What Do Affiliates Need to Do?

[Qui Gon Jinn]

This is more geared towards a response from the networks & merchants, but affiliates are most welcomed too as there are sure to be over-lapping answers and at least illustrate affiliates are aware of certain problems.

What would networks, merchants & agencies like affiliates to do in order to police themselves & operate ethically so that a few don't spoil it for all?

What are the few rogue affiliates doing which tarnishes the affiliate marketing industry?

What can affiliates do as a community to isolate and/or identify and/or educate these rogue affiliates?

What paranoia do networks / merchants or agencies have about the affiliates within the channel?

What do networks/merchants/agencies want from affiliates (apart from not having blogs or commenting on forums or gagging orders ) which would assist them in increasing the overall credibility of affiliates in the marketplace?

Do affiliates need to improve the quality of their sites in general to showcase to their prospective clients?

[getvisible]

I don't know which reply to comment on first!

Come on guys you don't have to run any responses through your legal team first surely?

[morleymouse]

What would networks, merchants & agencies like affiliates to do in order to police themselves & operate ethically so that a few don't spoil it for all?

Affiliates should just play by network and individual rules

Networks should have much tougher rules for affiliates breaking the rules of any one programme. Its happened on many occasion with Alpharooms that someone has jumped on the brand term, and im expecting the same to happen come January when it gets busy again. Ill report it to the network and decline all sales. No real skin off the affiliates nose at its relatively cheap for them to do this with potentially a massive reward. So I’ve stepped them, they just move onto another merchant, there are that many going live every day that its basically an infinite supply. Solution? If there’s a strong enough case remove the affiliate completely from the network.

What are the few rogue affiliates doing which tarnishes the affiliate marketing industry?

Breaking the rules inspires no confidence at all in that ‘type’ of promotion.

We had a bit of brand bidding, then a bit more, after a while I was suspicious of all paid search affiliates – this actually worked in our favour as we work a lot closer now with the affiliates working in this sector to make the most out of their traffic.

Then we had the old cookie dropping using an iframe from one of the discount code sites, instantly I found myself on every voucher site we work with viewing the source and searching for iframes.

What can affiliates do as a community to isolate and/or identify and/or educate these rogue affiliates?

Apply pressure to networks. There are so many more really hard working affiliates that play by the rules than those that don’t if a network risked losing those or losing an affiliate who’d been using unethical methods to generate sales im sure they’d rather lose the unethical one.

What paranoia do networks / merchants or agencies have about the affiliates within the channel?

Paranoia only crops up once you’ve seen it happen, or had it happen to you.

What do networks/merchants/agencies want from affiliates (apart from not having blogs or commenting on forums or gagging orders ) which would assist them in increasing the overall credibility of affiliates in the marketplace?

All we want is affiliates that are open with us on how they promote us and tell us if its working or not. If you send 500 clicks and then just stop you’ve wasted your time, if you send 500 clicks, drop me an email asking why its not worked, tell me where they came from and where you landed them, then I can help and its more likely to be 500 clicks that then get you onto the right path to start making sales.

Do affiliates need to improve the quality of their sites in general to showcase to their prospective clients?

No

[Greavsie]

LinkShare – Greavsie’s Opinion at least. It's a little long - sorry

What would networks, merchants & agencies like affiliates to do in order to police themselves & operate ethically so that a few don't spoil it for all?

This is a difficult one to be honest, networks should be taking this very seriously and have procedures in place. I know we do, but sometimes a bad apple slips through the net – but we eventually find them.

Possible Solutions
- Education, Education, Education; maybe by the Association. Networks and experience affiliates can put together training days which educate people on the various “bad techniques” they should be looking out for. Most people in the industry just don’t know enough about it, to make an informed decision.
- An “Affiliate Champion” or Association, who collects affiliates/examples of bad practices, then submitted them to networks. Name and shame the affiliates and the networks who don’t do anything
- Talk to your network contacts, if you see something then tell us. We can not be everywhere on every site. Talk to your peers and talk to the merchants as well. We should all work together more.

What are the few rogue affiliates doing which tarnishes the affiliate marketing industry?

I don’t want to give too much away in case some idiot wants to starting trying it. But in summary
- Black hat SEO is a bug bear of mind
- SEO against T&Cs, which would not be your atypical Black hat I guess.
- Utilising Google’s GEO and Time targeting; then bidding on TMs. It’s pretty obvious to me, but maybe not everyone.
- MSN and Yahoo or CPC networks ads, thinking no one looks any more. Always a funny one
- Adware
- iframes
- Forced clicking
- Competitions that never seem to have a winner
- SPAM, how much is still goes on is scary.

What can affiliates do as a community to isolate and/or identify and/or educate these rogue affiliates?

Let’s all get together. Educate merchants, networks (in some cases) and affiliates on what is happening and why it is bad. I think most networks would chip in for an educational day or two, we’d need the best affiliates in terms knowledge and experience. I personally think it would be better coming from affiliates; because a network would usually turn it into a pitch about some “fascinating” technology and not actually educate people. It would also raise the profile of true affiliates, professional digital marketers rather than being mixed up with all the chancers/bandits.

What paranoia do networks / merchants or agencies have about the affiliates within the channel?

Paranoia is probably the wrong word; I am not paranoid about any affiliate. If we cannot see where the money is coming from, or I do not receive a sufficient answer then your commissions on hold until we are happy. Simple, I have to protect my merchant’s interests and our network.

I guess I am paranoid about technology and the geek factor, I’ve seen some very ingenious, technically brilliant but ultimately unethical techniques which have made some people very rich, very quickly. They eventually get caught, but after being paid substantial sums. Thankfully nothing on LS. So I’m paranoid of Google not employing all the geeks, who decide to try something dodgy.

What do networks/merchants/agencies want from affiliates (apart from not having blogs or commenting on forums or gagging orders ) which would assist them in increasing the overall credibility of affiliates in the marketplace?

- Professionalism, structure and accountability like every other marketing channel.
- Be a voice in the marketing circles, on the sites; come out of the affiliate space and in to mainstream marketing. Affiliates are some of the best marketers in the world, yet sometimes you wonder how.
- Some sites generate massive volumes, but do they do any forms of marketing except PPC and Email. Some of you make more for a merchant, than any other individual outbound marketing channel. Even their SEM agency 
- I want you to have blogs, have rants, highlight problems. But be constructive.
- Have events that are not all about getting drunk! Have a proper awards night, have a proper seminar. Don’t get completely blotto if you still have events and clients the next day. Thing about it like this, if I came to see you about your site with my merchant; we were both still hungover and slurring our words. Would you want to work with us? Maybe? Would you think, great that’s a fantastic opportunity? NO

Do affiliates need to improve the quality of their sites in general to showcase to their prospective clients?

Yes blatantly lots do, some sites are awful. Some merchants refuse to work with a site based on the style/look; even though it ranks well. It’s like any media, if it looks bad then most good brands do not want to be listed. Remember affiliate marketing is only one marketing channel, so let’s make sure we get the money and not some big publisher like EMAP or News Intnl.

Greavsie

[hpops]

Nice Responses Greavsie (note to self - try and do something with Linkshare in 08)

Merchants and networks which create problems of any sort for affiliates are swiftly rounded on these days (and rightly so). There is no such industry wide attention of affiliate bad practice - and theres absolutely loads of it all over the shop.

What would networks, merchants & agencies like affiliates to do in order to police themselves & operate ethically so that a few don't spoil it for all?

Pay clear attention to terms and conditions, never break them. Work with merchants as partners, accept that they have difficulties in the same way you do and support them to acheive mutually beneficial aims. Don't say nothing for two years to your best merchants until their tracking fails for half an hour and then jump on here and complain about how awful they are.

What are the few rogue affiliates doing which tarnishes the affiliate marketing industry?

Forced clicks, unauthorised bidding in all its forms, spam, black hat stuff, adware (apparently bigger than I thought still), almost eerie levels of anonymity throughout the industry.

What can affiliates do as a community to isolate and/or identify and/or educate these rogue affiliates?

I have always supported the idea of a "badge" of some description which means that you're honest, open about your activities, willing to listen and dedicated to the industry. This badge could attract higher comms rates for some merchants (even networks??). Essentially the community needs to understand the scale of the problems and understand that the solutions will occasionally intrude on thier own business practices.

What paranoia do networks / merchants or agencies have about the affiliates within the channel?

Quite a lot if they are in the know! The biggest paranoia we hear is "how many of these sales are new sales to us? How many would we have got if the channel wasn't there?" And they are seriously valid questions to ask. I'd expect a few major brands to be pretty uncomfortable with the answers if they dug deep enough!

What do networks/merchants/agencies want from affiliates (apart from not having blogs or commenting on forums or gagging orders ) which would assist them in increasing the overall credibility of affiliates in the marketplace?

We (and many other agencies, and networks) autmotically push our merchants onto here, through the blogs and the like. All that gagging order nonsense is just that (as long as blogs are mainly fair, which I think they just about maintain at the moment). Certainly my merchants welcome feedback on their programs and are often frustrated at the difficulty of actually getting any "real" feedback beyond "quite a nice program, why don't you pay more commission". Personally the biggie for me is anonymity, there are very few channels which have no accountability on placement. I think it is utterly reasonable for a merchant to expect a network to know where their traffic is coming from and, to a point, how that traffic is being generated. If not the merchant then it the network surely, MUST be able to provide that information to resolve any disputes. It would totally change everything if merchants received "click came from page x" data. And for the better (I know, I know, merchants and agencies will steal all the best ideas etc - but isn't that mostly nonsense really? really? - no, really really?)


Do affiliates need to improve the quality of their sites in general to showcase to their prospective clients?

Yes, present company (ie most of this forum) excepted, most sites we see are laughably poor, we still approve most as we know that most peoples sites in their profiles aren't their main traffic drivers - but thats incredibly frustrating. Client - "what sort of sites will we appear on" Us - "shoddy MFA sites, badly translated russian sites, spam factories and sites designed by one armed, blind drunkards" Client - "great, sounds like the channel for me!"

All in all, a lot, I for one, would love to see affiliates apply the same set of rules to themselves as they vocally demand from the other parties in affiliate marketing

[Sarah @ BCA]

What would networks, merchants & agencies like affiliates to do in order to police themselves & operate ethically so that a few don't spoil it for all?

Read the T&Cs, and stick to them. But I think also the idea of an affiliate association – much debated on these forums – would also be a good way of doing this as long as it was well supported by affiliates from the industry. Also, I echo the posting above where I think that affiliates should try and get more involved in the wider marketing community to try and demonstrate the legitimacy of the channel to those merchants who might be nervous about what they’re getting into.

What are the few rogue affiliates doing which tarnishes the affiliate marketing industry?

Not that I want to give anyone ideas, but on programmes like ours (Books Direct), where we pay on an application, we often see applications which are put through by affiliates using robots/software. We always catch them out and reverse the commissions, so it’s pretty pointless, but it just adds extra work and diminishes the credibility of the industry when you’re trying to explain it to someone within the company who perhaps doesn’t have a full understanding of how things work.

What can affiliates do as a community to isolate and/or identify and/or educate these rogue affiliates?

I think some kind of body or association which affiliates could join which showed that they’re legitimate would be great. For example, Books Direct are part of the Direct Marketing Association, and display their badge on our websites. I know there’s been much discussion about this on these boards, but I think that this would really help to separate those who are doing things properly from the minority who aren’t. I also think networks could do more to help here. I know that CJ has their ‘Performer’ status for Publishers. Things like this really help merchants to be able to feel reassured about where their advertising is being placed.

What paranoia do networks / merchants or agencies have about the affiliates within the channel?

Will they just ditch us if something better comes along?!

All too often, we have an affiliate who is doing good volumes. Despite many attempts to contact them, we get no response. And then, out of the blue, they just stop running the programme. Sales drop and the marketing director wants to know what’s going on, and we can’t tell them! Luckily this isn’t the norm, but it’s probably a concern for many affiliate managers. What I’d like is for affiliates to get in touch if things aren’t working. If you’ve been running a programme and it doesn’t work out, pick up the phone and talk to me, see how we can work together as a team to make this work for us both. And if things don’t work out, then fine, at least we know why and can try and improve things. I think the key to affiliate marketing is communication, and it has to be 2 way.

What do networks/merchants/agencies want from affiliates (apart from not having blogs or commenting on forums or gagging orders ) which would assist them in increasing the overall credibility of affiliates in the marketplace?

Communication! The more blogs and posts the better – as long as they’re constructive. As a merchant, I find blog and forum postings invaluable, as they’re a great way of getting the insider info on the competition, but there’s nothing which diminishes the credibility of the affiliate industry more than seeing a full-on affiliate-manager or network bashing!

Merchants should be reading blogs and the forum regularly if they want to be a good affiliate manager. The posts help me to better understand how to avoid the pitfalls that others have come across, and to learn what works from others in the industry. But if there is a problem which an affiliate has with a particular merchant or network, it’s always better to read as post which shows that they’ve tried to resolve it directly first. Affiliate marketing is all about relationships, and affiliates should at least give the company in question a chance to sort things out before posting a complaint.

Do affiliates need to improve the quality of their sites in general to showcase to their prospective clients?

In general, most sites look pretty good and, in my experience, some of the sites which don’t look so great still perform well. That said, and this is more for newbie affiliates, I’d ask that when an affiliate applies to a programme, they make sure that the URL they apply with is (a) one which they might actually use (b) one which actually works (!) and (c) one which looks professional. When you’re approving affiliates to join the programme, and all you’ve got to go on is their name, URL and what they list as their business model (and most affiliates tick about 5 options) it makes it really difficult to justify accepting an affiliate whose site doesn’t look the part!



______________________________________
Sarah Day
Affiliates Manager
BCA (Books Direct)
T: 01793 747015
E: sday@bca.co.uk
W: BooksDirect - your guide to the best books!

[Greavsie]

why thank you hpops. There's still time in 2007

[hpops]

Mate, I'm down the pub from now till January!