Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today, well you can’t after today anyhow. The pre-agenda early bird rate for a4uexpo 2008 ends 31st May 2008 ! Yes, that is today! … Where you can save a mammoth £100 on all delegate rates by registering before the end of today, infact simply do it now!
Well, the votes are in, they have all been counted, de-duped and verified and the the nominees have been notified and duly posted on the A4U Awards blog. There are plenty of surprises in there, namely the Publisher 2008 (well not really a surprise), not one content affiliate in there just the familiar Brand Bidding Groups and Quidco. IMHO it shows the ’special relationships’ these particular affiliates have with certain networks and agencies, seriously it makes you wonder if it’s worth it! I wonder when content affiliates will get a look in on that award.
The blogs one would be what anyone would expect and I’m sure it will be very close (even though the Moose disagrees with me about that).
The shock came when looking at the Networks 2008, where is the mighty TD, the not so mighty anymore CJ and the disappearing DGM? Not one of the Networks who just a few years ago was thought of as the big 3, unstoppable, popular, with huge respect from affiliates - not one of them gets a mention. In the case of TD and CJ is it time they stood back and took a long hard look at themselves and actually listened to what affiliates have been telling them for ages? They have zero communication skills and are only interested in their own self promotion - you can say what you like about them - as long as it’s positive. If you dare to post anything detrimental about TD on the forum they ask for it to be removed, if you post on your blog they report to a network who has a similar name to that of your URL (or is that only in my case?). Maybe if they put as much effort into their network they may not find themselves in the situation they’re now in, cast out into limbo land! DGM seem to be trying to communicate better with affiliates and the forum, or should I say Helen Southgate is, one woman though, however good she is, cannot single-handily save this network from travelling down the same road as TD and CJ. They should take good advice when offered and go back to basics, be upfront and FFS dump the BBG’s - it pisses off too many content and ‘normal’ PPC affiliates!
Affiliate Manager award threw up no surprises and I’m so glad I’m not in that area as it’s such a highly contested competition between those guys, I was however, a bit surprised that I didn’t see Naomi from Firebox in the list.
Publishers choice of Affiliate Manager, how different is that one this year? I can honestly say I know two people on that list. Not that I know everyone of course (maybe I think I’m more popular than I am), but where is Julia Stent? Hero? Helen Southgate? Even god forbid Matt Bailey?? (only joking).
I won’t be at the awards this year as I’ll be chillin’ with my homies in the Algarve, but the best of luck to everyone in the running to pick up an award - well everyone apart from the BBG’s that is, they steal enough away from the rest of us as it is!
As it’s such a long time since I last blogged I thought I’d ease myself in gently and also give myself a chance of winning a fab limited edition 2008 A4U Expo mug.
Chris, you can send it now. Thank you very much.
After the whole debacle with Next.co.uk you don’t think it could get any worse, well really would you? Of course it can because Next now come out of the woodwork with The Facts.
Hooray, this is what we’ve been waiting for - the facts! The facts about why they reduced their commissions to 1% on sale items and 2% going forward (wtf does ‘going forward’ really mean?), the facts about why they changed from a very good agency MVI to i-Level (?), why they went from a very good Network - Awin - to buy.at and affilinet, why they’ve tried to gag affiliates from mentioning Next.co.uk in a negative way. Now they actually put in writing what they really think about us affiliates.
It is Next’s wish not to partner affiliates who pollute natural search space with negative comments about the brand.
Pollute? Pollute? How to make friends and engage in friendly banter the i-Level (or was it written by Next) way! Really? What can I say except for what a pile of tripe.
I would also like to point out Shane’sblog and the fact that Next.co.uk have been competitor brand bidding. I suppose all’s fair in love and retail! Also, what about the affiliate that is Brand Name Bidding at night? Do they care? Are they monitoring the situation? I doubt it, they’re too busy trawling the internet looking for blogs and forums for people who are ‘poluting’ the space with their honest thoughts and opinions.
I said it before and I’ll say it again, I wouldn’t promote Next.co.uk with a ten foot affiliate poking stick even if they upped their commissions to 10% and it all came gift wrapped. As Duncan says ‘Any pollution relates to the actions, not the comments.’
So, affiliates how to do you feel now - not only are you grubby, you’re also a pollutant!
I have just spent the best part of an hour calling PC World as we have 2 laptops refusing to work. I speak to my account manager, all very nice, he gives me a reference no and a telephone and off I toddle. First call gets re-directed to PC World in Northolt (?), second goes to God knows where, third goes to the Tech Guys - thetechguys.com - belong to the same company as PC World ie. The DSG Group - (hey I’m talking to the right people). The tech, he knows absolutely nothing about any previous history regarding the laptops as there are no notes on the system. After about 25 - 30 minutes we realise I’ve been put through to the wrong department yet again, he is full of apologies and very nice (thank you Shane), he then gave me another number which I call, boy, do I wish I hadn’t.
The phone was picked up in seconds, I can’t for the life of me tell you what was said as it was blasted out in one huge rush, I replied with ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that! Is that PC World Business Tech Support?’ ‘Yes it is’ came the aggressive and impolite reply - I gave my ID number and said I had two issues this morning one with a laptop that had been repaired and was still not working, the other which had been repaired two weeks ago and now had a different issue. As for the one which was sent away for repair and came back, they replaced the hard drive and lost all the data on it - I’ve been trying for the best part of four days to get it up and running again but it’s just not happening. She very rudely interrupted me and started yelling ‘it’s not up to us to save your data that’s your job’ I replied with, very stupidly I know ‘hang on, I’m just trying to get my bloody laptop fixed’ when she screams out ‘don’t you swear at me’ I was stumped thinking what did I just say? I didn’t swear, did I? Oh, I get it she means bloody. ‘Excuse me’ says I ‘bloody isn’t swearing’, to which she replies with ‘yes it is, that’s your final warning, you say it again and I’ll terminate the call’ I seriously cannot believe what I’m hearing here. I’m stunned so I say ‘terminate this call at your own peril’ to which she comes back with ‘don’t you dare threaten me’ at this point I laugh, I’m starting to find this a bit, I don’t know the words to describe it, funny, weird, like an out of body experience. I just spent almost half an hour on the phone with Shane, a lovely man in the other tech department, why can’t I have him back? The laugh seems to set her off, like a greyhound chasing a rabbit, she starts yelling at me, shocked I drop the phone onto my desk and Paul and I stare it as a huge vat of pus spews out of it! Well, actually it was just her screeching, we could hear her quite clearly even from a distance, I rush out of the room to check the children are ok … maybe not, but Paul shocked by what he’s hearing spewing out of the receiver picks it up and tells her to calm down, ask for her name, her department and to speak to her supervisor. Her name is Rebecca (!), she is in team O at business support (!) in Nottingham and unfortunately there are no supervisors present and she refused point blank to give the telephone number for head office. Hmm, I’ve called my business support manager and I’m waiting for him to call back, I will update once I’ve spoken to him. At the moment I’m looking for a nice person to come and fix my laptops ….
If anybody would like to comment or tell other about any similar problems they’ve had let me know.
** Edit
I have just spoken to Robert ‘The Firefighter’ Evenson at PC World Customer Support (a very nice man) and he has offered me a replacement laptop which I can go and pick up at my nearest store. I’d like to thank Robert for his help in resolving this so quickly and also sincere thanks to David Attenborough (PC World affiliate manager) for pointing Robert in the direction of my blog and passing on my telephone number. They have also agreed to pay the costs of my PC repairs.
In good faith we will now remove our PPC ad which we refused to remove at David’s request as this was not an affiliate issue it was a customer issue.
‘Power to the People’ and thanks to everyone for their support.
As most people who know me could verify that the one aspect of affiliate marketing that really pisses me off (big, big time) is a lack of transparency on closed BBG. Last night and this morning there seemed to be an influx of blogs about the new promotion form DFDS Seaways, a very nice paid trip to Affiliate Summit in Boston. Hmm, I think lets have a looksie at this and what do I find, a brand bidder sitting on the DFDS and DFDS Seaways brand - fine think I, I’ll not waste my money pushing this program to any extent (as I hate to line anyone else’s pockets) and look at it again later / tomorrow. Anyhow, I’ve checked the program details at both Buy.at and TradeDoubler only to find there is no mention of a closed bidding group. I called TD to confirm that and was told - yes, there is a closed bidding group on the program. Transparency - where is it? Am I alone in my anger when these things happen and to be honest it’s not a once in blue moon occurrence it’s getting to be an every day thing.
New rule here, every time this happens I’ll let you all know about it.
So, almost a week has passed since I read about the now infamous awards ceremony. In that week I’ve been told that I’m a dinosaur, I need to ‘embrace’ change and to alter virtually all my ethics and get more ‘corporate’. Well, where do I start? There have been many blogs, comments and posts about the awards, the buy/at sale (like does anyone apart from their puppets or is that muppets really care) so I held back for two reasons, to gain perspective and to calm down.
To use a quote from Existem’s Claire Hoyland’s blog ‘The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance’- ok, so we all know that over the past 10 years I’ve been involved in this industry we have seen lots of changes and have been aware of those changes, have we accepted all those changes? Damn right we haven’t! We were aware of spyware and did we accept it - like hell we did. Change and acceptance do not have to go hand in hand, at times there is no place for change and definitely not for acceptance. What really infuriates me about all this ‘change is for the better’ attitude is that some of us were investing our time, money and energy in Affiliate Marketing when a lot of these so called ‘corporate’ bods were still in high school and very wet behind the ears. Seriously guys would you tell your grandmother how to suck eggs? I doubt it somehow, she’d give you a clip around the ear.
We can all dig up quotes which we think will back us up but it doesn’t make us right and anybody with an iota of common sense could pull it apart without even trying, facts are what we base our industry on, facts and stats. There will never be a time when everybody will agree or sing from the same song sheet, life isn’t like that, but, you have to have respect for the people you work with - directly or indirectly. You also have to have respect for the friends you make and not to plough through their beliefs and feelings like they’re just an annoyance standing in your way. You have to respect your community or the people that built you up will get very pissed off and bring you back down with a huge bump. I have been very hurt this week by the ‘goings on’ and actually being told by someone I respect a hell of a lot (from a gobby cow like myself that’s a bit deep) that there isn’t a place for me in the ‘new era’ of affiliate marketing, that I am not to be trusted to make decisions as they wouldn’t be for the good of the industry - all because I challenge people. Is it a bad thing to NOT accept what I’m being told all the time? Is it wrong to have an opinion? Am I too old or set in my ways?
I’ve never been a ‘yes’ man / woman and I pride myself on that fact. I will also stand up for what I believe in not what I’m told I should believe in just because it is the best way to move the industry forward. WTF? In my personal opinion the best way to move the industry forward is to have complete transparency across all networks, agencies and affiliates, STOP all closed PPC BNB groups and make the affiliate space an even ground for all those wishing to partake in it. Kick out all the rogue elements, be they Merchants, affiliates or networks, there really is no place for them.
As for the Buy.at thing, I’m just not interested in them anymore.
Last Thursday 24th January I attended my first meeting of the AMC (Affiliate Marketing Council) which was held at the offices of the IAB (Internet Marketing Bureau). As one of two possible three affiliates there I was surprised no-one else had turned up, however I was surprised at the informality of the meeting and I can say I did enjoy it, especially the beers in the pub on the corner afterwards. The next meeting will be at the same place on Thursday 28th February, it would be nice if more affiliates and merchants could make it (only one merchant present).
Here is a link for the Affiliate Marketing Handbook which was ‘put together’ by the AMC last year, I told Dan I would post the link on my blog, it’s taken me a week but in my defence I’ve had a very busy week. I know they worked very hard on it and it is full of excellent information - especially the links on the last but one page ;-).
I think a lot of people were shocked when Next won the award for Best New Merchant at the Expo in October, James Little started a thread on it on the forum. Now after all the reductions in commissions and not only what happened yesterday, but also their zero communication by email or on the forum I feel the right thing to do would be to revoke the award, they are not worthy of it.
Seriously, what do Next bring to the affiliate space - apart from demands and hassle? Do we need it or them?
With all the talk about how bad Commission Junction are from both Kirsty and John I thought I’d throw my 2 pence worth into the hat. I can honestly say that we’ve not had any service from CJ since Nicky Iapino left all those years ago. CJ has got so bad that if it were an animal you’d do the humane thing and have it put down. They have no idea how to talk to or even respond to the simplest query from an affiliate that I have to say if they treated merchants as shoddily as they’ve treated us they wouldn’t have any merchants left on the network.
One example a few months back was when I called them after receiving an email from the ‘Network Quality’ team (which is a contradiction in itself), the person I needed to speak to was ‘on the other line’ I asked to hold and was rudely told that I couldn’t as she needed to use the phone (!), obviously they only have one phone in the office, I re-iterated that I wanted to hold so, instead of putting me on hold she hung up on me. I called back and said she must’ve cut me off by mistake only to be told that no, she hung up on me because she needed to use the phone. The scary thing is she didn’t realise she’d done anything wrong and people phoning up were just a nuisance. So, instead of being a further nuisance I’ve taken the majority of my business elsewhere.
To quote a newspaper from years back - ‘Could the last person to leave Commission Junction please turn out the lights’
