Next Affiliate Program - The Facts

[Qui Gon Jinn]

Common Frostie i know you want more pounds of flesh, especially re unanswered questions. I can visualise you chomping at the bit with fingers hovering over the keyboard & twitching patiently.

[fionah]

Originally Posted by loquax The questionnaire, which imo is overly intrusive, needs to be adapted and/or made voluntary. You don't need to know blogs, usernames, etc etc etc... it will come in time as a relationship develops but in a questionnaire to apply for a program is a bit ott.

O.k fair enough. I will ensure that the request for blog addresses and usernames is optional from now on, however it is important for both next and affiliates to be aware of various affiliate promotions so we can address the different types of affiliates appropriatly.

Originally Posted by loquax 3. You (or Next) need to understand that if you do things right, you get positive results for your brand... do things wrong and you get negative responses. Work out why your brand is receiving criticism - to help you it's not the affiliate side of things. Solve the answer to (3) and moving forward should be a breeze.... Jason

Thanks Jason, I really hope we can moving forward.

[Frostie]

Not chomping Jason... honest... I am more selective over who I chomp on!

I am just watching the questions and answers, finding it very interesting. I am looking forward to see the response to Matts question;

Originally Posted by Matthew Wood That said I don't agree with way next have handled the situation and certainly do not agree on what I presume is the instruction by next to not allow 'vocal' affiliates onto the programme. Fiona can you confirm that it was indeed on the instruction of next head office? or was this an internal i-level decision?

And sorry, but I am being brought into discussion again...

This is a very good point, however merchants do not pay thousands of pounds a year to customers who voice negative opinions of them.

Yes they do! Its called constructive critiscm for crying out loud. They can't expect people to sing the praises of a programme that is complete and utter crap! If they do, then they are worse idiots than I ever imagined! Is anyone actually relaying this information to Next?

A more realistic quote, that I think you should take back to Next management is this;
Affiliates do not generate thousands of pounds for a merchant that will not answer for their actions, that use bully tactics and that generally destroy their own programme. They promote their competition.

Tell them that, and tell them to wake up to reality before it really is too late! Just look at how much damage has already been done and yet still, Next think us affiliates should be appreciative!

They are the laughing stock of the Affiliate Marketing Industry right now! Have you relayed this to Next or are you shielding them from the very horrible truth?

[loquax]

Not chomping Jason

Deffo no chomping here.

Jason

[Supercod]

Originally Posted by fionah This is a very good point, however merchants do not pay thousands of pounds a year to customers who voice negative opinions of them.

That is you assuming you would get the sales anyway, you should be thinking "these affiliates are sending us hundreds of thousands of pounds in sales, how can we get more sales and fix the issues they have" sadly you see it as the merchant giving affiliates money (probally for doing nothing from the sounds of it) when in fact it's hard earned and lets face it clothes are clothes at the end of the day I am sure a few competitors of Next will be happy to take the customers affiliates send and I am also sure next won't lose any sleep over it.

Dam I just replied to this thread, that will be me band from joining the program and the Gestapo will have a file on me now

While I am here I would like to give a wave to the 2 networks that Next are on and who don't have the balls to comment, nice work guys, leave Fiona with no back up or advice on how to handle Affiliates and the forum.

[fionah]

Originally Posted by Utterfly It seems Next and their management company is finally getting what they deserve for all the disrespect and lying they demonstrated... When NEXT was on AWin I worked with them for a couple of months, generating 20-30k in sales per day, before they went into "budget problems" and decided to ban me as violating network T&C and seize over 13,000 pounds earned in Affiliate Window account. Mark Walters from Awin controversially dictated that sending visitors from unused type-in domains was "forcing a click to a merchant, counter to their network code of conduct", even though their "network code" had nothing to do with this. All other networks confirmed this practice is perfectly acceptable (unless, of course, there is a TM conflict, which wasn't applicable in this case).

You will have to remind me of the specific circumstances however it looks like you were found to be using adware to generate clicks? Definite no no which will result in immediate suspension from the program.

Originally Posted by Utterfly they run a competition to win bonuses but to the best of my knowledge it was never completed and bonuses never paid

The competition was completed last year and vouchers were awarded to the following affiliates.

Shop Safe - £1000 vouchers
High Street UK - £200 vouchers
Holiday Brochure - £100 vouchers
Top Deals - £100 vouchers
British Catalogues - £100 vouchers

Although Holiday Brochure and Top deals I'm still waiting for confirmation on your address details...

[getvisible]

Perhaps i-level should take their own advice - and shouldn't be suprised when a few people complain vocally how their campaign is being viewed:

Web is a powerful force for activism

Incoherent, messianic, slightly bonkers. Even the control-freakiest of Hollywood stars let their carefully crafted images slip from time to time, and so it was with Tom Cruise, whose video for the Scientologists has been doing the rounds on YouTube for the past few weeks.

and will they be winning one of these this year?

http://www.i-level.com/home/queensaward2007.pdf

or is this one more apt?

Lack of strategy is tactical error

[Utterfly]

Originally Posted by fionah You will have to remind me of the specific circumstances however it looks like you were found to be using adware to generate clicks? Definite no no which will result in immediate suspension from the program.

Fionah, we had been in a good e-mail communication with you and AW, before NEXT started to tighten affiliate budget, you found ways to terminate affiliation, stopped responding and AW unprecedently banned my entire account with 13k in it. If you pay attention to the original post, NEXT sales were generated from type-in domains, nothing to do with adware:

Direct navigation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Type-in traffic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm not requesting you to comment on this matter, this is posted here only for the attention of other affiliates who are still considering whether to deal with the "Best New Merchant of 2007"..

[fionah]

Originally Posted by John Jupp So my question is.......does Next pay commissions for sales outside the UK and in places where franchises operate and where customers in those countries can buy online and use the store collection service (Ireland,Spain ..any others?). There was a similar issue with La Senza in that they only validated UK online sales even though they linked worldwide and customers could collect from franchised stores so affiliates with high overseas traffic were getting nothing for sales generated outside the UK.

Each site is independent and customers cannot order from the UK site and have delivery in Spain and vice versa. Customers who order from Next.co.uk cannot have delivery outside the UK unless they are BFPO. It is not possible to collect UK orders in Ireland or Spain.

[drivetowin]

Fiona

Firstly, thank you for entering into dialogue on the forum - while some will say it is too little too late, I think we have had more dialogue from you in the last few hours than we have had since i-Level took over the Next programme - let's hope this is an indication of the better communication which was promised when Next moved to affili.net and buy.at but never really materialised.

I think it is probably just your way of writing but you do in this thread on occasion come over as flippant and given the strength of affiliate feeling surrounding Next (I don't thing I have seen such depth of feeling since the ASOS debacle), this is not a desirable attribute, so you may wish to read your posts a couple of times before clicking the submit button (a much wiser man than me once told me "when speaking (or writing) in public, be sure your words are soft and sweet - for you never know when you may have to eat them later".)

That you have agreed to make the blog and a4u user name fields on your form optional is a step forward (though I don't really see why you can't go one step further and remove them altoget