sky up to their old tricks again!!!

[gunneradt]

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managed to not be the last referrer for the sake of 17 minutes

[gunneradt]

So now I have 2 sales in Feb that are (surprise surprise) now declined. One 'not last referrer' after a month of being pending and one sale cancelled.

How does this programme get away with this? I've had about the last 20 sales declined now.

We were promised more transparency but it seems to be more same old, same old.

So what info will I get if I raise a ticket? Phone number for the households in question would be useful - so I could just kind of check!!!

[ian]

If as you say, their program doesn't perform due to cancelled sales, not last referrer, lack of transparency, same old, same old, why are you still sending them traffic ? To get the sales in the first place you must be sending a decent amount of traffic, so why not bung up an adsense block and cut your losses.

[gunneradt]

I dont send them traffic per se- i have a few ads up. Yet if anyone can tell me that about 20 cancelled sales in a row is legit then I'll run down the street naked whistling rule britannia. The odds must be unbelievable

[adamski]

I dont send them traffic per se- i have a few ads up. Yet if anyone can tell me that about 20 cancelled sales in a row is legit then I'll run down the street naked whistling rule britannia. The odds must be unbelievable

We are confident Sky's validation procedure is legitimate. It's not unreasonable for a user to interact with another channel within the 17 mins between your click and sale. I would be interested to take a look at your site and how you generate traffic so I can specifically assess why users are using other channels so often ater viewing it.

I believe an automated deduplication solution is very close to being implemented. Ironically, this will give you less transparency but will mean Sky operates like most other affiliate programmes on the network; i.e. where our tracking code conditionally displays based on our link being the last click.

[dc000000]

I dont send them traffic per se- i have a few ads up. Yet if anyone can tell me that about 20 cancelled sales in a row is legit then I'll run down the street naked whistling rule britannia. The odds must be unbelievable

If a merchant offers a £50 M&S Voucher when you sign up from anywhere and then offers £75 if you sign up from somewhere else then what does that suggest to you?
If I wanted to game an affiliate network and most of its members it wouldn't be hard to find a site willing to help me do this would it?

[gunneradt]

where can they get £75 worth of vouchers from? If I didn't know that I doubt many punters did.

@Adam It would help if you updated banners properly when sky changes its offers - yesterday nearly all banners were still showing £25 worth of vouchers not £50. I doubt there is anything you could say to anyone outside the closed ppc group that could convince them that Sky's validation procedure is legitimate - I certainly dont believe it is. I used to get quite a few sales with sky. Ive had a few in the last year and every one has been turned down - it simply isn't possible by the law of averages.

[Mogga]

Yes you do know where they can get £75 of vouchers.
If that's a real deal then no wonder no one else gets commission.

[Barry]

In the past they didnt used to de-dupe across any channel - even paying out to multiple networks - ah them where the day

I will also echo that it would be nice to have an auto updating banner that supplies the best deals for affiliates to advertise at any time.

Shame I cant get the £75 deal out of them either - but then I am not exactly renowned for being the most on the ball affiliate these days when it comes to keeping my pages fresh.

Ta

Baz

[Mogga]

Shame I cant get the £75 deal out of them either

I'm not sure how any one else could get it either - to achieve sales you have to compete on a level playing field and it's certainly not that when one affil has a voucher worth 50% more to the consumer.

[dc000000]

where can they get £75 worth of vouchers from? If I didn't know that I doubt many punters did.
.

Not hard to find and never has been - usually #1 for sky voucher code searches?
SKY Offer Codes | Sky TV Offer Code - Sky Voucher Codes & Vouchers

[HelenMarie]

Hi All,

I understand all of your concerns and frustrations here. I don't want to go into too much detail on an open forum about our strategy understandably so I do encourage anyone with any concerns to contact me directly and I will happily discuss.

However, what I can say is that we are currently testing a few options over the next 2 weeks and if these work then we will be looking to roll out to more affiliates. I have a view of referring URLs so I can feedback to anyone that wants it how this directly impacts your sales.

I do really encourage anyone to talk directly with myself or the account amangement teams at Awin / Buy.at not only about our startegy but so that potentially you could be involved in these kind of tests going forward.

Thanks
Helen

My contact details are:
MSN: helen.southgate@hotmail.co.uk
Email: helen.southgate@bskyb.com
Tel: 07901008101

[gunneradt]

Hi All,

I understand all of your concerns and frustrations here. I don't want to go into too much detail on an open forum about our strategy understandably so I do encourage anyone with any concerns to contact me directly and I will happily discuss.

However, what I can say is that we are currently testing a few options over the next 2 weeks and if these work then we will be looking to roll out to more affiliates. I have a view of referring URLs so I can feedback to anyone that wants it how this directly impacts your sales.

I do really encourage anyone to talk directly with myself or the account amangement teams at Awin / Buy.at not only about our startegy but so that potentially you could be involved in these kind of tests going forward.

Thanks
Helen

My contact details are:
MSN: helen.southgate@hotmail.co.uk
Email: helen.southgate@bskyb.com
Tel: 07901008101

not quite sure what you're saying

I have god knows how many sales where Im supposedly not the last referrer - one was literally minutes. Can I see the urls that got the sale then? I asked this for this last year.

I'd also like to know why sky is offering some affiliates the £75 vouchers.

I think all affiliates want is a level playing field and some honesty. Other merchants manage it - why not sky?

[mattb811]

I'd also like to know why sky is offering some affiliates the £75 vouchers.

I think all affiliates want is a level playing field and some honesty. Other merchants manage it - why not sky?

I don't agree with this at all Andrew. Sky have the absolute right to direct specific offers to specific partners based on where they think those offers will resonate and where the greatest return will come from. This is not particular to affiliate marketing, this has happened since time began across the board. Different supermarkets are able to command different rates and therefore provide different offers to consumers. They appreciate that by building relationships and being able to drive volume leads to economies of scale, which translate into better consumer offers.

Within the affiliate channel, there are numerous different methods that affiliates use and these need to be leveraged in different ways to elicit the greatest return for the merchant. Without discussing the Sky campaign specifically (as I don't know a lot about it), let me give you an example. A high volume comparison site may be offered a better commission or consumer offer in order to differentiate it from a competitor. As long as this still makes commercial sense for the merchant this isn't unfair on other people, it is simply good marketing practice. They are reducing their own margin to drive more sales.

Clearly it is more cost and resource effective for Sky to concentrate on running these offers with those partners who have the capability and desire to work closely with them and drive more sales.

The deduplication issue is completely separate to this and something I am incapable of commenting on.

[gunneradt]

I don't agree with this at all Andrew. Sky have the absolute right to direct specific offers to specific partners based on where they think those offers will resonate and where the greatest return will come from. This is not particular to affiliate marketing, this has happened since time began across the board. Different supermarkets are able to command different rates and therefore provide different offers to consumers. They appreciate that by building relationships and being able to drive volume leads to economies of scale, which translate into better consumer offers.

Within the affiliate channel, there are numerous different methods that affiliates use and these need to be leveraged in different ways to elicit the greatest return for the merchant. Without discussing the Sky campaign specifically (as I don't know a lot about it), let me give you an example. A high volume comparison site may be offered a better commission or consumer offer in order to differentiate it from a competitor. As long as this still makes commercial sense for the merchant this isn't unfair on other people, it is simply good marketing practice. They are reducing their own margin to drive more sales.

Clearly it is more cost and resource effective for Sky to concentrate on running these offers with those partners who have the capability and desire to work closely with them and drive more sales.

The deduplication issue is completely separate to this and something I am incapable of commenting on.

I have no problem with other affiliates getting differing levels of commission at all. But I had no idea about the £75 commission until someone posted this.

Why wasn't it communicated? Why would you buy a dvd player in argos for £75 when tesco is selling it for £50. Answer! You wouldn't. There are way too many unseen, deceptive things going on with the sky campaign - and have been for about 12 months.

I'm just going to replace all my sky banners with virgin stuff - not as good but at least I might get the odd sale.