Educating Merchants

[Ron Bechdolt]

I read an email from a CJ merchant today that said:

Due to business changes and economic factors [Company Name] is temporarily closing the Affiliate program. Effective 02/11/11, we will terminate the relationship with all [Company Name] publishers. Please cease in promoting [Company Name] immediately and remove all text and banner links by 02/11/11.

We appreciate your participation in this program and in 6 months we hope to re-open the [Company Name] affiliate program and re-engage with you. We will keep you informed of any changes as soon as we can. Thank you for your partnership and continued support!

If there are affiliates earning income with this merchant, they are of course going to be unhappy because of the lack of income and left scrambling on very short notice to find replacement links for their site(s). But what really bothers me is the "in 6 months we hope to re-open". Affiliates are not going to patiently wait for the merchant to maybe return, they are going to seek out replacement merchants and in the process maybe find ones that pay better. Should the merchant return, it will be worse that starting fresh as previous affiliates (including the top ones) probably won't touch this program. Time is money for affiliates and they won't want to risk putting up links again if there is a chance they will have to pull them down again. The merchants chance at getting a number of the best affiliates matched with their program is gone and very unlikely to rekindle those relationships.

I see merchants do this all the time. Presidents and CEO's who don't see the value of their affiliate program (or pay too much for their affiliate network), drop the program at will to help their bottom line temporary, but in the long run they are losing a wonderful team of outsourced employees who are now a bit bitter and/or skeptical.

Please feel free to share your experiences here as well, but don't name the companies directly. This is here in the hopes that merchants will see it and learn before they act.

 

[Ron Bechdolt]

Also, in writing your affiliates, be consistent. If you read the quoted text above, see the difference between the first and the second paragraph? The first paragraph is very firm using words like terminate, cease in promoting and immediately. Then the second paragraph is completely opposite, soft and gentle.

The merchant set the tone with the first paragraph and as much as he tried to be soft in the second, that part was lost after reading the first paragraph.

 

[giggleberries]

This is really bad and something I would never do as a merchant. Merchants need to understand that they should regard affiliates as though they are part of their in house team and respect them accordingly for the work they do in promoting a merchants products