Paid On Results - January 2006 Merchant Review

[paidonresults]

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In January Paid On Results will be conducting a review of all Merchants looking at a number of factors that include -

- Invoice Payment Times
- Conversion Rate
- Commission Void Rate

We will also be looking at other factors such as program growth potential, and willingness of the Merchant to co-operate in the success of the program. It's a simple fact that almost every successful program has one thing in common, someone working at or on behalf of the company full time or even part time responding to Affiliate requests, ensuring things such as data feeds are made available and so on.

We also want to tighten up payment, as in 2006 we plan to start paying Affiliates much quicker, slashing about 4 weeks off the normal payment time.

This is only possible if we can get the majority of our Merchants to pay invoices quickly and to hold an operating fund with us. As it stands many Merchants do and we don't think it's fair that their programs don't get the benefit of paying Affiliates quicker because some Merchants can't manage to pay invoices on time.

The system will flag what Merchants are in funds and what Merchants are not in funds, so you can make the decision if you wish to promote them or not. Merchants that are not in funds constantly, you will have to weight up can I wait longer to get paid and can I risk not getting paid if they go out of business. If the answer is no, then you should pick Merchants that are in funds as we cannot guarantee payment from Merchants who are not in funds!

The benefits for Affiliates, Merchants and Paid On Results are very clear - remove timewasters and work with people that want to grow business via Affiliate Marketing both big and small. We want to dedicate more resources to improving the programs of good Merchants and set up better communication and support channels for them instead of allowing a small number of poor merchants to monopolise our time.

You will not be surprised to note that this decision to work with Merchants who are interested in working with Affiliates doesn't affect any of the Merchants that you regularly see posting in this forum. The couple who pay on invoice will be asked to move into a standard operating fund setup and I am sure none of them will have a problem when they see the benefits and what we are trying to achieve for them and the Affiliates.

[rich71111]

The system will flag what Merchants are in funds and what Merchants are not in funds, so you can make the decision if you wish to promote them or not. Merchants that are not in funds constantly, you will have to weight up can I wait longer to get paid and can I risk not getting paid if they go out of business. If the answer is no, then you should pick Merchants that are in funds as we cannot guarantee payment from Merchants who are not in funds!
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On the most these all look good improvements however I am not sure I like the bit about payments. I know all networks suffer the odd slip up when it comes to merchants who don't pay but to me if they cannot satisfy to you that they can pay the invoices they shouldn't simply be on your network, it's that simple. Merchants who don't have the funds in their account should be suspended to avoid affiliates losing money.

[paidonresults]

On the most these all look good improvements however I am not sure I like the bit about payments. I know all networks suffer the odd slip up when it comes to merchants who don't pay but to me if they cannot satisfy to you that they can pay the invoices they shouldn't simply be on your network, it's that simple. Merchants who don't have the funds in their account should be suspended to avoid affiliates losing money.

I agree with you and already over 90% of our Merchants keep funds in there account to cover Affiliate commission. New invoices are issued when funds are low, to bring them back up. Some Merchants pay at the end of the month (instead of keeping an operating fund with us). Our experience has shown we need to offer both methods of payment and we will continue to do so.

We are working with all Merchants to bring them in line with the having funds in there account, however not all Merchants are happy with this approach and would you rather that we turned away big name bank or high street brand because they won’t fund the account, of course not and chances are you will never have a problem as they are big enough. But Yes Car Credit going out of business and ASOS suffering a fire shows even the biggest are venerable, just so happened with both of these company’s do keep funds with us so no one is going to be out of pocket. 4 Merchants in 2005 left/went down the pan leaving us with Affiliate Commission to pay out from our own pocket, we didn’t make a song or dance out of it we simply paid out the money due to the Affiliates. That cost us a fair bit to cover.

We encourage Merchants to keep funds with us and more and more are - a benefit of this will be that Affiliates who promote these Merchants will be paid there commission quicker. The system will simply tell you what Merchants keep funds with us and what don't - it isn't about which Merchants didn't pay there bills or are slow payers, because believe me, we deal with that quickly and take action where needed It will be us simply saying to you this Merchant has funds with us and once a sale is validated you will be paid quicker or this Merchant pays on invoice therefore you are paid 6 weeks after the sale date (as it is now).

And remember if you are not going to promote a Merchant because they don’t have the in funds status, be sure and let them know that is the reason why your not promoting them as you don’t want to take the risk, I am sure the message won’t take long to get across that Affiliates want comfort in who they promote and like the fact they can get paid quicker and all the benefits that brings such as money to reinvest in promotions and campaigns.

[rich71111]

Thanks for the reply, I see what you'r saying, I also like your upfront attitude. I haven't put much effort into POR but after seeing your efforts will be giving your merchants a push. Well done! It's nice to see a network making things easier

[Azam.net]

Agree with Rich. Fantastic move by POR! This is a very positive step and I hope more merchants will be wise enough to keep a fund with you. Like many other affiliates, we have lost a significant amount of money from seemingly successful advertisers going bust, and having some guarantee that we will get paid will ensure us to focus on pre-paying merchants.

Equally significant is POR doing something about poorly converting merchants. Too many merchants enjoy next to free advertising because their sites don't convert; these merchants should pay on a CPM/CPC basis.