How do you decide when to remove affiliates
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If you are a publisher manager you face something of a dilemma: how to attract a range of good quality publisher s to your programme without becoming bogged down in managing the issues that this multitude of relationships may present? Affiliate marketing is after all something of a bottomless pit: it is not a question of performing a set number of tasks; there is always more you can do, which can very quickly swallow up a large amount of your time.
For one, there will always be publisher s applying to join your programme which you must either accept or reject. At the same time you will need to go out and actively recruit new publisher s that represent a good fit with your brand and are likely to drive high-quality customers through your programme.
But something of a trend has emerged recently in the UK publisher industry whereby certain advertisers have taken the view that one way to manage their publisher programmes is to remove large numbers of non-revenue generating publisher s. The slightly sinister terms ‘cleanse’ and ‘cull’ have been used to describe these moves. Alongside this practice, many programmes have been hidden on publisher networks, or their existing publisher memberships audited to assess their value and check for compliance. Each of these initiatives share the same aim of making the task of publisher management easier. They can be framed in the context of a debate which can be characterised as one of plurality versus control: is it good or bad to have a programme that has lots of publisher s? Does a larger programme mean there are inherently greater risks of something going wrong, or simply that the number of publisher relationships to be managed produces diminishing returns? In what practical ways can a programme be run to deal with some of these issues.
The first line of defence is the programme description that publisher s will see prior to applying to join. Being clear from the outset about what kinds of publisher s you are looking to attract and what kind of activity is acceptable helps prevent issues arising further down the line, making the task of approving publisher s onto your programme more manageable, and makes it less likely that you will ultimately have to remove publisher s from it. The Affiliate Marketing Council of the IAB has produced an Ethical Advertiser Charter with some examples of what to think about including when writing this.
When approving publisher s, of key importance is to have absolute visibility over what they intend to do for you and how. Ensure that they have specified a site URL on which you will feature, for example, or if they intend to promote through email that you sign-off on all content about your brand prior to it being sent. In order to achieve this, manual rather than automatic publisher approval is advisable. It may take extra time to vet each application, particularly so in the immediate post-launch period, but that time is worth it in gaining assurance over the long-term about the kinds of publisher s you will be working with.
On the other hand, whilst there might be a number of reasons why you would want to remove publisher s from your programme, two of these should be advised against. Firstly, that a publisher is dormant (i.e., non-revenue generating) is not really sufficient grounds to take them off the programme without their consent. There might be a number of reasons why they are not referring sales, and these should be explored by communicating with the publisher . After all, a publisher driving a high number of clicks or impressions is still a valuable partner, and re-engagement is surely preferable to removal. Sales volume should not be seen as the only metric of value by which to judge activity.
Secondly, removing publisher s purely in an attempt to improve the programme’s statistics is also an ill-conceived tactic. In the first place, publisher s are not stupid: the publically-visible information on a programme’s performance – conversion rates, EPCs, etc – are just a few amongst many factors that publisher s consider to be indicative of the health of a programme. Many others – such as the percentage of approved orders, commission levels or payment speed – have little or no relation to the make-up of the publisher membership. If there was a ‘golden rule’ about publisher removals therefore, it would be to contact and consult with the publisher s concerned before attempting to pull the plug.
The worrying trend to ‘culling’ publisher s from advertisers’ programmes should be opposed, and it is therefore encouraging that the issue is currently being debated at the level of the IAB’s Affiliate Marketing Council, with a Best Practice guide is expected to follow shortly. Ultimately, it is an advertiser’s choice which publisher s they wish to work with and how. The manner in which they address this question can however go a long way to determining the perception of their programme amongst publisher s, and therefore the likelihood of its long-term success.