Sweaty Betty Sweaty under the collar now
June 30th, 2009 Affiliate Blogger Posted in Affiliate management, All articles | 5 Comments »
There’s recently been a lot of noise on the forums about Sweaty Betty (on linkshare) restricting the use of its discount code to one affiliate on their affiliate program, with all other voucher code affiliates being binned from the campaign. You can read more about this here. Now I want to point out that this isn’t aimed at singling out Linkshare as a network, I’ve certainly not had a problem with them, but I wanted to put this up as a word of caution to merchants and affiliate managers about the importance of good communcation and fairness within affiliate marketing.
To give you a little background, essentially, voucher code sites work by listing the discount codes of merchants on their site and the competition is very aggressive. However the number of affiliates with discount code sites ammount to about 20% of the affiliate population and make up some of the most experiences affiliate marketers out there. The value of these discount code sites to consumers is in their extensive and all encapsulating lists of discount codes. naturally there are discount code sites that are better than other and have more traffic than others but the gist of it is that they all serve the same function.
Sweaty Betty basically decided that all but one discount code affiliate site would be removed from the affiliate program, essentially creating and exculsive partnership with that one discount code site. Speaking as an affiliate manager I’m in the fortunate position to see both sides of the coin – in this case, the strategy taken by Swetty Betty doesn’t actually make good sense, it may make life easier for their affiliate manager and simplify their affiliate management, but it’s at the cost of alienating a whole demograph of affiliates, which ultimately leads to the detriment of the affiliate program for Sweaty Betty as a whole.
Affiliate marketing is all about free market competition and such protectionist favouratism really doesn’t sit well. Whilst I can agree and appreciate that the merchant can dictate how they wish to work with affiliates and which affiliates they wish to work with. The strategy that Sweaty Betty has taken seems totally unfair to the hard work most affiliates put in.
There’s a few issues with the strategy Sweaty Betty have taken, I’ll attempt to give my (humble) take on them here:
1. Timing – Affiliates were given less than 24 hours to make the changes they needed to on their sites, thats not exactly a lot of time for affiliates considering they may have several sites and considering they may miss the email or be absent on that day. (edit) apprently affiliates were given 1 weeks notice by linkshare, now, regardless two thing crop up 1. networks should wait till there is a response, and 2. affiliates should give a response. Regardless particularly for a change in terms and conditions, its obviously crucial that affiliates are given more time, not less, to make any changes or take the necissary action.
2. Blanket decision – based on the chatter on the forums, it appears the decision was a bit of a blanket ban on all discount code affiliates other than 1. Which seems totally unfair, considering its based on the volume of sales affiliates have made, thats not very accomodating of other affiliates efforts, especially considering sweaty Betty benefits from brand exposure on these other sites and it doesn’t cost them anything (affiliate marketing is CPA – cost per aquesition based, remember?), if this was costing them an arm and a leg without any resultant sales I’d understand their decision, but as they pay based on a % of sale, this doesn’t make any sense at all.
3. Flat decision – (ban any affiliate that fails to comply) – there are may actions a mechant can take to managing affiliates, reducing commission, restricting how affiliates can advertise the campaign, etc. the sweaty Betty has in this case effectivly gone from welcoming affiliates to the campaign to booting them off in a very black and white move which i really don’t agree with, there are better ways of acheiving the desired effect, such as speaking with the affiliates and providing an alternative solution.
The knock-on effect of this is:
1. It shows that sweaty betty have pretty poor affiliate management that don’t really understand how affiliates work or what the implications of their actions are
2. It shows that the network (linkshare) haven’t taken the steps to educate sweaty betty about the implications of this decision or offered any alternative solutions, or (and this i believe is the most important) shown that they are working on behalf of the affiliates (as well as the client) (edit) I’ve just got off MSN with one of the affiliate managers at linkshare, and credit where credit is due, they did, infact discuss things with the merchant in this case, regardless, i think this is a strong case that networks (any of them and all of them) should be more aware about the ever changing landscape of affiliates and their needs and be able to fully represent the needs and fairness that affiliate marketing needs inorder to really benefit a client.
3. this strategy means that a proportion of sales will go missing as a result of the code not being present on a variety of sites, ultimatly leading to a drop in sales.
4. Sweaty Betty have, as a result of this decision already alienated affiliates, many of whom have already decided to remove the campaign entirely from their sites, again compounding the negative results of the campaign.
What this all boils down to is that it shows that Sweaty Betty haven’t enough experience managing their affiliate program to understand the implications of this decision, they’ve taken a very one sided approach to what is essentially a loose business partnership, they are effectivly praticing protectionist measures in what is ultimately a free market tool and the network hasn’t fulfilled its obligations to supporting affiliates and educating its clients.
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June 30th, 2009 at 11:14 am
You’re right. I think affiliates will remove links to a program that acts in such a strange way.
Voucher code sites and cash back sites can cause problems for merchants who don’t have this aspect of their marketing campaign under control.
Singling out one voucher site gives a really bad feeling about the way that company is going to go.
I won’t promote a company that does this. It doesn’t make sense for me to promote it as I know the agressive voucher sales techniques will mean my commission will be stolen almost certainly.
We need a level playing field. The same rules applied to every affiliate.
June 30th, 2009 at 11:45 am
totally agree with you Di, equality is the only way a campaign will attract affiliates and ultimately succeed. merchants need to understand the ‘lay-of-the-land’ with affiliates it’s a balancing act between giving affiliate freedom and flexibility whilst at the same time preventing some affiliates from taking advantage.
June 30th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Very good point about Sweaty Betty lacking knowledge of Affiliate Marketing. (I don’t think their the biggest of companies). From our own experience I don’t think they have a clue.
When they were on Affiliate Window we generated alot of sales for them, but after their move to link share we were rejected form their program.
June 30th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
What I find interesting is that they have a supposed affiliate manager, not sure about this but you would expect if they had this kind of resource they would know better.
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Did anyone actually receive the initial email they now claim was sent? I 100% did not receive it…