Amoureux: NOT So Amorous Towards Affiliates

Comments

1. Kris says:
   June 9, 2009 at 7:49 am

   Wow, talk about double dipping. It’s kind of like a company sending 2 sales people to the same appointment and letting them fight it out for commission.

   Reply
2. Andy Pohl says:
   June 9, 2009 at 7:56 am

   I’m confused. Are you saying that when someone clicks on the Adsense ad the merchant would pay Google and get the customer while the affiliate gets nothing?

   Reply
   • Rosalind Gardner says:
     June 10, 2009 at 6:52 am

     Hi Andy,

     Not exactly.

     The biggest problem with a merchant placing Google Adsense on their site is that the affiliate sends traffic (for which they’ve paid in many cases) only to have that traffic click on the Adsense ads which puts money in the merchant’s pocket but not their own.

     The point is – NEVER promote a merchant that places advertising on their affiliate landing pages that benefits only them – not you.

     I hope that helps.

     Cheers,
     Ros
3. Oliver says:
   June 9, 2009 at 8:37 am

   Never ceases to amaze me when sites seem to go out of their way to treat their affiliates badly. It’s so short-sighted. But if they don’t realise why these things are stealing from you, just think what else they are doing that hurts your commissions too. I’m with you Ros, drop ‘em. But tell them why too.

   Reply
4. John W. Abert says:
   June 10, 2009 at 15:37 pm

   Hi Ros,

   You probably don’t remember, but we met you at the System seminar in Chicago, May 2005.

   I fully agree that these kinds of tactics need to be “disuaded”. We ran into a similar ting with a company who was supposed to be selling wholesale. We were probably the largest online full-line stocking distributor in the world for their products….until we found out by accident that they had created a retail website….in direct competition with the distributors whom they should have been promoting.

   The biggest problem with these short-sighted tactics is that the distributors (or affiliates) have the potential to reach WAY more customers than they ever possibly could through their little web site, and so in essence, they have cut their sales by a tremendous amount. We found out through a couple of our own customers that a major department store had dropped their line, and then one of the largest truck jobbers in the world dropped their line, then finally we did, after going round and round with them over this and other issues. They just didn’t seem to “get it”, or understand the consequences of their actions.

   Many affiliates get involved with companies who already sell retail, and are only there to get a piece of the action, and that’s OK if you understand that up front. But when they present one set of circumstances and then suddenly go into competition with the people they should be supporting, it’s just wrong, unless they have the guts to announce their intentions well ahead of time, and give their affiliate/distributor network the choice of what to do going forward. (Customer service was the other issue they were lacking in.) Anyway, we dropped them like a hot potatoe once we saw what was going on, as should anyone else who gets into a situation like this.

   People who have affiliates selling for them need to know that doing the honorable thing works well on both sides of the table. If you are going to make a major change that will affect your affiliates sales, then just “talk” to them before you do it, so that everyone knows what’s going on, and can either stay or go. Honesty and customer service are never too much to ask of anyone.

   Keep up the good work,

   John

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5. Georjina says:
   June 10, 2009 at 18:49 pm

   Ugh, that’s as bad as the ones who put their affiliate link on their front page. You’d think by now merchants wouldn’t keep shooting themselves (or their affiliates) in the foot!

   Reply
6. MrChronicAnxiety says:
   June 13, 2009 at 9:12 am

   Doesn’t that actually mean that they are hardly making any money from actual leads?

   Those ads don’t look like they’d be paying much, so what are we looking at… $2/ per 100 views? Makes no sense indeed.

   However if you think about it like this… I’m a random person who got sent there and I don’t want to sign up, thus I click somewhere else. No affiliate love for sure, though.

   Reply
   • Rosalind Gardner says:
     June 13, 2009 at 17:01 pm

     MrChronicAnxiety,

     You’re right, Amoreux is making pennies on potential dollars and thieving from their affiliates in the meantime. Crazy, eh?

     Ros

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