Moose on the Loose

As you are aware Brand Bidding Groups (BBGs) have generally been for the familiar privileged few & favoured affiliates within some networks with the result of maximum reward with minimum effort with content affiliates suffering the stealth tax of cookie over-writing. There are a affiliates who are millionaires by doing something a monkey could do & offer little or nothing to the affiliate marketing space apart from being suited n booted & pretending to have a corporate persona as wide boys talking industry jibberish.

The solution I propose opens this all up to protect content affiliates & share the wealth where no network has suitable reason to withhold integration of the concept, unless there is possibly something to hide.

Here is the process of how it would be set up, now you must read through the WHOLE of this to understand this is quite simple & the real potential for all affiliates & the merchant.

1) An affiliate agrees to volunteer themselves!!! They look after the brand bidding group on a non-profit basis on direct to merchant paid search activity on brand terms, hybrids & obvious variations & mis-spelling. Obviously they would liaise with the merchant regarding the content of ad copy if it is necessary, though often this is best left to experienced affiliates to manage the campaign responsibly & professionally. You’ll also find volunteer affiliates will be more expansive in their use of keywords & not just exact match of brand [BRAND]

2) A separate Google, MSN Adcenter or Yahoo (YSM) account would be set up for each merchant so that the network, merchant and affiliate(s) involved have access to as well for keywords used & advertising spend. The reason for this will be more apparent a little later, so start licking your lips now.

2) What is paramount is transparency!!! The name of the affiliate(s) and the keyword database are available. Other affiliates not directly involved with the non-profit brand bidding group can also put forward suggestions of keywords to add to the mix & possibly integrated.

3) There will be no overwriting of content affiliate cookies at all!!! Content affiliates also include those who do paid search on product or generic keywords in paid search whether this is direct to merchant (i.e. permitted to use the display URL of the merchant in advertising or bringing traffic into their own site). This would require a separate network account being set up (an easy enough process), the main bit of work would require liaison between the network & some integration of code on the merchants behalf. Now at the moment we see Affiliate Window have done the honourable thing with Woolworth’ s. I don’t wish to knock it and it’s good progress, but the disadvantage of the Woolworths approach though is that it rely’s on cross referencing with a white list of keywords. The beauty of this scheme I am suggesting is that this separate link NEVER overwrites other affiliate links, but it can be overwritten in the normal manner of last referrer currently adopted. This content affiliates cookie always wins.

4) Obviously this non-profit affiliate can promote the merchant in the familiar manner as a content affiliate, on generic & product related terms in the normal way by using their affiliate links from their day to day account.

5) Now, the above is a great start within itself, but with paid search engines you can only use a certain display URL once (i.e single display URL policy). This is where some work is required on behalf of the network to earn their over-ride. Quite simply separate domains (either owned by the network or merchant) are set up for creation of landing pages or templates probably (preferably varying in design). The network would create these template / landing pages in liaison with the merchant for the brand bidding purposes, but if flexible enough these can also be utilised by normal content affiliates to integrate into their sites, thus offering multiple usage of the templates / full page sized content units.

The purpose of this is to provide more coverage in advertising listings with an increase in advertising slots incase competitors are bidding on the merchants brand & hopefully increase the transition of traffic actually going to the merchant. This needs to be only fully adopted if competitors are appearing in the space for keywords relating to the merchants brand. It’s a safeguard to counter competitor advertising or could be used in unison with the merchants own inhouse brand activity if they have one.

Now, the Non-Profit BBG can use one of their own URL’s to display the template (when bidding on brand going direct to a landing page), but there would need to absolutely zero leakage to other parts of their web site or web sites they own to make it fair i.e. to ensure other parts of their web site don’t benefit from bidding on brand. For their normal (non BBG) link then they fall into the same offerings as other affiliates.

It is important networks do work for their over-ride rather than sitting on their laurels ensuring these templates whether created by merchant or network are updated at reasonable intervals.

Now for the Deal Clincher

6) You are maybe asking what happens to the commission earned from this brand bidding. Well, we share the wealth of course, it all goes into a massive Prize Pot to share amongst other content affiliates who promote the merchant. The cost of the paid search activity (remember from a separate Google, MSN, Yahoo account) is deducted from the total commission earned via the brand bidding. These figures are released to the affiliate community for transparency.

7) The way the Jackpot Pool can be shared out is as follows. The Jackpot can be divided into 5, 10 or even 20 equal amounts. For the content affiliates promoting the merchant, 1 sale = 1 ticket where an affiliate can win no more than one prize for that specific merchant. Prize funds could anything for £20,000 to £100,000 or even more (don’t forget Millions have been made by these brand bidding groups, agencies & networks), which is a lucrative cash bonus for any content affiliate. Alernatively half the prize pool could be divided proportionally amongst their top 10 affiliates & the remainder going into the lucky dip. The frequency of these draws could be quarterly for lesser amounts of annually for a huge bonus.
Whereby:

• Content affiliates will more likely be incentivised to promote the merchant. Of which some could be used to launch their own bigger or greater projects, plus of course reaping the rewards of their own hard work.

• The merchant has a greater potential to receive an increase in incremental sales because of the generous Jackpot / Prize Pool available.

• The network still receives their over-ride, with any increases in incremental sales, plus they would be held with higher esteem with affiliates for their transparency & dedication to sharing the wealth amongst content affiliates.

• The wealth is shared amongst more worthy content affiliates across the industry rather than the familiar pre-chosen select few that some networks embrace.

Disadvantages

a) Some networks may jump on the bandwagon – Using the spin of strategic groups by maybe only offering a token program here or there trying to fool un-savvy affiliates or those that see things through Rose Tinted GlASSes. A network must be committed to this fairer solution of handling BBGs.

b) Finding volunteer affiliates – This wouldn’t be too difficult as I know, including myself, there are content affiliates who would embrace this. Setting up brand bidding campaigns on the different paid search engines only takes a small amount of time & requires little managing, except for occasionally updating ad copy & ensuring ROI is obviously profitable.

c) Who will fund the PPC activity? Well this should be the network of course. Why would they object? They have to do something for their money, it’s a no brainer really, since they would still receive an over-ride whereby PPC costs are recouped anyhow, rather than the volunteer affiliate awaiting for their expense. Any network objecting to this would need their scruples testing, when this should be weighed up against the increase in incremental sales & esteem they could gain & hold amongst affiliate peers which would transcend to other programs on their network. Just think about it for a moment!

You may ask, then why doesn’t the network simply do the whole branding themselves. Well who says some don’t do this already through mates or their selected cartel of affiliates with kickbacks. At least with what I propose it’s transparent & again the wealth is shared.

This solution in my book will clearly demonstrate which networks, merchants & agencies truly have any sincerity to what is a very workable solution. What traction this idea developes into, I cannot predict, but the opportunity is there to do the right thing for content affiliates & the industry as a whole, with the ball firmly served into their court.

There you go my fellow peers. The proposed solution to brand bidding groups & sharing the wealth amongst the true content affiliates.

Any additional advantages you feel this offers please offer a comment, so that we can get this solution rolling. And any volunteers please feel welcome to put your name forward. Any merchants interested in trialling this concept can email me “moose [at] mooseontheloose.co.uk” or PM me through the forum where my handle / username is “Qui Gon Jinn“

My faith in tracking, generally, has probably reached the ends of it’s tether to the point I have no T.I.T.S, yes I have the Moobs (Man Boobs) but I am taking about Trust In Tracking Solutions.

It’s not unless you send a decent enough volume of traffic to a merchant with a fairly constant conversion that you notice something is amiss. If you only send low or incidental traffic, then realistically you have no way of knowing and are at the mercy of the gods. It doesn’t matter how long it’s down for, it’s still pennies which should be in the affiliates pockets.

Only this week we have one network who doesn’t have the common courtesy to communicate with affiliates when it was obvious tracking was not working. It hadn’t been tracking from about the 16th April, then I noticed on the 23rd April when taking a cursory glance at reports. The merchant had reported it to the network prior to that but the network even took a couple of days to get back the merchant. I think that merchant may leave the network soon.

There is absolutely no excuse for a network not notifying affiliates and any apologies are hollow without true sincerity because it’s not an isolated incident!

These woes are familiar to affiliates so why haven’t things generally improved with some parties. Simple … they just don’t care! Granted a few networks keep you in the loop but some are so incompetent.

That was not all this week, to fill a brace, we had been running a very targeted campaign for a merchant, with about 15,000 keywords each deeplinking to specific products. Scraping the site for relevancy & introducing a number of negative keywords for improved quality of traffic via paid search. The conversion ended up worse than generics with no negatives, indicating that sometimes the tracking worked on deeplinks & sometimes it didn’t. This is currently being looked into as the conversion was only 0.3%. The reason for scraping the site was because the network, agency & merchant were totally useless at providing a very basic product feed. In fact all i wanted was a list of products they sold, we could have done the rest.

For the hatrick we have another merchant pleasant they are who recently launched on dual network, their advertised cookie of 30 days actually seems to be just a session cookie with session time outs too, where potentially affiliates have been potentially losing out loads over the years. The second network is looking into it, but what is worrying is that it had been on another network for a few years and they never noticed. Yet again it’s myself like other affiliates who notice the problems. Oh and the network who hadn’t noticed all these years is the same one that still hasn’t informed affiliate the tracking isn’t working.

There are other programs we suspect too, but it would probably be less stressful if we simply drop the program. I would rather keep what remnants of hair follicles I still have left, than inference from any suggestions that I mighty be indulging in a magic mushroom pizza or chasing the dragon.

Short Notice Programs Closures

Yet again all this year we continually see short notice program closures, and program T&C’s with hollow meaningless wording “we apologise for the inconvenience”. What total poppycock, their not sincerely sorry or apologetic at all. It shouldn’t be permitted.

Bring On CPC & CPM

I wonder what proportion of sales affiliates lose through lost tracking which isn’t identified, poor remuneration policies in place, de-duping of sales against merchants own paid search activity on brand or super cookies which maybe in place where it doesn’t matter if you are the last referrer, because the customer visited the merchant’s site sometime in the past the affiliate will not be credited the commission.

My answer is too much, keeping on top of program changes and no T.I.T. has led me to gradually move away from the performance marketing CPA model for the simplified & more harmonious model of CPC where I get paid per click & even CPM to supplement this. It means less relationships being managed & I can focus more on marketing the merchant. Keeping on top of changes is a full time task in itself whether it be openings / closures / suspensions/T&C’s.

As you know most merchants convert poorly, even if product targeted sometimes, so we shall culling them like the grim reaper soon and maintaining a fraction of programs we had previously where the bar for EPC’s & ROI’s will be raised considerably. If the merchant wants to appear on any of our sites, then they will have to pay CPC at the minimum level we determine. Personally I think more affiliates should request this from poor quality / poor converting merchants, even including the big brands. This change in focus I know will be more rewarding whilst a couple of networks & number of merchants can fester in the stew of inadequacies.

I am confident I will deliver quality traffic on any CPC model with the added benefit of less frustrations managing it, improving still further the quality of lifestyle.

Hybrid Commissions : A Possible Short Term Solution

A possible solution to this is to escalate the introduction of hybrid commissions, rather than affiliates being Guinea Pigs, until a merchant program comes up to scratch on a suitable EPC for their sector. Barring abuse from a minority, introducing a hybrid commission with an element of both CPC & CPA may go some way to off-setting these tracking problems we endure.

Please Read: Affiliates Need TIT – The Need For Trend Graphs and why networks are bottling it with regard to any implementation.

Opening The Brown Envelope .. Oops Sorry .. I Mean The Gold Envelope … drum roll …

Farcical, that is the only way I can describe the nominations for the Publisher (Affiliate) of 2008. Lets not hold back the expletives please with false pleasantries.

I’ll come onto the other more respected categories a little later, but the aforementioned one, left me lacing my football boots, grabbing the ball bag & heading down the park to burst a couple of footballs whilst kicking them against the crossbar.

The nominations for this category seems to have been left in the hands of the inept, who’s drinks I can only assume had been laced with something hallucinogenic. However, on a serious note it amplifies & underlines the incestuousness there is between the Praetorians in ensuring that the brand bidding groups remain within closely controlled circles with secret rituals in order to gain entrance into the inner sanctum and the clear divide between these parties (networks & agencies) associated with brand bidding groups & the majority of normal affiliates. Basically they are scared, and more attractive propositions which are presentable in-front of them more notably … Sharing the Wealth – The Solution to Brand Bidding Groups … puts the wind up their pipe.

Note: We have our first merchant coming on board which will be announced later this month. Estimated annual prize pool maybe about £30,000 (based on previous figures)

This category partially explains the lack of innovation from a few networks, brand bidding is easy so there is no need or requirement to innovate since life is just bliss down on Easy Street where it seems there is a clear divide between affiliates. Though there is gradually similar opinion and concessus for which networks & merchants we should shun and leave to their ways. A few of last years nominations indicated this, this category just reaffirms. It’s incredulous to say the least.

“Not sure who got to nominate for the “Publisher (affiliate) of 2008”, but it looks like a “who’s who” of brand name bidding + Quidco. Nice choices for the bloggers award though.” – Ian

I won’t bother listing the nominees for the Publisher (Affiliate) of 2008 Award, as I don’t even wish to even soil my blog by putting it type. There is one cashback site called Quidco amongst them, I don’t know much about cashback sites and there are friends & colleagues with very mixed opinions, perhaps is better that they won the award rather than any BBG affiliate or company. I will enquire though why is it companies that have been nominated & not individuals?

Now, I was quiet vociferous when it was initially announced there would be a voting panel for the awards, and I still am, if this particular one was one of those that was relinquished to a public vote, then I openly apologise to Matt and the Existem team, because i’ll reiterate again the nominations for the Publisher (Affiliate) of 2008 is Farcical.

Though this has laid down the challenge for other traditionally content affiliates to aggregate skills into a synergy to develop something spectacular, though they won’t have the easy cash from BBG’s to finance it.

Let’s not beat about the bush on this one … It’s unhealthy & not good for image of the industry!!!

But on a brighter note lets look at the other categories.

Affiliate Manager of 2008

• Chris Bishop (Hotel Chocolat)
• Chris Clarkson (Sunshine.co.uk)
• Daniel Morley (Alpha Rooms)
• Graham Keen (Buy a Gift)
• Jasper Van Der Bliek (Jackpot Joy)
• Zak Edwards (Prezzy Box)

I don’t know Chris “B” or Jasper, but this category represents class & quality, illustrating affiliates voting with their brain. I was surprised on a couple of omissions like Adam from JustHom & Naomi from Firebox to name just a few, I don’t know the latter but they are always proactive on the forum.

Publisher’s Account Manager of 2008

• Jonathan Erwin (OMG)
• Julie Wood (AW)
• Kier Marston (Webgains)
• Thuy Pham (AW)
• Vicky Long (OMG)

I only deal with a c couple of managers here, but many congratulations to them all & thoroughly deserved. I was hoping Julia Stent from Affiliate Window (who got rid of 0% on Dixons products) would be a nominee, and again surprised at a couple of omissions which again illustrates some of the quality staff there is around on the favoured networks, there must have been some good competition. Well done.

Affiliate Marketing Agency of 2008

• Equator
• Existem AM
• Media Vest
• Quantum BLM
• R.O.EYE

The usual suspects here, we need more candidates, a couple of these I associate with BBGs (Brand Bidding Groups) so disappointed to see them there. Personally I think Sean “Hong Kong Phooey” Carter from Media Vest are on the verge of being fan-riffic, so I’ll give them the nod together with the ever so nice chappies Bruce & Mark over at Existem AM.

Publisher’s Choice Of Network 2008

• Affiliate Future
• Affiliate Window
• <expletive removed>
• OMG
• Paid On Results
• Webgains

I am not surprised with a few of the obvious missing candidates, it’s not the time & the place to elaborate now as I could dedicate a whole blog to each one, but its curious how times have changed on the networks which used to be the so called big three, notably Commission Junction, Deal Group Media & Tradedoubler. Though I would have substituted one of these for the nominee with the <expletive removed> 😉

Affiliate Marketing Blog of 2008

• Jason Dale (www.onelittleduck.co.uk)
• Kieron Donoghue (www.here.org.uk)
• Kirsty McCubbin (www.affiliatestuff.co.uk)
• Lee McCoy (www.leemccoy.co.uk)
• Paul Wheatley (www.mooseontheloose.co.uk)

I will have to demand a recount on this one, I think my vote should have the decimal point moved to the left a couple of notches. I am not one for the limelight so I really don’t have much to say except I am quite surprised with my nomination & quietly chuffed to be amongst a group of respected peers & friends. There are some excellent affiliate blogs out there which I read regularly, so there must have been some stiff competition in this category. Enough said on that & cheers kindly for the vote.

Have you noticed how its mainly the affiliates who have been both around the block and not in the BBG inner sanctum who have blogs?

For more details about the nominations and the wonderful efforts by those at Existem in the events they organise … Please Click Here

Let me commence with a definition of Praetorians, these people were venal & corruptible. Venal means these are people capable of betraying honour, duty, or scruples for a price. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr summarised this quite nicely as “A large praetorian bureaucracy, filled with ambitious, possessive . . . and often sycophantic people, makes work and makes trouble”, ruthlessly seeking personal advantage. Historically the Praetorians were eventually defeated by the citizens & Constantine who united the empire at the cost of much toil and bloodshed. In my opinion these Praetorians are the affiliates, merchants, networks & agencies associated with brand bidding groups who plunder at the expense of the citizens (decent & ethical content affiliates)

Today, May 5th, as you are probably aware marks the introduction of the Google AdWords Trademark Policy Revision, Google will no longer prevent you or anyone else using AdWords to place adverts on Google for trademarked terms of other companies or competitors nor will they prevent previously unauthorised ads from showing.

Initially I doubt there will be any almighty surge & it will probably commence with a whimper, but it will gradually gather pace into a crescendo. So don’t panic Mr Mannering just quite yet, just monitor you brand & have contingency plans in place if the situation arises.

It’s probably worthwhile reading my previous blog and those from other respected affiliates to give you a little background on this latest Google policy change Click Here For Details.

Personally, I sit on both sides of the fence on this topic depending on the circumstances. Bidding on competitor brands isn’t particularly good practise & shouldn’t be encouraged though for the competitor this can be extremely beneficial in increasing the profile of their smaller unrecognised brand by riding on the back of a larger brand (not necessarily better reputation).

No doubt gentlemen’s agreements will increasingly unfold, mainly between larger brands, where parties agree not to become embroiled by bidding on each others trademarks. The problem is misspellings, variations & hybrids are not realistically covered and sometimes encroach other marks in the process.

If a merchant has any fairly generic words in their brand name, there isn’t a whole lot they can do on broadmatching issues & any networks trying to enforce affiliates putting in negative phrases can take a run & jump from a very tall building.

Put the boot on the other foot, would merchants put 30,000 affiliate brands as -[negative] keywords into all their campaigns … Of course they wouldn’t. And with paid search affiliates having dozens or hundreds or thousands of adgroups it’s impossible & impractical.

So any network or merchant telling you to put in negatives can be prodded with the poopy end of a highly electrical charged cattle stick on the genitals & requested to shove off, wiping their feet on the way out.

The Exception to The Rule

If you followed the link above Click Here If you didn’t, then those Praetorians involved with BBGs I consider as legitimate targets, these parties involved have never considered the rest of us affiliates with cookie overwriting by selling out & “Getting Rich Quick by Selling br$and to the Arabs for £75m” or getting on some broadsheets rich list plus the other familiar BBG’ers. There are primarily four networks.

Therefore I will openly applaud any advertisers, affiliates or competitors, to target these parties. Will I personally involved with this? I haven’t yet decided, but I wouldn’t be foolish enough to have anything traceable back to myself, but will possibly / potentially quite happily furnish the foot soldiers the keywords required. It’s about time we rightfully clawed back some of what has been taken.

There is a small army of citizens (content affiliates) who have simply had enough. Those Praetorians in their Ivory Towers can quite happily have their discussions about myself & a few other affiliates. The Gauntlet has been picked up it’s been “enough is enough” for sometime now.

I haven’t forgotten the quote from a newly appointed UK network representative in Las Vegas last year who expressed they as a network wouldn’t change their ways & that this person was there to build up #29 & other BBG businesses.

Therefore if you are a merchant who currently has a BBG in place then I suggest you rethink & rapidly adopt alternative options like the one proposed here. “Sharing the Wealth – The Solution to Brand Bidding Groups”

Please note if a merchant doesn’t have a BBG then please don’t target them.

In the immortal words of Citizen ‘Wolfie’ Smith … “Power to the People” & a thumbs down to the The Praetorians. (relevant wrt to Roman times when the original Praetorians existed & the thumbs down given by the emporer in arena battles)

Rules of Engagement

Parties involved with BBGs manipulated the unwritten rules of engagement & worked the system via sheer greed with zero concern for anyone else, the seeds of this incentious period are quite obvious when you examine events chronologically, patterns, career paths, social circles with information volunteered quite freely when alcohol induced & a Penfold (the mole from Danger Mouse). The rules of engagement will change & for the better.

Ask Yourself

Are you a Praetorian, A Citizen or an Apathetic Buffoon?

Opting Out Required

Due to some networks reluctance to disclose which merchants have BBGs, I propose an Opt Out form or application where the merchant has to publicly say they don’t operate a BBG, thereby reducing the chances they will be subject to competitor bidding. As having to opt out seems to be the fashion, this maybe a prudent course of action to get transparency once & for all.

Exciting Product Launch

Hopefully, very soon, maybe this week even I’ll be able to blog about an exciting product launch pertaining to competitor & affiliate brand bidding, which may upset a few apple carts of those in their Ivory Towers & is highly recommended for merchants to use.

Happy Birthday Grandad

Finally I would like to say Happy Birthday to my grandad, who passed away a few years. He is fondly remembered & his words of wisdom I still follow.

Yep we still have these neanderthal cookie set ups, come on what kind of stone age set up is that we still see on a couple / few of the “major” networks?

Action Referral Occurrences, this is the number of times an advertiser will pay a commission within the *same* cookie period (ranging from 1 time to unlimited).

Here’s where there is room for confusion.

Many affiliates are make the false assumption that they earn commissions for “all” the sales during the active cookie period. Whereby the cookie gets erased after the first purchase and you don’t get commission on subsequent sales if they go on to purchase further items or services within that origianl cookie duration.

However, this is now metered by the ‘Action Referral Occurrence’ or “Recurring Event” setting. Sometimes it is just an oversight by a merchant but it can basically make you feel short changed.

Certainly if your program is designed to pay for customer acquisition then it’s not so much of a problem. For example With Credit Cards & Betting, however there could quite easily be more than one person in a household who could apply, hence some other programs in the same category do offer unlimited.

But if an merchant is selling their program as an ongoing revenue share for referred customers then they should ensure their action referral occurrence reflects this with appropriate unlimited occurrences.

Ideally any of these merchants listed below should change it to UNLIMITED. Action Referral Occurrences is often overlooked by affiliates so if you have a good relationship with the affiliate manager of any of these programs, it may be an idea to encourage them to change it..

As a suggestion to forum members politely email merchants you work with & explain that their terms of ‘1 time’ sales against long cookie periods weakened their offer to the point that they may not be promoted to their full potential.

How long has this being going on for, well I first posted about it on the forum over 4 years ago, not a whole ot has changed and because it says a certain cookie period or unlimited recurring events, does it actually mean it is? Am I being sceptical? Nope just realistic.

Solution: Deactivate merchant if they won’t listen or change.

As affiliates we suffered at christmas when a number of merhants set their commissions on Wii’s to zero percent. See Wii Are Not Amused. Yet when some announced they were reintroducing commission they expected us to be grateful … Fools ..

Now it seems Zavvi (formerly known as Virgin Megatore) are being just as foolish by announcing they will not be paying commissions on Wii Fit & Mario Kart.

The email was received on the 30th April, but the email says it took effect 5 days earlier. Shall I jump in my tardis & travel back in time to remove links? That really isn’t on! And what is that feeble excuse on the last line all about?

They are a merchant I would promote more, but this makes me reluctant.

“zavvi.co.uk regret that from 25th April onwards they will no longer be able to pay commissions on the following products:

– Wii
GTA IV – XBOX 360 & PS3
GTA IV Special Editions – XBOX 360 & PS3
Wii Fit
Wii Consoles
And from 1st of May 2008 any console bundles including any of the aforementioned excluded products.

zavvi.co.uk have been reluctantly forced to take this step due to extremely low availability of these products. “

Haven’t lessons been learned?

Shane Says “yup that line translates as .. we can’t get that many so we aim to make as much profit of those few that we can so we aren’t willing to pay any commission on them.”

Rich Says “Yeah, they are getting less and less chance of being included in a site I’m slowly setting up. I just don’t get the reason why it affects commission. They either mean general availability to customers is low, so they are saying ‘sod off and sell the less requested stuff’ or availability to them is low, but they wouldn’t be paying out commission anyway if they don’t have it to sell.”

You can follow & engage with the discussion on the A4UForum Click Here

A pinch and a punch for the first of the month to gently remind & strategically prod you with a cattle stick to submit your nominations for the a4uAwards as today is D-Day when the voting closes and those nominations are counted.

From the categories we are limited to voting, have your say, cast your tick by thinking out of the box & diligently nominating those people or parties who should be recognised in the industry for their efforts, so that unpopular choices, obvious block voting techniques & reciprocal voting get less of a look in & can be countered.

If any obvious BBG affiliates, agencies & networks get in, you’ll easily enough be able to draw the lines again. Don’t vote with your libido, vote with your head.

It will only take you a few minutes so get cracking now … mush-mush-mush!

The Publishers Choice Awards are:
(These awards are only open to publishers)

• Publishers Choice of Account Manager
• Publishers Choice of Network
• Affiliate Manager of 2008

The Community Choice Awards are:
(Open to Affiliates, Merchants, Agencies & Networks unless otherwise stated)

• Affiliate Marketing Blog of 2008
• Agency of the Year (agencies are not permitted to nominate for this award)
• Publisher of the Year (affiliates/publishers are not permitted to nominate for this award)

This is YOUR chance to give deserved recognition to the companies and individuals who have in your mind excelled in Affiliate Marketing. Click Here for Details

You, or your company can enter the awards free of charge, see the site for details.

Voting in the Publishers and Community choice awards takes less than two minutes. Click Here to have your say, and ensure the awards go to the most deserving winners!

Affiliates4u Award for Excellence

Remember this year they also have a special new ‘Affiliates4u Award For Excellence’ where the winner must be nominated by the affiliates4u community

Where YOU (who is part of the affiliate community) can nominate an Individual, Team or Company to be awarded the “Affiliates4u Award for Excellence”

Click Here

To completing the straight forward form on the page and attach a short paragraph or testimonial. It’s as simple as that … fair exchange no robbery … Job done.

Make sure your star(s) get rewarded and nominate for this award before it’s too late.

Click Here for Full Details

Don’t be an apathetic washout, take a couple of minutes out to have your say.

Incentives are indeed terrific for affiliates and we like to encourage more of those with the wow factor, however before you get carried away banging up links to promote a particular merchant, look under the hood for a moment and think about the fuller picture.

I am, of course referring to the recent incentive from Sky TV which you can read to your heart’s content on Kieron’s Blog, which on face value only the incentive does look excellent, whether it’s the best incentive ever depends on what grabs your fancy, personally my favourites have been the Buyagift promotions along with others like the holiday in Barbados with Sunshine.co.uk.

So hang on … Look at the bigger picture for a moment … And ask yourself.

• Are you cheesed off with your cookie being over written by brand bidding groups?
• Are you brassed off with networks not coming up with suitable technical solutions to prevent cookies of content affiliates being over written, yet still both agency & network are quite happy to soak up the over-rides from commissions?
• Are you peeved that your hard work as a content affiliate is literally lining the pockets of the BBG’s?

Well that is exactly what has been happening with the Sky TV Affiliate Program for a few years now on Buyat, note the program is also on Affiliate Window but I am informed there are no BBG’s for the program on Affiliate Window.

So, basically for that extra work you do in promoting Sky, you’ll suffer more stealth tax where these BBG’s, Buyat & the Agency are literally leaching you by siphoning off your hard earned efforts as you line the pockets of the BBG affiliates. Thus any further incremental sales generated from the sheep promoting this program because of the incentive are just lining the pockets still further of these BBG affiliates.
If you possess the attributes of this charitable nature, then I hold nothing back and suggest that you are being taken for a mug.

“Does this incentive exclude all the affiliates within the brand bidding group, and guarantee that content affiliates will not have their cookie overwritten by brand bidders?”

On a side note I still prefer the basis of entry into an incentive whereby each sale = 1 ticket into draw proposition.

That’s why the solution I proposed is better for affiliates, and I will post why some networks & agencies won’t embrace it. Read: Sharing the Wealth – The Solution to Brand Bidding Groups.

Sky TV BBG Affiliates Offering Little Value To Incremental Sales

Now, I have a juicy database on constant stand-by for Sky TV related keywords, both brand & generic, and can easily illustrate multiple times over the little value they these BBG’s add.

Search for “Sky TV” on Google and you’ll see about 5 ads, a couple of which have sky in the bought domain (hmm). Most of which if not all of them are Buy.at affiliates. The landing pages are of reasonable quality, though not long ago some were directing straight to the merchant via an affiliate link.

Extend this to the numerous hybrid phrases like “subscribe to sky” and there are even less ads & so forth. So these affiliates are even lazy sycophants on hybrid terms (brand+generic).

Check out “watch football on sky tv”, there are no BBGs, which suggests they are only [exact matching] and not even broad matching. Talk about lazy & milking the brand!

Yet, when you extend this still further to generic terms like “watch football on tv”, there is not a sausage (not a single BBG Affiliate). That’s how lazy most of them are!

Make sure you read : Idiots Guide To Brand Bidding, How To Bid Like A BBG Pro by Shane. That’s how easy it is.

Blogging About Incentives More

Now I agree we should blog about affiliate incentives more often by spreading the word via blogs & the forum, so that the merchant duly receives incremental sales & an elevation in program status, but only for the right reasons. That is why I urge affiliates … Don’t Bother With The Sky TV Incentive !!! Unless You Have “Mug” Tattoed On Your Forehead” … until they do the decent thing wrt to preventing cookie overwriting of content affiliates & adopt my proposed solution to Brand Bidding Groups.

Sharing the Wealth – The Solution to Brand Bidding Groups.

To Be A Mug or Not A Mug … That is the Question.

In relation to Google’s Trademark Policy Change, I will expand my thoughts in due course, but you can view existing blogs & threads at the footnote of this blog entry. They cover quite a lot of opinion, for which I will precis in conjunction with my own viewpoints at a later date, but make sure you read these as it will give a better overview of the whole topic & the vulturism of those I deem as carnivorous annelid worms of the class Hirudinea, plus it will lead you into this next maybe slightly controversial observation / option (not necessarily opinion)

If a network, the BGG’s & the merchant have no consideration to the cookie over-writing of other affiliates, why should there be a consideration from content affiliates to their self professed omnipotent attitude & contempt in their treating of content affiliates.

Now, some might argue that two wrongs don’t make a right, but if you want to reclaim back some of what you may have unduly lost, then perhaps it’s reasonable enough for self preservation purposes to be a competitor of the merchant’s BBG.

By simply removing yourself or expiring the relationship with the merchant who has a BBG. Thus meaning the network has no jurisdiction over the relationship anymore & cannot be involved in any dialogue or reprimanding.

You can then bid on the brand / hybrids [brand+generic] / mis-spellings & promote a competitor who doesn’t have any clauses objecting to or you can arbitrage instead .. this Google policy change will be an arbitrager’s paradise. Noting : that hybrid terms [brand+generic] are less detectable in the sense they are often mistakenly identified as brand bidding when it was broadmatch on the generics anyhow. Make sure you use the Google Keyword Tool and check out synonyms, you will see that there is a lot of correlation for what is known as expanded match or I refer to as synonym. With the impending automatic matching this could prove even more beneficial.? Let’s consider it divine retribution.

Two wrongs can make a right, if any networks with BBG’s don’t have the respect for content affiliates & cookie over-writing, breaching contracts without proper disclosure, then why should content affiliates give an iota in return. Now as a competitor bidder you may not be able to have the brand in the ad copy, ad title or display URL .. so your click thru rate (CTR) maybe less & minimum bid maybe slightly more, but as long as a competitor advertiser is making a positive ROI which is what it is about (unless is a brand building exercise) then for every £1000 you earn thats £1000 less for the BBG’s and £300 less (30% override) for the network, plus in tandem there is a trimming of the fat from the fat cats from both ends, the BBG’s CTR will decrease, minimum bids rise & ROI reduces.

So am I advocating this? You’ll have to decide for yourself, and be happy with your own conscious if you partake. But this is business and its survival of the fittest, these BBG’s & the merchants / agencies are affecting your bottom line without any care for you i.e it’s like an additional stealth tax. If your tax rate went up 20% you wouldn’t think that was reasonable would you? Therefore I will have no sympathy with all those parties involved in a BBG whether it be an affiliate, the merchant / agency or network … and those affiliates going head to head with the BBG’s won’t get any complaints from me.

Now, the problem is decent merchants will be affected by this too, so the gauntlet is if you decide to target merchant brands, then only go after those merchants with BBG’s. I’ll happily shared compiled lists of merchants with other affiliates.

I do have a solution to BBG’s which can benefit all, which I blog later, which would be a win win situation for most.

Forthcoming Blogs:

1) A Solution To BBG’s group (before the idea gets nicked and a network or merchant does themselves.)

2) My Viewpoint on Google’s Trademark Policy Change?

3) How Long is a Piece of String? (The Answer)

4) Why I Am Considering Moving Away from CPA to CPC

5) Which So Called Leading Strategic Networks We Are Going To Dump & Why

Read these blogs & threads to keep up to date with Google’s Trademark Policy Change

• AdWords – Brand Bidding Group Feeding Frenzy Ahead !?

• The 10 Affects Of Google’s Trademark Policy Changes For Affiliates

• The new Google UK Adwords Policy – My view on the pros and cons

• Google Opens up Brand Name Bidding

• Google Revises Trademark Trigger Policy

• Should We Be Worried About Google’s New TM Policy?

• Which Network Do You Think Has The Most Brand Bidding Groups?

• Google trademark policy change

• Google Trademark Shake Up in UK

It is generally acknowledged & agreed that 0% commission has no place in the affiliate marketing space. There are enough threads & blogs pertaining to this which I will append later where several merchants were bought to our attention.

However, haven’t we been overlooking finance merchants?!

Now a finance merchant may have a suite of products ranging from various types of insurance to loans to credit cards.

If you examine the plethora of finance merchants available for affiliates to promote, do they all offer commission on their full suite of products? The answer is no, such that a program might only offer commission on a lesser popular product like business / commercial insurance when their core selling products might be car or home insurance which are all very easily accessible from the primary landing page and are on the main merchants site. In some instances I beleive this is intentional, for those which it is not .. well it’s very convenient isn’t it?

In my personal opinion these program are a bit of a scam offering commission on what I believe are lower traffic areas of their site. In a way similar to a merchant offering zero % commission on products.

Granted some finance merchants may have a program set up for one of their core products like car insurance products, again, what about all the others within their suite?

There are enough examples of this on several of the networks if you take a few minutes out to look.

Cookie Cross Pollination

You’ll also notice that quite often with finance merchants, if they are offering commission on different products, they split these into different programs, one might be for selling car insurance & the other might be for home insurance. Assuming the affiliate is signed up to both programs, does the cookie pollinate across the programs? i.e. the customer visits via the home insurance link but might end up purchasing car insurance.

Why are we generally NOT fully informed?

My Gripe With OMG

Don’t get me wrong, there are a smashing group of people there. OMG can be considered primarily as a finance orientated network.

What grates me is that individual products for each merchant are separated into different programs, granted there maybe different budget allocations to each, but are we informed which have cookie cross pollination or more still why can’t we simply have one link which encumbers all for a specific finance merchant & then as long as we are signed up to their other products we’ll still receive commission from these. Personally I find it a real pain having to sign up to multiple programs of the same merchant & have multiple links which I might not need, many with the most lengthy superfluous program names I can imagine. ie Endsleigh Insurance on OMG have 7 seperate programs & Buy.at have simplified it under the single program which is preferable.

Just imagine a retail merchant offering several thousand products & thus having a program for each product?

Come on OMG make life easier for us, you might find you’ll actually get more sales by simplifying & please get rid of all those brand bidding groups which I noticed when going through your merchants at the weekend.

Summary

On the whole I do think finance merchants have generally been getting away with things lightly & whether intentionally or conveniently enjoying the free ride on the gravy train, unless they offer commission on their full suite of products they could be deemed as merchants offering 0% commissions, thus why should different rules apply to them?

No doubt we’ll get counter explained as something about budget allocation & different departments of finance merchants versus the mark up & profit margins on retail products.