5 Comments

I’ve been told I should blog more…

Jun 27, 2005
by

Quite often I’ll have a quick passing thought about affiliate marketing, but not enough to be a complete article… I’ll lower my threshold and start putting my random thoughts and questions out more regularly….

Here’s one to start…

We really only generate revenue when a consumer clicks on our link and makes a purchase online… the traffic we generate for B&M stores are completely unaccounted for.

For those that are familiar with the structured chaos that is the FatWallet forums, it doesn’t take a very creative mind to figure out that our consumers hit all the touch points for a given merchant.

Why is it that when a non-commissionable sales channel has a “promotional issue”, it is forced down the affiliate manager’s throat to “get their affiliate under control”.

Now granted, it is an existing point of contact withing both organizations, but why put that affiliate manager in the middle of a situation that needs to be resolved?

Filed under: Affiliate Marketing
  • http://www.flamingoworld.com Connie Berg

    Sometimes random thoughts are the most insightful. Can't wait to hear more of them from you Tim!

  • http://www.molanderassoc.com Jeff Molander

    Because it's easier than practicing multi-channel marketing?

    I think that's part of the answer. I also believe that affiliate marketing is viewed as a "lesser" form of online marketing; hence, it gets treated this way. What you describe, Tim, is almost like parental type of relationship. What ever happened to those "child leashes" we used to see so many of? Perhaps we need to bring them back… or affiliate networks need a parental control type device; say, to lock affiliates out of trademark bidding almost like parents block the Spice channel from their children.

    (setting up David Lewis; paging David Lewis… come in David… how are you reading me?)

  • http://www.findsavings.com Richard Booth

    Tim, I don’t really have a forum so I don’t particularly have much insight into this area but would it be safe to assume even though you are not getting a direct affiliate commission you are getting added traffic/eyeballs? Wouldn’t this translate into leveraging the merchants brand (and coupon) to gain said traffic and even though again there is no direct click to a affiliate link you in essence are banking on the conitued traffic of that consumer to make a purchase that is trackable? Also, you can leverage all those eyeballs into your Advertising Kit and charge more for adverts. Either way you probably make just a little more by allowing users to post those forbidden coupons. I would to if I had a nice forum like yours! heh heh heh

    oh and isn’t that part of the AM job to manage us? Maybe I do not understand, do you want someone else to contact you about an issue?

    Thanks for the insight.

  • http://www.fatwallet.com Tim Storm

    To clarify…. If the problem is with a direct mail piece… don't have the affiliate manager "get in the way", have the direct mail people give us a call….

  • http://www.findsavings.com Richard Booth

    Ahhh sorry Tim I misunderstood. Yes that makes sense.

    The AM should facilitate the contact with the Direct Mail people only if needed, not be pushed as the middle man/woman in the communication chain.