Fragrance Direct

[John]

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Apologies in advance for the loooong post... I'm in rant mode. Any other mods, feel free to edit any of the following as I'm writing this in fits of anger at the moment...

Received the following e-mail last night:

After detailed negotiations with Fragrance Direct we feel it will be beneficial for all concerned to change the program so commission is paid on a percentage of a sale rather than a flat fee for a registration. This is because unfortunately the vast majority of registrations being sent through were fraudulent or done under false pretences. We also believe this will generate greater financial results as well as provide greater scope for incentives and promotions in time for Christmas.

Logged onto DGM today, and noticed that all 443 of our leads had been deleted!

We were aware of Fragrance Direct's intentions (i.e not to pay for any of the leads they received) around a month ago, as they were unhappy that we had deeplinked to the registration page. IMO, if a company offers a set fee per registration, and actively encourages affiliates to deeplink to increase conversion (http://www.ukaffiliates.com/ukaadmin/deeplinking.htm), then what is wrong with deeplinking to the registration page?

We were assured by a couple of staff members at DGM that they agreed with us...

I have forwarded everything on to Fragrance Direct and explained to them that we do encourage affiliates to deep link to registration forms because of the higher conversion rates

I appreciate that all the registrations you have generated for them were not done so fraudulently

Please remember that I am fighting your corner

Had no action on this whatsoever, so e-mailed DGM last Tuesday - No reply.
Sent another e-mail on Friday - no reply

To then receive this bog standard e-mail to all affiliates is a kick in the teeth, they may as well accuse us personally of fraudulent leads/ leads under false pretences.

It's already cost me over £600 in lost sales for this one merchant, but I'm going to seriously consider whether I can continue to work with DGM after this debacle. I'm having a day off tomorrow, so have time to calm down and make a rational decision, but the feeling right now is that this is just the straw that broke the camels back.

[ianm]

John,

Are you ranting at the right network? I thought Fragrance Direct were on Affiliate Window not DGM.

[edit]Ignore me - they're with both aren't they but currently suspended on DGM, which is why I couldn't see them listed.[/edit]

[aclarke656]

John.. I understand your frustration, but if the merchant had made a direct complaint about the way you linked to their site, then surely this was best resolved between you and the merchant. There seems little point in continuing the relationship relying on the comments from the middle man.

Now you could say that this was exactly the role of a network, but I've seen little evidence of any network ever putting major effort into adjudicating for a single affiliate against a merchant.

Hopefully that will soon change, and I'd be delighted to be reminded of stories which totally disprove my argument.

[John]

It wasn't a direct complaint - The complaint was made to DGM, who in turn contacted me.

I would love to try and resolve the situation directly with Fragrance Direct, but unfortunately, DGM's terms and conditions forbid me from doing so...

6. Restrictions and E-mail Notifications


6.1 The Affiliate acknowledges that for the period of this Agreement and for 6 (six) months following its termination :

(a) the Affiliate shall not, without the Network's prior written consent communicate directly with a Merchant in relation to any matters involving the Service or affiliate programs;

[aclarke656]

Fair enough, In that case DGM have some explaining to do.. and if that fraudulant remark was based upon your case.. even more..

[CMG]

Fragrance direct have a link on their homepage to their monthly prize draw, just a few brief details required to enter.
Their buyer registration form is a totally seperate thing which doesn't even enter people into the prize draw.

I remember you promoting Fragrance Direct and even noticed myself that you were telling people about the prize draw yet linking to the buyer registration form, not the prize draw page. You do not make commission out of the free prize draw entries for them.

Therefore I feel your post is out of order, I WILL be promoting Fragrance Direct when they return to DGM.

I also received the email from Emma and thought that was a bit out of order because it is clearly referring to your leads.

I think your post could damage Fragrance Directs reputation and I am taking their side on this one.

If any moderator is unhappy about my post then considder what John's post could do to Fragrance Directs reputation.

[getvisible]

is this a first?? I agree with CMG - if his facts are correct!

[Mogga]

I felt quite insulted by the email from dgm - and I don't think I bothered even promoting them on dgm.

Perhaps they'd expected that getting people to register with them woiuld make them rich quickly, whereas we all know there are long term benefits to building up and maintaining a valid userbase.

As with what seems to be increasing frequency we all (affiliates, merchants and networks) need to check whats being told us and ask for clarification - a recent case is mobile republic where on intial glance it might have looked like they were paying 5% on mobile sales, but its not - its only accessories (this is on aff fut). By having stuff clearly laid out in terms we all understand we avoid making mistakes.

What do the company mean by "fraudulent"
Do they mean - fake emails and contact info? in whihc case I agree with them, or do they mean "people who've cost us 40p but not bought anything from us yet"

If they don't give affiliates the pending then surely they should delete the contact info?

[CMG]

Originally posted by Mogga
I felt quite insulted by the email from dgm - and I don't think I bothered even promoting them on dgm.

Perhaps they'd expected that getting people to register with them woiuld make them rich quickly, whereas we all know there are long term benefits to building up and maintaining a valid userbase.

As with what seems to be increasing frequency we all (affiliates, merchants and networks) need to check whats being told us and ask for clarification - a recent case is mobile republic where on intial glance it might have looked like they were paying 5% on mobile sales, but its not - its only accessories (this is on aff fut). By having stuff clearly laid out in terms we all understand we avoid making mistakes.

What do the company mean by "fraudulent"
Do they mean - fake emails and contact info? in whihc case I agree with them, or do they mean "people who've cost us 40p but not bought anything from us yet"

If they don't give affiliates the pending then surely they should delete the contact info?

By fraudulent they mean generating leads by claiming they can win prizes when they can't!
The buyer registration is a long registration for customers who want to place orders, however that does not enter users into any sort of competition, it just allows them to buy stuff. The commission is paid on buyers registering.

There is also a free prize draw on the homepage on the site that just requires a couple of brief details such as email address but commission is not paid on the free prize draw.

If an affiliate was to advertise the prize draw, but then deep link to the Buyer Registration form, that is fraudulent. The people were only registering because they thought that was getting them entered into the prize draw, and they only thought that because that is what was written on NetFreeStuff.

[fragrancedirect]

I would just like to set the record straight. Fragrance Direct recently joined DGM on a commission paid on registration. (This method of commission was at DGM's suggestion) Historically, we get very few registants who do not order and therefore decided to go with this.

As soon as we had access to our stats we realised that we had a large number of registrants, but no orders. We looked into this to discover that affiliates were promoting registration and not our site products and offers as we intended. We are not interested in building a database of disinterested registrants, but are in the business of building loyal, long term customers.

On further investigation we discovered that one affiliate, netstuff had an unbelievable number of registrants. They were advertising entry to our prizedraw competition and were then deep linking to our registration page.

I immediately contacted DGM to resolve the situation. They received the following reply from netstuff:
"On Tuesday, we decided to promote Fragrance Direct, both on our site and in our weekly newsletter which was due to go out that afternoon. We noticed they were offering £1.40 per registration, but there was some confusion over what was classed as a registration, there are a couple of different data acquisition methods on the merchant's site http://www.fragrancedirect.co.uk/competition/intro.htm, http://www.fragrancedirect.co.uk/que...ire/intro.asp, and http://www.fragrancedirect.co.uk/htm...etRegister.asp).

A decision was made to deep link to http://www.fragrancedirect.co.uk/htm...etRegister.asp in order not to further delay the sending of the newsletter. As we could see that registrations were tracking correctly, with order IDs present and correct, we assumed there was no problem with the deep link, Fragrance Direct were receiving the Registrations they were looking for, we were happy that everything was tracking, all's well in Affiliate Marketing land."

Surely a link called competition or questionnaire would lead to a competition or questionnaire and a link called registration would lead to registration!? I have no objection to deep linking, but the visitor needs to be linking to the correct page. The deep link set up by netstuff did not allow the visitor to see anything or go anywhere else on the site but the registration page and they thought they were being entered for a competition!

DGM then agreed to take our links down and to resolve the situation by setting us back up on a commission based on sales, which we are very keen to set up. I said I was not happy to pay for registrations made under these conditions, but was quite happy to pay commission on all orders we had received.

We have been a member of affiliate window for many years and have never experienced any problems or complaints. I am a great believer in affiliate programmes and am very keen to resolve this and move forward to the benefit of everyone.

regards

Katie Jowle
Director
Fragrance Direct

[Frostie]

I can see both points (usual boring me sitting on the fence!) lol

As I run a site along the same lines as John then had I been on the ball, I <u>may</u> have also been tempted to add a deep link to the competition too.

I can also see FD stance on this, and the fact that they are a company wanting to sell products and not simply create a large database of people who like entering competitions.

As for not contacting companies direct - I think, and always have thought, that this is a joke! I have contacted some companies direct and have struck up good relationships with them to discuss unique promotions etc etc

Will be interesting as to how this develops, but will continue to link via AWin.

[CMG]

Frostie, netfreestuff did not deep link to the competition, he deep linked to buyer registration and claimed that was a competition! That was what was wrong with it!

[Frostie]

OK, now I understand, too many drugs tonight (the lemsip type!).

Well in that case, I have to agree with FD. Its wrong to sell a tin of paint, only for it to contain worms. Its doesn't do exactly what it says on the tin!

[Freebie]

My ad read as follows (newsletter based)

Fragrance Direct have uploaded their new special deals. They offer brand fragrances at substantially lower prices. A number of freebies and vouchers are available with purchases, and there's a chance to win £100's of smellies for you and your friends. We recommend you join the newsletter if you are likely to be buying any designer perfumes or aftershaves for Christmas presents.

I was not deeplinking, i was linking to the home page.

I do not think this is fraudulent i any way, yet my leads have been deleted too.

IMHO FragranceDirect have not dealt with this as they should have done. I have already expressed my disgust to DGM.

[fragrancedirect]

I have told DGM to sort this out. Like you, I have had enough of this. I am quite happy to pay out on genuine links and I have told DGM this.

Katie Jowle