Culling inactive or even ineffective affiliates is back in the spotlight this week thanks to Ann Summers on Tradedoubler and an excellent discussion over on Affiliates4U. All affiliates who make one sale during February will be invited to remain on their program, whilst all others will be told adieu unless they can satisfy those in charge that there’s potential to do business in the future.

Apparently this clean up will allow them “to look after you better and really manage the relationships the way they would like to”. My general feelings on this kind of activity has already appeared here on OLD – Purge Inactivity To Get The Best From Your Affiliates!, and to be brutal those feelings haven’t changed. I think this kind of thing does more harm than good.

Look after us better?

For us the vast majority of affiliate managers look after us simply by sending us an email once a week/fortnight/month/year. That’s it. Not that I’m complaining, I don’t want 100s of AMs contacting me all day and every day. So with that in mind am I a drain on their resources? No!

Let’s assume there are several other affiliates paddling along in the same boat, all receiving the same standard email each week, that will go out to unculled affiliates. How is removing them going to save anyone any extra time or facilitate better relationships? It’s not!

Ok, perhaps it’s fair to remove affiliates who haven’t logged in to their affiliate account in years or who haven’t done a click ever or whatever other stat that can be dragged out of the management interface to show total inactivity (you AM guys and girls do have access to these kind of stats, yes? And you contact those specific affiliates without annoying everyone, yes? If not, why?)

And yes, there’s an option to plead our case to the merchant when these things happen, and fair enough most are pretty understanding. However, in my opinion this culling process has a real negative effect on affiliates. Including those who aren’t effected. Plus the time and energy devoted to kicking people out would be better used cajoling them to make an effort instead.

So why remove those who can’t perform or satisfy at the moment (there’s some irony here that we’re talking about Ann Summers) but who perhaps are promoting you, developing sites or are just happy to get on with things regardless and do not impede on their affiliate manager’s time.

I guess it could be cost (i.e. merchants pay networks by click or banner show) or that the tools to manage affiliates by groups aren’t available. I know that Paid on Results have such a facility, meaning you can group up your top affiliates, inactives, and others accordingly – and assume that other networks offer such tools?

However, one reason, and this seems to be cropping up more (Will Our Conversion Rate Ruin Your Affiliate Program), in my opinion is that affiliates who don’t conform with high clicks/no sales or high banner shows/no sales make a mess of statistics like conversion rate, EPC and what have you.

Perhaps I’m biased here as an affiliate and also as an affiliate who actually doesn’t give two hoots about statistics. One figure matters to me and that’s the one after the £ sign! I don’t care if I make one sale after 10 clicks, or 10,000 clicks simply because I’m not paying for traffic.

I’m working within the ts&cs of the program and as I’ve posted on A4U already I’ve yet to see one program that says “we will remove you if you make a mess of our stats, conversion rate, or any other number thing to make us look bad”. It’s me who’s suffering because of low conversion as it means I make less cash so why is it a big deal to the merchant?

I’m getting more and more concerned that merchants, agencies and AMs are getting more driven by statistics, but perhaps not in the right direction… and for an affiliate who really doesn’t care about EPC etc it’s a major worry that in the long term we’ll not be able to include merchants on our sites.

Personally I’d rather see an email from a merchant, worried about lack of activity or conversion, incentivising and encouraging me to promote them, not trot out lines like looking after me better when the reality is we’ll still be getting the standard network email a week anyway.

Finally, it’s worth noting that if Ann Summers do cull you, then you can always promote LoveHoney instead. You may still not get any sales, but LoveHoney do offer 16% commission compared to 10% with Ann Summers (which to be fair is a lot more generous than I expected).

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