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.

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.

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

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?

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

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