The Pitfalls of Moving Your Program September 13th, 2006 7:49 pm

It’s not uncommon for merchants to run their program over two or more networks. I’m not a fan of the multiple network programs, mainly because I feel that they’re not being managed properly (better the effort put into developing the program than just replicating the same old in another place), but I can see why running on a couple of networks can be beneficial.

Even more so, when a merchant decides that the best idea for their affiliate program is to close it on one network and move it lock stock and barrel to another one. The problem with doing is that your affiliates may not follow you!

As an affiliate who implements product feeds across a number of sites, if you move your program from one network (Affiliate Window) where getting feeds is easy and straightforward and to another network (Commission Junction) where getting feeds isn’t easy then the likelihood is that we’ll stop promoting.

It’s no point that merchant then telling us that it’d be a shame if we don’t add links as we’ll lose commission. That’s true, but this is a time vs costs business and if a merchant implements a decision that costs us more time, then we’ll look for alternatives. The merchant obviously understands the issues with Commission Junction product feeds (costs, time) so why not allow affiliates to download direct from the merchant site? Or even better join a network, like Paid on Results or Buy.at, that can implement feed systems (and they’re free) and who understand what affiliates need.

Merchants - affiliate marketing doesn’t have to be complicated. Give us the tools we need to work with and we’ll try and earn commissions. Make it hard for us to get product feeds by using a product feed unfriendly network and the result is quite simple… your program may not get the promotion you think your program deserves!

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