{"id":170,"date":"2007-05-02T07:25:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-02T12:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.80.208.152\/affiliateprogramadvice\/?p=170"},"modified":"2008-02-21T21:09:47","modified_gmt":"2008-02-22T02:09:47","slug":"asos-md-rebuttal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.affiliateprogramadvice.com\/index.php\/2007\/05\/02\/asos-md-rebuttal\/","title":{"rendered":"ASOS MD Rebuttal"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Source <\/span>e-consultancy<\/span><\/a>
\nASOS CEO Nick
\nRobertson was at the centre of a firestorm six weeks ago when he labelled
\naffiliates ‘grubby’.
\nIn this interview, his first since <\/span>‘Grubbygate’<\/span><\/a>, Nick explains
\nthe reasons behind his decision to close down the ASOS affiliate programme. The
\netailer certainly <\/span>doesn’t seem to have been hampered<\/span><\/a> by its decision…
\n————————————————————————————————————-
\nCan you throw some light on the issues you were having with your affiliate
\nprogramme when you ditched it, and clarify what you meant by <\/span>your comments<\/span><\/a> in NMA?
\nThe problems we were having were that we were paying commissions on sales we
\nwould have generated ourselves.
\nAbout a year and a half to two years ago, we
\ntook a view – and it was a very harsh view – that by culling our affiliate
\nprogramme and paying no commissions on sales, we might dent our top line
\nslightly but we would be considerably more profitable. We would re-invest that
\nprofit into brand marketing to drive top line sales, on which we would not be
\npaying commission.
\nLet me put it into perspective. We had an affiliate
\nprogramme and we had an affiliate manager that the affiliates loved. I’m hardly
\nsurprised, because we made those affiliates a bloody fortune. We had a 60 day
\ncookie period and 12-15% commissions.When you get bigger, you find
\nthat. your customers are travelling around the web and are picking up these
\ncookies left, right and centre. We found we were paying commissions on sales to
\ncustomers that would have come to us anyway. They might not have come straight
\naway but they were familiar with ASOS<\/span><\/a>, they knew ASOS, but
\nthey just had to click on some other sites and we would have to pay commissions
\non themWe have been proved absolutely right – more than right. It
\nhasn’t dented our top line sales at all. Look at the figures. Look at the top
\nline growth of <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Figleaves<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Firebox<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Iwantoneofthose<\/span><\/a> or <\/span>NET-A-PORTER<\/span><\/a>. These are sites that spend considerable amounts of money on affiliate
\nmarketing and we are outstripping the growth of all of them.
\n————————————————————————————————————-
\nWhy didn’t you just reduce the cookie period?
\nBecause we were still
\npaying commissions. We did end up reducing it from 60 days to 30 days to one
\nweek, I think.
\nTo be honest, what was happening was that it was taking so
\nlong to police it. You’d have affiliates who would ask to be involved in the
\nprogramme and register one site, and then, funnily enough, just use the codes to
\nopen up a completely different site.<\/span>We would run a discount promotion
\nwith a magazine like Grazia, a tactical marketing initiative, and that discount
\nwould be widely used all over the internet. These were affiliates who we had
\ntold not to generate traffic on the back of discount codes.<\/p>\n

It got to
\nthe point where it was a full time policing job just to stop the unethical and
\nagainst-the-rules practices that these affiliates were employing. What happened
\nwas the bad affiliates tarnished the good affiliates and we just culled the lot.
\nAnd we haven’t looked back. I’m not in any hurry to introduce a new affiliate
\nprogramme.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/span>
\nPersonally, I think there is a lot missing and I could sit here forever pulling this to bits, but… I would rather focus on merchants that get it, then waste anymore time. I do wonder, if I had a time machine and could go back and advise ASOS in the very early years to kill their affiliate program back then, I wonder, where would they be today<\/span>It’s clear we have differing opinions and affiliate marketing and ASOS, it just conflicts with each other today.
\n“I’m not in any hurry to introduce a new affiliate programme.” We wont lose too much sleep waiting.
\nI did speak to Nick yesterday, it was a really good chat and he made some valid points but the upshot is, we agreed to disagree and I think we will both leave it at that!<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source e-consultancy ASOS CEO Nick Robertson was at the centre of a firestorm six weeks ago when he labelled affiliates ‘grubby’. In this interview, his first since ‘Grubbygate’, Nick explains the reasons behind his decision to close down the ASOS affiliate programme. The etailer certainly doesn’t seem to have been hampered by its decision… ————————————————————————————————————- […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.affiliateprogramadvice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.affiliateprogramadvice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.affiliateprogramadvice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.affiliateprogramadvice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.affiliateprogramadvice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.affiliateprogramadvice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.affiliateprogramadvice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.affiliateprogramadvice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.affiliateprogramadvice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}