The role of an Agency within Affiliate Marketing

[Mogga]

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Dear Affiliate,

Just a reminder that as from today there is an agency handover for XXXX campaigns.
They will now be run through AGENCY and as such please can you login to NETWORK and pick up your new links. All creative and links have been amended.

Do it today as sales will no longer be tracked through the old links as of today (Friday 1st February).


Is this the role of the agency? Is it necessary for an agency to implement new links on takeover? Why such short notice?

[curious george]

Sometimes some agencies use third party tracking software that help the dedupe acorss all channels, may be its this?

They should give you adequate timeframes and explain fully though.

[Mogga]

I assume they do, but such short notice doesn't endear them to me.

[Paul Wright]

Workign for an agency myself I'd just like to jump in here and say that this isn't the way 'agencies' work but sounds to me like the way this particualr company works. I wouldn't dream of tarnishing all affiliates with the same brush

Fair notice periods should be given whether you're network, agency, or merchant.

Cheers
Paul

[3wdl]

What Paul said.....

[aaclapham]

Agencies can be quite frustrating....

My time is limited so would prefer to spend 90% of it updating content and getting new traffic, however whereas before I could find one contact for a vertical at a network and form a good relationship which was advantageous to the merchant. Now everytime a new merchant appears it comes along with a different agency. I have explain how I will drive traffic etc etc........ Which is frustrating as the network rep already knows this

So now I end up spending more time moaning to the network rep that the agency hasn't replied to my emails....................

[Matthew Wood]

I'd just like to jump in here and say that this isn't the way 'agencies' work but sounds to me like the way this particualr company works. I wouldn't dream of tarnishing all affiliates with the same brush.

very fair point Paul

[Mogga]

The agency is i-level.

the program is on DGM - and what's really annoying is DGM's links are a strange number coded bizarre thing anyway - so why didn't DGM edit their destination URLs to go via this different tracking?

When a merchant link is hardcoded www.piziesticks.co.uk?affil=turnip then I can see the need for changing URLs but when a code is (I am only assuming here) hardcoded via a database so it consists of a LINK id to allow the database to get it to where it needs to go, why oh why oh why can't just the network database be altered so we don't have to change links.

An aside. I detest DGMs links. They do not allow me to easily identify which merchant is why when looking at the URL. I have no obvious indicator that the link tracks to me as there's no obvious bit of them pointing out which affiliate it belongs to.

</rant>

[mattb811]

Hi Guys,

The fault here lies with us at DGM instead of i-level. We have restructured the way the two campaigns, Adoption and Membership, are set up in our system in order to allow cross tracking to occur on the program. This has meant that some of the old links in our system have become redundant, requiring affiliates to swap links.

I agree with everyone on here and apologise about the time given to swap links. This is not how we normally work here at DGM and the WWF account manager is currently sorting out a solution to the problem.

Once again, I apologise and this is nothing to do with i-level's handling of the campaign.

Any problems, please give me a shout.

Thanks,

Matt

[hpops]

What Paul and James said!!
Also, way to fall on a sword Matt - very honorable

[JJackson]

Hi all,

sorry, that's our fault.

Let me clarify; we're restructuring the WWF programme so that it can be managed as a single Advertiser comprising both Adoptions and Memberships within one programme, rather than set up as two as it had been before. This ought to make the whole campaign easier to manage, report on and optimise for all concerned, saving you time and resource.

What could certainly have been communicated better is that, while that is happening today, affiliates who are unable to switch their links over immediately won't suffer as their existing links will automatically re-direct from the now defunct two programmes to the new combined single one. For the sake of good housekeeping, we would like all affiliates to pick up the newly-created links so that we can shut down the old programme structure for good. There's no set time limit on this, though and all current links will function until all the new ones have been picked up and implemented.

Again, we apologise that this wasn't made clearer. While we have been working with the agency on this, it's our communication that's led to the misunderstanding.

Hope this goes some way to clearing things up; please don't hesitate to contact me if you need further information.

Best Regards

James Jackson
Account Manager
dgmAffiliates

[mdrussell]

Agree with what Paul said.

Well done to DGM and in particular Matt for coming out and taking the flack.

[taramoar]

Just in response to aaclapham, agencies are here to make your life easier, not harder, with the idea that you have one contact who knows your business to spread across their clients. I'm sorry to hear this isn't happening for you - maybe your network contact can help push things along for you. Usually taking the time to explain your business strategy pays off with multiple deals.

[JJackson]

HI Tara,

that's absolutely right and in this case, it does stem from an agency working with us to do just that; make things easier for affiliates by merging two programmes into one.

Unfortunately, instead of communicating that (paraphrasing);

The campaign's being restructured today; please pick up new links

we actually said;

The campaign's being restructured; please pick up new links today.

Hopefully, it's all a bit clearer now.

Best
James

[aaclapham]

Just in response to aaclapham, agencies are here to make your life easier, not harder, with the idea that you have one contact who knows your business to spread across their clients. I'm sorry to hear this isn't happening for you - maybe your network contact can help push things along for you. Usually taking the time to explain your business strategy pays off with multiple deals.

Thanks for the PM, I think I am just having a bad agency hair day!!