NMA Letter From Fraser Edwards re ASOS
Letter in NMA Published: 22.03.07
From Fraser Edwards, Affiliateblog.co.uk “ASOS CEO Nick Robertson created a stir with his comments on affiliate marketing (NMA 08.03.07). But the most surprising thing is that ASOS spent two years building relationships on a CPA basis, then turned its back on this and retreated to offline channels.Towards the end, its affiliate programme was so badly managed, with commissions slashed and dictatorial terms, that it was no surprise it was closed.
Work with your affiliates, build… up trust and you’ll be rewarded; try to dictate to them how and where they can operate and you’ll come unstuck.
ASOS took its eye off the ball and paid the price, but instead of looking inwards and realising what went wrong it has lashed out at the very affiliates that built the business. If you want to protect your brand on search engines, then register your trademark with them. If you want to provide guidelines, then work with your affiliate network.
Affiliate marketing has an image problem and I won’t deny that an affiliate association would be a step forward. Education of merchants to gain a genuine understanding of the model would move things forward as much as a code of conduct. I find it hard to see a route back into affiliate marketing for ASOS among the marketers that I know”
In bold take notice…Its not difficult, but the confusion re brand bidding issue lies squarely at the door of some merchants lack of understanding and the common errors are a few of the following..
A. They think they are brand when in fact they are building a brand.
B. They really dont understand how PPC works in particular google (example broad matching and the relationships with other ISPS)
C. They cant get a TM because their name is generic, you cant prevent affiliates from bidding on generic terms.
D. Have not applied for TM
E. Have not understood how ppc affiliates can protect you from your competitors.. below examples may change..
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rls=GGLD%2CGGLD%3A2005-17%2CGGLD%3Aen&q=Maternity+Fashion&meta=
F. How ppc affiliates can plug the gap to compensate for merchant organic SEO that they have not themselves reached.http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rls=GGLD%2CGGLD%3A2005-17%2CGGLD%3Aen&q=80s+iconic+tshirts&meta=
G. Merchants can some times forget that ppc affiliates also remind past customers to come back to you.H. Some merchants forget they have the control over who, what and where as Fraser points out.
I. Some merchants don’t have the stats or information about their own customers to enable a fair assessment of what the PPC affiliate has brought in (what is the life time value of a customer) and see the short tail expense instead of the long tail profit.
See its not that complicated, really it isn’t :0)Affiliate Marketing has rules, its not the wild west as some people think it is and make it out to be. Those comments have come from most merchants who have not seen the whole picture.
Yes there maybe a few rougue affiliates, in the same way that Merchants get some customers with stolen credit cards, both are in the minority, both can be dealt with, swiftly and effectively! If there is no one looking after a merchants affiliate program and no clear transparent ts & cs, how are affiliates supposed to know what they can and can not do?
Some Merchants need education, but… you can only lead a horse to water, you cant make them drink.
Not all merchants will listen.
Advice… go talk to the merchants that have a successful affiliate programs, most of them will tell you its about using your affiliate channel to work in harmony with your other online/offline marketing initiatives and not in conflict.
Its not rocket science but common sense. Its not a weakness to say “Hey, I dont understand..” its a strength and merchants will get more respect from the affiliate community via this route, then the ones that lash out because of ignorance.
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Seems to me any company not taking advantage of affiliate marketing is throwing money away. With the CPA and CPS models, they even have the luxury of knowing exactly what results they are getting for their money: compare that to conventional forms of advertising (or CPC to some extent). The worst thing that can happen is that no-one takes up their affiliate offers because they are not offering a good enough deal to the affiliates.
ASOS seems to be one of the (possibly rare) companies who fail to see that they need to offer a good deal to affiliates as well as customers. They are their unconventional sales force. If they can’t get more profitable, higher volume results than pre-Internet sales techniques and give affiliates enough incentive then they’re probably doing it wrong.