Moose on the Loose

It’s always encouraging to observe affiliates partake in the affiliate4u forum posting their thoughts, concerns, opinions and imparting some solid advice or support. Though I guess some may seem a little disappointed when their thread quickly descends down the pages & new posts & threads precede them, when they were hopefully anticipating a bit of constructive feedback.

However shouldn’t there be more blogs? All too often good posts probably get missed by many forum members, when a post is submitted today, it becomes yesterday’s fish and chip wrapping paper, a few networks take the pompous approach of not addressing issues head on, in the forum, while still merrily posting promotions as part of their advertising vehicle to purposely push the important post down the fold. But some networks are good, let’s get that straight.

But issues & lack of resolutions aside there are so many affiliates who have good insight & opinion on differing topics who simply don’t blog. Perhaps when they do post, it would be nice if they would also expand further on their blogs before the forum post it disappears by gravitating downwards (like my moobs, i mean pecs) onto page 13.

By only posting on the forum, is like fishing with a small pond dipping net (i.e. it will be viewed on just one site & deeply submerged in a short period of time) but with more affiliates blogging, we can cast something more akin to a fishing trawler net, increasing the chances of creating more exposure & insight into the trials, tribulations & wonderful aspects of the affiliate marketing industry.

If you are currently are an affiliate, and don’t have a blog related to affiliate marketing, don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today, it doesn’t matter how often you blog, even if only once a week. GET YOURSELF AN AFFILIATE BLOG!

Note it has also been encouraging noticing networks launching blogs too.

In general chat today, I was bemused by a comment from a network referring to “closed groups” as being an inappropriate phrase and being called … wait for it .. “strategic groups” .. then an affiliate friend forwarded a nice simile … “and I call the devil, satan” which made me smile, let’s get the pompous proclamations out of the industry and stick to good old fashioned layman’s terms or would these dignitaries in the self perceived upper echelons of society prefer to refer to us common affiliates as pond spawn with the misplaced snobbery within certain sections of the industry which only serves to stifle the true potential of affiliate marketing from its’ realisation.

I mean … come on. some offices must have massive termite mounds or mole hills in their carpet from what is swept under it.

If anything though, the crux of this posting without all the waffle is that I would like to see more affiliates blogging, they make a good reading & most of us, well definitely me, enjoys reading them.

Let’s hope so.

Whilst at auexpo, I had to miss a segment of one of the morning sessions by sloping off quickly to ask a small team (after being collared by them) involved in the affiliate marketing industry about their latest tool, cherily named The Grim Reaper.

Whom Are The Creators Of The Grim Reaper?

“As for whom, we do wish to remain anonymous at the moment, sounds a little pretencious we know, but we could be likened to multiple Keyser Soze’s of The Usual Suspects, where quite a few people know him, but those people don’t know who he is.”

What Is The Grim Reaper?

“In theory it is a Search Engine Bidding Abuse Monitoring Tool.”

Why or What Inspired You To Develop The Tool?

“The initial inspiration behind the tool was to identify, but not necessarily disclose, which affiliates or parties we feel are maybe receiving questionable preferential treatment both past & present for various affiliate programs, which we feel is having a negative impact on the industry. The Grim Reaper allows us to easily shortlist & isolate those merchants, affiliates & networks we suspect that fall into this category & those networks whom haven’t been transparent with mentioning which programs have closed groups on program information pages.”

Are There Other Reasons?

“Absolutely, the operation of the tool is functionally the same & can serve several purposes, for example it can identify which affiliates are repeatably & systematically abusing a merchants brand on a deliberate basis, and we do empasise deliberate basis, when merchants have clearly stated otherwise. Though we are fully aware of the lack of clarity & changes in keyword policy without sufficient notice & can symphasise with the genuine affiliates to try to correctly adhere to frequently changing T&C’s”

Do You Feel That Monitoring Affiliate Brand Activity is Part of Networks Remit As Part Of the Override They Earn?

“Erm, yes & no. It depends on the network & what agreement they have set up with the merchant. Most are ethical, however In our experience some turn a blind eye & simply say carry on until busted by the merchant, however networks are genuinely in an awkward predicament & policing brand shouldn’t necessarily have to be part of their uneviable role, when more focus & resources should be on new technologies for affiliates & genuine affiliate support. However, a few have fallen into the the abyss with little regard to their incestuous closed group approach and as a result we decided that part of The Grim Reapers role is to purge the culprits. Some networks proclaim they have tools to monitor affiliates bidding on banned terms, but from our experiments, it clear that it’s questionable as to how effective these really are. On the swing side, yes it should be part of networks role to to promote & control affiliates to ensure they are working within reasonable terms & conditions, for whom most do a decent job”

I Notice Your Natural Disdain for Closed Groups?

“The Grim Reaper can also ascertain whether closed groups are adding value for their client by hunting for traffic beyond brand, such as generics or targeted product terms, it appears many are not & some only recently starting to add wider terms away from the brand. It doesn’t make particulalry good reading when inferring the results, but not all can be tarred with the same brush. We would like to add there is an inherent problem, with the familiar groups & networks relying on a cushy nest egg, without which they maybe wouldn’t be around today, it really needs to be addressed by all involved in the space.”

What About Arbitraging These Unfavourable Programs?

“If that is a publishers perogative, go for it, Ebay & Ask.com as you mentioned, could be perceived as doing it. It might make the merchants or networks wake up and smell the coffee. After doing the math, vast .. infact obscene earnings could be made this way, but it’s a concious decision any publisher has to make & be comfortable with both for themselves & within themselves. But The Grim Reaper, already knows who is.”

Are You Concerned About Being Perceived As a Supergrass?

“Ha, ha, ha, no not at all, we aren’t the one’s that should be worrying !, why would we be ?., although having said that the Grim Reaper is NOT going to send top secret reports to networks, why should we do their work for them.

The Grim Reaper allows us to create a more accurate accessment of the affiliate landscape on the paid search front. We are supportive of ethical paid search affiliates & content sites, though because we feel quite strongly about this we may disclose the affiliate ID’s to the public domain of those we are confident of being in closed groups that’s not adding value, it’s not exactly rocket science to find out, but a matter of time one allocates to it. The Grim Reaper automates the process.”

Are You Simply Scaremongering?

“Nope, not amongst hard working affiliates who adhere to reasonable terms & conditions or those inadvertently breaking pay per click guidelines, it’s easy to spot the accidents from the systematic abusers, so honest, regular everyday affiliates have nothing to worry about. It’s only the calculating rule breakers & undisclosed closed groups or exact match brand only affiliates on closed group terms which should be wary.”

How Does The Grim Reaper Work?

“Basically we monitor the paid search advertisments of any desired list of keywords, for example brands, misspellings, variations & even their URL’s. Where an instance for a keyword is found triggering an ad, it’s recorded into the database and fed into our reporting system for later analysis.”

What Do You Record?

“Initially it harvested just the affiliate ID, and thus network being used, any attributed display URL and destination URL, competitor merchants bidding on rival brands. If the ad features a non affiliate link and leads to a landing page or site, we visit the destination URL and collect off site urls, logging any affiliate links on the way, On top of that we now even conduct a whois to try & obtain the owner of the domain name, though we appreciate this is easy enough to disguise & can be misleading. We know some closed group or perpetually rule breaking affiliates may cloak their tracks a little, so we try to get inside their mind what they may possibly do, a few should be chastised.”

But Won’t You Be Incurring Costs for Those Paid Advertisers & Assisting with Increase in CTR’s?

“No, we don’t click links, there’s no need, we log affiliate urls if direct to merchant and visit destination urls if not, we have no need to click any links, incur any cost or boost anyone’s CTR, so rest assured it incurrs no cost or benefit to anyone from clicking ads.”

At What Time Intervals Do You Monitor the Ads?

“Any, currently it is once per hour, but we can easily set the time frame to whatever is desired, even every five minutes, realistically there is no finite time limitations, we simply do what is most practical, so weekend and or evening rule breakers won’t get a look in.”

Is The Grim Reaper Monitoring All Paid Search Platforms?

“Initially it was only Google, because it was easier, but …”

Sorry To Interrupt But, Does This Mean MSN AdCenter & Yahoo Search Marketing As Well Because They Encrypt Their Links?

“Oh, yeah for sure it took a while but we managed to crack the encrypted link conundrum, granted it took our inhouse team some long nights a red bull drip fed army of amazing coders and big pot of cash, but we got there in the end so now there’s nowhere to hide on the big 3, in fact we can monitor any country too in our quest.”

You Maybe Aware My Repetitive Bug Bear is Ebay UK & Ask.com Bidding on Many URL’s & Almost Anything Going. Do You Have Any Thoughts?

“We think you summarised much of it within your blog, but there does seem to be a different ruling for them in the way they are treated by Google. The merchants or networks having little inclination to address these two parties, all very hypocritical if you ask us. The Grim Reaper reveals the scale of this problem & we are bemused by the inertness of affected parties.”

Thanks For Your Time, Is There Anything Else You Would Like To Add?

“Yes, please can you remove this spot lamp from shining in our eyes & turn the strobe off so we can get back to the a4uexpo. Oh, by the way, you might want to check the keyword policy of that merchant, which changed without notification, you are appearing for the brand.”

Oops!

One day, an affiliate was speaking at a seminar to a group of non-affiliate business people who were curious why he loved the affiliate marketing industry so much, and, to drive home a point, he conducted a little experiment to illustrate to those business people something they will never forget.

The affiliate stood in front of the group of high-powered over-achievers … who said … “Okay, it’s time for a little quiz” and the affiliate pulled out a one gallon demijohn and set it on the table in front of them.

The affiliate also produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the demijohn. When the demijohn was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, the affiliate asked, “Is this demijohn full?”

All the high-powered business people yelled, “Yes.”

The affiliate replied, “Really?”

So the affiliate reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. The affiliate dumped some gravel in and shook the demijohn causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks.

The affiliate then asked the group of high-powered over-achievers once more, “Is the demijohn full?”

By this time the business people were on to him. “Probably not,” one of them answered.

“Good!” the affiliate replied.

The affiliate continued & reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. The affiliate started dumping the sand into the demijohn and it went into all of the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel.

Once more the affiliate asked the question, “Is this demijohn full?”

“No!” the business people shouted.

Once again the affiliate said, “Good.”

Then the affiliate grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the demijohn was filled to the brim.

Then the affiliate looked at the business people and asked, “What is the point of this illustration?”

One eager beavered clever ass raised his hand and said, “The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard you can always fit some more things in it!”

“No,” the affiliate replied, “that’s not the point at all.

The truth this illustration teaches us is that …

“If you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all” … “What are the ‘big rocks’ in your life? These could be time with loved ones & family, your education, your dreams, a worthy cause, your interests, your health & fitness, teaching or mentoring others?”

The Moral & Why I Love Affiliate Marketing

Remember to put these BIG ROCKS in first or you’ll never get them in at all. So, tonight, or in the morning, when you are reflecting on this short parable, ask yourself this question, “What are the ‘big rocks’ in my life?” Then, put those in your demijohn first.

Affiliate Marketing allows you make the lifestyle choice which best suits you for that quality of life.

I have only literally just returned from the a4uexpo event which excelled beyond the high expectations we were confident it would deliver.

Nadeem quotes “This was one event that lived up to and surpassed the anticipation and hype.”

I’m not particularly lucid at the moment, so I shall post comments & overviews later on next week, whilst I take a bit of rest & recuperation in Portugal with Shane & my son, reading & digesting the various blogs & forum comments from my peers. However, the creative juices are flowing even more from the buzz … post a4uexpo, so I’ll probably be formulating & ferosciously scribbling ideas in the pool.

I am currently sitting here slurping my usual pint of tea & reading one particular blog from Stephen Pratley.

And I would like to quote one of the several aspects / good comments from his blog …

“… More than ever, affiliate marketing in the UK feels like a cohesive and professional industry, rather than a collection of businesses with their own agendas and we should thank all those who gave their precious time and expertise this week for helping that feeling grow …”

This event did illustrate that a majority of people, even with differences of opinion, can simply get along & share the common goal, and that there really shouldn’t / needn’t be any problem in addressing & eradicating the nuisance aspects & issues well documented within the affiliate marketing industry.

Last night, even myself & Malcolm had a brief chat oustide The Fox (good luck in the US btw & live the dream) … as I looked over across to another table under one of the patio heaters on a cool Autumns evening … I had flashbacks of the Stormtrooper & The Limo Club Days, whereby nearly all those same friends were still there sitting around the table sharing a jar (or many) & laughing as if it was only yesterday. Obviously there was the company of other terrific affiliates too, let’s bring those days back where all parties simply got along.

For all those involved in organising the event (Matt, Claire and the rest of the A4UExpo Team) … Congratulations! You did yourselves proud.

And for those familiar faces whom overcame nerves & stood up in front on the industry, absorbing the limelight by presenting & sharing their wisdom & knowledge in a well honed professional manner (showing what professional really means) they too should be duly chuffed with themselves … well done indeed! As also for those who came from further shores, whether simply attending or presenting, cheers for making a visit to the first of what we hope will be many a4uexpo’s.

Right I am off to re-pack the suitcase & back up onto the laptop … boa noite.

Do you partake in PPC direct to the merchants website from paid search engines using an affiliate link?

Do you feel that your keyword databases are a precious commodity?

If your answer is yes to the questions above then read on …

Therefore, what are your thoughts to merchants being able to see / analyse not only the referring url of sales or clicks, but also glean the keywords you use from direct to merchant advertising from paid search engines? As this could be a dilemma we have been facing for a quite a while. Now, granted a merchant can already access this information via their own logs since the creation of the internet.

Unless, of course you send the traffic via you own site first through a redirect i.e. google adwords / adsense > affiliate site redirect > merchant, this can be prevented some of the time but not all the time, I guess it depends on how it is initially set up.

We need some investigation into what networks allow merchants to see on the interface from the client side & some direct answers from a network if politely asked. These will then be cross referenced by asking merchants we know & trust what they actually see from their side. I do wonder if any networks don’t actually have the ability to prevent this from being seen or haven’t stripped out the most important part of the search string … that being the keywords.

Not only that, but also the networks have this information at their disposal, there is bound to be one or two less scrupulous aprties whether it be networks / merchants / agencies / even member of staff who will use these keywords for their own material gain, whether to pass on to clients on a consultancy basis – or have their own bid management tools they have developed themselves or acquired (which has happened recently in acquisitions) to use the keywords to block off ppc for affiliate programs entirely – or pass on to their own closed groups – or insist on restrictions on certain hybrid or generic phrases that they wouldn’t have previously known.

Perhaps we might even need the extreme of networks signing a non disclosure for the use of our keywords.

Anyhow back on track, I guess this can be stopped some of the time but not all of the time or can it?

Maybe one way which is near 100% fool proof is to land on affiliate page and click … as automatic forwarding can sometimes send the information along … however … you can add a slight pause or load an image on forwarding page that stops the referrer from passing across, hey you could even pass the search string along saying “bugger off” or maybe more suitably “tut tut tut” or “oh no you don’t”. Going through a redirect is also better if you have bid management tools or monitoring data, etc. There are slighly more advanced methods.

One downside a network may argue, is that they need information for detecting fraud or there could be some comeback with a network not liking you hide your traffic source … “Well sorry Mr Network, we are not participating in this & my keyword database is a lot more valuable asset to me than any unjust accusations you may wish to through at me”. I appreciate dealing with fraud affiliates is maybe one of the hardest most time consuming jobs going, but surely there are other ways & means of detecting these? If so answers on a postcard, please.

Charity begins at home, I don’t think we are telling all the fraud affiliates how to hide stuff more than what is solved, because they probably have more advanced ways of hiding their scams anyhow.

At the end of the day, the ball is in your court …

Question 1: How precious a commodity is your keyword database?

Question 2: By not having the appropriate redirects in place, are you happy about handing things on a plate to your competitors?

What prompted me to write this article, well it’s something I have been meaning to post for a while but more recently I saw some sales on a network get rejected by a merchant, because I suspect they came from adsense adverts according to the referring URL’s the merchant provided.

We have just received some wonderful news via text message … and want to congratulate with all our hearts, our friends Fraser & Fiona Edwards on the birth of first child (Baby Shrek-ess). Weighing in 6lb 8oz is their beautiful daughter … Anna Elizabeth … “Welcome to the world Anna Elizabeth”

Wishing you both every happiness in the world with your new bundle of joy & welcome to parenthood & all the great joys your children bring.

There are numerous reasons why I am voting Paidonresults for both Publisher Choice of Network 2007 & Innovation in Affiliate Marketing – Network Award for the inaugural A4U Awards

Shop Window from Affiliate Window is a very good product with massive potential and quite rightly definitely should reaceive highly commended in the category of Innovation in Affiliate Marketing – Network Award. Thus, I duly tilt my hat to them.

However, perhaps you should really stop and think what else innovation in Affiliate Marketing is really about, as Paid On Results has been doing very innovative stuff, not just recently but for a few years now, way before some other bigger networks may have copied them with similar tools, then claim to have delivered it first by simply rebranding it with some fancy name.

You see, Paid On Results develop excellent products & solutions without the trumpeter’s fanfare & just get on with it, though I do wish they were more vocal in proudly announcing them sometimes, but perhaps humility is a postive attribute to have.

Take for example an innovation like customer base tracking which is available for all merchants if they wish to utilise it, or multi-merchant network tracking to track sales across different merchants within the network. Paid On Results invented this stuff and most networks have still not played catch up.

Then of course you have an excellent affiliate area with innovative reporting, on how many networks can you customise your report to show the information you want by removing data you don’t want to see? Not many I expect, and Paid On Results was the first I believe to offer the whole custom table features.

Paid On Results lead the way with making life easier for Affiliates, the highly innovative Deep Link Creator, featured here on this blog amongst others. And by no means least … least as I am sure … I have missed out many other industry firsts.

How about the excellent and reliable Advanced Content Units which are customisable & fully integrated allowing multiple pages of product content to be navigated though by the visitor without leaving the affiliates web site, while still making it easy to drop into any website?

Take a look Here for yourself & click on samples of content units in the left hand column.

What Paid On Results has done to push innovation in the market place should never be overlooked and certainly not under estimated,  what Paid On Results acheived 3 years ago is what you will start to see on other Networks today (if ever), they are true innovators, not bad for probably only being one of the only networks never to have had any significant investment money pumped into them.

We all know & appreciate the good things Clarke Duncan has contributed to the affiliate marketing industry on all fronts, though I would like to give a special mention to one of the unsung heroes at Paid On Results .. & that is Graeme Sandwell who is the Thomas Edison (who was a Scot by the way) of affiliate marketing & very much part of the hue of bright light responsible for the exciting things that emanate from Paid On Results.

On an affiliate customer support note, as some of you are aware I am fairly nocturnal, on the odd occasion I have a query, I might send an email at silly / stupid o’clock, lo & behold I might even get a response at some unearthly time whilst I am working, which for me this kind of around the clock support is impressive … does this guy Graeme ever sleep? I just hope one day he will attend one of the main A4U Affiliate Get2gethers. Paid On Results take a balanced approach to any problems which may need a resolution to & the result is always fair, as they seem to understand affiliate marketing from all angles & sides of the fence.

If that wasn’t enough just check this out! The Voucher Manager Tool which is launching soon.

When you look at the size of the technical team at some of the other networks & compare this with Paid On Results, how comes Paid On Results produce better stuff. I look forward to the day when some major investment company realise this and invests heavily in them for equivalent sized teams of the same quality as what is at POR .. Just imagine what they could produce then, I reckon it would go exponentially of the chart. The same applies to many merchants too, by requesting they take a closer look at Paid On Results whether they have an existing program & are considering going dual network or are fresh to affiliate marketing. Because you know you won’t get the unecessary sales speel.

Therefore, above is just some of the few reasons why I am voting for Paid On Results for both Publisher Choice of Network 2007 & Innovation in Affiliate Marketing – Network Award for the inaugural A4U Awards.

Good Luck

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.

Whilst burning the midnight oil & hitting the exercise bike at about 4am, I recollected a forum posting from many moons ago. Now most affiliate networks may have a decent TrustRank, PR PageRank (what ever nominal value you wish to attribute to that) & generally good quality link backs to them overall.

Wouldn’t it be nice if networks created a suitable page to list brief information & thumbnails of carefully selected affiliate websites, apart from being able ro showcase these to their prospective clients, it might also offer quality one way links back to the affiliate website page of their choice.

It might assist a little, it might assist a lot .. what ever effect .. come on networks “Share The Luv !”

On that thought it might be worthwhile asking merchants too.

Each network presents their reports in their own individual manner, some are better than others, however one report which generally requires deeper drilling pertains to void or rejected sales & commissions.

I just think that these void / rejected sales should also show in an adjacent column running parallel with the columns for confirmed & pending sales, it would simply allow checking stats a smoother & easier process whereby we can infer these simultaneously at a glance … very much like how Paidonresults do it, where each value whether a confirmed, pending or void/deleted sale is hyerlinked for easier drilling down reports.

This would help easily identify those merchants which appear to have high rejection rates, so you can ascertain whether its the quality of your own traffic or an over zealous merchant pressing the rejection button saying to himself .. “one for you, one for me …. one for you, one for me” or simply that due to stock levels that merchant often has problems with fulfillments of orders or abnormally high return rates compared with other merchants in their sector.

Following which, how easy do networks make it for merchants to reject sales? Shouldn’t affiliates be given a written explanation for each rejected commission, rather than the simpler methods like a drop down box?

A possible solution to the above paragraph, is whereby more merchants should establish a commission structure where rejection rates are taken into consideration (as a side note i don’t think affiliates should have sales rejected if the merchant is out of stock). For example if a merchant offers 10% commission but the product returns / rejected sales rate is 40%, then simply reduce the commission by 40% to say 6%, thus the affiliate doesn’t suffer the disappointment of seeing sales rejected & can calculate their expenditure (ie ppc advertising) more effectively.

Hopefully we might see the introduction of the above in the future.