see conversions to make it worthwhile, combined with the ability to negotiate a decent comm rate. I don't have much bargaining power with 3 bookings per month, compared with 300+ in the UK. And yes, I do get plenty of visitors from the US.

James

07-08-03

Actually, come to think of it, I never seem to do as well
with Amazon.com as I do with Amazon.co.uk

Could it be that US customers are much more aware of
Amazon.com and just go straight there, rather than
bother with an affiliate site? (Maybe they're all affiliates?)

Steve

**axod** · 26-10-06

Boring boring boring.
How many posts on this are you going to make Daniel?

I've seen little difference between UK and US affiliate networks to be honest. There are good and bad. I actually see better payouts for the UK a lot of the time.

How many UK networks have you tried?

**3wdl** · 26-10-06

[QUOTE=axod;274700]Boring boring boring.
How many posts on this are you going to make Daniel?
/QUOTE]

Umm, the thread is 3 years old?

**Ste** · 26-10-06

Well that’s my morning chuckle out of the way, its even the wrong thread

**Lee_Owen** · 26-10-06

hahaha

Well as we're all reading a three and half year old posting, how well did the US focused site end up doing, Kieron?

**axod** · 26-10-06

Originally Posted by 3wdl

Umm, the thread is 3 years old?

hehe.. think my brain must be turning to mush. Too many kids running round my feet in the morning.... shoo kids!!! go!!!

**Supercod** · 26-10-06

I love posts from the past, because you often find what you said is not always what you think or believe any more however as you said it 3 years ago it MUST be what you think now

Good thing not many people seen the article I wrote early 2000 about Goto what we now call today Yahoo! Search Marketing (aka Overture). Most of what I said was spot on however a few years later and you know a few things you didn’t back then.

By the way for the record I have always believed that people involved in UK Affiliate Marketing if they where picked up and dropped in the USA would do a far better job and make much more money (loads more people in the USA for a start)… the issue I suffered from in the past was US companies (more so on CJ) would auto disapprove you for being from the UK and that’s well weird to me as I was one of top selling Affiliates for a company called Hosting.com right here from the UK.

**KieronD** · 26-10-06

Indeed things do change an awful lot over 3 years

At the time I did receive excellent service from the US merchant in question. However, I have to say that now I also receive brilliant support from 90% of the UK merchants and networks. So much so that I don't bother with the US market any more.

**chromate** · 26-10-06

Things must have changed a lot. I started in affiliate marketing focusing on US programmes about 3 years ago. They all seemed to be great to start with. Now my US based programmes seem to be SO much worse, mainly due to terrible affiliate managers.

Funnily enough it was actually this that caused me to give UK stuff a go.

**1BIZLIST** · 26-10-06

No Axod your not having a funny five minutes, Daniel likes to write an essay slagging off TD then when he gets no sympathy he deletes the post, did it on loads of posts a couple of nights ago too.

So don't go running off to your shrink just yet

Mark.