Comments on: When is lifetime commission not lifetime commission?

By: Baz

Baz — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 11:48:51 +0000

This still reads as spin. If you offer lifetime commission and then change your mind you cannot possibly expect your affiliate partners to happily go along with that.

Why not fix the underlying issue instead - if ppc bidding on your brand was the real reason you did the cut and run, then why not simply kick out the abusers and withold their commissions?

By: Joe Browns new affiliate incentive starts today - Affiliate Marketing

Joe Browns new affiliate incentive starts today - Affiliate Marketing — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 14:41:22 +0000

[...] Browns new affiliate incentive starts today Is this the same company as the one written about here? __________________ Nadeem, Azam Marketing. ‘1997-2007: 10 Years of Online Marketing Results’ [...]

By: John

John — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 15:53:44 +0000

Rob, thank you for your response. We aimed to offer lifetime residual income for new incremental traffic, which as I understand it, is the whole concept for affiliate based marketing. In truth we ended up paying considerably for our own traffic and subsequent sales. Our programme had been running with Buy.at for some time and we honoured every affiliate commission during this period so affiliates have done very well out of our lack of knowledge. It was however a mistake and the company should not be held to ransom over this indefinitely. This is not a convoluted explanation but pure business fact, if you pay a 3rd party for your own generated sales then you are strangling your own business. If by some accident you were to pay me a percentage of your income for life for no added value how long would you let this continue? If on the other hand, this was based on an additional income stream which I had brought to you, the value would be obvious and anyone would be crazy to stop it.
I take umbrage to your comment that you liken this move to other advertisers in this market. I have never made a bad comment about affiliates. I see great value in their partnerships as long as the parameters are not open to abuse. I have spoken internally about the need to maintain a programme and not to close our minds to affiliate marketing. It was for this reason that I pushed through the current 15% commission to end of September as it is one of our busiest periods with the launch of a new range.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion and I’m sorry that you feel aggrieved but the programme is performing well and we will continue to reward affiliates for the incremental sales they generate. Just how it should have been from the beginning.

By: Rob

Rob — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 09:33:13 +0000

John Gaukroger - - thank you for your explanation.

However, the fact is you claimed to offer lifetime residual income and you are no longer doing so. No matter what silky words or convoluted explanations you offer, you have broken the promise that you made to your business partners. Thereby your reputation has gone down in this industry and, just like some other advertisers who did the same, some affiliates will never work with you again.

You changing your rules has cost affiliates such as me a lot of money. I know of at least one other affiliate who is furious with you.

Offering a sweeter for a few days during the dead season when Brits are sitting on the beach in Spain is not going to sway affiliates opinions of you. Affiliates are savvy businessfolk and they know when they’ve been screwed no matter what the spin.

By: mally

mally — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 16:02:14 +0000

We would all like residual commission. Its a shame that this has happend and it makes me think twice about signing up with them or others that promise the same

By: Clarke

Clarke — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 14:06:25 +0000

My understanding is that it’s the life time of the program, so if a merchant leaves a Network not much network can do about it. It’s not like the Merchant will keep supplying the Network with data of sales after they go, and I am pretty sure most people understand it to be that, however maybe a wording change is needed to make it more clear. For example all Paid on Results programs with a “life time” element as it’ is understood by Affiliates are actually called “Customer Base” programs and they only work as long as the Merchant is with the Network and we have always made that very clear.

By the way PrezzyBox “life time” element only works on Paid on Results. We are the only ones with Customer Base for this program, we did after all come up with the concept and PrezzyBox was the trail blazing Merchant to be the first to use it all them years ago

By: John

John — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 09:15:38 +0000

Hi there, I’m John Gaukroger, the Online Marketing Manager at Joe Browns and I’d just like to respond to the points that have been raised in this Blog.

Firstly I can understand and appreciate the views that have been expressed; however I’d just like to put into context our experiences with the programme prior to the changes being implemented.

When we originally launched the programme we were advised of the benefits of lifetime commissions but were not informed of the issues surrounding PPC, specifically restricting affiliates from bidding on our brand. We saw significant volumes being generated by affiliates but were concerned when these sales spikes coincided with our own distribution of in-house catalogues to our existing customer base. We investigated further and found that unfortunately affiliates had placed numerous sponsored links on our brand terms (including misspells). By analysing the ‘new’ customers received through the affiliate channel we found that the vast majority were existing customers who had clicked on affiliates sponsored links whilst trying to reach Joe Browns directly. To appreciate this fully, we distribute catalogues to customers every season and a large proportion of these visit the site to order. This meant that we were in effect paying for sales from our existing client base and worse still would continue to do so at 2.5% for subsequent sales every time we re-market to them. The affiliate channel had in effect cut our margins significantly with negligible growth.

It’s fair to say that our business has gone through a large learning curve when it comes to running an affiliate programme and we’ve made the decision that the original model that was set up is unfeasible for us as it has effectively increased the margins that we operate on. This has come at a time when we were looking to strengthen our existing relationship with Affiliate Window. We do see value in the affiliate channel, this has been demonstrated to us by particular partners but I hope you can appreciate it needs to be mutually beneficial for all parties.

I’m sorry if people feel that they’ve been misled by the loss of the lifetime element of the new programme but the volume of cross over with our existing client base meant it had to stop. I am aware that not all of the affiliates would have been acting in this manner but their volumes are significantly less. I have however chosen to increase the commission that we are offering until the end of September to partners who are genuinely providing us with the new customers and incremental sales that are needed to make any programme a success.

John Gaukroger
johng@joebrowns.co.uk

By: John

John — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 11:27:59 +0000

What do you know Nadeem, they’ve already relaunched… on Affiliate Window, with a *temporary* increased commission rate of 15% (or a nice big juicy worm rate as it’s better known), but no lifetime commission, and a reduced cookie period of just 30 days.

I certainly won’t be biting though…

By: Nadeem (Azam.biz)

Nadeem (Azam.biz) — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 19:43:24 +0000

Good post.

I suggest affiliates avoid Joe Browns when they relaunch their affiliate program, which they no doubt will when the dust settles, just as most affiliates I know avoid the sleazy BlackStar/Sendit. These “bait and switchers” should realise that we affiliates are not powerless and will not accept anything they do to us.