Time Is Money for Merchants June 30th, 2006 8:02 pm

A week or two ago I asked if a merchant could sort out a product feed so that the product name was better described. It’s not vital and as it can’t be done then it’s not a problem. The reason why it can’t be done though did intrigue me… “it would cost too much”!? That on it’s own isn’t that interesting, but couple that in with a recent A4U discussion on banners (or lack of them) and the fact merchants are reluctant to create them due to costs vs instant revenue from PPCers and product feeds then it does become more noteworthy.

As an affiliate it’s frustrating when you can’t find creative or content units to satisfy your requirements. I guess you could contact the merchant and request specific creative, but in the time driven affiliate world we want things now and if it’s not there for Merchant X then if Merchant Y have what’s required then they get the gig.

To be honest it never occurred to me that creating creative or updating feeds would be measured in costs. In hindsight I guess it makes sense - especially if affiliate has to contact network, network has to contact agency, agency has to contact merchant and then merchant doesn’t have a clue what affiliate is on about so asks agency or someone else to deal with it and the reply is “that’ll be £££’s please”!

I guess as an affiliate where if something needs doing we do it (and perhaps naively we don’t measure that time in £££’s) it’s easy to forget that not everyone works like we do (not sure many people work like we do). Year’s back if you wanted a banner or something doing it was often done straightaway without need for committee - now in the big cash world of PPC where banners are almost irrelevant I guess it’s not important or cost effective to keep creative up to date or relevant.

That may explain why so many programs offer so little in the way of creative and content (e.g. search boxes, good call to action banners). Most certainly we see a lot of merchants with programs that seem to have been left to rot on networks. No banner updates, no news, no information! And that’s not good or proactive!

If you take a proactive merchant like Prezzybox that provides quality banners and content units for affiliates (and offers incentives across the board) then they will always be favoured over a merchant that has nothing on tha table.

Affiliate marketing isn’t just PPC, and there are a lot of small/medium merchants who could carve niches for themselves. If merchants put the effort in - then affiliates will react accordingly. Time may be money for most, but a little effort can often reap it’s own rewards.

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