Thomas Cook

**Barry** · 05-01-04

Anybody sending traffic to Thomas Cook (TD) should be aware that the Thomas Cook site is down.

Anybody getting any different?

Ta

**angelabx** · 05-01-04

Hi Barry

Have you got any TC sales yet? I haven't!

**John** · 05-01-04

No sales for Thomas Cook here yet either

**angelabx** · 06-01-04

I've just had a look over their site........

The most attractive links SALE, HALF PRICE WINTER and £99 all go to pages that only allow telephone bookings. Urrrhhh!

Just removed their links!

**Mogga** · 06-01-04

I can't get some pages to load
http://ww5.thomascook.com/Search/Adv...daySearch.aspx
just isn't working here. Bits of the rest of the site are though.

**billaffiliate** · 06-01-04

I checked out several of Thos Cook website pages and they all had
'online booking unavailable, order by phone' . Great.

**John** · 06-01-04

Still no sales for me here despite a ton of highly targeted traffic - I've pulled most of our ads.

**Luke** · 07-01-04

It is a shame as it is a really good site in my opinion - some of those cruises like very tempting. Mind you with a brand that big I am sure affiliate marketing will be quite low on their priorities.

**angelabx** · 07-01-04

I've completely removed then now too.

Pity, they did seem to have potential.

**Barry** · 07-01-04

Yep, I've pulled all my PPC campaigns off. The site appears unreliable (mayby due to traffic because of the TV adverts?)

I had a few adwords campaigns up for them and very now and then they'd email me to tell me the links not working, so I know it wasn't just my link checks that were failing.

And yes angelabx your right about all orders resulting in an error and asking you to phone.

Do they think we are muppets?

They must also think TD are muppets as well! - are TD making anything apart for there sub fees? cos they can't be making much % either with no sales going through!

**Mogga** · 19-01-04

Anyone still getting these problems (I just get a blank page for the sales link now though)
I am in touch with nick at td about this - need a wonky url to send him...

**aly** · 19-01-04

Originally posted by Mogga
Anyone still getting these problems (I just get a blank page for the sales link now though)

Hi Mogga
Is it through a deep link you can't get it to work or just the normal link?

The link you posted further above is ok with me http://ww5.thomascook.com/Search/Ad...idaySearch.aspx

If it's as a deep link it doesn't work let me know and I'll set one up and test

Cheers
Aly

**PitBoss** · 19-01-04

Can't someone at TradeDoubler contact their internet marketing department?

I recently read somewhere that a good affiliate marketing campaign accounts for 40% (avg) of a companies online sales.

I think that makes a big difference (especially if you're the person responsible for delivering the online marketing business).

I'm begining to see a familiar pattern with these large brands. I reckon that the majority of them don't have a dedicated affiliate manager but an Internet marketing manager who looks after the revenue generated through the website as a whole.

They could easily spend less than 10% of their time looking after the affiliate program and relationships with affiliates. And therefore be completely unaware of the devastating consequences that the afore mentioned actions result in.

The question you have to ask yourself is, why did they bother investing in setting up an affiliate marketing program and then take the above action?

My feeling is that right now, they are completely unaware of the effect it's having on their affiliate marketing program because no one has told them.

A good word in the right place would surely turn this around.

**aly** · 19-01-04

Agreed, a good affiliate manager is worth a lot.
The ability to communicate saves sooooooo much time frustration and money to both sides.
Things are definatly improving in some cases but as long as we still have networks that won't even allow affiliates to communicate with merchants then some areas are a dead loss.

Cheers
Aly

**Mogga** · 19-01-04

What was happening last week was you'd put the DOB of people in and then it would eventually move to a screen which just say phone us now. It appears from todays testing I've done to have got over this hiccup - as I can't replicate it.