Hey, affiliates are your partners !
One of the themes I have been harping constantly --- because I whole-heartedly believe in it-- is the need for a closer and stronger relationship between affiliates, the merchants and the networks, where they are involved.
It's quite simply the nature of the beast that a certain amount of scepticism (and distrust?) between affiliates and the principals they serve is inevitable. But if WE are to move forward with a successful and sustainable business, there is also no way other than leaving that scepticism on the back burner, without letting go of it completely. I'd say-- let that tiny element remain, for it will help prevent any party from taking the other for granted.
In this post by Vinny Lingham, he talks about how affiliates often act as watchdogs for merchant sites. He mentions problems on merchant websites that have bugs or show error pages when visitors land up on them, with affiliates often having to point them out to the merchants. Obviously, that is a pity, because these visitors are most likely driven by expensive PPC campaigns or other paid-marketing channels, and to lose a lead hurts deeply.
The fact that these problems weren't detected by the merchant could be a result of several factors-- from sheer indifference and callousness to genuine oversight. Whatever it is, there is a significant cost involved.
Merchants and the networks need to understand that they also incur a cost when something like that happens. Affiliates may bear the direct cost of losing a lead that they drive to the merchant site, but what about the indirect opportunity cost of a lost potential customer? For all you know, this customer may never again visit the merchant site, directly or through an affiliate.
Like most affiliates, I understand and appreciate that there will be downtime. That is inevitable. The issue is how we handle situations when things like that happen. Whose responsibility is it to communicate and ensure that immediate remedial actions are taken to prevent money going down the drain?
This is where we come back to those (clichéd)terms again-- partnership, collaboration, communication. As I said, we all have something to gain and everything to lose by not collaborating to overcome these glitches.
I'll leave with what Vinny had to say in the piece I referenced above. That's hitting the nail on its head.
"Affiliates do play a vital role in assisting merchants with monitoring the pulse of their business, and the merchants that understand this and compensate them accordingly with disregard for inefficient internal teams, will be the merchants that constantly are in the top 5 affiliate programs year on year."
Until next time,
Ben Flux
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