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The big, ugly affiliate marketing scam

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Re: The big, ugly affiliate marketing scam

#21
I don't follow.

Where did the extra $200K in sales come from and why is he not happy about it? It sounds like there is a pool of customers that will not finish the purchase unless they can google "kogan coupon" and hit few coupon sites beforehand (even if to leave these sites emptyhanded). So the affiliates appear to help convincing on-the-fence visitors and push sales to completion. If anything, it's a clever hack. Not sure why he's so pissed.

Re: The big, ugly affiliate marketing scam

#23

I was expecting to read about click fraud, but it was just a newbie's experience with running an affiliate program. Kogan had some wild expectation that the majority of affiliate traffic would be first-time visitors to his site. When he uses google analytics to estimate that only 1.6% of referrals were new customers, he trashes affiliate marketing as a business. Unfortunately, he spent no time thinking about how to o…

While you raise some important points, but I think the key complaint was that the author felt scammed by the 20% commission they were paying the affiliate program vendor for sales they would already have made. While these programs may have potential benefits, a 20% commission probably does not reflect the value provided to Kogan.

Re: The big, ugly affiliate marketing scam

#24
post #21

I don't follow. Where did the extra $200K in sales come from and why is he not happy about it? It sounds like there is a pool of customers that will not finish the purchase unless they can google "kogan coupon" and hit few coupon sites beforehand (even if to leave these sites emptyhanded). So the affiliates appear to help convincing on-the-fence visitors and push sales to completion. If anything, it's a clever hack.…

There is no extra $200k (which should have been the first sign -- "we're making $200k less, but the affiliates are making $200k more!").

And since they don't actually give out a coupon, it's doubtful it helps anyone but the affiliates.

Re: The big, ugly affiliate marketing scam

#25
post #21

I don't follow. Where did the extra $200K in sales come from and why is he not happy about it? It sounds like there is a pool of customers that will not finish the purchase unless they can google "kogan coupon" and hit few coupon sites beforehand (even if to leave these sites emptyhanded). So the affiliates appear to help convincing on-the-fence visitors and push sales to completion. If anything, it's a clever hack.…

I can't speak to what is actually happening but I can correct your misunderstanding. The author thinks that the users who had visited affiliates' fake discount code sites (and not found discount codes) would have completed their transaction anyway if those sites had not existed.

Re: The big, ugly affiliate marketing scam

#26

I was expecting to read about click fraud, but it was just a newbie's experience with running an affiliate program. Kogan had some wild expectation that the majority of affiliate traffic would be first-time visitors to his site. When he uses google analytics to estimate that only 1.6% of referrals were new customers, he trashes affiliate marketing as a business. Unfortunately, he spent no time thinking about how to o…

To his credit, he'd already established that changing commissions from 10% to 5% to 1% made almost no difference to the affiliate schemes behaviour. It seems reasonable to assume that "optimising his campaign to reward affiliates" for any particular behaviour is unlikely to be worthwhile, if 50% and 90% reductions in payouts dosn't motivate them to change anything...

Perhaps an "experienced affiliate marketing user" might get different results, but if you're suggesting that a business who'll mislead you and rip you off happily unless you're a sophisticated-enough user of their service deserves a "trashing" any less than used car salesmen deserve their reputation – I think you're wrong. If _you_ come to me knowing your proposal involves you taking 10% commission on sales - where 98.4% of those sales were mine already, I'd call you out as a thief.

Re: The big, ugly affiliate marketing scam

#27
post #21

I don't follow. Where did the extra $200K in sales come from and why is he not happy about it? It sounds like there is a pool of customers that will not finish the purchase unless they can google "kogan coupon" and hit few coupon sites beforehand (even if to leave these sites emptyhanded). So the affiliates appear to help convincing on-the-fence visitors and push sales to completion. If anything, it's a clever hack.…

I came here to ask the same question. The post comes across as if those $200k were on top of baseline revenues.

Re: The big, ugly affiliate marketing scam

#28
post #9

So where did the 200K come from? Or did the sales just remain at status quo, while the affiliate claimed an increase in sales? In which case, why didn't the alarm bells ho off right that second?

Person doing the advising was obviously clueless. What happened should have raised a red flag right away.

Re: The big, ugly affiliate marketing scam

#29
post #12

You have a discount code at your checkout? So basically instead of capturing the sale you're ASKING the buyer to google for discount codes. Think of a sneakier way to give people discount codes that doesn't show it RIGHT THERE ON THE FORM. It makes me feel like I'm getting ripped off when I see discount code and I don't have one.

His response to this doesnt surprise me at all, completely misses the point of the problem but still manages to blame someone else for it.
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