The Next retail affiliate programme debacle - another perspective
Background
Rather than go into detail here, have a read of Frostie’s blog post. It sums up the history of the Next retail affiliate programme and the changes that have happened over the last few months that have led to pretty much universal condemnation by the affiliate community as a whole.
My opinion
I agree with most, the Next programme sucks big time. Why? For all the reasons mentioned in Frostie’s post, namely lowering commission just before Christmas - lowering commission rates is always a bitter pill to swallow, but to do it just before the busiest time of the year? Ouch! So for this reason (amongst others) I don’t promote Next on my sites and most probably never will.
So where is this “another perspective” then Kieron? You’re just saying the same as everyone else
Where my opinion differs is with all the people who are crying for blood from either Buy.at, Affilinet or iLevel. Now I’ve worked with all 3 of these companies and I know quite a few employees in each company - and I can hand on heart say they are all good people who understand Affiliate Marketing and are all striving to make the industry a better place. But….put yourself in their place. Next is a huge brand to have on your books and they will be paying Buy.at, Affilinet and iLevel good money for their services. So why on earth would any of those 3 parties put their head over the parapet and say that their clients are indeed treating affiliates badly and to put it mildly, not running their programme at full capacity? You just wouldn’t do it would you? Biting the hand off that feeds you springs to mind.
Having said that, I don’t know this for a fact but I’d like to wager a fair amount of petrol money that behind the scenes all 3 parties are “advising” Next of ways to improve their programme and deal with the issues raised in the community. And as a few others have pointed out, isn’t that why they get paid? To advise their clients on how to run a programme effectively? Yes of course it is. But haven’t you ever been in a position whereby despite all the great advice you give a client and despite all the arm twisting your client just DOES NOT LISTEN? I know I have. So what do you do then? You can’t publicly post on the A4U Forum and say “hey yeah we know that Next have made some mistakes and we are doing our best to resume normal service.” They would lose the account, simple as that. And as much as we sometimes like to think we live in some sort of Utopian world where money doesn’t matter and principles do - we don’t.
So as Frostie himself quite rightly says, lets not shoot the messenger. We can’t apportion blame to Buy.at, Affilinet or iLevel as their hands are tied. And as I said above, there is no doubt in my mind that they will be trying to get Next back on the straight and narrow - they just won’t be doing it in public.
Now, what really disappoints me…
…is the fact that when Next changed networks earlier in the year they actually made an appearance (a guy named Jonny from Next head office) on the ʎU forum and said hello. Great, they are at least attempting to smooth things over and make a fresh start, I mistakenly thought. Unfortunately not though as Jonny seems to have made his last post over a month ago on the 4th February. In my humble opinion I believe it should be Next themselves who should be answering the criticism levied at them. Of course it is their right to be silent but as they have already made an introduction on the forum then why suddenly go quiet when things get a bit hairy? If I were in their shoes I would either defend my business decisions or at least enter into a sensible dialogue as to why they operate the programme in the way they do. To stick their head in the sand (God I’m beginning to sound like Paul) and hope the problem will go away is just the wrong thing to do.
Reputation management
If nothing else Next need to respond as the more and more that we write about them the more and more virtual column inches will begin to appear on the web. Have you done a search for “Next affiliate” on Google recently? 5 of the first 10 results are negative press about the Next affiliate programme. Surely they don’t want this?
What should they do Next? (geddit?)
Whilst the A4U community doesn’t represent every affiliate marketeer in the UK it can be taken as a reasonably accurate straw poll of opinion in the sector. And as anyone who has read this thread or any of the various blog posts about this sad affair then its plain to see that we’re not happy. So may I humbly suggest that Jonny comes home (sorry, my puns are getting as bad as Jason’s) and rejoins the A4U community and opens the lines of communication. You never know, you may just win back some of the affiliates who you have lost in recent weeks.
What I’m listening to right now: DJ Felli ft Neyo, Kanye West, Fabulous, & JD – “Finer Things” Love this track!!
Post from: Affiliate Marketing Blog Here.org.uk
The Next retail affiliate programme debacle - another perspective
Original post by Kieron