Web Affiliate Marketing Blog

Following on from my Merchant Traffic Light System - Good vs Bad post, I’ve decided that I will, when I get a minute, create a little sidebar widget where I can highlight merchants who are going about affiliate marketing in the right way (in my opinion). Maybe when a merchant improves, or signals improvement, it should be shouted about, just as much as we (myself included) shout about things when they go wrong and inject some love and positivity back into the AM world

Merchant: Myaka
Network: Affiliate Future
Commissions: 5%

Merchant Overview: Myakka specialises in high quality, hand crafted Indian furniture, along with throws, bedspreads, rugs, cushions and unique home accessories.

Reason: I maybe alone here, but I do not check my rejected sales on a daily basis, maybe on a monthly basis if that. I was therefore surprised to see the following entries when I had a quick look earlier today;

25/02/2008 : 10:44:00  Order Cancelled - Again same reason - you are advertising a promo code that expired 31st May 2007 - we can not honour this discount, please remove from your site.
25/02/2008 : 10:09:00  Order Cancelled - Mis-use of invalid promotional code. The promo code you are advertising expired 31st May 2007. Please remove this from you site, you are misrepresenting our brand and causing ill feeling amongts our customers.

Communicating with affiliates by way of adding commentary in a report buried deep in a networks website? Is this really what MyAkka class as communicating with affiliates? I have no problem with the fact the sales have been rejected, but don’t get shirty with me, by writing commentary like this in something I, and many other affiliates may not look at on a regular business, especially if it’s of such importance to you.

Affiliate Future ended up contacting me and asking me to remove the expired code, basically bringing it to my attention. Within 10 minutes the code was removed.

Going Forwards:
Communicate with affiliates efficiently and by standard communication methods (email!).

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Merchant: Fragrance Direct
Network: Affiliate Window
Commissions: 5%

Merchant Overview: Fragrance Direct sells branded, discounted perfumes and aftershaves at up to 70% off the High Street prices. Many products are store counter testers with no expensive packaging to throw in the bin so we are able to sell our fragrances at substantial discounts.

Reason: Over the past few months, I haven’t received a great deal of communication from Fragrance Direct but hopefully things are about to change. Out of the blue I received an email from Fragrance Direct asking if there was anything I would like to try from their website, however I’m not sure if they were simply being nice, or implying that I have a certain aroma about me

The email and the offer grabbed my attention and has resulted in looking at their programme in more detail, with a view to pushing it continuosly rather than just concentrating on it during the Christmas and Valentines seasons.

During December Fragrance Direct ran a consumer offer whereby affiliates could publicse a voucher code offering all of their visitors a 5% discount.

Going Forwards:
Regular communications, monthly maybe.
Another Discount Code.
A4U Forums Interaction.
Contact name and email address on Affiliate Window.

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