Tradedoubler : "Move your Affiliate budget to Search"

[Frostie]

Tweet

Over the last few months we have been consulting with publishers and reviewing the performance of all programmes on our UK network with a view to ensuring that we offer you programmes with the maximum earning potential for your traffic.

You haven't consulted with me, so can you explain how consulting with Joe Bloggs, who operates in different verticals, benefits me and my earning potential if you choose to close programmes that I enjoy, but Joe Bloggs isn't a member of?

Very interesting, and expect to receive a load of NOREPLY emails from TD informing me of a mass cull I mirror Kirsty's comments and suggest any merchants affected, maybe be better off going to another network to see if they could spend time in developing their affiliate channel. There will however be some merchants that do deserve the cull

Any network want me to forward TD Emails detaling which merchants are being chucked off the network, so you can pick them up and work with them?) For a fee... of course.....

[aotagain]

agree on a mutual closure of the programme where appropriate.

Thats not how the email reads though.

[renegade]

It's definitely another network foot in mouth moment1
At the very least a merchant would expect a letter and email and personal communication before closing their program WHICH IS A SERVICE THEY ARE PAYING FOR!

[KirstyM]

Agree, the method of communication is quite unfortunate. As someone who has dealt with TD on the merchant side of things I am sad to say I was not surprised at the manner in which they've dealt with it.

In the words of the A4U reputation system "Tradedoubler can only hope to improve".

[bapages]

Is this the same network that claimed independence from PPC activity and allegiances to external agencies and now recommending/promoting!

[mdrussell]

Having had 2 of our programmes enforced closure by Trade Doubler I thought I would let you know that these are Cloggs and Advanced Mp3 Players and we will notify affiliates about alternative networks here:-
Cloggs Affiliate Programme
Advanced MP3 Player

As I am sure many of you can imagine my surprise when I received this email from Trade Doubler recommending RO-eye as an agency (no disrespect meant to them) when both these clients were listed under our account on the network. My first question was has anyone actually looked at these programmes and who manages them.

I was told that they had recommended RO-eye as a tracking solution for merchants to use and not as a management company?

I was also surprised to have 2 merchants that are run by a management company notified of closure when TD are never asked to do anything for these programme since we have been managing the campaigns.

I have spoken to TD and was told that the decision had been made that we would have to close these campaigns even if we wanted to keep them open which was a big surprise.

I was told that this was after a recent review.

Does this move mean that Trade Doubler are only looking for massive Brands with high override available.

I would also be interested to know which affiliates they have spoken to as i haven't heard of anyone.

Are Trade Doubler going to publish a list of all the programmes they have enforced closure on, and also will they again tell us that it was Mutual Agreement as per the post here

[Qui Gon Jinn]

I have to question the allegiances approach which is curious with it self.

However I thought within this affiliate marketing relationship, affiliates were part of it?

Do we actually know how few or how many merchants this was sent to?

So perhaps it would have been prudent to send an email out to affiliates highlighting which merchants were potentially going to be purged & ascertain from feedback which programs affiliates responded too before embarking on any culling process. Finally perhaps the network has to look at themselves first to ascertain how proactive they truly were in promoting that merchant.

My concern is whether TD might be tightening the ship & leaning towards being a search agency & in effect being a direct competitor of affiliates in some respects, though I do look forward to how good their product tools will "eventually" unfold.

[bapages]

I have to question the allegiances approach which is curious with it self.

However I though within this affiliate marketing relationship, affiliates were part of it?

Do we actually know how few or how many merchants this was sent to?

So perhaps it would have been prudent to sent an email out to affiliates highlighting which merchants were potentially going to be purged & ascertain from feedback which programs affiliates responded too before embarking on any culling process. Finally perhaps the network has to look at themselves first to ascertain how proactive they truly were in promoting that merchant.

My concern is whther TD might be tightening the ship & leaning towards being a search agency & in effect being a direct competitor of affiliates in some respects, though I do look forward to how good their product tools will "eventually" unfold.

Interesting point given that only 12 months ago a search network put a huge bid in for them.

[experienceadvertising]

I think its a terrible email to send to a Merchant. This could have been handled in a phone call more appropriately. Interesting list of recommendations...

[advancedmp3]

Hi Guys,

We were one of the merchants to receive the letter in question from TradeDoubler. We were given around 5 days notice informing us that our affiliate program was going to be closed. Having been a client of TradeDoubler for several years, and with no proceeding telephone call or email - such a letter came as a surprise.

If an affiliate program that generated a six figure sales total in 2007 is an insignificant program that TradeDoubler are no longer interested in - no problem. I'll be glad to save the high monthly network fee, invest it in continuing to improve our affiliate resources and focusing our efforts on our other affiliate networks.

Josh Welensky
Advanced MP3 Players