Jessops Affiliate Marketing Innovation – Good or Bad?
Posted under: I’ve spent the last few jetlagged hours wondering why Jessops are deemed to be innovative when it comes to affiliate marketing, thereby grabbing themselves a A4UAwards finalist position in the forthcoming A4UExpo. A quick look at their program info on Tradedoubler might hold the answer though.
Jessops pay affiliates a 2% commission (no, that’s not the innovation), but they also offer a 4 day post impression cookie. I didn’t know that! Whilst post impression cookies aren’t innovative or new, it is a bonus extra for a retail merchant and goes some way to making using banners on pages worthwhile. Don’t get too excited though as the commission drops to just 1%!
Perhaps the innovation comes in the “Collect @ Store” option? Again this isn’t new or innovative as other merchants have used this approach, however Jessops offer 2% commission for these kind of sales (the same as for online sales). Usually collect at store sales are paid at a lower rate (or not at all)! The reason they can do this apparently is the way they have set things up – so that’s the possible innovation? A quick look around for other possible innovative reasons and you find that Jessops also offer affiliate discount codes, nicely promoted in a range of post impression banners.
So it seems that Jessops’ innovation is a package of post impression cookies and full price commission on collect at store sales. Is that really that innovative? If I’ve missed something with regard to Jessops then please let me know (either from a merchant, network or affiliate view) – I’ll publish it here and be suitably impressed too – but currently in comparison to Amazon widgets or Prezzybox Vidiboxes, the Jessops offering as I see it is like comparing an unmade airfix model to a fully operational Death Star!
Of course, Jessops must be congratulated for not only offering the extra elements to their program (now get that commission raised), but also getting enough nominations to become an A4UAwards finalist. However, there’s a more serious issue behind all this:
If offering PI cookies and commission for sales made online, but collected offline (which really should be a “given” anyway) is worthy of enough innovation nominations – then the industry is perhaps lacking some serious innovativeness from the 1000′s of other merchants and their affiliate managers.
Surely there’s more innovative innovation out there?
I think part of the innovation is their commitment to affiliate marketing. I’ve recently touched base with their affiliate manager and he is very proactive. He talked about incentives, coupons, weekend promotions and all sorts of good stuff. Maybe some of their longer lasting affiliates have voted for them for this reason?
You do have to wonder don’t you..
As I said in my post about the awards, there are some strange ones that have got through, and some very un-2007 ones, but hey ho.
Jessops IS a good program. Their affiliate manager IS good – but I tend to agree that this isn’t really innovation. Fair play to them though.
[...] is slightly cynical about the a4uawards nominations and looks more specically at the Jessops affiliate program, asking how they were nominated for Innovation and is definitely worth a good [...]