dgmPro - Update and introduction from new dgm MD

[Simon Trigg]

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Dear all,

This communication is intended to accomplish two things:
1. Introduce me to you
2. Give you a business update on the status of dgmPro, dgm’s new infrastructure tool, currently being rolled out to all of our Clients and Publishers.

Introduction

I am Simon Trigg and I am the new MD at dgm UK, part of the dgm Group. During 2005, dgm has invested heavily in people and infrastructure, and we are determined that our investments to date and in the future will reap the planned rewards for you, our Clients & Partners. My recent appointment, reporting to Adrian Moss, the Group’s CEO, is one of those investments.

Having taken over the operational responsibility at dgm UK, I am tasked with the delivery of results in terms of strategic relationship management and the integration industrial-strength systems that this industry is going to rely and thrive on in the next 2-3 years. My background is 15 years in successful online services in Business to Business relationships, so I feel confident that dgm has, can and will continue to deliver on our commitments.

I, and the whole team at dgm, am dedicated to delivering a better, more cost- and time-sensitive experience for our users, with a combination of our systems and our people providing the best online marketing and search solutions for all of our Clients and Affiliate Partners. It is this combination of the best team of client facing staff in the industry, together with the technical platform for future enhancements that dgmPro provides for us, which gives me the confidence to make that claim.

One of the elements of feedback that has become obvious to me over the first few weeks here however, is that dgm is perceived as lacking in terms of enough communication with you. My intention is to put that in the past and move forward with an open and frank communication process.

dgmPro Update

At the time I join dgm, we are in the final stages of implementing the major change of system from DGM2 to dgmPro. The DGM2 system has traditionally been the core of our network, just as dgmPro is becoming the core of our network going forward, and it is around this core that our large teams of Client and Publisher Managers build and provide the service to you.

Now to the reality check. The migration between these two systems has taken longer than we anticipated and I recognise that this delay has caused some problems and lack of reporting capabilities over the past few weeks - for which I apologise.

As the most mature network in the UK, having been enabling sales for our Clients and providing a conduit for earnings for our affiliate partners for 6 years now, the scale of this migration has been substantial. The fundamental change in level of capability between the two systems will not necessarily have been obvious, even to those of you who have had an incident free introduction to dgmPro, but the essence of the new system is that it is designed as an industrial strength platform on which new and better services can now be developed.

DGM2 was overdue for replacement and we bit the bullet and delivered the replacement system in a short timescale – which, with hindsight, has hurt us (and you) more than we anticipated - again something that I apologise for.

There are lots of ways that we believe that we can serve you better, make you more effective and deliver increasing value for you, but without an expandable system, that enhanced future was simply a pipe dream. The first stage of this extensible system is the initial version of dgmPro – which provides some significant enhancements over DGM2 (such as faster reporting, real-time tiered commission structures, custom reports and a host of other features allowing you to analyse and optimise your online activities) – but the real benefits will come when we set our developers to work on some of the really intelligent improvements in the next few months and into 2006.

However, if we look forwards: dgmPro is stable and is tracking impressions, clicks and sales within the dgm network (something it has done, with minor interruptions, since being launched nine weeks ago) and over the last few days we have ironed out the vast majority of the reporting issues. We still have a few changes to sort out, but dgmPro is a stable and operational tool that the vast majority of our Clients and Affiliate Partners are using – and continuing to make significant amounts of money on.

From a business perspective, the programs at dgm have continued to drive great revenue through the migration period and there are some excellent new programs just launched and about to come through. There are a large number of successful programs including Vodafone, Homechoice, & Disney Holidays and others including Demon and Pipex on the cards.

I’m looking forward to the real value that we will bring and be seen to bring to our Affiliate Partners and Clients over the coming months and years.

Communication

Finally, I’d like to re-iterate that one of my main aims going forward is to enable better communication between dgm and you. I have asked Michelle Gilmore, our new Head of Publishing to contribute a new thread on the forum, which, for the next few weeks at least, will give a daily update on the activities around the final migrations of Clients to dgmPro.

My email address is simon.trigg@dgm-uk.com and I look forward to hearing from you with comments and suggestions.

Regards
Simon Trigg

[drivetowin]

Simon

Welcome to the forum and thankyou for your first post - I am sure many would not envy the shoes you have to fill at the present time - the last few months must surely have been some of the most negative in DGMs history.

However, how we all got to where we are is of little relevance, it is the here and now and the way forward that matters.

Your commitment to increased and better communication is most welcome - as long as it is followed up by concrete action. I and a number of other affiliates have spent valuable time communicating ideas and methodologies to DGM in the past couple of years only to feel frustrated, dismayed and disappointed when no action has been forthcoming - promises aplenty - but promises dont make a better world, actions do.

Having had the system fail big time twice in the last week I think you could be premature in declaring dgmpro to be a 'stable platform' - I think I'd be happier with that declaration given several months of error free operation - that said things have markedly improved in general operation of dgmpro in the last couple of weeks imho.

It is true that you have a great team of publisher facing people, but its important that they are given the support and backing of the rest of dgm, and for publishers to have increased confidence that there are no conflicts of interest between advertiser managers and publisher managers, particularly where an advertiser has affiliate and ppc relationships with dgm.

I wish you well in your new role, and hope to catch up with you at ad:tech tomorrow.

[Black Cat]

Indeed welcome, lets hope things improve rapidly!

I'm sure everyone will agree that an email direct to all afilliates would be
better practice wether it be a announcement, aknowledgement of problems or apologies!

Relying on communication via a forum (no matter how good the forum ) is simply not effective nor professional...

...one of the many suggestions I have made but has obviously fallen on deaf ears!

Why should any affiliate rely on visiting a forum for information on something as vital as - links and creative problems, tracking issues or to see if a program cap has been reached!?!

I am also one of many who are still waiting for replies to emails sent weeks and weeks ago.

Sorry for the harsh welcome, but I think the manner of your arrival (via a forum) and your comments on the dgmPro system are too remanisent of a complete botched Network, and rub salt into the wounds of all of us who have had a complete nightmare all-round with dgm recently.

However, I do wish you all the best and now look forward to receiving information re: dgm via a more personal level, email!

[renegade]

That's a good relatively spin-free posting from DGM, the first for a long time, and I wish you every success getting DGM back up and running as a network I want to do business with again.

[Qui Gon Jinn]

Your post is most welcomed, however my views & opinions at this point in time remain a lot more pessimistic & with due warranty with regard to some of the claims about dgmpro, the root of the problems is a lot deeper /widespread, since the road being adopted & communication by dgm in my honest opinion is a familar one which has been well travelled & inherent for a while.

It's not about a short term pacification of the few, it's about long term satisfaction & resolution for the many by being able to uphold that during that whole period.

Rebuilding trust is a lot more arduous.

Going back to the point of trust, personally I feel some of this was lost when a few key members of dgm staff, who had considerable respect in the affiliate community, departed for various reasons from the company. These members understood an affiliate's requirements & i guess they were possibly exhasperated like a number of affiliates. No matter what the numbers are with regard to replacement personnel, it's the quality not the quantity & there is no immediate evidence yet this quality has ben satisfactorily replenished. The reaction to Dgmpro was simply the straw that broke the camel's back & an accumulation of minor things, time can only tell whether affiliates will after displaying their intial displeasure continue to be as vociferous or simply continue on & tolerate what has been deemed an inadequate / inferior platform by some. Where one affiliate may defect, another will take his / her place & be welcomed into the fold with preferential treatment on programs. However loyalty or the lack of it is a completely seperate subject and is not necessarily related to kickbacks, sometimes it's simple things like the integrity of friendship & rapport.

I feel dgm want to do the right thing by affiliates & there are a number of nice people still within the company, but i just feel they have misunderstood or mis-interpreted the aspects when it comes to accommodating affiliates & the revenue derived from that side of their business, but so far they haven't learned from previous mistakes.

But I get the feeling whoever is responsible really doesn't understand what affiliates want / require on the front line. A number of affiliates including ourselves have offered very useful continuous advice over the past couple of years & attended well organaised workshops with regard to some the bare essentials required to pacify / appease affiliate & merchants & where dgm needed to improve, unfortunately this seems to have fallen on deaf ears ... if by the well overdue dgmpro roll-out is the interpretation of our suggestions which even if / when ... fixed / repaired & functioning will fall considerably short of platforms we use day in & day out belonging to other networks. - it really has made it all incredibly frustrating to the point of almost DISRESPECTFUL to those affiliates who sacrificed a lot of time & effort to assist, these included a number of significant revenue drivers for dgm.. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

Good luck.

[eliteshops]

Hi Simon

Welcome to the forum

I don't envy what you have taken over and there are a lot of angry affiliates out here who feel aggrieved at the way DGM have treated us over the past 6 months or so.

The poor response to e-mails, the UNSTABLE DGM Pro system, the fact it was never fully beta tested before going live, the fact many old DGM links don't work, despite assurances they do and the general lack of respect to the people who generate your business namely us affiliates are all issues that will need to be addressed as a matter of priority.

Once that is sorted you are then going to have to figure out how you are going to get your non exclusive links back from the other networks as many of us have moved elsewhere and repair the damage that as been done.

anyway, good luck

[cyberbird1]

Hi Simon,

Thanks for introducing yourself to us. I've noticed an improvement in communication in the last days, though I would echo Black Cat's point about email being a necessity.

I would also back up the point made about dgmPro seeming to be far from stable. One very worrying factor is the number of issues that seem to be account specific. I have more than 1 account and problems I see with one account sometimes don't appear with another.

I reported problems with the vodafone links and creatives on 9th Sept. and today heard that they were fixed. This is true for the account I reported the problem on but when I use the same creatives from a different account the problem remains.

My sales are down approx. 60% on each of the last two months with similar levels of traffic to my site. I am finding it hard to believe the tracking problems are limited to the occasions reported here on this forum. I probably only spend 5 minutes a day checking my sites and I've noticed and reported 2 of the 3 problems that affect all campaigns. Imagine if I checked all day!

Then there are the problems which don't affect all programs. Old creative links no longer working, new creative links delivering the wrong image, new creative links landing on the wrong page. These are not network wide problems but will all result in no sale.

I'm sorry to be so negative, but that's how I see things at the moment. I wish you all the luck in your new job and hope you can sort things out quickly.

[pollensa]

Just to reiterate what has been said above it is the LACK OF RESPONSE to emails - I am still waiting for one re invoices - that irritate me the most. Until you can sort out your 'affiliate support' system then I do not believe that your systems in general are stable & working.

[marcelle]

Simon,

Welcome to this forum!

marcelle

[PitBoss]

Hi Simon,

I am very sorry to hear about the profits warning and the crash in your share price. But you sound very determined to turn things around. Judging by the responses you have received, you must be begining to feel the size of the task facing you. And I agree with Keith in that you have an unenviable task ahead of you.

If you are looking for constructive feedback at this time from a Merchant's point of view, the reason that we (Jackpotjoy) didn't consider using DGM was mainly due to the lack of transparancy in that DGM is a blind network where Merchants can't communicate directly with their affiliates.

Our network provides this information and this has improved the communication between us and our affiliates.

I know that networks panic about merchants speaking directly to affiliates in the fear that the merchant will work directly with the affiliate and cut the network out. And yes, in many cases this does happen, but ask yourself this, what would you prefer:

a: The business from a merchant who contacts their affiliates directly where the risk is that the merchant could take some affiliates in house?

Or

b: No merchant at all?

Cheers

Chris

[Jon]

Hello and welcome, Simon. Nice words, but it's not the first time we've heard such positive aspirations from a recently appointed senior person at DGM. And I think it would be hard to overestimate the scale of the challenge you face in changing people's perceptions of the network, given recent events.

I for one have switched as many links as I can to other networks, based more upon the appalling standard of support I have received (and continue to receive) in respect of resolving certain issues than the introduction of your new system. I have been short-changed on commission and have an account manager who seems to prefer patronising me with irrelevant and rude replies than addressing the issues.

On a separate note, I'm very interested to know when this forum became DGM's preferred support and communications channel.

Perhaps - following the recent non-existent notification about the Vodafone campaign cap (http://www.a4uforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=34383) and the ongoing lack of explanation - DGM's systems still can't be relied upon even to send a basic email?

[Rich]

I am very sorry to hear about the profits warning and the crash in your share price

With regard to that will DGM be informing affiliates about what merchant has imposed new terms and what they are? As I see it, if the 'change in terms of trade relates to the methodology that the client uses to recognise a sale introduced by dgm’s affiliate network' then it will definately affect affiliates income so I can't see why it hasn't been announced.

[stevenm]

Simon many thanks for posting here and welcome to the forum. Improved communication is something which has been requested before and I look forward to seeing this implemented, particularly with regard to emails sometimes going unanswered. Having said this, the members of DGM staff I have had reason to speak to on the phone have been extremely helpful.

Best of luck in the new role.

Steven
--
Virtual Cards UK
http://www.virtualcards.co.uk

[drivetowin]

I'm just back from a long, frank and full discussion with both Simon and Mark Hopwood at ad:tech

Some of what was discussed must rightly remain commercially confidential but I can openly say that I think its time for us all to give Simon, Mark and crew a little bit of a breather (and I'm talking a week or two - not a prolonged sabbatical - to sort things out) to get the final glitches of dgmpro ironed out.

Having spoken at length with them, they are every bit as concerned by events with dgmpro as we affiliates all are and speaking with Mark I have identified with him areas where the migration could have been performed differently (but everyone needs to recognise that hindsight is an exact science)

I can also say without hesitation that they are commited to getting it right. There is an acknowledged problem with communication and I feel as confident as I can be that Simon is the man to get it sorted - no ifs, no buts, Simon listened and I am confident took on board what was said.

There is also a commitment to look seriously at the issue of compensation, as Mark has identified elsewhere.

I would be the first to admit that with DGM "we have been here before" but this time I really sense a new determination to change, and change for the better.

But, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and Mark and Simon are in no doubt that I and other prominent affiliates will be checking the taste of every mouthful.

[Qui Gon Jinn]

Bought the book, took it back & got a refund .. but the road has been well travelled several times.

The questions beckons, would you RISK your peak season trade on the run up to Christmas on hearsay or give it another chance in February when it quietens down a little.