Asda Gift Experiences - no commission

[Jeff]

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I've just noticed that Asda Gift experiences are currently paying 0% commission. I didn't know about this until I noticed a sale with no commission.

It seems that Asda changed it from 5% to 0% a couple of weeks ago.

Why are merchants allowed to get away with doing this just as the christmas period is starting?

Why was there no publicity about this?
I've checked my email account and the message system in Darwin and there was no mention of it.

[amrob2]

There was no message about this via Awin, nor was there any emails on the buy.at platform.

HOWEVER there was a message on buy.at which I just happened to see on the page after login which happened to mention new rates for Asda which said that gifts were going to zero rate commission. I agree that it is a bit poor when a merchant does this without properly notifying us.

For your information, I have just managed to find the following on the buy.at platform "Communications" reports section:

**Important commission change notice to ASDA affiliates - effective 5pm Wednesday 9th November 2011**

ASDA are focusing their affiliate promotions towards ASDA Direct and George on an ongoing basis and the following areas of the site will consequently be non-commissionable after 5pm, 9th November 2011:

Opticians
Photo prints and gifts
Gift experiences
Flowers
Pharmacy
Travel
All other existing commission groups remain in place at the existing commission rates.

This adjustment of focus for ASDA allows greater emphasis on the key site areas such as electricals and applicances, toys, music, games & videos, furniture and baby products.

Look out for more top deals and promotions from ASDA this Christmas.

If you have any queries please let us know as asda@affiliatewindow.com

The ASDA Affiliates Team

Luckily I saw this within a day or so of the new rates starting, so I was able to pull the gift experiences from my website.

[Jeff]

Thanks for that amrob2. I was promoting them via AW so I didn't see the notification on Buy.at. It doesn't appear to be in Buy.at's "essential merchant news" RSS feed. If this isn't essential news I don't know what is.
Asda's program page on buy.at still says they pay 5% commission for experience gifts. There's still a live datafeed (updated today) for Asda Flowers, which is also paying 0%, so they clearly don't have a clue what they're doing.


It seems to be permanent that they're not paying commission on these items, so the AW program should have been closed. If that had happened we'd have received notifications.



Totally unacceptable behaviour by Asda, and by whoever is supposed to be managing their program.

I'm not bothered about the lost commission - it's only one sale. I bet others have been hit harder without realising it. It's the unprofessional way they've gone about it that really annoys me.

[amrob2]

I have just recently switched to promoting ASDA via Awin as I got fed up with constant untracked sales via the buy.at platform (I use Awin, Tradedoubler, buy.at and Affiliate Future on my website and I have more untracked sales on buy.at than any other platform - and I know they are untracked because they are my own purchases!) so I know you are correct when you say that there was no notification on Awin.

There was also zero notification on buy.at (cannot say about Awin as I was not promoting them that way at the time) when Asda moved their MVG section away from asda-entertainment.co.uk (a The Hut group website) to their own in house Asda Direct website. I had quite a few deep links on my site into the asda-entertainment.co.uk website which for quite a number of days were all bringing up 404 error messages, so that was rather poor of Asda to not notify on that equally important change. In fact I only became aware of it when Asda sent me a personal email (as I have used Asda Entertainment for my own purchases in the past) to notify me of their exciting new MVG section on Asda Direct!

So I agree with you about it being unacceptable behaviour by Asda and the account manager.

[edchambers]

Hi Guys,

I've just double checked on this and this update was communicated out on both networks. The Awin communication stated:

**Important commission change notice to ASDA affiliates - effective 5pm Wednesday 9th November 2011**

ASDA are focusing their affiliate promotions towards ASDA Direct and George on an ongoing basis and the following areas of the site will consequently be non-commissionable after 5pm, 9th November 2011:

* Opticians
* Photo prints and gifts
* Gift experiences
* Flowers
* Pharmacy
* Travel

All other existing commission groups remain in place at the existing commission rates.

This adjustment for focus for ASDA allows greater focus on the key site areas such as electricals and applicances, toys, music, games & videos, furniture and baby products.

Look out for more top deals and promotions from ASDA this Christmas.

If you have any queries please let us know as asda@affiliatewindow.com

The ASDA Affiliates Team

[Jeff]

I've just double checked on this and this update was communicated out on both networks.

How and when was it "communicated out"?


I have triple checked my email account, and I have definitely not received an email about it from buy.at or AW. There is nothing about this on Darwin either.



But there is something weird happening with this program.


I have never received any email from AW about this program, not even one to tell me that I joined.

Darwin is saying this:

"Launch Date
26th Nov 2010

Date Joined
12th Nov 2010"


So I apparently I joined it two weeks before it launched, but I didn't receive an email to tell me I'd joined.


I've always had my account set to automatically receive emails from merchants, and I never unsubscribe from those mailing lists. But I was set to not receive emails from Asda Gift Experiences. That's not something I'd have done.



Maybe I was added to the program on AW before the official launch and there's a glitch in the system somewhere that has prevented me from receiving any notifications from them as a result of this.


But that still doesn't explain why I didn't receive an email from buy.at about this, and it still doesn't explain why the program is still live, the data feed is still being updated, and the description still says "ASDA Direct is pleased to welcome affiliates to its Gifts and Away Days affiliate programme, with its incredible commission rate of 5%."

[edchambers]

Hi Jeff,

This was communicated on both networks by email on 2nd November. I'm not aware of any glitches in the system that would prevent any emails going out and received one for my test affiliate account at the time of the communication.
I think you're right, though, that the Awin programme should be set to 'closed' rather than 'hidden' so will get that adjustment done and apologise for the confusion.

[Jeff]

This was communicated on both networks by email on 2nd November.

I'm pretty sure there was a problem with AW's email systems on that day.


On Monday 1/11 I received 50 emails from AW or AW merchants.
On Wednesday 3/11 I received 130.

On Tuesday 2/11, the date these emails were sent, I received 7. They were all regarding merchants I'd requested to join. I received no merchant news or updates from AW on this date.


Looking at the emails I received on 3/11, many of them were sent on 2/11, but didn't leave AW until the early hours of the following day. I can see from the mail headers that the delay seems to have been internal to AW. Maybe a mail server was down. Maybe emails were not just delayed, but some were lost as a result.

[barneyboy]

Have to agree, I didn't receive any email regarding this on 2/11 or 3/11 (or at any time), although an email thanking me for joining Asda Groceries was received on 2/11