So You’re a Merchant And You Don’t Want To Be In Our Codes Directory!

6 Comments June 29, 2009 / Posted in Affiliate Marketing

The curse of the voucher codes has reared it’s ugly little head again this month with news from Linkshare that Sweaty Betty are binning off all their code affiliates, except for one who’s being kept on as an “exclusive partner” (or perhaps they’re worried if they kick them out they’ll redirect their links to a competitor… that’s never happened now has it?).

Anyway, the exclusivity nonsense aside, it’s surely time networks and merchants devised a better set of plans for dealing with the wholesale booting of “voucher code affiliates” from promoting them.

Currently it seems networks and merchants favour Plan A, but perhaps there’s room for a Plan B?

Plan A

Dear Code Affiliate,

We’ve decided to stop offering voucher codes. However, we’re also unable to grasp the fact that you may run more than one website and have also decided that you are incapable of removing a site from your code directory.

To this extent we’re no longer going to work with you at all as we don’t think you’re intelligent enough to comply with our wishes. May work with you again in the future if this idea goes the way of the pear.

Yours Marketing Genius Merchant

Plan B

Dear Code Affiliate,

We’ve decided to stop offering voucher codes. However, we would still like to work with you in a non-codes capacity, especially if you run other sites that relate to our business. To this extent could you please remove our site from your code directory within the next 7 days and inform us of the changes.

We will then be in touch to offer alternative suggestions on how we can continue to work together in a non-code way. Unfortunately if the listing isn’t removed then we will have to regretfully terminate our affiliate agreement.

Yours Marketing Genius Merchant

Surely Plan B is better than Plan A?

Both have the same message, except Plan B offers a bit of an olive branch to the affiliate to maintain a working relationship with the merchant. Many affiliates run multiple sites, including code sites, just to cover their bases as various factors over the years have conspired to drive revenue into other areas of affiliate marketing.

We’d all love to concentrate on content this or blog that, but the simple fact is many affiliates need to run code sites and cashback sites in addition to other sites. In other words, we need to run different kinds of sites just to get a finger tip in the affiliate marketing revenue pie.

Kicking off an affiliate just because you, as a merchant, deems them a “code affiliate” is often blinkered and shows an inherent distrust of the affiliate you’ve been doing business with. It’s not good!

If a merchant doesn’t want to appear on our site they just have to ask… it’s not a puzzle so why do merchants/networks make life so difficult for themselves and for affiliates?

We have things set up on Loquax that if asked, in most cases, one click and all merchant offers are switched off or even removed… we work in what we believe is an appropriate way, so it’d be nice if we were treated with a bit more respect.

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6 Comments... What do you think? Subscribe via RSS
  1. Michelle said on June 29th, 2009 at 1:40 pm

    Hi,

    Whilst it may be a pain to have multiple affiliate ID’s, I would recommend for your top performing sites you establish a unique ID/account for each.

    This way the merchant can remove the code site from the programme (or request the removal of codes), whilst retaining the relationship with you for your other sites.

    The merchant then avoids having to explain why a code site is still listed within results reports, when its simply one URL for the ID, and can clearly see how your other sites are performing.

    cheers

    Michelle

  2. Jason said on June 29th, 2009 at 1:56 pm

    Hi Michelle

    It’s a nice idea having multiple accounts, but when you’re busy (and believe me we do work hard at Loquax) running with numerous accounts isn’t always that practical.

    It’s hard enough dealing with multiple networks :(

    Also Loquax is a multi channel site – with price comparison, competitions, and codes… it’s not ideal having different codes for different subdomains.

    Jason

  3. Juliane said on June 30th, 2009 at 3:32 pm

    Hi Jason,

    The email that announced the changes for this program was sent with an urgent subject line. On top all contact details for the account manager were included and the email asked affiliates to get in touch if they had any questions. This would have been a perfect opportunity to point out the additional information mentioned above.

    How should one find out that a site has got multiple channels if they are not listed in the affiliate account, urgent emails and phone calls remain unanswered? Do you know of a better way to communicate with affiliates?

  4. Jason said on June 30th, 2009 at 4:22 pm

    Hi Juliane

    Thanks for taking time to post on OLD.

    With the first email I was on holiday when it was sent (22nd June according to the info on yesterday’s email) but I can’t find it in either Gmail or on my PC and all emails are kept so maybe it’s gone awol… that aside yes you do say “any questions to contact you” – so my apologies if I’ve offended there (although it does highlight that 7 days notice is inadequate).

    Not sure about phone calls as none were received.

    As for the multiple channels – I don’t think I’ve ever registered us as a “code site” on Linkshare let alone any other kind of site. Yes we should complete our affiliate account but how we have ended up in one category when it’s possibly never been done I’m not sure? Anyway, not to worry.

    For the record you did rapidly reply to my emails yesterday and I’ve no issues with LS. The blog post is simply pointing out that these “code affiliate removal” things could be done a lot lot better and that merchants (as that’s who it’s mainly aimed at) should perhaps stop and think before removing code affiliates using the Plan A above.

    Jason

  5. Bob said on July 1st, 2009 at 9:39 am

    Seems to me there’s a bit of an impasse here.

    Lots of affiliates kind of expect to be micromanaged by merchants.
    But its just not practical for a merchant with eg. over 1000 affiliates all with different types of sites and site mixes.

    The small affiliates still have to be reached and loads of them are really difficult to find out what they are doing.

    Wouldn’t it be useful to have some sort of email document bank somewhere, that says look, this is a good way of announcing whatever you are going to announce, covering different subject areas ?

    Without very easy to access guidance, I can well imagine merchants looking through affiliates trying to figure out which ones do what and then after a few days deciding ‘what the heck – lets just stop the code sites and see what drops out at the end of it’. (Not that that’s what happened here).

    Also we all know that loads of emails will not reach their target and will not be read if they do, so at least a well structured original email won’t put everyone’s backs up – or at least not the affiliates you actually want to work with.

  6. Matt Bailey said on July 13th, 2009 at 9:01 am

    Jason – can I suggest a plan C?

    When a sale is made using a voucher code, the code is pulled through and displayed in the network interface, in the same way that order value, quantity etc are. Then the merchant/network has visibility and is able to decline sales if they come from an affiliate not permitted to display codes.

    You may lose out on the odd sale where the user has a voucher code and you are last referrer but I suspect that would be minimal.