Ideas On How To Advance The Affiliate/Advertiser/Network Relationships

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For any system that is put in place, here are the immediate issues I see that would need to be addressed

Upon reading your post it does shed a lot more light onto what I was previously saying by using more tracking, that obviously might not be the best way to help employ more trust.

I have more knowledge on the affiliate (and) merchant side and also have more technical skills then 95% of merchants but do not know a lot about the inner workings of the networks (Except for the software they use).

I would say this is one heck of an issue to satisfy and will take time but I also feel its good to at least be talking about it.

Even if we cannot fully employ added tracking solutions I think by knowing a little more about the merchant themselves will help out a lot, things like what they plan to do with the traffic once they obtain the lead.

We can pretty much guess that already and can determine the course of action the lead would have to take to perform that action by examining the merchants website.

However it almost seems like if mis-trust continues to rise in the coming years, it will have a good size impact on lead gen campaigns.

Sales is so much easier to deal with and as someone who has sold products of my own in the past I look at sales to be the best plan of attack, basically because when a purchase is made all you do is set a percentage of that sale aside to pay the network with and you pocket the rest.

However from an affiliate standpoint sales are harder to achieve then leads but some with some business models leads the only solution from sales.
 


...something simple like a rating system for advertisers/offers, overseen by a board of well represented affiliate marketers even.....

The best option would be transparency of all conversions..

BUT, as long as their are those of us lining up to throw money at offers, without accountability, the major screwing will continue.

I smell a huge marketing opportunity for a network to make something accountable happen....
 
...something simple like a rating system for advertisers/offers, overseen by a board of well represented affiliate marketers even.....

The best option would be transparency of all conversions..

BUT, as long as their are those of us lining up to throw money at offers, without accountability, the major screwing will continue.

I smell a huge marketing opportunity for a network to make something accountable happen....


Rating is a good idea. But it would create a mess of its own when majority affiliates are pushing the only one publisher in a niche who has a higher rating.

I think having a list of advertisers who are deceptive available to affiliates and publishers may work. I happened to me and I outed the advertiser on my blog. Shopathome was stealing affiliates data (keywords) and starting their own in-house campaigns. In this case my network was quick to out them and soon the advertiser was kicked out I believe.
 
^^^ prior to a network offering transparent advertising conversion data (*good luck),
a rating board or warning system might be an idea. But you can envision how that could be manipulated for many reasons too....and many people flat out dont want any public chatter about 'their' offers period.
 
i like the idea of public advertiser comment board / rating system (similar to ebay or amazon).

There SHOULD be a place for affiliates to air legitimate grievances AND for advertisers to respond. As it stands, I have NO way of knowing anything about advertiser quality or past history and that would go a long way for trust building purposes.
 
I'm posting this first, then going back to read the thread.

A few things need to happen:

1. Some kind of certification program for networks (sounds far fetched but I see no reason we won't be seeing them in the next cpl years). This certification guarantees payouts, guarantees no scrubs, etc. Done by a 3rd party who audits aff networks on a regular basis. It'll be slow to start, but once a few networks catch on, it'll be like a quality seal for the network and nobody will sign up with anyone who ISN't certified.

^ For enterprising souls, there's your business model on a plate, eat it up.

2. Networks need to step it up and sue the pants off of broke ass advertisers. I'm talking to you (Hydra) and countless others. You may get nothing for it, but it sets a precedent. Your network will not only gain respect but you just might win, and get your payment, and be able to pay your affiliates the money they've *earned*.

3. Networks need to start doing credit checks on advertisers. I know a lot of the major ones do this already, but for the mid-level and linktrusts out there, give it a thought. One advertiser fails to pay you and your entire business goes down the shitter. So what they're offering high payouts, can they pay? Will they "pause" their shit in the middle of the week yet still collect leads? Think about it.

4. Affiliates need some kind of security blanket when they sign up with networks. It's complete bullshit that since an advertiser didn't pay, the affiliate (WHO FULFILLED HIS SIDE OF THE LEGALLY BINDING CONTRACT) doesn't get paid either. Affiliates: didn't get paid this week? fuck it- go get a lawyer and sue. You might be surprised what happens. Looking for case studies on this, oh yeah thats right, it never happens.

5. Advertisers have everyone by the balls, let's reverse this process or atleast bring them down so we can all meet in the middle. Of all other industries this is the only one I know of in which a company can come out and charge people $90 a month basically without their knowledge, and then when people cancel their membership go back and claim that the "traffic" was the reason they didn't make any money, and refuse to pay. Complete and utter bullshit. Advertisers need accountability too.

Just a few things I felt like ranting about.
 
Honestly it just comes down to the tracking system IMHO. Though there will never obviously be an "industry standard" platform that all publishers and advertsiers would use (we have DT, hitpath and linktrust now)... a standard platform i think would change everything. It could include a system like 202, have a rating scale, fraud security, and everything bulit in too it. But like i said, getting EVERY SINGLE NETWORK and EVERY SINGLE ADVERTISER to implement it would be impossible.
 
TFL, This is related to your "Show em your LPs, Keywords, and Credit Card Info"

How many networks (we'll say out of 30) have their own in-house marketing team pushing the exact same offers they are letting publishers promote?
 
Who knows, but i didn't say "Show your CC info", so lets try to keep it serious here. How about working with 2-3 "bigger" networks instead of all this smaller shitty ones coming out everyday that no one knows one shit about.
 
But like i said, getting EVERY SINGLE NETWORK and EVERY SINGLE ADVERTISER to implement it would be impossible.

Yes and if one company owned the software and killed all competition it would be called a monopoly and that would also be illegal haha.

How many networks (we'll say out of 30) have their own in-house marketing team pushing the exact same offers they are letting publishers promote?

I would say 15 to 20 if not more networks promote the same offers they push out to the publishers.

They have to its common business sense, lets say they promise an advertiser that they can push xxx amount of traffic and/or leads a month and find out only a very small fraction of there affiliates will run that offer or worse all the affiliates running that offer can't push enough to meet there promise, they've got to pick up the slack.

P.S. I have no clue how it actually works (From inside the networks) so I'm most likely way off on my guess with that one.
 
((Still on the "Show your LP's and Methods" Stuff))

I know you didn't say CC info, it was to put a smile on your face.

Now- That we've established that a network will run offers that their publishers promote. Can we not agree that, if presented, a network would take a successful publishers methods, keywords, landing pages, placements, et al??
I'm purely saying if presented
I'm not saying networks actively pursue this shadiness, but I've been asked (at least twice) by every AM from ANY network I've worked with for LP's, methods, etc. Needless to say they have all received the same snarky answer.

So where in your right mind would you suggest affiliates turn over PROPRIETARY information on their models?

Coming from someone who has personally been told "The advertiser does not like the quality" - Getting blacklisted from the program - Then finding the same exact banner I had custom made ON THE SAME EXACT SITE I HAD MY PLACEMENT - Then finding the affil ID on the referring link is _0005

This is why you should never share your shit with the network. I know it seems like they want to help you (WHICH THEY REALLY DO WANT TO - So don't take what I'm saying as "The Network are only there to fuck you") But they ALSO want to make more MONEY - And will do so at just about any cost (scrubbing, ripping, lying, et al)
 
Yeah well i mean no doubt any network could fuck you in the end, but that is the point o this thread (i assume) -- to make everyone a big happy family. But if i am going to be open about my LPs and KWs, then i sure as hell hope they are going to be open about their scrubbing or whatever.
 
But if i am going to be open about my LPs and KWs, then i sure as hell hope they are going to be open about their scrubbing or whatever.
I'm sorry you still believe in HOPE with networks

I know this isn't making the Ad/Pub/Network ties stronger, but it is reality. If I can save you (or some random noob) from making some dumbass mistake, then having to read a 400 reply thread on it, I will.

I think the saying goes, "Shit in one hand, hope in the other. See which one fills up faster"
 
Well to be honest, i am not really pushing as much volume anymore as i was a few years ago (low xx,xxx's)... partly due to the reason of this thread. But hey, only way to get the industry back to where it was a few years ago is communication.
 
I think networks should send out monthly emails to affiliates asking them to rank and comment on their account manager and their general knowledge, helpfulness and friendliness.

That would help get rid of the awful account managers that don't help, ignore emails and phone calls and make absurd requests. Charlie or Charles from Hydra would have been gone long ago.
 
I think networks should send out monthly emails to affiliates asking them to rank and comment on their account manager and their general knowledge, helpfulness and friendliness.

That would help get rid of the awful account managers that don't help, ignore emails and phone calls and make absurd requests. Charlie or Charles from Hydra would have been gone long ago.
Or you could just ask for a new AM.
 
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