Sales declined "Not Last Referer"

[cashchampion]

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Any follow up here from either Awin and/or Boysstuff.
I think we have all been very patient with boysstuff, but this needs to be resolved ASAP.

I have over £1000 missing as a result of this, and many affiliates have the same.

It seems like the decline rate shot up to 60% in december, and then came back down to less than 1% in January. Seems very suspicious, and if you factor in that sales were only validated on 22nd december, instead of almost daily before, it seems even more strange....

[Bud]

One month on....

This should have been sorted by now.

Still not heard anything from BoysStuff (although I've received thier latest promo email!)

BoysStuff still not suspended from AW.

If it was genuine mistake BoysStuff then we can forgive, please just correct & sort out payments.

If it wasn't....

AW: Do we have to formally request correction and payment from yourselves or BoysStuff?

[aclements10]

Hi All,

Firstly, let me explain our delay in responding. We have been in contact with Boysstuff since Thursday of last week and have allowed that time to analyse their de-duping process. Our history shows we have a track record of ensuring all queries are answered, mostly quickly but in certain circumstances we are at the mercy of other parties to supply additional data so patience, whilst frustrating is a necessity if we are to supply a definitive response.

Boysstuff have confirmed to us that they de-dupe against other marketing channels using a last referrer, cookie based solution. This de-duping includes generic and brand paid search. The de-duping always takes place on a last referrer wins basis.

Boysstuff have assured us that they have not made any recent changes to the way they de-duplicate sales. They have always de-duplicated against both brand and generics paid search. This activity certainly increased in the run up to Christmas; however Boysstuff maintain that they are de-duplicating fairly and last referrer brand certainly would have had an impact at this time on affiliate decline rates.

I have to stress that an increased decline rate is not necessarily a sign of any wrong-doing or change by the merchant and at the moment Affiliate Window have no other reasons to suspect that the merchant is not de-duping as outlined.

Before anyone cries ‘fix’ it should go without saying that lost transactions through declines directly affects both the network and affiliate. It is our conclusion that Boysstuff have not done anything untoward and whilst a faster response would have been preferred, throughout this issue they have been cooperative and open about their processes and systems. We appreciate that being de-duped against brand PPC is annoying for affiliates and generally as a network we strongly advise against it, however this is a choice of the merchant, and Boysstuff are not the only merchant in the industry to do this.

The one issue that I feel is still outstanding is the fact that for some sales the click and transaction times appear to be very close together. When you have a sale declined because the affiliate link was not the last referring link, you would expect the click and subsequent transaction to occur some-time apart. Therefore, we have sent Boysstuff a selection of these transactions for further investigation and will report back if we discover anything further.

Boysstuff choose to manage their own program and have asked that they be allowed to contact affected affiliates directly to explain any concerns. I understand that a number of people who have posted on this thread have already been contacted and also have direct contact details with the affiliate management at Boysstuff. At present we are merely relaying all the information we have on the matter as a courtesy since this was raised on the forum. If affiliates still feel concerned then we suggest you contact Boysstuff directly to make your feelings known so you can secure your own satisfactory response from the merchant.

As always, if anyone would like to contact me directly on this then please feel free.

Kind Regards
Anthony Clements
Manager, Key Accounts
Tel: 020 7553 0353 Email: aclements@affiliatewindow.com

[DannyW]

Anthony,

Then how come nearly all affiliates are saying they have a decline rate of around 60%???

I too have this rate on declines on the few sales I'd sent them. some were days apart (click-transaction) and some were as low as 12 minutes - which I find hard to believe they got de-duped.

[8601cam]

DannyW,

At the risk of reiterating Anthony's full and comprehensive reply; decline rates vary, especially for programmes that are seasonal and that de-dupe against other marketing channels.

Whilst we feel de-duping 'last referrer' against Brand PPC is not ideal for the affiliate channel, it does still occur and is in place on the Boysstuff programme. This in effect means that if traffic from an affiliate link arrives at the Boysstuff site but does not purchase and subsequently returns to the Boysstuff site via a PPC link from a direct type in on the brand within a search engine, then any sale will be attributed on the last referrer basis to the PPC source. 12 minutes is not an unreasonable time for this to occur and in many instances can actually be even less. Again, it's not something AWin agrees with but explains the decline rate generally and over a period when the brand is front of mind.

This means that some affiliate sales will still record within the AWin interface (as an AWin cookie is present) but may subsequently be declined as it is not the last referrer. These are not really declines but duplicates as the sale reward is being applied to another channel.

In truth I would prefer a couple of changes to be implemented to aid clarity for the Boysstuff programme;

1. AWin tracking should only be displayed where the affiliate is the last referrer, this eliminates having to decline duplicates and operates on many of our merchant programmes since we already have the technical capabilities to do this. It does however require some additional development work from the merchant, but the benefits would be obvious, visiblity on true affiliate sales that can only be declined through the normal means of non-completion and removal of the 'duplicate' sales.

2. Removal of the de-duping against Brand PPC, however this will require agreement from the merchant and an understanding of the negative/positive implications for their programme.

This is, however, a wish list and ss a self managed programme we do have our hands tied to some degree but we are looking to pursue discussion of the above. As Anthony points out, future personal queries should be directed to the merchant as we can only reiterate the previous findings from our investigation and we do not want to appear unco-operative or unresponsive.

Kind Regards

Mark

[Qui Gon Jinn]

A merchant de-duping 'last referrer' against Brand PPC is certainly not ideal for the affiliate channel.

Do we really need merchants like this? Networks do have an option, simple, don't allow merchants who do this to have a program? What do others think?

The scale of reversals other affiliates even by this still seems unusually high.

Perhaps AW & all other networks should indicate clearly which merchants do this so affiliate can make an informed decision? There just seems to be in the industry ever decreasing transparency .. cloak & dagger. I feel for those affected affiliates.

In admin their approval rate is showing at 94.00% .. is this accurate??

[hpops]

Paul, I totally agree, I'm also aware that this is fairly widespread.
A LOT of merchants dedupe brand PPC (this is their choice and they should be allowed to make it and maintain a program) without having those details publically available.
Personally, I think that lack of transparency in merchant details is the problem here, and its a biggie.

[8601cam]

Hi Paul,

Agreed, it's not ideal but you know how much work AWin have done on converting many of the ill informed merchants and it really can be just a question of knowledge as opposed to anything malicious.

Our findings, however still support the fact that nothing obviously untoward has occured. Believe me, as a network I'd be more than happy to have some of these declines reversed if we found an issue with the processes or valid reason.

We are also in the process of highlighting certain 'parameters' for a merchant to give affiliates better visibility on the programme and this will include amongst other things, de-duping specifics. Like the AWin Index, we hope this clarity will make merchants take note and seek the positives and negatives of de-duping against brand PPC.

Kind Regards

Mark

[roarer02]

"Our findings, however still support the fact that nothing obviously untoward has occured."

I will not discuss this further in this domain but will contact Awin seperately.

I sent Awin details of where and how my sales generated. They were exactly the same click ref as the many commissions I have generated for Boysstuff for the last 2 years or so. My sales for December have been declined for NO reason whatsoever. You (Awin) know this.

Suffice to say that this is an astonishing conclusion that does not reflect well on Awin.

I expected better. In fact, you led me to believe better.

Shocking.

[adamski]

Paul, I totally agree, I'm also aware that this is fairly widespread.
A LOT of merchants dedupe brand PPC (this is their choice and they should be allowed to make it and maintain a program) without having those details publically available.
Personally, I think that lack of transparency in merchant details is the problem here, and its a biggie.

Duncan/Paul

Totally agree with this and our intention is to provide much greater transparency on this in future upgrades to our system. This is an industry wide problem and could act as a huge differentiator between programmes.

Roarer02

We can only apologise this hasn't been a satisfactory resolution. I'm going to try and drill down a little further on this data and supply you with proof that you weren't the last referrer on the declined sales.

We will look into this tomorrow.

Adam

[Bud]

Roarer02

We can only apologise this hasn't been a satisfactory resolution. I'm going to try and drill down a little further on this data and supply you with proof that you weren't the last referrer on the declined sales.

Whilst I appreciate AW's work on this, it certainly isn't a satisfactory conclusion.

I'm currently in the process of de-duping against another affilaite but can I request that you also "drill down" for me as well please Adam? I would very much like to see which sales of mine went elsewhere.

Finally, just to clarify, are you saying that "de-duping against Brand PPC" means these sales are accounted directly to BoysStuff with all clickrefs being ignored? Is there any evidence to support these?

Oh, while I'm here, I just wanted to say about 50% of my declines have a click/purchase time of less than 12mins. Very high for going elsewhere.

Thanks

[roarer02]

"We can only apologise this hasn't been a satisfactory resolution. I'm going to try and drill down a little further on this data and supply you with proof that you weren't the last referrer on the declined sales. "

But my declined sales have been declined for a divide up of all the possible reasons.

Apparently various boxes of sweets were ordered on credit cards that were declined(??).

Oh...and orders for sweets were cancelled. Lots of them.

You will not find any proof that I wasnt the last referrer. People saw a box of sweets on my sweetie website and bought them (the clicks and sales are minutes apart)

Sorry, but this is all just a big mickey take now. The whole 'last referrer' thing is, in my case (and i suspect others) a load of tosh.

I said I didn't want to say anything further on the forum. But Im not prepared for the thread to be left with the misleading impression that some proof will be forthcoming to me in a private capacity, vindicating Boystuff/Awin.

It will not. I have emailed you so we can correspond that way from now.

[Qui Gon Jinn]

I should add though on a positive note that AW network haven't avoided the issue on the forum, so let's at least appreciate that

The problem for any network is that if they get too tough on a merchant would that merchant then leave with unpaid bills leaving more in the lurch, but on the other hand would any network lose affiliates override from other programs they promote or a negative opinion. It's about the pyramid of perception.

[Bud]

Absolutely agree

Unfortunately they've been put in a very difficult position.

BoysStuff - why no comments (or contact)?

[cashchampion]

Agreed that Awin are not the bad guys here.
However I think we have all lost such a substantial sum here, that we can not just take the word for it.
We will need to see some proof.

I think all affiliates who were affected by this should be sent the deduping file (for their sales only) so we cna see how each sale was deduped.

No doubt we all have kept records of the declined sales and would like to match them up as well. Also, some of us also had exclusive discount codes. It would be interesting to see how many times these were used during the month, as I doubt anyone would go to brand...after using the discount code.

Awin, could you guys ask for some proof from boysstuff to show us?