Category: 
Wednesday, 16 May 2007 @ 11:40 am (Chris Frost)
I had an interesting conversation today with Affiliate Window regarding the Toys R Us programme that is live on their network.
Last year I, like many other affiliates, geared a seasonal website aimed at the Christmas Internet traffic and online buying of toys and presents, and naturally applied to the Toys R Us programme. Without any communication or discussion I was denied access and at the time there were, and still are, many alternative programmes offering a much more realistic %age. With this in mind I decided not to persue Toys R Us and opted to utilise feeds etc from other merchants, successfully too!
Today, I thought I would query the reason as to why I had been turned down, and was told that Toys R Us don’t allow PPC affiliates onto their programme. First off I understood this as being Toys R Us don’t allow any PPC activity, via a landing page or direct to their website, or they have the usual Trademarks PPC restrictions in place, which is fine and understandable. I explained that obviously having been a PPC bod for 4+ years I always try to stick to any rules in place, and fix anything within a matter of seconds when pointed out to me by a network or merchant. Affilinet will vouch for me on this on a recent issue regarding Google where constant communication between the network and myself removed any mistrust that may have otherwise arisen.
I was informed by Affiliate Window that Toys R Us don’t allow ANY affiliate on their programme where the affiliate runs any PPC campaign, and by that, it includes their own websites in any form whatsoever where the plan to advertise Toys R Us.
What does this mean?
Well, if we take my initial reason for joining the program as an example, it is a Christmas themed website, so naturally I would list and review the top 10 games for boys, girls, boyfriends, girlfriends etc etc, and when it comes to children, also try to split it by age range. The website itself was quite a big website, and was not a simple landing page as it also explanied the history of Christmas, different traditions, party ideas etc.
Naturally, with a website like this, I would be PPC’ing on Christmas terms such as “Top 10 Chrismtas Presents” as 1000’s of other affiliates would be too. This is where the Toys R Us T&Cs come into play. Although I would not be PPC’ing on anything specific to Toys R Us, I would be PPC’ing my website using generic terms, or maybe even game specific terms such as “ScoobyDo”. Because of this Toys R Us decided to deny me access to their affiliate programme.
This raises 2 questions;
#1 - Why on earth haven’t Affiliate Window educated Toys R Us on how affiliates and PPC works?
This is where I constantly have a grip with networks and their lack of understanding in the PPC arena. Its about time they took stock and started to try to understand, and educate merchants on the PPC market. For once they should listen to affiliates and NOT give the corporate run of the mill bullshit about how such a good programme it is, and how over time they will need to work closely to educate them.
For a merchant to take this stance is absolutely ludicrous and idiotic in my opinion and even more so that the network hasn’t tried hard to educate them. However I suspect that to a network, by simply have a big name on their books like Toys R Us is like having a nice big shiney trophy in the centre of their office. Maybe they don’t want to try to educate the merchant for fear of them moving to another network? Only when you take a closer look you realise that this big shiney trophy is pretty much worthless!
#2 - How many affiliates actually realise they can’t PPC a website, no matter what words, terms or phrases they use, that displays any Toys R Us links, without breaking their T&C’s?
I have already spoken to 1 affiliate who was completely unaware of the stance when it comes to PPC’ing their website on generic terms. I therefore suspect there are 1000’s of affiliate breaking the T&Cs of the Toys R Us affiliate programme and may run the risk of having commissions reversed.
When are networks going to take PPC seriously? Surely its more important to educate a merchant and run a very successful programme, rather than have a well known brand, that when u dig deeply, actually proves to be a programme that is simply a joke!
Horaayy..there are 10 comment(s) for me so far ;)
Good Article Frostie, together with Kierons one, they compliment each other very well. Only this week I was having a chat with an affiliate manager on a network, on something similar where we were appearing for a merchants name on a broadmatch pointing to a page on our site. Basically they had a very generic word in their two worded name we naturally refused and apart from the fact we were not even using the networks affiliate links.
By the way I just did a quick search on the domain name
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=www.toysrus.co.uk&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
It looks like Ebay has a free for all again … and an affiliate of Woolworths who i think also doesn’t allow the use of display url, plus the fact its appearing for anothe rmerchants url.
I had to read that twice to make sure I really understood what you were saying there. It surprises me that they allow any affiliates at all if their policy is that strict!
Re AWin, I have to say their account management is my only grumble, the technology and the tracking and the payments etc etc is all working swimmingly, but their contact with me as a merchant is below par.
Kerry I must admit when I had the initial discussion, I did have to double check with what I was being told. It really is unbelievable!
You’re mention of account management is interesting. I have often said to a few networks and consultancies in the business that I truely believe there is room for a new position or role. Basically a direct go between for merchants and affiliates.
Some may argue that this is the role of an account manager, but I see it failing all too often for one reason or another, not necessarily due to the person in the role, maybe its more to do with work loads etc. At the recent Buy.at Speakeasy event, the emphasis was on COMMUNICATION between all parties. It is something that I find to have declined quite recently.
Luckily I am in direct contact with a small number of merchants, however I appreciate this isn’t alway possible. I really do think that more can be done if networks employed an affiliate, possibly on consultancy basis to liaise and explain from an affiliates POV problems or issues with a particular merchant. Sadly I think Merchants listen too much to networks, many of which don’t have a true understanding or grasp of what or where affiliates are coming from.
Its also interesting to hear from a Merchant that they too think there is room for improvement when it comes to Account management. Who knows what the future holds?
question #1 is the big one - why would affiliate window not intervene - everyone loses out (the merchant, the network, the affiliate)! i assume they’ve tried their best & been met with a ’sorry’ from toys r us. on the plus side for affiliates, ‘toys r us’ seems quite an uncompetitive term in Google UK’s natural serps.
sidenote: interesting that toys r us don’t even seem to bid on their own brand terms?
This is frustratingly ridiculous!
It could be that Affiliate Window have tried to educate them, and Toys R Us don’t want to listen. If this did happen, I doubt Affiliate Window would want to lose the relationship so just work on their terms.
Kerry, your comments on contact are interesting. I know over the past couple of years most networks seem to have upped their game and offer different levels of ‘management’. Unfortunately I’ve seen occasions where if a merchant isn’t on one of the better ‘management plans’ the contact is limited.
I must say though, from my point of view Affiliate Window have been great - we were one of the early merchants when they set up, and since I joined Buyagift 3 years ago the service has been superb.
Graham
Affiliate Window was the first network to introduce Toys r Us to the affiliate arena in the UK. Obviously our desire was for them to benefit from the partnership opportunities this brings but they were naturally cautious. This caution can often escalate the higher up the management chain one goes, which is definitely the case with TrU. Their Board required proof of incremental growth and have other considerations which come to bear, such as stock levels, budget, brand representation and their other online channels. This does create an overly restrictive programme, but over time we have been able to satisfy this request and open it up a bit more. The education of merchants goes hand in hand with this territory. Not everyone has the knowledge of the affiliates, so we can either choose to lambast them or take the time to teach them.
It is frustrating, but surely anyone can see that from a network perspective we lose out too on the revenue potential, but that’s better than losing a brand against uncontrolled affiliate activity or uninformed senior management. It’s less to do with a ‘big shiny trophy’ client and more to do with the fact that affiliate marketing makes up a smaller proportion of online sales for many merchants and an even smaller share against all sales. This merely indicates why it is often either over looked or considered an ‘addition’ to traditional forms of marketing and the budgets and attention these receive. Over time, the TrU programme has grown and will continue to do so. The performance is inline with the merchants expectations and we will see this develop further as they see the affiliate channel to be truly incremental business, so far.
Chris, I hoped you would be one to know that at AW we do our best for both affiliates and merchants where possible, but we are still all human. It often feels like 2 steps forward, 1 step back but we persevere for all parties concerned. Don’t let one issue (however annoying) paint a picture for a whole network, everyone at AW has worked extremely hard over the last 2 years to address concerns and issues but we only have influence over so much. I appreciate transparency, hence adding our own feedback to this blog.
Again, from an account management perspective we have looked to address previous issues. Self managed accounts now benefit from support via the account development team. Contact Peter Owens, Head of the account development team on peter.owens@affiliatewindow.com and he will offer some assistance.
Mark
Thanks for your reply. Just a couple of points…
1 - I and other affiliate know how the affiliate business model operates and as such we understand where we lose out, a network also loses out on revenue.
2 - I appreciate that overtime TrU has grown, however I would suspect that a lot of this is due to many affiliates PPC’ing their websites, unaware of the T&C’s. Many people expect not to be able to PPC direct to merchants, or on merchants names/brands, but to not be allowed to PPC your own website on terms such as CHRISTMAS TOYS this is NOT industry standard. Was this communicated to TrU or was it not challenged?
I know of many affiliates who are pushing TrU yet are unaware of these T&C’s, and if you were to take all these affiliates out of the equation, the program will most probably fall flat on its face!
3 - I appreciate how ALL networks work, and do their best for affiliates and merchants where possible and wouldn’t let 1 program change my perception as you can see from my stats this month. However I do sometimes feel that AW shoot themselves in the foot at times. A prime example of this was the response to ASOS coming back into the affiliate market following their NMA article. Many big affiliates said they hoped ALL networks would stick together and tell ASOS to sling their hook. AW response was that us affiliate should see this as an opportunity to ‘educate’ ASOS!
As I say, I would be very interested in #2 of my comments, and would be only too happy to be proven wrong.
Chris,
Agreed, you (and Kieron) make valid points. Regarding #2, it’s a stipulation made by the merchant and we did indeed inform them that this is not standard practice (but neither is budgeting or limiting the number of affiliates) and is also difficult to police. So whilst we will try to get affiliates to adhere to these T&C’s by their strict and unconventional nature it is nigh on impossible. This is the juxtaposition for us in that it is these very affiliates that will allow us to prove why TrU will be gaining additional presence from this exposure. We have already assembled a presentation for the next review to tackle this head on and I’m sure we’ll make headway. The programme still has a significant number of non PPC related affiliates with sales spread across the majority.
Regarding #3 and ASOS, AW did indeed take a stance. One of our super affiliates (a brand in its right) was keen to work with ASOS on a closed partnership basis and asked us to facilitate this. After the Nick Robertson comment we declined to take this forward. Word on the wire is that more then one network offered a deal to ASOS to handle their programme.
On the other hand I would still welcome the opportunity for the affiliate arena to ‘educate’ Nick which in essence means to prove him wrong. I still stand by my reply post on the a4u thread which highlights that ASOS was grown by affiliates and I would be interested to see how ASOS would fair against a new competitor in the market who uses affiliates as a growth channel.
In a recent issue of Retail Week there was a feature entitled ‘10 easy steps to online failure’. Nick Robertson was cited as number 5, Using Affiliate Marketing. This is one of the reasons why I feel a process of education can help otherwise peoples negative perceptions will continue to pervade a much wider audience.
As a final note, I can’t and wouldn’t want to prove you wrong. I would like however, for TrU to see they’ve been too restrictive and resolve this at source. Time will tell if we are successful.
Indeed Mark, time will tell. I and other affiliates sincerely hope you guy’s are successful in making TrU relax their current PPC policy.
[...] Toys R Us PPC rules - a year on has anything changed? A year ago Kieron and Frostie were blogging about how the Toys R Us programme on AW doesn’t allow ANY kind of PPC activity [...]