Sep 30 2010
Fair Terms?
I was surprised to read these snippets from some new terms & conditions that The AA is planning to implement for their breakdown cover program.
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.
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Sep 30th, 2010 at 11:06 am | #
Interesting decision. I would have thought that if an affiliate has driven a customer to the AA’s site and, without any additional online interaction (eg no subsequent search click or ad impression), the customer has gone on to buy something then the affiliate would be rewarded for generating that sale regardless of what link they come in on. The affiliate has “introduced” the customer to the brand and sent them to the website.
End of the day, it’s an affiliates decision which merchants they work with and I would have thought that a lot of AA affiliates would be re-ordering comparison tables based on these decisions.
Sep 30th, 2010 at 11:09 am | #
Well, it certainly doesn’t make it the world’s most appealing affiliate program to join. But then they are a massive brand, so I guess that’s the rules you’ve got to play by if you want to capitalise on what I imagine is a good site conversion rate.
Sep 30th, 2010 at 11:22 am | #
Seems very excessive and unfair to me, I would hate to see that start a trend with other merchants. There’s a lot of click throughs where the end user buys another product or multiple products, why should you not be paid when your hard work has got them to the site in the first place.
Sep 30th, 2010 at 11:36 am | #
As Matt has eluded to obviously the terms reflect the business objective at the AA.
The link to purchase term is interesting and I agree with the previous comments. If an affiliate has driven traffic to the merchant and then the consumer has therefore made a purchase (without the interaction of any other marketing tactic – PPC, email etc) the affiliate is due the commission.
Again, we can only assume the business logic in this case but it does seem a little excessive especially as the AA can’t have too different products.
Sep 30th, 2010 at 4:11 pm | #
That’s so sad if that was really implemented. What about the time, effort, and money spent by the affiliate?
Oct 1st, 2010 at 9:51 am | #
I think it seems fair as long as it is transparent. I was actually initially surprised that any company pays out on all products purchased (eg Amazon) and not just the one promoted.
Changing this will surely make them less attractive to work with though but it’s up to them to decide what proportion of their marketing spend should go to affiliates. If they have found that their current setup isn’t providing a great return then they must be able to limit it.
I did some analysis on marketing channel ROI in my previous job and the sad truth was, for that site, we were paying out far to much in some cases. It’s hard to justify running a campaign at a loss.
I suppose an alternative would be to drop the commission %. Personally, as a merchant, I’d want to reward people who are sending highly targeted traffic – there seems more added value in that over and above brand power.
Oct 3rd, 2010 at 1:33 pm | #
It seems a touch unfair with regards to your first point. I would’ve expected the affiliate to be remunerated for the sales they drive.
Forgive my newbie ignorance – but who are AA?
Cheers,
Matt