Bad Combination: High EPC With A Ghost Affiliate Manager
May 2, 2007 – 1:49 pmIf you are new to affiliate marketing or just have started to navigate Commission Junction, you may be very tempted to apply to merchants who’s EPC look very lucrative. I have done it many times myself. I am not saying you should stay way from merchants with high EPC, but you should definitely consider few other factors. One such a factor is how easy it will be for you to get in touch with Affiliate Manager.
Few days ago I have found following e-mail inside my CJ acocunt:
Dear Volodymyr Zablotskyy,
We regret to inform you that the Commission Junction advertiser ***** has chosen to expire its affiliation with you effective 1-May-2007.
If you would like to locate another advertiser in the network to partner with, login to your Account Manager (http://www.cj.com/login.jsp) and visit the Get Links tab.
Best Regards,
Client Services
Commission Junction
This e-mail took me by surprise. It was dated Aril 24. Two days earlier I have produced a sale for this merchant resulting in a commission of $110. I admit, I have produced only 5 sales for this merchant. So if they kicked me out for under-performing (I believe they look up affiliates EPC in order to do so), I understand. Unfortunately there was no warning about their action. My immediate reaction was to contact affiliate manager to fix things up and hopefully continue our relationship. Unfortunately I have found no info on how to contact affiliate manager of the merchant in question:
(Affiliate Program under a “Ghost Affiliate Manager”)
I genuinely expected to see something like this:
(Affiliate Program under real Affiliate Manager)
Naturally the next step was to call the merchant directly and ask to speak to some one in affiliate department (aka affiliate manager). Turns out there is no such department nor affiliate manager and everything is “handled on the website”. Fortunately speaking to CJ people I was advised to use Commission Junction mail system to get in touch with a “ghost affiliate manager”. I did that and should get a response within a week or so. Some how I doubt there will be a positive outcome, but I keep my fingers crossed and will not reveal the merchant in question at this time.
I certainly will never again apply to a merchant who does not provide affiliate manager’s contact information, no matter how lucrative EPCs of that merchant are. There are some merchants however, while not providing their contact info via CJ interface, that have blogs and even entire websites to communicate with their affiliates.
P.S. I will disclose the merchant in question if there is no answer a week from now, which would only mean to stay away from their affiliate program.
Tags: Affiliate Marketing
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Well, according to Feedburner Revenews has almost 2,000 subscribers vs 50 subscribers here. I am sure (or at least hope) that number of them are affiliate managers like yourself.
I do not mind at all if you reference my post. In fact I would appreciate it.
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It's one of the big things that a lot of affiliate managers and outsourced program managers have wanted to address. I'm not so sure that many people read my blog, but I'll see if I can get one out and reference your blog if that's ok.
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Thanks for stopping by. Do you think this is something that can be addressed over at Revenews? I know you guys do not write about such petty things... I just think CJ follows you over at Revenews more than some "Vlad" ;)
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CJ's communication system has always been frustrating, at least from this side of the business.
There has been a myth about affiliate marketing, I honestly thought had gone away, that you just open a program and it sort of runs itself. As you guys know, that just isn't the case. Programs need that dedicated resource to work with you.
Another real good post - the more real world examples like this, the more educated online marketers become.
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I hope the merchant in question isn't "closing the doors"... I was wondering about it as well. I have been following closely the industry involved and have not noticed anything indicating such a move. Unless I missed something.
@Salvo
Thanks for stopping by. I will definitely let you and other readers know who the merchant is.
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Will stay tuned to see who it is :)
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Overall, I find CJ's affiliate e-mail system to be poor. I think when affiliates have an issue with a merchant with similarly poor communications you get a bit of a stonewall effect. CJ should be doing more to improve this situation by encouraging merchants to have a dedicated affiliate contact when they open the programme. An affiliate programme with no manager is such an under-utilisation of the affiliate channel surely?
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Thanks for stopping by Brian.
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