Hi Jason,

I also saw Doug’s post and was fairly intrigued. I have never known one network cookie overwrite another network cookie in this way, so unless Doug has some inside information it’s not something that I’ve ever come across.

With regards to the IAB, this was discussed at the last meeting as we are preparing advice for merchants on how they can be more transparent with affiliates. Part of this will be the recommendation that merchants are open with affiliates on exactly what their sales could potentially be deduplicated against.

If anyone has any further suggestions on this, they can either discuss it on the forum or on my blog (www.mabailey.co.uk)

Thanks,

Matt

I have heard that some very large media corporations who operate large sites, effectively as affiliates, have merchants agreeing to dedup against the smaller affiliates. This actually means a large portal who deals with a large merchant directly with an affiliate type relationship will dedup against smaller affiliates who in most cases will be using an affiliate network.

So who does this? This surely is not fair

Doug

Thanks Matt for the quick reply. Transparency is the way forward – from Networks, Merchants, Agencies and Affiliates.

Doug – just wondering if the kind of deals you’re suggesting would be known by networks? Or even affiliate managers/agencies looking after programs?

I think this is less to do with cookies and more to do with how advertisers dedupe. Affilinet certainly don’t offer enhanced cookies for “super” affiliates. Each affiliate receives the same cookie terms.

How advertisers dedupe is a much wider issue and something we would be happy to discuss at the IAB (as Matt states above) as it is a gray area.

Pete.

Pete.

Hi Jason,
Just wanted to categorically state that AffiliateFuture do not have any of these “super” cookies that Doug is referring to.
The de-duping issue is certainly something that needs to be raised. AffiliateFuture are very open about the programmes where we know that de-duping is happening and we’ve recently added the functionality to included de-dupe policies when a programme is setup and are going to be going through all merchants to put these details in place.
To be honest, I’m a little disappointed that other networks seem to want to “hide” the fact that some of their merchants de-dupe and I raised it a number of months ago but a few of the other large networks gave some tripe about it going against the DPA (or something along these lines) to release this information.
Hopefully all networks will give affiliates much greater transparency on the policies in place in the future and stop hiding behind the curtains making excuses.
Regards
James
AffiliateFuture.co.uk

Hi James,

I’d be interested to know exactly which networks have refused to do this as at the recent IAB meeting all networks present there said they would be more than happy to ask their merchants to increase transparency.

Matt

Hi Matt,

Thinking back it was actually quite a bit longer than “a number of months ago” and was potentially when you were still at DGM.

I do however remember the IAB meeting very clearly – I raised the point that one of the big problems with the way in which networks work with affiliates is the lack of transparency, and asked that networks agreed to distribute, for every programme that has it, details of both de-duping and information on if there is a closed PPC group (especially brand).

Certainly three networks (CJ, TD and Buy.at) were completely against giving this data out to all affiliates – I can’t remember the exact reasons, but it was something along the lines of them having to get it approved with the merchants as it was their campaign and would be breaking some kind of contractual crap to do so.

In all fairness though, this was quite a while ago – and I believe that the IAB has changed a lot since this and it may well mean that networks are now more open to sharing this kind of data with affiliates but I am certainly not holding my beath.

Going off-topic now but the one thing that the IAB now needs to do is to actually enforce changes where networks agree on stuff – perfect case is that we all agreed on something needing to be done on the rebate catchers – that was probaly three months ago now but has anything happened since?

Just my 2p’s worth – you know that I think the IAB is a great thing for the industry so please don’t take my ever so slightly negative feelings about some of the networks actually doing stuff, rather than just saying it, the wrong way!

J Lil

Agree with Pete in that I think this is more about the way that clients de-dupe on their campaigns rather than a “super cookie”. I do agree there needs to be more transparency regarding how different client campaigns de-dupe. I do not agree that the reason for the lack of transparency is because networks have put barriers up, in fact it is more likely that this is not understood well enough by clients or account managers. At the last IAB meeting myself (dgm), Awin and CJ were there and we all agreed that we would look at improving transparency on de-duping. It is not an over night fix however as we have hundreds of clients of which many may not understand the role of de-duping and even if it happens … essentially a lot of investigation needs to be done into every single client to clarify the process, but we all committed to doing this.

I believe what Doug says is correct as I do think there are some ways of de-duping out there that essentially favour certain client partners. There may well be justified reasons for this (and many arguments against) but these should obviously be explained clearly to the affiliates as it will affect their conversion and allow them to make a decision as to whether they work with that client or not.

There is a lot of work to do here network side and I strongly agree that it is necessary and we are working on it. If any affiliate is concerned in the meantime I would suggest that you speak to your account manager for clarification.

Helen

In my opinion it’s just another reason to avoid affiliate networks, it’s not always possible but if I can, I do.

Hi Matt,

From an view that is independent of the networks, I think I should point out that there is currently no evidence to suggest that any networks are complicit in misleading any affiliates with regards to this type of activity.

Therefore I am unsure why it is a reason to avoid working with affiliate networks. It seems that this is conjecture based on rumour. Never a good starting point on which to base rational business decisions.

Matt

Webgains fully supports this too, Helen, we expressed our opinion at the last AMC

Bask to the original topic (bit confusing with the same discussion on 2 blogs + the forum!). The merchants can dedupe on whatever they want, provided they are clear and transparent about it. Then the networks can work to convince them on the error of their ways and affiliates can make informed decisions on who they work with.

But super-cookies from networks? This is conspiracy theory to the max.

James, I think that networks make their own choices and then it comes down to affiliates to make theirs. You can’t force all networks to follow the same procedures, it’s down to them to make decisions based on their business models.

The IAB’s role isn’t to make anyone do things – it’s to provide the guidelines and advice on best practice.

Apologies Hero, I meant to add you to the list of networks as well as Webgains were of course in agreement also. Just to back up what has been said by Matt and Hero, networks are in no way deliberately misleading affiliates. We have the very difficult job of pleasing both affiliate and client which is sometimes a challenge and if we felt the deduping was unfair on the affiliate channel we would advice against this. As Hero says at the end of the day it is the clients choice how they run their activity. It is definitely not a reason to not work with networks, in fact I would say it was a reason to work with networks as we can help advise clients. Remember we work on performance as well so we want the best for the affiliate channel as well but as long as that is also in the best interests of the client.

Matt, it’s another reason, another one of many.
From my experience so far of affiliate networks (maybe i’m just unlucky). When promoting bingo I have found:

- Any form of communication with the merchant takes twice as long, usually because the merchant hasn’t updated their contact details or just hasn’t logged in for a while or the mailing system is so cumbersome that the mail you sent didnt even work.

- The deals are usually terrible compared to going to the merchant direct.

- There is usually some form of technical problem with tracking, i had 3 affiliate network sites where my earnings were miscalculated by thousands by the affiliate networks poor tracking.

- The support usually couldnt give a toss and sometimes didn’t bother calling me back at all.

Maybe this doesnt happen with other industries promoted through affiliate networks, i’d hope not.