Moose on the Loose

Tradedoubler look like they are soon rolling out their own version of Affiliate Window’s ShopWindow called with the advancement of their own product search solution called”MyShop”, which will be an API product feed available all affiliates to utilise.

Potentially, I guess this will be warmly received by affiliates. Currently its in Beta trial and Tradedoubler are looking for further feedback from other publishers who are interested.

One thing we did notice about a sample landing page of theirs:

Tradedoubler Page

ShopperUK.com Page

Notice the translucent jelly beans the former has adopted. The wording on the beans, “Buy Now” & “More Info” which increases CTR based on purchase stage of visitor. The logo top right & price bottom right. Interesting layout indeed on the layout & button naming & configurations?! … “Quite brazen & machiavellian”

Essentially with MyShop, you will have the ability to display product based information on your site, without the unnecessary headache of implementing databases or server-side script writing. It’s aim is to be as flexible as possible so it can be integrated in a variety of manners onto an affiliates website.

Benefits Will Include:

• Limited to the advertisers an affiliate wants to work with
• Category & price filtering opportunities
• Various methods of integration
• Price comparison features
• Detailed product information for over 2 million products.

Conclusion:

It looks like it will have the potential to firmly put them on the map with this latest tool development. And if living up to self proclamations it will be a welcome development, but it won’t disguise what we personally feel is woeful affiliate support as communicated on a number of occasions within this blog.

On the whole well done to Tradedoubler on what might be, but they have a long, long journey ahead of them before they ever become attuned. However, I am slightly sceptical whether this tool when released is purely to place them in a better position to be the subject of an acquisition, after the AOL deal fell through and with Affiliate Window’s Shopwindow stealing a lead on them recently, they had no alternative but to develope.

Hey ho .. make hay whilst the sun shines & milk the cow whilst it is fat & all that jazz..

(I have sent an email enquiring about being one of Beta testers & left a general message on the answer phone as we concurrently run a sweepstake here)

Result so far: Tumbleweed

Tradedoubler does have a tendenancy to over complicate new tools they develope, one suggestion I would say and always apply to myself is “keep it simple silly”

If you haven’t had the unfortunate opportunity to do so yet, when you have a moment, take a peruse of the Dixons merchant information page. Whilst gleaning, to your disatisfaction you will then notice a number of products set at 0% (zero) commission as well as those set at 0.5%.

Naturally disapproving of this, I continued to ascertain if these products were appearing in the product feeds, well I’ve just searched one example of the product lines, which was DVD RW … and unfortunately, yes it is.

What the heck? This is quite concerning. The products really should not even be in any product feeds.

In my humble opinion & without a doubt, their commission rates are quite lousy compared to competitors & are exploiting affiliates. There perhaps should be a bar commission rates have to raise to in order to qualify for any product feed feature or as a merchant on a network at all, yet some affiliates, like plums, will still feature them.

The subjest of 0% (zero) and 0.5% commission, should maybe treated separately as they may command slightly differing viewpoints.

The main point I would like to draw attention to is that it was all well & good in principle when commission groups on product ranges were initially introduced acrossed different networks, and it was fairly warmly received by affiliates.

But, a few merchants … how can I put it politely .. are taking liberties. When the margins are small they squeeze as much cheese as possible to affiliates to lower commissions, where instances 0% commission are simply intolerable.

Will the merchant or network be yielding? It’s unlikely, and both parties will try to dispate any decent discussion until after the christmas period, at least. i wonder if The Sun would be too happy to hear they are listing 0% commission items & whether any of teh cashback sites receive flat rates to offset these.

However wasn’t the purpose of these commission structures to be reflective of the profit margins?

So, where are the juicy commissions on products with higher profit margins, nowhere to be seen of course! What? Did you actually believe some merchants would play ball? I remember it was not too long ago that LCD & Plasma TV’s were at least double the price they are now .. where were the proportional increases to be seen then?

Look there it is .. and once again there goes the oinky sonic boom of another pig flying past the window (cheers again Kirsty)

Big Brand does not equate to big conversions. My EPC with Dixons isn’t even 1 pence though most of that is attributed to Wii’s being in the Shopwindow feed which has since been removed, though when the program was on Tradedoubler it was still a lackluster performer from our perspective. I don’t know how Shopwindow weights merchants in their feed, but with commission levels like that .. hmm .. the term bottom feeders comes to mind (referring to merchant).

Don’t me wrong Shopwindow is a terrific product & I urge more merchants to join or add their products to it … & … more affiliates to utilise it. As we personally look forward to further development of sites incorporating Shopwindow.

I would like to quote Renegade in response to Keith’s blog post

Given the nature of our sites we’re not going to drop stores BUT we can and do structure our page layouts to encourage our visitors towards merchants which make us the best commissions. Case in point this week has been the first Bennetts discount code which co-incided with Dixons removing some of theirs. It won’t surprise anyone to learn we sold more Bennetts stuff than we ever have and those sales were are the expense of DSG stores. So as some stores squeeze commission opportunities for other stores become available and it’s up the other stores and affiliates to take advantage of the opportunites this presents. Any store which takes its affiliates for granted or squeezes commissions can’t expect to get away with it for long. We’ve been affiliates a lot longer than the stores which make most of our income and we’ve seen them come and seen them go but we’re still here, and happy to work with any merchant that treats us as partners rather than a resource to be exploited.

The Silver Lining

The biggest merchant we have indentified is 24 Studio, their website may look like some old fashioned arbitrage site when you initially look at the homepage, but it does convert fairly well and is on our recommended list at the moment. And their affiliate manager seems a nice chap.

Remember : “Use Affiliate Window links not Commission Junction.”

It would also be appropiate to point to to Lee’s Blog : Wii Wars – It’s Only A Game To Some, But Livelihoods To Others.

I anticipate I shall be blogging about a Wooly merchant in the near future pertaining to Wii’s, as it maybe some while before the dust settles on this Dixons saga with more chapters unfolding.

My Top Tip Merchants for Today :

24 Studio on Affiliate Window & Children’s Rooms on Paid On Results.

My Merchants to Avoid for Today : Waitrose Entertaining (Tradedoubler), PC World (Tradedoubler) , Play.com (Buy.at) & Dixons (Affiliate Window)

The Phoenix Rises from the Ashes

On a positive note, I think there is the potential for Affiliate Window to turn this around to their good advantage, though my concerns are directly aimed at Dixons. Affiliate Window have a very good tool continuously being developed in ShopWindow, imagine the potential if this tool could allow affiliates to predetermine the commission levels on any given category, knowing the ranges on offer. That way perhaps feedback could fed to a merchant knowing they were not included in a product range by X% of affiliates because their offering was too low, it might actually make merchants appreciate the value of the affiliate marketing channel & increase commissions appropiately (within an affordable level) in order to be included on a wider number of websites. That way the commission structure for any category might find it’s natural equilibrium / level. Not the complete answer but maybe something to consider & expand upon in future discussions.

Unfortunately, I will suspect that neither will truly address the 0% question until the bulk of the christmas trade has ker-ching’d in the merchant’s cash tills & network’s over-ride coffers.

Isn’t it disappointing that during the busy christmas shopping period some merchants are reducing commissions to a whopping zero percent on Wii’s (one of the most sought after items again this festive period).

I will give the list of culprit merchants in a moment, but a lesson learned is to remember who your friends are (and I use that word very loosely), for shunting affiliates on popular products. Yet these merchants quite merrily sell them in bundles with other games & accessories for which they receive obvious margins (stock levels permitting).

As a result, perhaps they should be not given or expect any favourable treatment when their need arises & start pimping off us. However, some affiliates with gold fish memories will no doubt embrace them.
What surprises me is that their products have been & a few still appear in their product feeds from various networks, giving them free traffic. Come on networks, please have some consideration & sort out your clients.

• Toys R US – No commission on all consoles ! Read Here

• Comet – No commission on Wii’s
• Game – No commission on Wii’s (also complaining about their server load, please get a grip, oh and this is a merchant which restricts bidding on the generic term Game – lol – which in my opinion is a keyword which is fair game)
• Woolworths – No commission on Wii’s
• PC World – No commission on Wii’s & bundles.
• Currys – No commission on Wii’s
• Dixons – Commissions reduce to 0.5%. Yet again, DSG group & their amoebic brain approach to affiliate marketing
• eDirectory – No commission on Wii’s & bundles.

Come christmas why is it that a few merchants (a rafter) seem to go devoid of reasonable logic & reasoning?

Note: A group of turkeys is called a rafter.

On the plus side it has helped me indentify a couple of other excellent merchants, courtesy of being in Affiliate Window Shopwindow, which shall in future gain precedence over those turkeys mentioned above.

So in effect this woe does have a silver lining.

“However, every cloud has a silver lining (except for the mushroom shaped ones, which have a lining of Iridium & Strontium 90). “

Bringing up to the present date the immortal words from Queen Victoria on the toilet in 1901

“Wii Are Not Amused!

I am really glad to see that Fraser’s Podcast’s are now back, with his latest interview being with larger than me ( sorry, I mean larger than life) … Victor Meldrew … (sorry, I mean John Lamerton from Big Idea Media) .. who is one of the old school. As you know Fraser was recently a proud father of Anna Elizabeth, so he had plenty of good reason to be off the scene for a while, but its good to see him back in production.

Click Here for Fraser’s Podcast Interview with John Lamerton

There is a necessity for Trend Graphs illustrating the conversion rate for a prescribed rolling number of clicks, i.e. 1000 for an individual affiliate  or 1,000 to 5,000 network wide depending on merchant traffic volume, which all parties can visbly see & have access to. This would illustrate & flag potential downward spirals & problems within any program on any network with respect to tracking (sometimes it’s a case that the tracking works, but the reporting doesn’t).

With a baseline on the trend graphs, when the point drops below an accepted level it is flagged to both affiliate, merchant & network. I asked for this before years ago across networks but I don’t think any network has really done it properly, if at all.

This would assist in identifying in tracking has gone array, even if only for a short duration, so that affiliates can be alerted to wasted traffic & suitable remunueration whilst the network & merchant fix the issue.

Don’t networks realise that TIT (Trust In Tracking) is one of the most important concerns for affiliates. These trend graphs may go some way to instilling a bit more trust in those networks who develop it, as well as flag potential problems for all a parties for that peace of mind.

If we cannot trust the network with this simple solution, then we may as well abandon the CPA model & revert to primarily CPC.

Why hasn’t this been done? Well apart from networks allocating needless time to a batch of superfluous 468×60 & misfit, non-standard sized, non flexible banners & creatives … (whoopee blooming doo) … paranoia is possibly one of them by the fact that if tracking does go array, it is often undetected by a network / merchant & often firstly detected by an affiliate. Not just paranoia from the network, but also the merchant / agency.

Another excuse is that a network does not have enough time or has minimal resources to develop … yet superfluous 468×60 banners again take precedent.

Therefore giving affiliate TIT might win the hearts & minds of affiliates & could induce / instil a bit more faith.

There does seem to be a false assumption, that because a network (whoever it maybe) sees sales being reported, that all sales are being reported for all affiliates. I don’t know how networks work, I do remember a few years ago when publicly another network had different affiliates reports on different servers. It took some effort by me to persuade their CEO when this was reported by us to come clean to all affiliates and acknowledge there was a problem, which dissipates backlash.

I guess what I am saying, is just because another affiliate may not have the same problem re tracking or reporting, it doesn’t mean the problem doesn’t exist, and some parties / support staff have been known to be quite dismissive by adopting the alternate train of thought.

Come on networks, please develop Trend Graph Tools so affiliates can have TIT.

One day, Man Flu will be recognised as an actual medical condition, and not dismissed by women as “just a sniffle”. Man Flu, as men know is a particularly debilitating variant of the influenza virus which only afflicts men, causing sever symptons & discomfort which women generally don’t appreciate. It’s when every tough guy becomes a snivelling wreck with good reason.

When “The Man” in your life rings that bell, he requires constant care & reassurance ranging from plenty of rest in bed or as couch potato with the television in very close proximity together with his favourite dvds. Don’t forget the remote control, the man must always, always have the remote control in hand.

Also ladies don’t forget to be on call when beckoned, when you hear his… DINGALING ! DINGALING !…, be ready with a plentiful supply of hot drinks & soup, symptons can also be alleviated by the internal application of a steady stream of alcohol, vapour rub on the chest followed by a general body massage in a warm environment.

Remember ladies, a total holistic nursing approach is required to be administered with constant reassurance. As a suggestion anxiety can be alleviated by tender affection and gentle rubbing of the forehead … “There, there, there my poor little bunny” is known to be a successful chant from ancient civilisations.

Here is a clip which was passed to me on YouTube, some of you may have seen it, others may not, but there is some good solid advice in there. If you are a man & have a woman in your life, remember to give her a bell, for that eventually in life when you get Man Flu.

Man Flu Tip – Remember To Give Your Missus A Bell !

Enjoy the YouTube clip below …

Oh, and not forgetting the ladies, get a grip, there is Lemsip here for you.Secretly, I guess many lads would agree, but would they dare back the thread if their good lady may see you agreeing, don’t worry we can call it one of those silent rules.

Roving reporter Shane, has been hot peddling it on his papparazzi moped, hot on the heels of the merchants across networks who have been reducing their commissions on Wii’s or not offering any at all.

However, as charismatic Kieron fairly pointed out in his blog, Toys-weRe-Us have gone one step further and reduced commissions on all consoles to a whooping 0%. Shane, our knight in shining armour, now known as The Hoff, quickly scooted down to Toys R Us at the Local Retail Park, only to be greeted by Geoffrey the Giraffe (who we thought was made redundant) to be handing out flyers to potential customers walking by … like the one you can see below.

There always seem to be some merchants acting as prize turkeys leading up to Christmas, will they ever change for better, of course they will….. Ouch my ears are bleeding .. There goes the distinct “oinkey” sonic boom of a pig flying past my window (courtesy of Kirsty).

Note: Please also read the disclaimer at the foot of the flyer, as one of the things our roving reporter Shane managed to pick up. And expect to receive some junk mail in your letter box very soon.

All postings & images on this forum are without prejudice.

Affiliates ranked the most important element of the Affiliate relationship with both Merchants and Networks as getting paid for the work they have done, and getting paid quickly.

Well with Paid On Results, that is exactly what you got … so how about we give them more vocal support & applauding their efforts which were announced on Wednesday 24 October 2007. Perhaps because this coincided with a4uexpo, it may have missed a number of affiliates radars. Because the commission is much better in our bank accounts earning interest than any other networks.

Well done Paid On Results, it is much appreciate for accomplishing what many affiliates have strived for, but not enough actually saying thanks when it is delivered.

Paid On Results – Network Blog 

Announcing Payment On Request 

So how about doing the decent thing & giving them a little thanks on the a4uforum, their blog or you own blog (You do have a blog, don’t you? If not why note?)

Here are further details of what they announced:

“Paid On Results are proud to launch our new Affiliate payment system ‘Payment On Request’. It was no surprise to us that Affiliates ranked the number 1 most important element of the Affiliate relationship with both Merchants and Networks as getting paid for the work they have done, and getting paid quickly. Paid On Results has been working hard since the start of this year to get all the elements in place such as upgrading our banking services and systems, improving Merchant invoicing, payment administration and much more to offer our new payment solution.

Payment On Request is a BACS only option, it’s payment when you want. Simply submit an invoice via the Affiliate control area (you click just 2 buttons and the invoice is fully generated for you) anytime you like subject to meeting the minimum of £25 validated commission in your account, so no more waiting 6 weeks to get paid.

Cheque and Paypal payments will remain on the traditional payment model, so now is the time to convert your account to payment via BACS, so you can start submitting your invoices to be paid on request starting the 10th of November.

Payment On Request is yet another example of Paid On Results listening to our Affiliates and taking it that step further.

FAQ:

Q: How often can I get paid?
A: As often as you like subject to having minimum £25 of validated commission in your account.

Q: What bank will my payments come from?
A: Payments come now via Bank of Scotland.

Q: What kind of information can I expect to see on my bank statement about the payment?
A: You should see that payment has come from Paid On Results and should included the reference of your Affiliate ID and invoice payment relates to, for example “1000-0004” would be Affiliate 1000, invoice number 0004.

Q: Why can’t I use Payment On Request for cheque payment?
A: Cheques are very time consuming, and need payment authorised company directors to be around to sign them. BACS on the other hand is very efficient and with the bespoke interface programmed by Paid On Results to output the needed files direct to our banking partner we can speed up the whole process and is why we can now offer this service to Affiliates.

Q: I am a brand new Affiliate, will I get paid on request a few days after joining and generating £25 in commission?
A: Payment On Request system will become available to you only after you have received two payments from Paid On Results, after this your free to submit invoices when you like, as often as you like. The reason for this safeguard is to allow us time to ensure you are a genuine Affiliate and to see how your account operates.”

If you have read this far down the fold, then do the decent thing & show your appreciation for what they have done for affiliates. 

Okay, the Ghost of Christmas Future has vanished for the moment, hence why we created the Buyagift landing page for you. No don’t worry, time permitting we might have another one for you shortly, hopefully, so he must have rubbed off on me a bit … bah humbug!

Anyway, you may have noticed how the networks section of a affiliates4u forum has become swamped with their posting of promotions by both networks, agencies & merchants, which is all well & good, and encouraging they are actually posting & it’s warmly received.

However, I am beginning to wonder if each network should have two sections, one with them & their merchants posting promotions & the another dealing with affiliate concerns & discussions, though the politically correct will argue it’s not a support forum, and yes if a fairly general problem contact the network first, if not resolved then look for the support of the forum.

As mentioned before it concerns me that important issues & discussions for an affiliates, no matter how few or many are affected or simple dialogue about the network or merchants gravitate towards lower pages and are perhaps not get attended to or read by other affiliate parties which may actually be affected.

On a side note, there seem to be a number of excellent incentives run by merchants over the festive period, it would be an idea to aggregate these together, so that the merchant is rewarded for their generosity with an increase in incremental sales.

I would also like to see a directory of merchant & agency contacts, with emails and/or telephone numbers, now some networks allow publishing of these on program page, a couple are still prehistoric, but a central resource would be more convenient & beneficial. Currently we simply harvest these from emails, transfer to a spreadsheet and when the need arises we have it available to contact them.

To expand this further, perhaps develop an affiliate directory where affiliates can post their websites into the appropriate category to allow merchants to easily find more affiliates within their vertical sector, niche, product offering, field, etc.

An obvious problem would be affiliates being reluctant to post their websites … whether this be pride, modesty or fear of being sites being copied or plagiarised. On the bigger plus side it would be a good way to showcase, & maybe, like a matchmaking system, allow new relationships to be forged & flourish. Also via a matchmaking tool, some might be apprehensive about publishing their contact details, this could be overcome with a straight forward mutually agreeing permission based solution, where a party allows one or each other to view their contact details. Obviously this can be elaborated in more detail, but surely there are merchants who would like to encourage more of the right kind of affiliates onboard, especially the appropriate content sites, which may get overlooked in favour of .. wait for it .. closed groups on ppc .. or if you’re a real pretentious wally “strategic group” or better still “strategic paid search management group”

On a further point, apart from search functionality to assist in finding historical threads, I don’t know how feasibly practical it would be, but maybe one way of mapping threads pertaining to individual merchants by the form of a directory, so that forum members have the opportunity to see previous postings about that merchant, thus being better informed to acquire their own inference.

Finally, some idiot(s) mistakenly tag affiliate concerns & postings as a rant, simply because it either affects them or their company or they don’t agree with it, these are the ones who cry to mummy in a grandiloquent manner because they are simply wrong. They don’t like anything untoward, even though true, being on a public forum because they claim it tarnishes the name of industry or that a moderator shouldn’t voice concerns or negative aspects within the industry.

Perhaps they can’t differentiate between when somebody rants and when someone is factual, I guess these doughnuts are probably not attuned to the mindset of the affiliates.

Who, if anyone, is being pertinacious? It depends on your interpretation.

Answers on a postcard.

As you maybe aware Buyagift are running an awesome incentive this Christmas for affiliates. I was fortunate enough to be one of the lucky winners last year Click Here , it was without doubt a few of the best days in my life (not including time with my kids & family of course)

They have surpassed last years incentive with this below, click the link for further details.

Win A Fighter Pilot Trip to Las Vegas with Buyagift

Part of the Buyagift’s current incentive of being a Fighter Pilot for the day, is something I have always dreamed about doing, even when I was in the Royal Air Force.

And I would like nothing more than other affiliates to experience the generous hospitality of Buyagift in Las Vegas for a few days.

Therefore we have created a landing page for you below, we have used Crazy Egg to ascertain the better positioning & order of creatives.

Please feel free to download the following file, which you are free use for your promotions related to Buyagift Only. Courtesy of The Moose & My Wingman & Good Friend Eric.

Click Here to Download

Click Here to Preview Page

If you have any problems please get back to me.

We do intend on updating this by rotating images of various categories, to make it feel a little more dynamic, which we have already on Here , and we do realise something is required to fill space in the bottom right hand corner, we are working on ideas of a Happy Santa or Snowman there presenting the page.

PLEASE NOTE : There are a lot of our affiliate links in there, so please, please, please ensure you change the affiliate ID to your own, check & double check, as we created plenty of clickable points.

In the meantime, feel welcome to download, fill your boots & hopefully you will be one of the lucky winners of to Las Vegas with Buyagift

Good Luck !!! And One More for Luck !

PS We shall continually evaluate the landing page, utilising Crazy Egg, from a user/visitor perspective and update the zipped download when we intrepret changes are required.