Comply or Die - RAC Car Insurance & RAC UK Breakdown

[Qui Gon Jinn]

These comply or die emails seem to be more frequent, and a lovely little spin on the "streamlining"

Dear Affiliate,

RAC have asked us to contact you as part of an ongoing streamlining and relationship development project. Following analysis of RAC Car Insurance statistics from Q1 2008, you have been identified as someone with whom RAC would like us to offer the opportunity to discuss programme growth and development. In order to facilitate this, we would request that you either reply to this email, or contact your account manager, by COP Monday (14th April) with a plan of action for programme growth. If we have not heard from you as of close of business on Monday 14th April, your URL will be deactivated for the time being until we have been able to discuss the programme with you more closely. However, please note that if your URL is deactivated, you will be able to reapply for this programme by contacting your account manager. We do hope you appreciate that this process is aimed at developing your relationship with RAC and we look forward to hearing from you shortly.

Your loss RAC, BTW do you still have the brand bidding groups or did you get rid of them.

Unfortunately for you I am on holiday, so will not be replying or provising free consultancy.

ciao

[lauriebred]

I got the same thing myself but I think it's just a nice way of saying "come on, isn't it about time you started promoting this merchant you've signed up for". Pretty reasonable request really. Dunno if I could think up a more diplomatic way of putting it?

[gunneradt]

I got it, replied and have heard nothing back in return.

[hpops]

Long drawn out sigh

[Qui Gon Jinn]

My question has been answered to whether there was a closed group ... perhaps if you got rid of the closed groups, more affiliates might be interested rather than their cookies over written.

Dear Merchant, As you may or may not be aware, a major new change to the Google trademark policy has been announced. Last week Google unveiled radical changes to its trademark policy in the UK and Ireland. Currently Google blocks any advertisers (or affiliates) from bidding on any branded keywords which do not relate to their own trademarked brand. For example, Coca-Cola cannot bid on the keyword 'Pepsi'. However, from 5th May, advertisers (and therefore affiliates) can bid on trademarked keywords without having to receive permissions from the brand advertiser or Google's trademark team. This means it will now be possible for more than one advertiser to appear in the list of sponsored links that appears after a user has typed in a search query using a trademarked term. Outside of the cost impact on any brands PPC activity (higher CPC's will be required to maintain number 1 position on any brand keywords meaning increase in spend to achieve the same listings as are achieved now) there is the issue of brand protection which essentially raises the questions of how will brands maintain their dominance in their brand search space and also how will consumers searching within Google still receive the most relevant ad's to their search. Your competitors and their affiliates will without a doubt start to bid on your brand keywords Due to OMG's experience in managing closed groups of highly skilled PPC affiliates for some of the UK's biggest brands such as More Than, RAC and Marks & Spencer, we are keen to talk with you about how we can work with you on your brand protection strategy. Where traditionally brands have been reluctant to allow affiliates to bid on their branded keywords, or have allowed this within very tight guidelines, this planned change by Google strengthens the need for the revision or removal of brand bidding restrictions so that competitors (and competitors affiliates) ad's can be competed with by your affiliates. We have a huge amount of experience in this area and are very accomplished in working closely and strategically with clients and search agencies to add value to their own search activity and add incremental volume to the clients business. This activity puts a layer of protection in place for any brand, which is being removed by Google, and as your affiliate activity is CPA based there is no risk of paying above the odds for any traffic or sales, you will simply see you brand space being more relevant to your brand than if your competitors were stealing that traffic. There is a lot of discussion around this at the moment, however if you want to know more about this follow this link AdWords Trademark Policy Revision (UK and Ireland), and please contact your account manager to discuss the options which OMG can offer. Kind regards,

[OMG Network]

Dear Affiliates,

Further to our recent email release regarding account streamlining for both RAC UK Breakdown and Direct Insurance, we would like to clear up a couple of frequent queries.

The purpose of this process is to allow RAC and OMG to focus on the affiliates which are able to drive volume for the programme. Those that were emailed on both campaigns had not generated a valid transaction in the first 3 months of 2008. As part of ongoing efforts to improve the management of the account, RAC felt that this would allow OMG to effectively monitor compliance on the account as well as highlight any potential affiliates which have plans to improve the campaign moving forward.

We apologise if any offence has been caused.

If you have any further questions, your account manager will be happy to answer these on a one to one basis.

Kind Regards,

Simon

[gunneradt]

I'm afraid you speak with forked tongue

[rm94531]

"effectively monitor compliance" what does this mean ?

I also responded and received no response in return !

[suitusir]

Responded on day of email - no reply either.

cheers

k

[drivetowin]

Me too - good to see it proves the theory that those who support these culls like to promote that having less affiliates improves communication...............la la la la de da da