Two sales from the same cookie which was placed on the 1st October 2006! More than 5 years ago I sent this visitor through and earlier this month they earned me £15. Now I know all the stats probably say that a huge majority of sales take place within the standard 28 day cookie but this shows that it’s certainly not all of the sales. Also note that the same click and cookie led to two sales. Not all programmes will have a cookie which is valid for multiple events. Many are for the first sale only.

Can anyone beat that time between click and sale? Most people would have been through a few computers in that time nevermind not having cleaned out your browser cache and cookies.

I used to have a lot of traffic that worked well for Buyagift and it seems I really should be trying to get that back again instead of chasing single action 28 day cookies. Just to be clear the cookie length for the Buyagift program is 9999 Days

Buyagift are on Affiliate Window and have an impressive Christmas incentive running at the moment.

Perhaps the merchant isn’t quite fully appreciating affiliate marketing or perhaps they just have really really good banners?

Only the first purchase made by the customer will be paid out on, and only if they buy the product related to the link that they clicked through.

On the 15th of each month a verification process will go through the system and any sales that don’t meet the above criteria and/or were de-duped against another of the AA’s marketing channels will be deleted from your account.

The first one surprised me more. The second is perhaps more widely spread but I still don’t think it’s reasonable. I’m not active with this merchant but do others think these terms are fair? Would be interested to hear opinions below.

The summary is that you should read here about what you can win and then read here about the tools provided to help you win.

If you’ve somehow missed everything that’s been happening regarding Next then there are a bunch of links at the end of this post for some background reading

If you don’t want to read through all those links then a quick summary of mistakes includes cutting commission rates to 1%, switching networks without respecting the cookies, lack of communication, competitor brand bidding, trying to stifle discussion and an intrusive questionnaire.

However if we now leave Next to lie in the bed they have made what are the key mistakes that Next have made which other merchants could learn from?

Never Reduce Commission Rates – Any reduction in commission rates is going to hurt an affiliate program so always be realistic and take care with your planning to make sure you never end up in this position. If you reach the point of reducing your commission rate from 2% to 1% just close the program instead and affiliates will be less insulted.

Communicate – Throughout the last few months one of the biggest problems with Next has been a lack of communication. No one has raised their head above the parapet to try and engage with affiliates which has made the situation all the worse. When you get this one right make sure you consider the next point…

Respect Your Affiliates – When Next finally decided to try and engage with affiliates it has been in such an insulting & flippant manner that they just seem to be digging a bigger hole for themselves. Making the accusation that affiliates “pollute natural search space with negative comments about the brand” is going to go down in affiliate marketing history alongside Grubbygate. Read this post and maybe even print it out and stick it on the wall.

Accept Constructive Criticism – One of the most worrying aspects of this whole issue is that Chris Frost was rejected from the program due to simply voicing his concerns on his blog. Realise that affiliates are passionate people running serious businesses and although it might not be what you want to hear, try to understand there is a reason for any criticism and look at what you could learn from it and improve.

Good Affiliates Are In Short Supply – There are a finite number of affiliates out there and once you treat many of them badly it’s going to be hard to recover. Take care not to think that your precious brand name is going to have affiliates knocking your door down to promote you. Any good affiliate will have more requests for promotion in a week than they have time to handle so it’s not a case of you ‘allowing’ affiliates to promote your brand it’s more a case of affiliates ‘choosing’ to promote your brand so you better make sure the whole package that you are offering is attractive.

That’s just a few points that I’ve been thinking over but I think Jason at One Little Duck sums up the whole issue in this excellent post

Every affiliate manager action will result in an affiliate reaction!

In simpler terms, if you make a good or bad decision about your affiliate program then your affiliates will react accordingly.
Newton’s Third Law of Motion & Affiliate Marketing

And finally I’ll leave the last word to a merchant that doesn’t have much to learn about affiliate marketing…

Affiliate Marketing is Easy – there’s no excuse to fluff it!

Background Links

Blogs

• Next Affiliate Programme Is A Disgrace To This Industry
• Next – Do They Care About The Affiliate Marketing Industry?
• ‘Next Directory’ – next.co.uk are now saying affiliates are polluting the space?
• Next Directory – Are They Bad To the Bone?
• £313,000 Worth of Next Traffic Up For Grabs
• Cross Brand Bidding – Next.co.uk Tut-Tut !

Forum Threads

• Next Closing – Affiliate Marketing
• Have You Ditched Next Directory And Other Low Paying Programmes – Poll – Affiliate Marketing
• Next are changing! – Affiliate Marketing
• Next Affiliate Program – The Facts – Page 2 – Affiliate Marketing

It’s great to see an affiliate manager being so proactive and it’s great to see a company that believes in their products so much that they are happy to give them away and encouarage affiliates to be their brand ambassadors online. If you want to win yourself some samples then there is a promotion running at the moment.