Comments on: Merchants and bribing affiliates to change links

By: leuke filmpjes

leuke filmpjes — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:44:05 +0000

Just be good! To be good is different enough.

By: Autoverzekering

Autoverzekering — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 02:44:44 +0000

Its business :)

By: geld lenen

geld lenen — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 20:36:24 +0000

Big numbers = cash right? 1% of $100,= aint much, but 1% of $10.000.000,= is.

By: Toprank Marketing

Toprank Marketing — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 01:07:15 +0000

Ethics or Money. In the end you decide what is worth more. Some people choose ethics because they value the relationships more. Some people choose money because they don’t value the relationship as much as the money.

The other option is to make your own company and market it lol… i.e. buy a fleet of cars and hire them out yourself….and promote it… not many people have millions to invest though….

By: Residual income

Residual income — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 09:09:20 +0000

Its strange but I work with the same merchant which is available on different networks but has different commission per sale payouts, it would be better giving equal you would think.

By: Dave Bascom

Dave Bascom — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 23:29:25 +0000

I think it depends on the agreement the merchant has with the affiliate network. If you’ve agreed that you won’t go direct or that it’s an exclusive deal, they should abide by that, but if they are simply using it as one of their channels, I don’t see any problem with creating a direct relationship. As long as you haven’t signed a contract saying something different, I look at it like hiring a contractor or temp employee and then deciding to hire them full time and put them on the payroll. You can pay them more and actually save money because you cut out the temp agency.

By: Geld Lenen

Geld Lenen — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 16:59:48 +0000

I would probably cut out the middleman. However, you could lose a LOT of goodwill among the network if the affiliate disagrees with your offer and reports it to the affiliate network.

In the Netherlands it forbidden that you directly contact affiliates, and your agreement says that clear.

By: julian

julian — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:36:47 +0000

Im tota;ly unimpressed with these affiliate neworks so far. Most of the affiliates have rough, amature sites, run by plebs that bring no decent traffic – and yet I stupidly continue to pump momney into it…. confused:: :/

By: Sucker

Sucker — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:19:18 +0000

Also interesting is if an affiliate calls up the merchant and says, “fancy working direct so I can get higher commissions?” Affiliates are probably happy to cut out the middleman ASAP too.

I don’t think it’s that much different than if the affiliate contacts the merchant directly without even signing-up through a network in the first place. It’s just “oh, I see they are open to having affiliates, I should contact them to work directly since I can send volume.”

By: rjleaman

rjleaman — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 12:54:22 +0000

This is indeed an interesting ethics question! Certainly, the “middle man” network should be adding value to the business relationship – but then, the investment of resources that goes into establishing those relationships in the first place has a value, as does the software-run service that maintains the relationship. Someone has made an investment there. Thus, while the main input may be upfront, I think it’s fair to say that the value-added (or some part of it) remains as long as the business relationship continues. It might be one thing for the affiliate site to contact an advertiser/merchant directly, although even that feels a bit shady in the case of a pre-existing relationship that was brokered through a network – but for the merchant to bypass the network, that feels to me like a giant step over the ethics line.