The reason that we announced this a few days after buy.at was due to an error in communication at the agencies end which meant that we didn’t find out until late Tuesday. We then communicated this to all affiliates as soon as we were able. We impressed upon the agency the need for increased notice for changes of this type and also for parity between the two networks. It certainly wasn’t laziness or us sitting on the information, please rest assured about that.

John I realise it is not acceptable to give so little notice but due to us receiving the message late we were left with little choice. I do feel the criticism regarding the tone of the communication is warranted and I will ensure that we are more human with our communication in future.

Mr Leaving The Day Job,

When would be the best time for us to send you communication? I have an eternal struggle with what to send out and when. Obviously we have a responsibility to communicate important campaign information to affiliates but I do not want to feel that we are spamming people. I know how much information we need to send out and if you multiply that across 10 networks then an affiliate is going to have a very full inbox and we risk important information not getting through.

If anyone has any ideas on how we could get round this please give me some ideas!!

Thanks,

Matt

This is one of the typical examples of what is wrong with affiliate marketing, where networks BOW to the whim of the client & treat the affiliate as a second class citizen. It also makes the networks seem lily-livered. In this instance Buy.at & DGM. What with period of notice & allowing the aggressive wording to pass through. Who is the agency involved & what other programs do they represent?

Moose aka Paul aka Victor Meldrew aka Pain in the Backside aka Qui Gon Jinn

I hear what you’re saying, and appreciate that there is clearly a third party (agency?) dictating things here which is why the same email was sent out through buy.at and DGM.

What I don’t understand is why it took DGM 5 days longer than buy.at to pass the message on? And why DGM think it is acceptable (from a PR purpose if not ethically) to send out a message that gives just 34 hours notice of potential legal action without so much as an explanation?

Apolgies but I appear to be on the sharp end of another case of
‘merchant-moving-goalposts/Network-shoulder-shrugging’ reversed commission…again.

I appreciate your frustration but unfortunately we are at the whim of clients and we have to adhere to what they say. We can, and do, advise clients that they must provide both us and affiliates with adequate notice but sometimes they do not always listen.

In this instance, the changes taking place have implications across all marketing channels and I believe that is why we were given short notice on this.

I do hope that this is not held against us as a network, as much of this is outside of our control. We have been working hard to turn around affiliate thinking about us and we would welcome the opportunity to work with you to resolve some of your issues.

Matt

However, DGM have taken the biscuit by sending the same email out THIS AFTERNOON, giving a grand total of 34 hours notice before affiliates are “open to legal action”

There’s a reason I don’t work with DGM much – it’s escapades like this!