Moose on the Loose

This article was brought to my attention on the Affiliates4u … My interpretations of which are below & immediately prompted me to give attribute it good old fashioned slapping.

One of the many side affects in the suggestion of enforcing generics as negative keywords is that a few networks will disregard general opinion & what is right for the longevity of affiliate marketing industry by bowing to the whims of a merchant / agency to simply get a merchant onboard for short term override gains & beefing up their portfolio .. & maybe a few generally less vocal affiliates will win favour with a network or merchant by being subservient suffocants.

This of course will be SPUN as strategic partnerships or complementing the clients existing paid search activity or being tailored solutions.

I make no apology & exclaim foxtrot oscar to any spin, as a suggestion perhaps we align ourelves & work more closely with those merchants & agencies who DON’T want to have their cake & eat it, by exploring opportunities with these existing programs which are in the majority to become the successful programs so that they supersede the ones with an acute holier than thou attitude.

With foresight on restricting generic terms, this would simply open Pandora’s Box and incite a free reign with an injection of ludicrous ideas to currently more open minded merchants / agencies to add to the ever increasing restrictions & operational envelope which affiliates can freely exert their marketing prowess on whatever front.

There are certain boundaries which are needed to maintained & not encroached upon in order to protect the affiliate & the longevity of our (all affiliates) industry, so that paid search affiliates are not left with deadwood terms & the unwanted giblets, to prevent a merchant being hand fed the terms which convert by the network or their own reporting logs, so that as a consequence merchant can add to an ever increasing list of restricted generic terms. Too many don’t at network, merchant & agency lelvel still have difficulty understanding broadmatch & contextual matching mistakenly sssuming all is black & white, generics will simply increase the confusion.

For anyone bowing to the merchant / agency on this, smacks with signs of desperation for those finding it more competitive in the paid search space by injecting preposterous ideas into the suggestion box.

The Case Against & Paraphrasing:

“A number of merchants have stopped all generic keyword activity which utilises their display URL, and that they would rather have the option to work with them and allow them to restrict those generic keywords they think are “low hanging fruit” … (magical spin) .. (than to not work with them at all, because a merchants in house or agency cannot always find untapped keywords which they’ve stopped through over simplistic optimisation or simply never discovered yet. “

I reiterate .. “let’s focus our attention & work more closely with those merchants & agencies who DON’T want their cake & eat it, by making the those existing programs the successful ones so that they supersede the ones with a holier than thou attitude .. ”

As an affiliate I don’t feel comfortable with the idea of my knowledge & databases being used against me plus the aforementioned reasons, calling even the simplest generic terms “low hanging fruit” doesn’t wash, it’s knowing what converts at a decent ROI.

I can see where the article is coming from & the case presented, but the answer is a resolute NO, but I know as well as you do that predominantly a few networks & agencies will not heed any advice & do it anyhow … it probably already is happening … Though as an affiliate all we shall see within the admin area is about url restriction, whilst the private arrangements will be made who are well … let’s not go there …

So far, there seems to been a firm line drawn in the sand on opinion with this subject, with generally networks/agencies one side and generally affiliates the other. This is like sneaking the EU Constitution through the back door without a referendum. You have to look at the bigger picture.

There is a plethora of merchants which don’t have url restrictions including big brands, or is there an incorrect mindset that only big brands convert. Personally I find that cherry picking smaller brands reaps the rewards. Big Brand doesn’t equate to good conversions.

In some ways this stems back to closed groups on some aspects, but that aside there are more than enough programs with potential that don’t have url restrictions & maybe we should focus our attention on those. I also wonder if some networks are worried about losing the bigger brands because of this? What with the bed they made for themselves with closed group circles & not being stronger from outset.

Perhaps some networks would like to publish a list of merchants who embrace ppc affiliates on ALL generic terms & don’t have a display url exclusion rule. Hang on I already did, there was one network I chased for a while by requesting their top ten programs who didn’t have a display url restriction and/or closed group, eventually they came back and said they didn’t have ten merchants … lol .. However on the whole we keep a list of merchant restrictions and at the moment most merchants don’t have a restriction on display url on generics.

Now where was that blog about Frostie & his perfect network.

Biatch Slap or Lick Booty … You decide … But think long term & what is right for the industry.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 at 4:56 PM and is filed under Affiliate Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.