Is There Really a Need For Transparency In Affiliate Marketing?
Recently I keep hearing about “the need for transparency” in affiliate marketing. While it might sound good I wonder what exactly these companies are talking about.
Thinking about it from a advertiser perspective I can’t think this sounds to attractive… I mean you need to have an unknown margin. Lets be honest this is just not ever going to happen where its revealed exactly what the affiliate company is getting paid and paying and what affiliates are making.
From a publisher perspective personally it somewhat bothers me thinking my data would be shown in conjunction with others to display average payouts… I mean most newbs who signup are not going to have a clue how to get those kind of CPC’s. So its about as worthless as commission junctions “Bar” system.
Or maybe I am just thinking about this all wrong. Maybe transparency refers more to the people behind the company and how they relate to their users. John Reese just did a really good post about this type of transparency called “Transparency is the future of Business“. There is really only 1 affiliate marketing company doing this sort of transparency which is the pepperjamnetwork who do a weekly video with one of their team members.
Whats your thoughts on transparency in affiliate marketing?
- 60 Comments. What say you?
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I am not 100% sure what transparency people are pushing for in the affiliate realm either. I assume it is letting affiliates know more about how the company operates, pays, and determines the affiliates it approves. In affiliate marketing, I don’t see it as a big help, but maybe I am missing the point as well.
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Transparency is very important when money is involved in any kind of negotiation. If you don’t know what’s going on how you know if you’re not being fooled by the affiliate program. By the way I joined pepperJam and they are really good.
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from my perspective transparency means all the detail that the each advertiser sees about each impression, click, and sale is made avalaible to the affiliates. people need to trust the data and holding some of it back like almost all of the companies do leads to mistrust and doubt. Not something you want in a partnership. I could care less about the comparisons across affiliates or how much the affiliate company is getting paid etc.
I just want to have all of the information associated with the deal that the company has made with me that they have access to!
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Transparency is key in affiliate management. Recruiting affiliates is still a guessing game and the risk at hand is huge for the affiliate network and the advertiser on the given network. I have recently partnered with PepperJam and the way they have built their network is conducive to the needs of an advertiser and an OPM like myself. PepperJam knocked it out of the park with their communication tool, Pepperjam chat , and other tools necessary to keep a program running as smooth as possible.
The cloak and dagger days of affiliate marketing are mostly behind us and affiliates are starting to embrace the idea of true transparency in this business. More collaboration between networks and affiliates is the key to success in this business. Trust goes hand in hand with transparency and you need both to be a top notch affiliate manager, advertiser or network.
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This “transparency” could be interpreted in many ways, methinks it would be a good idea to get more clarify of what exactly was meant with this statement, as it is leading to a lot of debate….could be quite suicidal if referring to matters financial, one’s profit is one’s own business…..let’s sit back and see how long these guys last…
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To be ethical, the products have to be sold exactly as what was being promoted instead of using word play or deceptive advertising to earn customers’ money.
http://seventoten.com
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Transparency (the way John Reese wrote about it) might be an effective way for new companies and bloggers to differentiate themselves online. But the “old world” companies will definitely resist it. Would be nice if we can get Haliburton to post their stuff for transparency’s sake.
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I always thought transparency was saying that link is an affiliate link if you’re using one. But, I’ve never really seen the point. It’s not costing the customer more if they’ve followed an affiliate link, I don’t see what people have against them.
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What’s wrong, man? Got something to hide?
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and has nothing to do with transparency… btw quit spamming your link you look like a jackass
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Of course I have stuff to hide…. I dunno any affiliate marketer who want to protect *some* trade secrets.
Also why in the hell would I want to share with the world the return I am getting on a campaign when they have not done any of the work or risked any ppc money to do it themselves?
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Good comment there Jeremy. If you don’t have anything to hide, it simply is because you don’t have anything in my opinion. I don’t get the need for transparancy eighter btw.
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I would love to know your secrets or get some advice/tips for free. However, I have never heard of any company wanting to expose any of the stuff they do internally for free. People pay good money for that kind of information. Elite Retreat for one and the other thousand of seminars around the country.
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Theres transparency as a PR move, and there is transparency in the literal sense. From a PR standpoint, great, talk it up.
From a reality standpoint, forget it. When running an information-based business, there is little desirable about being transparent. Affiliates can be copied fairly easily. So can affiliate advertisers, and they are.
In direct response to John Reese’s post — being transparent about the internals of your company is great, if your company is wonderful to work for. Don’t pay your employees so great? Might want to think twice about letting everyone know who they are, or you may find them working at a competitor next month.
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Don’t you think though that is why that type of transparency for companies that do treat their employees good is important?
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Nobody can say who is transparent and who is not.
But yes, Pepperjam looks good and i am using it.
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I’ve never been too concearned with “transparency” when joining an affiliate program. For me the proof is always in the pudding - I join, I test it out, I tweak it, and I see how much money I made. If I made money or think I can in the future I keep at it. I ultimatly don’t care what their margins are or what sort of click rate of sign ups or what else of value they might get out of my traffic. I just try enough things and pick the one that works me - and all I need to see is the check at the end of the month.
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As a large affiliate and network, often transparency leads to people wanting to cut you out or you wanting to cut someone else out, unless the margin is so small then neither side cares. Sure many people don’t want to deal with 100 small affiliates but if you are large they often want you direct or you want them direct. I know of some cases, like Jeremy alludes to that you don’t want transparency for many reasons or you don’t want to deal with some advertisers direct because they are a pain in the balls or slow payers, etc.
I laugh because if you are a decent size affiliate when you “go around” a network to an advertiser most advertisers are happy to work with you. Don’t know why networks would want to offer easier access to be middled out. Let’s face it much of the business out there is one scrappy person brokering an angle or traffic from one source to another. By offering transparency you can just be giving away your edge.
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The push without thinking. Some people speak before thinking. Transparency is just the latest buzz word.
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Maybe transparency shows the potential you can make through the program.
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A lack of transparency sometimes creates a lack of trust by the affiliate . I say give the affiliate as much information regarding their own performance; however, you don’t have to divulge trade secrets. Lets say you own an affiliate program that accepts “qualified” leads; however, only 30% of the leads sent by the affiliate is deemed qualified. If you’re not providing your affiliate information as to why 70% of his leads are getting thrown out, you’ve essentially created a huge cloud of suspicion. When was the last time you thought your affiliate program was scrubbing leads?
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I always think they are scrubbing/shaving leads. I think they all do it. Course I might be a little paranoid
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Why not put a big button saying who is paying you to plug stuff??
Doug:)
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Affiliate marketing in general can be pretty shady at times but the transparency does eliminate some aspect of it.
I dont know. I like the system how it is.
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I know at least of a couple that have “misfires” on a consistent basis… Its bound to happen with every aff network.
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This whole transparency-debate is bullshit, because intransparency does not make a good program anymore unprofitable than transparency makes a bad programm profitable.
Whoever thinks that transparency will earn him more money has failed to consider the free market situation that he is operating in.
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I always think they are scrubbing/shaving leads.
That’s what I’m talking about. In terms of transparency, I dont need to know the inner workings of the networks, campaigns, and other affiliates. However, I would like to know that there is someone independently verify the fact that when a lead is generated, the affiliate gets paid.
I mean for all many of us know, we are sending more qualified leads than we are being paid for. There’s really know way we would ever be able to know. And there’s no grievance process that I am aware of with most networks.
This comes up especially when you know you have sent hundreds, if not thousands of clicks to an advertiser and not one converts? Gets a little fishy.
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Transparency for me means a full lead footprint; including how the customer was sourced, method and what terminology, what landing page the customer filled out, etc. An advertiser should have full view access to this info. They should be restricted from not stealing it, but they also have a right to view it.
In offline advertising, an advertiser can see exactly that. You can drive by a billboard, or buy a newspaper and see how your brand is being advertised, in what context, etc. Not so on online advertising; why? Probably because the traffic quality is not that high in affiiate marketing, especially in certain channels. Most networks have on interest in realling taking off the robes and showing that they can’t really support top-tier brands because their traffic sucks.
There’s no question that in the industry that exists today that type of transparency is somewhat of a stretch. However, as more and more big brand advertisers join the CPA game, small time advertisers that are interested in scraping money from any which source (including ripping off their affiliates) will be replaced with 100 million dollar ad budgets that are currently out of the realm of CPA Affiliates.
Just because you haven’t heard of us Jeremy, doesn’t mean we don’t exist
At Performline, we’re building exactly the type of network that people mean when they talk about transparency, but never follow through. We built full lead footprint technology.
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Transparency for me means a full lead footprint. From exactly where the customer is sourced, to what wording was used to call them to action, the lead form they filled out, etc.
In tranditional advertising, that is all available to the advertiser. You can watch the tv ad on the channel airing it, you can buy the newspaper, you can drive by the billboard. Not so in online advertising. Why? I believe it is because some of the traffic sources are not that high in quality, and a lot of deceptive practices are still being used to drive profit margins up.
Yes, in the CPA marketplace of today, there is the danger of small time advertisers attemping to circumvent affiliaties and duplicate what you are doing. I believe that will become a moot point as the marketplace is changing and will look dramatically different in the future. If transparency is provided, more big brand 100mil+ budget advertisers will be joining the CPA/CPL space. Those type of advertisers require full awareness of their traffic sources to protect their brands, and they have the ad budgets to make it worth your while if you do provide that level of transparency.
A lot of talk about transparency in regards to the establishment providing it is mere lip service, the major networks will never provide that type of transparency because they are not willing to walk away from the fat margins they’ve built themselves up on shoddy traffic.
Just because you haven’t heard of us Jeremy, doesn’t mean we don’t exist
At PerformLine we’ve built a network to do just that. We have technology that provides full lead footprint transparency, and we police a very clean network on both sides of the spectrum.
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Im w/pepperjam these days and cant really see whats the difference of their aff program from others… and have seen nothing
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no, its more than a word buzz i feel..
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Just ask Joel Comm about his latest Adsense Book product launch and the importance of transparency. 45n5 busted him and he made a round of apologies. And I still love it that he used the apologies as another opportunity to sell. Heck, made me buy the book.
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How do you get transparency in any business for that matter from the outside looking in? Whether the company is online or offline, all can look good until we find out otherwise. In reality the only complete transparency in a company is that company to go public and have the full range of accountabilities, AGM’s, etc, as per many offline companies. What it will take will be some sort of huge online blowout of somekind where lots of people lose lots of money and the governments of the world will need to step in a legislate accordingly. This happened to a small extent with the dot com blowout but did not go far enough. I don’t know when or where it will happen but it will - because it always does !
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id rather you just assume they all pay and use your head
see disclaimer
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I rather have the privacy
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Um, no. There is no need for it. Free markets will take care of unethical bastards.
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Nice call out!! I can’t STAND these people that spam their own blogs. Offer something of value. Comment on this post and relate it back to the content of your blog. Offer a thoughtful analysis fo this post. DO SOMETHING. But stop spamming your lame-ass link.
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Pepperjam is supposed to be better. I’m going to sign up with them.
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So the basic lesson learned is trust no one. Not even your affiliate manager cause they’re usually the first to screw you over. Some of those guys are real snake oil salesmen. It’s a shame it has to be like that though. I’m not saying that as an affiliate industry, we all need to sit around the camp fire singing Kumbaya, but I think more needs to be done to build trust in the system. I think more transparency does it.
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I’m not sure I where I stand on this issue one way or the other. How much transparency is really needed and how much is too much? I’ll have to ponder this question further.
~Terry
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Transparency- I not sure my take on this. there are truths in numbers. it important that all terms and payouts arew disclosed.
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So we assume everyone pays, care to put up a rate card?
Doug
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Jeremy - I’m not sure how PJ’s “meet someone who works here” videos = transparency, especially since Kris hasn’t produced any in over 2 months. The network launched, at which time those videos stopped.
What transparency means is different to everyone. For example, one CPA network, RevenueLoop, shows you exactly what their cut is from their advertisers. They list a payout rate (e.g. $50), and then based on how much volume you have in their network per month, they’ll pay you anywhere from 75-90% of that rate they list.
There’s also transparency in terms of affiliates being able to see how certain advertisers do - Linkshare doesn’t give affiliates EPC or “earnings bars”, but CJ does.
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This reminds me of the time ZANGO joined our affiliate program and made (stole) over $80,000 by hijacking our Google ads, sites of other affiliates (overwrote their cookie) and even our own site by pushing their affiliate tracking link through whenever our product keyword was detected…Thieving punks.
I wonder if they’re still up to the same racket?
-Cullen
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well, i really don’t know about this transparency…
it really confusing
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OMG, can you imagine that….or better still, the government actually showing some transparency….government is meant to be the servant of the people after all…..hahahahah
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Exactly. Well put, Shoe. No serious business person would be so naive as to willingly bare all for everybody to peruse at their leisure. Giving or sharing trade secrets that one has worked very hard for is just plain silly.
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Transparency for Affiliates is equally as important as it is for Advertisers. As an Affiliate who is running offers in a compliant manner, both compliant with the advertisers terms and conditions and with FTC and AG best practices, your CPCs and CPAs are being dragged down by any and all the non-compliant affiliates in the same blind network that are running the same offers. Here is generally what happens, an advertiser comes to a blind affiliate network and negotiates a payout based on a blend of traffic. Some of the traffic is worth significantly less then the payout, and some of course is worth significantly more. If your traffic is worth more ( longer LTV, higher quality, less fraud) you as an affiliate are subsidizing all the low quality affiliates. A full real time transparency platform like what PerformLine is launching, allows affiliates to earn their true value from the first click or lead the generate.
This is the same dynamic that forced Google’s Adsense program to migrate from a blind network to site specific Placement-Targeted basis. Publishers with high quality content were subsidizing all the low quality content pubs and dragging down the CPC’s that advertisers were willing to pay. For example; Stub Hub is willing to pay a higher CPC for traffic off of ESPN then they are from Joe’s Pub Softball team’s site.
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and that our comments help to line his pockets
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Aren’t we all here trying to make money, why moan if somebody is being paid to promote something?
Ethics are best left out of internet marketing, if you don’t take the money somebody else will.
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Hahaha yeah, that gave him a little extra publicity for the thing and I’m sure a few more people purchase after his apology.
~Terry
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I had a very bad experience with widgetbucks referrals.
I got 30 referrals and no earnings. Thats strange. This was during the start of WB.
I mailed for the support but they never replied. So i was sure that they are cheating. And i am sure that was the main reason for their decline.
So transparency is always necessary for success.
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I am for transparency. Full disclosure will force the “bad guys” out.
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I am not a fan of transparency. Why do people need to know what you are making from your affiliate programs? Honest it means little. I am not new to affiliates and I know I cannot come close to your CPC so why do I need to know it? What does it accomplish?
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They’re just trying to add some mystery to the AM industry.
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Thats a great point… but then i think its the affiliat progarms who like transparency. they want to see the blackhats…
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Pepperjam they are new to the game aren’t they?
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Transparency does seem like a can of worms, with loads of comments and interpretations as to what exactly is encompassed by the term. I personally feel that it is a cheap shot aimed at gaining an unfair competitive advantage by having insight into your financial workings.
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The merchant will require that some things be kept hidden. Not only for business privacy matters, but just to keep prying eyes from looking over some of their numbers. If they put everything out on the table, then it can be reverse engineered and exploited. This is why I don’t think you’ll ever see 100% transparency.
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I am pretty sure that in most cases transparency is neccesary in some ways to succeed, even in reputable companies
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