Crossing the Line

I'm often asked by people "Why don't you make a network?" and "Why don't you be an affiliate and promote your own clients more?" and certainly we have considered it, but it always comes down to a key issue : conflict of interest. And I'm sure we could boost our revenue rather nicely if we started playing all side of the business, but at the same time we very well may destroy our trust amongst our affiliate partners.

Firms such as Pepper Jam have progressed through the business from merchant, to affiliate, to affiliate managers to Network. The mixed reviews and acceptance they get, shows that it is not an easy path to travel, and a very difficult one to do while keeping everyone happy.

One of the most debated roles in the industry is that of "Affiliate Network", the"Trusted Third Party" that is meant to remain neutral and ensure that everyone is working in a fair field of play. It's not an easy task as everyone has a different opinion on what is a fair field of play.

My personal opinion is that a fair field of play consists of these qualities

• affiliates add value to the consumers purchase cycle
• affiliates drive new customers to a merchants site
  
• affiliates don't intercept consumers already in the act of going to a merchant's site
  
• affiliates don't cannibalize other marketing channels
• affiliates don't cannibalize each others traffic
• requires a direct consumer interaction with the affiliate marketing being run
• no adware, bhos or malware
  
• that all parties work within their defined roll be that Network / Affiliate / AM or Merchant

So when a "Trusted Third Party" Network such as LinkShare not only allows an affiliate to actually ignore most of these qualities but actually owns it too, then you have to wonder where the "Trusted Third Party" bit has gone. Affiliates can argue back and forward on whether BHOs (Browser Help Objects) should be part of the affiliate channel and how they should interact with the consumer, but the real argument has to be, why is LinkShare now operating as an Affiliate? It is, without a doubt, wrong at all levels.

Certainly they aren't the first, but as they like to state, they are a market leader, so why is a market leader going out of its' way to cannibalize it's affiliate base? Already multiple tests have shown that not only is the LinkShare owned BHO failing to follow LinkShare's own Terms and Conditions but it is also going beyond BHOs the likes of Ebates and overwriting tracking that is meant to be protected by the afsrc=1 code.

A couple of example videos below on how this LinkShare owned affiliate BHO is cannibalizing Walmart traffic, please allow the videos time to load.

• Example One
  
• Example Two
  
• Example Three
  
• Example Four
  

If this is the way Networks are going then I think we can throw the "Trusted Third Party" label our of the window, perhaps go with "Affiliate and Merchant Cannibalization Network" instead?

As a merchant ask yourself? Do you want this kind of "marketing" to be cannibalizing your sales channels, and as an affiliate, do you want to be promoting merchants that allow your traffic to be cannibalized for someone else's profit?

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Do you let your Affiliates Deep Link?

It's nothing new and has been around since the dawn of the Internet but deep linking is ever more critical, and if you don't let your marketing and affiliates partners deep link then you' re likely missing the mark, and losing customers, according to a new Nielsen report.

In 2004, about 40 percent of people visited a homepage and then drilled down to where they wanted to go and 60 percent used a deep link that took them directly to a page or destination inside a site. In 2008, said Dr Nielsen, only 25 percent of people travel via a homepage. The rest search and get straight there.

The report goes on to discuss how web users are becoming less patient and less distracted by sticky functions and want to get right to what they have come to do and then go elsewhere.

On the upside a greater percentage of users now actually complete what they set out to do, so if a merchant has a good site design and easy check out then the ability to drive a good conversion rate is now higher than ever, good news for merchants and affiliates!

Deep linking is very easy for the makority merchants to set up on their sites and for their affiliate programs, and is critical for sites that offer a wide range of products. That said there are still a number of affiliate programs than insist on forcing users to travel via the home page, either due to a poor eCommerce platform or a very misguided belief in what their site visitos should be forced into doing.

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