The Life and Times of an Affiliate Widow

Today whilst browsing through the blogs on A4U, I came across this Dodgy Bidder - Name & Shame? I, being me, put me 2 pence in. Almost immediately I was pinged on MSN with a ‘have you seen this?’ re the blog, ‘Yes, I have I’ve commented on it’ was my reply, ‘why do you ask?’ I was absolutely horrified at the answer - ‘because the word is it’s you’. Now, I know I’m not perfect but for one I’m female and this quite clearly is about a bloke - he mentions the word ‘him’, two - I’m not sure I’m high profile, three - I tend not to break the rules where brand bidding is concerned PROVIDING I’m given all the information when signing up for a program and the merchant or agency doesn’t change the goalposts without adequate notice or in some cases no notice at all and four - I can categorically state that I do NOT ‘gripes about “dodgy affiliates” bidding on brand terms and giving the industry a bad name - my pet hate is Closed Bidding Groups that are not disclosed on Networks (but that’s something I’ve bored you all with before and I’m sure I will again. Within 15 minutes I receive an email from TD saying the usual stuff - take it down or within 24 hours we’ll stand you against a wall and shoot you, so confused as at this point I don’t know it’s me, I log into TD and check the program information. This is what it says :

Sponsored Keywords/Adwords:

Important: We allow affiliates to buy sponsored keyword terms relating to the Jessops brand including miss spells, but excluding the exact term JESSOPS.We allow affiliates to buy sponsored keywords/adwords on search engines, so long as they are clearly marked as affiliate links (”affiliate” or “aff” in the supporting text). However, we DO NOT permit affiliates to buy keywords relating to our competitors brand names or trademarks. e.g. “Dixons”, or “CamerasDirect”, etc. Any affiliates who do so will be removed.

Okay - I’m sticking to the rules on this program and even have the word -[Jessops] in as  negative exact match, why do people think it’s me, why have I just received the email from TD saying it’s me and why is Rob B now seemingly back tracking on what he had earlier said.

The moral of this story is ‘Get the facts right before you accuse people of wrong doing’ Several times we have been wrongly accused of deliberately ‘Brand Bidding’ but never have the accusers been proved right. Please don’t shoot yourself in the foot with comments like these :

It isn’t really my style to do this, but why should this affiliate get away with these dodgy tactics while pretending to be white as white at the same time?

Today I took part in a ‘modcast’, which is a podcast with some of the moderators on A4U. Fraser Edwards thought it would be a bit different from his normal podcasts and roped a few of us in to do it. Well, I was a little nervous at first but as I do like the sound of my own voice, I was off. It turns out that I don’t actually like the sound of my own voice - I sound awful, and you can really hear my Welsh accent in there too! On the other side of the coin it was so much fun, I really enjoyed myself, it was like we were all in pub chatting like we normally do when we meet up, except for the fact there was no alcohol involved - well except for Paul, but that’s another story!

The podcast is live on Fraser’s blog so go have a listen to our ramblings and opinions and please discuss what you think of what was said. If successful we may do it again, you never know ;-).

Right I know I said I would update regularly and I haven’t, but, in my defence if I’d posted this last week when it happened, you wouldn’t have been able to read it for all the swearing I’d have used in it. Now I’ve calmed down a little so am able to post.

My other half Paul (Qui Gon Jinn to many), posted on the A4U forum regarding PC World going back to TD (!) and how TD were really, really helpful with the program when they were last active with them (yes, that was sarcasm) in trying to sort out commission issues which I can’t go into too much detail about here. Somebody who shall remain anonymous (at the moment, anyway) phoned the lovely peeps at the forum and asked for the post to be deleted, which they did. When we noticed it had been deleted we re-posted it, as you do.

The next morning I get a phone call from somebody being very abrupt wanting to talk to Paul (who doesn’t do mornings btw), when I said he wasn’t available this person was demanding to talk to him sometime today - I asked for his name and number several times and when he told me who he was I was not suprised. Mr TD (as I’ll call him) was quite agitated by the post and called it nothing more than a rant and even used Joe’s post below it to point that out. I told him that they (TD) are only happy when people post positive things about them and as soon as opinion swings the other way they demand posts get removed. He replied with ‘Well, I never expected to be talking to such an angry person this early in the morning’. How to make friends and influence people? I did feel my response was calm when I replied with ‘Excuse me, Who the hell do you think you are talking to?’ he had no answer but to hang up on me. I’m still awaiting an apology Mr TD, you have my number and my email address, I won’t wait forever, nor will we remove the post. Also, he said he’d spoken to Paul at least 20 times about the issues we had with PC World which it turns out to be just the once, you’d well remember any conversation you’d had with Mr TD.

Anyway, something else which has been bothering me (here we go you all say), is while at the most excellent A4U Expo or rather in the bar at some indecent time of the morning, whilst having an indepth conversation a young lady who works at a network sat down opposite me and started chatting - I thought it rather rude at the time as I was already talking to other people but answered her questions. She is very new to the industry so I stayed as pleasant as possible when she asked me if I’d been shopping. I replied that no I was actually here to attend the expo and she was very suprised and that as I was so close to London I’d have made the most of the opportunity to go spend ‘my husbands money’. For one - I’m not married, two - I have my own sodding money thank you very much, earned for being an affiliate and three - we’re not yokels, I actually live closer to central London than the venue was! Her boss could see she was peeing me off and gave her the nod to piss off and annoy someone else.

 That has been bubbling beneath the surface since - I feel better now I’ve got it out, so to speak.

I’ve had a good day so far, which is some kind of miracle for a Monday - my PC is working again thanks to Daniel from PC Help@Home.

RANT ALERT - RANT ALERT 

Been monitoring Woolworths for the past couple of weeks and I’ve noticed my epc has taken a nosedive. Upon further investigation it would seem somebody has been BNB on the program, we’ve asked Awin and they’ve told us that yes, a trial has started on a closed PPC group.

I’m intrigued that no-one has told us that has been happening, I don’t want to line the pockets of other affiliates thank you very much. I don’t want to be in the closed group, but I reserve the choice to not be in competition on PPC with a closed group. I’m very surprised and disappointed that Awin haven’t notified affiliates that this is happening and I look forward to their response.

I’ve posted the above on the A4U forum and I await Awin’s response with baited breathe - somehow I don’t think I’ll be satisfied with it!

Rant over, back to work.