Iab Amc - Key Issues Publishers

[benwood]

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As discussed in our meeting last week, we will be kicking off a thread this evening for PUBLISHERS specifically asking for feedback from the community on the KEY ISSUES that face publishers which we could look to resolve via the development of BEST PRACTICE case studies for the whole community.

Please post thoughts and comments, which me and the IAB will then review and cluster for debate in the next session.

Thanks in advance for positive comments.

Ben

[Dazza30]

Sorry! if this isnt the place to post this.

Every week merchants send out emails reminding/updating affiliates of their ppc keyword guidelines etc .
Any breach of these could result in suspension or removal from such merchants programme's.

What id like to see is more clear guidelines/ best practices that merchants should follow when working with their affiliate partners.

This could only serve to protect the affiliate from rougue merchants and help the industry grow.

[ian]

1 - Merchants to pay invoices on time

2 - Yes or No to "Are sales de-duped against affiliates / agency / in-house brand bidding"
(Not a debate on the rights or wrongs of it, just a simple yes or no answer)

3 - Clear and concise standardised PPC policy framework. There aren't that many variations of ppc methods so a list of "is x allowed - yes / no" would make it obvious for all concerned regardless of the network being used.

4 - Tracking issues planned or otherwise - set out a compensation payment model if tracking is down.

Far too often we get emails saying that 'Merchant X has tracking issues, please stop all PPC activity immediately'. This really does &^%$ me off, and completely miss the point when it comes to actual publishers w. We can't hit a pause button, and would have to swap banners over, and change text links. We may not have a direct ppc cost for each click, but we sure do have an expected profit for each click and therefore each untracked click costs us in missed profit. It may not be profitable to spend hours swapping links only to have the merchant back online as soon as you've finished. The only person to lose out is the publisher, as the merchant is quite happily racking up the sales without paying commission.

If tracking is down, either have a way of attributing sales from a server log, or multiply the epc by the number of clicks during the downtime. It can't be that tricky for the networks to run a report showing the number of clicks for the day at the start and end of the downtime period???

5 - number 5 was going to be a rant about merchants dropping commissions and suddenly developing tracking issues before christmas, but its a bit more general now. RESPECT is an issue for publishers.

We're not a stupid bunch and can recognise corporate bs at 10,000 pixels so cut out the crap when it comes to dropping commissions and changing T&Cs. A good program develops over time and a suicidal approach to dropping commissions on certain products over christmas is not a great way to build confidence. So you lose 2% on a low commission item, but you make up for it by paying just 2% on a high profit item - its swings and roundabouts.

If merchants want to pay different commissions of different items, set the policy out in January, tell everyone, implement in February and wait to see what happens at christmas. Do not let everyone build sites during the year at 2%, getting all the links in place, building email lists, etc etc, and then dump the rates at Christmas.

[hpops]

Heres 5 from a publisher perspevtive
1) Last cookie wins - what are the limitations, is there another way
2) Closed group brand name campaigns - do these cannibalise my commissions
3) Voucher codes - proper use undefined - they seem to break the rules - why don't I
4) Industry wide not network specific revenue protection policies - who carries the can when a merchant can't/won't pay
5) Compensation on downtime as above

[loquax]

I echo the above but, not sure if this is the place, would like to suggest the following....

My main concern is the growth (potential and continued) of 100% cashback sites and their impact on content affiliates - what can be done to ensure that established and new affiliates are able to enter and sruvive within the narrowing affiliate space.

I'd like to see networks highlighting which merchants (if any) don't work with cashback and 100% cashback sites and perhaps higher commission to content affiliates.

Further to that I'd also like to question whether cashback is indeed a 'lifetime cookie for sales' - a content affiliate for example will have a limited cookie period for sales, a cashback site if you look at it in some ways is potentially setting a lifetime cookie (assuming the user goes via that site all the time).

I accept that these sites are part of the affiliate mix, but would like to see steps taken within the industry so that they don't swamp all and sundry in their wake.

Jason