ReveNews Online Revenue News & Opinions Since 1998

Affiliate Marketing Organization Initiative Vol.2 - We are back to Step 0

It is now about 2 weeks since I tried to spark the formation of an Affiliate Marketing Organization.

The Affiliate Marketing Industry is a complicated and full of issues to this day. A lot of money is being made by all sides of the business via “questionable” methods and even more questionable value for merchants and consumers.
The problem is that every party involved can and is making money by engaging directly or simply tolerating those activities and behavior. Yes, not only rouge Affiliates that are doing the “bad” stuff are making a lot of money in a way where “earned” is not my word of choice to describe it, Networks and Affiliate Managers or Affiliate Program Management Companies also gain financially by turning a blind eye to this behavior.

Networks profit from it, because they get their cut via the Network Fees, which is a percentage of the commission paid to the rouge affiliates and Affiliate Managers and OPM profit from it by artificially inflating sales generated through the Affiliate Marketing Channel which increases their earnings in commissions or bonuses.

Everybody wins, right? Affiliate, Network, Affiliate Manager, all peachy.

It would be nice, if it would be the case and not really a urgent need for an Affiliate Marketing Organization. There are a lot of losers in the game and unfortunately are a quite large number of losers not aware of the fact that they are getting ripped off.

Merchants loose by paying money (commission) for sales where a commission is not justified, honest Marketers that actually provide added value (the original idea of Affiliate Marketing, remember?) are getting booted out of rightfully earned commissions by Cookie Cutters and AdWare Hoodlums. And if that would not be bad enough already, add rough Merchants that revert legit sales and commissions, because they can.

Reverting sales and the commission for those sales tend to become the more likely the higher the transaction amount. Even overall honest Merchants are being tempted to revert valid transactions from time to time, because it is so easy and can be done without fearing any repercussions since there is no need to provide any reason or proof that the sale did not happen, that the product was returned or the service canceled and the customer refunded. It often takes only one click of the mouse and $10, $100 or more does not have to be paid.

The Consumer loose not always instantly and in some cases even benefit from this throat cutting between Marketers and ignorant Merchants, but they will loose at the end no matter what. They either pay more for the same products and services, because the “cost of doing business” increased for the merchant and is being passed on to the consumer or will loose freedom and free access to high quality content and information. Good quality Information takes a lot time and money to produce and making it available is getting cheaper but is still not free. With all this piracy going on is it getting harder to recoup this cost in a honest manner.

Clean affiliate traffic Conversion is going down and commission rates offered go down as well because of cost. At the same time are sales going up and customer conversion goes up as well.

This is a contradiction and there are interests by some that the question why that is happening is either never asked or if asked that it is not being answered honestly. It’s “Click Fraud” and “Cash Back Sites” only, trust me :).

There is the need to clean up house and get stuff straight. It is hard to get people together in an environment that is full of mistrust and fear of getting back stabbed.

I believed that certain movements in the industry to be more open, honest and outspoken, even unified in some cases, are causing a shift in general attitude which can be leveraged and accelerated.

I hoped to be able to spark a more open movement and unify the industry at least a little by starting doing something together where everybody can see the benefits from it.

I avoided to push away the big issues in my initial call for a reason. Working together on something like a central learning and information resource, a “Tourist Information Office” for Affiliate Marketing will get different people in the industry to do and discuss small issues with little or no financial impact and repercussions together and find a mutual beneficial or acceptable solution. Then maybe start to discuss useful things that will cause some cost but are more straight forward, like technical standard for things like product data feeds and web services. Once you get people to communicate and to get to know each other a little better, more serious issues can be slowly and carefully talked about and eventually solved as well.

I admit I was wrong and too weak to fight this without the necessary support. It was wishful thinking, but people are not ready for even a little step like deciding on a name for a something that could represent them.

I guess it will take somebody with a torch to get something going. No peaceful change like the fall of the Berlin Wall, but a revolution that will be born and fed out of turmoil and despair and end in be a bloody mess and eventually a completely different place to do business after the cleanup.

I will support any new initiative either way, a Ghandi-style initiative or French-style revolution as long as it is not something that will led into something that makes the industry an even worse place to do business in.

Replacing Chaos with a Dictatorship, a total Anarchy or one-sided exploitation style Manchester-capitalism is not my idea of change and I would be on the other side of the barricade and protect the mess we have today instead.

So, that was my rant. The Initiative is over. It was a nice 2 weeks dream.

I would like to thank Vinny Lingham from Incubeta.com and Angel Djambazov from OnlineShoes.com for contacting me and offering selfless support and help for the Initiative without asking for anything in return, especially Vinny for being the only one that made a suggestion for a name of an organization. Vinny, If you want to get the eComXpo University pass anyway, let me know and I will give it to you. You have earned it.

Also thanks to Anik Singal from Affiliate Classroom for his support and offer to Include his Custom Search Engine Affoogle.com in Step 2. of the Initiative.

Thanks to Shawn Collins, Beth Kirsch, James Nardell, Chris Sanderson, Wayne Porter, Brook Schaaf, Jim Kukral, Linda Buquet, Karen White for their Feedback, Comments, Suggestions and Support.

Here are all the posts and forum discussions that talked about the Initiative and provide some more insights and opinions about what Affiliate and Affiliate Managers think about the Idea of an Affiliate Organization.

• Affiliate Marketing Organization Initiative - Original Post
• Little Typo - Big Effect Correction Typo that caused some misunderstandings, additional comments and extension of name finding contest
• Affiliate Marketing Organizations- Lessons from AU by Wayne Porter
• Time for the AMAB!! by Chris Sanderson
• Affiliate Marketing Organization Initiative Thread at ABestWeb Forums

It’s hard to find some honest discussion about the issues here in the US so the old world might has to help out a little. If you are interested, check Fraser’s Affiliate Marketing Blog and Podcast from the UK. Interesting discussion.

There is actually something going on recently which should be of interest and is definitely worth checking out. It’s the Weekly Insight Podcast. I recommend downloading and listening to the past 5 posts. I hope that this kind of discussions will not die soon or talked away into irrelevance.

That’s it. Enjoy the rest of the weekend. Cheers,
Carsten

Search Through 10 Years of ReveNews Content:

•  

  

• Subscribe to ReveNews

  • Get ReveNews Updates in Your Reader
  • Get ReveNews Updates in Your Email

• The Latest Comments

  • chat on Virtual Chat Room Monetization: Micro-windfall or mega bucks?
  • David Lewis on The End of Affiliate Marketing or the Rebirth of CPC?
  • David Lewis on The End of Affiliate Marketing or the Rebirth of CPC?
  • Kurt Lohse on The End of Affiliate Marketing or the Rebirth of CPC?
  • Angel Djambazov on The End of Affiliate Marketing or the Rebirth of CPC?
  • Kurt Lohse on The End of Affiliate Marketing or the Rebirth of CPC?
  • Pat Grady on The End of Affiliate Marketing or the Rebirth of CPC?
  • David Lewis on The End of Affiliate Marketing or the Rebirth of CPC?
  • Brook Schaaf on The End of Affiliate Marketing or the Rebirth of CPC?
  • Christine Magtoto on Affiliate Marketing Helps Companies Grow Even in a Tough Economy

• ReveNews Readers

• Archives

  Select Month July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004