[webworker]

Even though I do agree that the issue discussed here should not be focused on any one party, but is an important area to discuss in public and gather people's opinions on the subject, I would sincerely appreciate you PM-ing your reasoning to me.

Geno

Geno, I can't give the reasoning without giving a specific about "techniques" and KW (which I won't do), but let's just say it's about "cross-pollinating" across niches and leave it at that.

As specific as I'll get on the matter at hand, based on posts done publicly in this thread:

Rhia7 promotes party supplies.
You signed on as an affiliate with a company and sold party supplies.
What if Rhia7 promotes party supplies for one of your programs?
Then you could well be competing against her.
You can't do that.

[Geno Prussakov]

No problem. I understand.

Originally Posted by Marcia

As specific as I'll get on the matter at hand, based on posts done publicly in this thread:

Rhia7 promotes party supplies.
You signed on as an affiliate with a company and sold party supplies.
What if Rhia7 promotes party supplies for one of your programs?
Then you could well be competing against her.
You can't do that.

My understanding was that it was just an illustration (that is why I have never replied to this specific example). If it weren't, rest assured that my focus with C.E. was solely on coupons (ask Renee if you do not believe me). Glad to be out of it though.

Thanks for the kick.

Geno

[redtagdeals]

Originally Posted by Marcia

However: affiliate managers of programs will know certain of that information. It isn't competitors that bother me, not one iota; it's the idea of affiliate managers who are privy to confidential information using it to become competitors, competing against the very people whose efforts they'e supposed to be supporting and partnering with.

Marcia - you are top notch.

I could not have said it any better.

[Rexanne]

Originally Posted by redtagdeals

My question to you, can you not enforce NETWORK QUALITY on affiliates (as well as merchants if I might add) to satisfy the needs of genuine merchants. That way, merchant needs of the quality can be ascertained while making sure the referral data is not freely thrown into the hands of unscrupulous competitors (especially affiliates disguised as merchants)

RTD - while I absolutely understand not wanting to show competitors our referring URLS, I also feel transparency is so important in this industry that I would not want to see less of it, but actually more for all parties.

I want merchants and managers (who aren't competing with me as an affiliate!) to know where and how I'm sending them traffic. Likewise, I would love to know what my visitors do after leaving my site and going the the merchant's site (so far, I've never been able to persuade a merchant to share this info though LOL).

I think it again boils down to TRUST (not you, Trust! ;-)) . When an affiliate has to wonder if a merchant or the merchant's program manager is foraging our site for potential competitive keywords or ideas, it kills the trust factor in the relationship and we will begin to feel the need to "hide" our sites and referring URLs to protect our niches. This is counterproductive to a good affiliate/merchant/manager relationship.

I do not begrudge anyone wanting to be an affiliate. I actually think anyone with a blog that is generating traffic would be silly not to, at the very least, throw some Adsense on it, however, the question for me is what are program managers doing with the information I'm readily sharing with them?!! Yes, competition is healthy and I think there's plenty to go around. Not everyone is going to create a site around the same things but when a trusted party has access to our "ideas" in the making, it's because we feel we are not competing in the same niches or in the same area of this business. Besides, as brought up by others, ideally, a manager should be focused on being a manager, not a competing affiliate.

I think OPMs, merchants, network employees and in house managers need to decide which side of the fence they're going to prop up. Anyone is free to start an affiliate site, hidden or in the open. Whether we continue to work with and/or trust you with our information is another story. If an OPM or manager isn't making enough money and wants to switch sides, by all means, jump into the ocean with us. We'll be more than generous and share the water. It just seems greedy and wrong to try to play both sides of the game, when doing so interferes with vital relationship trust, IMO.

[JudiMoore]

I've been thinking about this for awhile, trying to find an off line business example to illustrate how I feel about the very fine line we have here. There have been some really excellent points made and I agree with several of them on both sides of the issue.

I was thinking about regional sales managers, who typically are recruiting or hiring salespeople. They will all be working individually to sell the products of one or more companies. They may or may not be direct employees. They may or may not have a real employee relationship with that manager.

The regional manager may or may not continue to service his own accounts - it depends on the structure of the company. The bottom line for me is that the success of the program in that region is dependent on the ability of that manager to grow the sales, which would probably have the most long-term success if he developed the skills of the people and motivated them to succeed. This would have much greater reach than if he spent his time building his own personal account list. The "rules" about whether or not he had his own accounts would be part of his agreement with the company and the salespeople under him should and probably would have knowledge of what his job responsiblities included.

How do you develop salespeople? By knowing how to sell, how to teach and how to motivate. How do you learn those things? By doing them. I mention this because of Andy's message to his classroom - you can't manage this aspect of business if you don't know how to do it yourself.

Two things come to mind from the sales relationship above. The first has already been mentioned; who has time to sell AND manage AND recruit AND everything else involved in AM and OPM well? My thought is that you create success by action. If you spend your time managing, the results will show it. If you spend your time selling, you'll get better at it.

Here's the rub for me and it has also been brought up several times and in different ways. Off line, I can steal somebody's business idea and build my better mousetrap in the same territory, or I can sell my inferior mousetrap to people who live outside the influence of the more successful business. Online, the planet is pretty much our territory and we have the opportunity to influence as much of it as we are capable of figuring out.

Modern technology has made it possible to figure out what somebody else is doing, especially as my tech savvy grows. It was mentioned that there are keyword tools, traffic tools, content scraping tools - everything you need to break into another person's store and steal the "plan".

But when I partner up with someone, I do it with an expectation that we will work together to improve the bottom line for both parties. That takes trust and open conversation about the details of "how". There's also the paranoid expectation that the partner will turn out to be a hustler who screws it up and leaves me to clean up.

So, what happens? We end up creating little partnerships over and over again. Some work out beautifully. Some fizzle. What can an OPM do to make a partnership work?

- - Tell me everything I need to know about how to market the product. What's good about it? What's bad about it? How does it work? How does it ship? How much does it cost and why? Which ads work? Should I create a unique one? Is there room to work on the price or a coupon I can offer? Is the shopping cart hard to use?

I know you can't provide all of that for every product. Neither can a Regional Parts Manager. But that parts manager knows where to find out. Have a basic FAQ document. Know what has worked in the past. Know what sells in March. Know what gets returned. Don't expect that you can dump the crap stuff on me as a "featured product" and expect me to succeed as a newbie when the merchant can't sell the stuff either. Help me figure out how to sell this stuff.

--Spend your time developing tools and sharing them and showing us how to use them. I'm reminded of Carolyn Tang teaching so many of us how to use Web Merge. She put the presentation together, made it available, and then had a call where those of us that could spend the time watched her build a site and sell sporting goods. She used a "test account" so that no commissions would be paid as a result. Maybe a "test account" run by the OPM could accumulate bonus money for sales and management both.

I also remember how Geno created endless contests and promotions around things that would get affiliates looking around the merchant's site and getting to know the inventory. That's teaching. I think an OPM has to be willing to put himself "out there", but then we all have the choice of how much enthusiasm and overall handholding we need to stay motivated.

--Stop spending your time trying to figure out how to get in my face more often and spend your time developing materials I want to go get. There are managers here who keep sites current with the links, features, keyword ideas, content bits, etc. and they send me a monthly newsletter with a link to that page. I may not open every one, but when I need something, I certainly know to go look at the saved newsletter to get the link if I can't find my bookmark.

--If you figure out something that works, do TELL! But tell your affiliates, not the world. Give people a reason to want to be your affiliate. Developing your affiliates might mean teaching them something you wish you could save for yourself. That's when you have to decide what you want to be when you get up every morning.

--Don't share anybody's methods for anything. That might seem counter-intuitive to what I just said about teaching, but if you have an affiliate that really shines at one particular piece, then invite them to help you teach. Have them write an article that will give them backlinks, or invite them to speak on a call. Very few people are good at everything. Most people are very talented at something. It's just waiting to be discovered, developed and displayed.

That's the job of a sales manager. Discover new people, develop them into super salespeople, and then expose their talents to the world without blowing their business plan all to bits. Part of your job is helping them build and protect their business.

I imagine that there are many more combo OPM/Affiliates than we'll ever know. As we continue to discuss it openly, more and more merchants and affiliates will insist on some type of agreement or protections, or disclosure, but for now we have to each take care of our own business while we figure out this part of developing and changing our industry.

[redtagdeals]

Originally Posted by Rexanne

I think it again boils down to TRUST (not you, Trust! ;-)) . When an affiliate has to wonder if a merchant or the merchant's program manager is foraging our site for potential competitive keywords or ideas, it kills the trust factor in the relationship and we will begin to feel the need to "hide" our sites and referring URLs to protect our niches. This is counterproductive to a good affiliate/merchant/manager relationship.

I agree with everything you said, Rexanne.

In the current reality, given the issues raised in this forum recently, one has to do what they think is prudent and wise to protect their confidential info.

[redtagdeals]

Originally Posted by jmoore61103

I imagine that there are many more combo OPM/Affiliates than we'll ever know. As we continue to discuss it openly, more and more merchants and affiliates will insist on some type of agreement or protections, or disclosure, but for now we have to each take care of our own business while we figure out this part of developing and changing our industry.

Judi, awesome post.

My previous statement "In the current reality, given the issues raised in this forum recently, one has to do what they think is prudent and wise to protect their confidential info" is a simple reiteration of what you said more eloquently

[Kevin]

@ Steele:

I agree that OPMs could be affs ahead of being AMs/OPMs etc. In fact, I agree that we shouldn't really be doing it at all, but that's a personal decision for me. I don't begrudge my fellow AMs who do it, nor would I criticize them.

Your line in the sand is indeed hard to draw, just like the forced click one.

I guess it once again (and again and again and again) comes down the to singular principle that makes affiliate marketing such a great industry for affiliates: They decide who ends up on their site, and who doesn't.

I don't think it's a "rule" that can be made, as SAS/CJ/LS etc wouldn't know what programs an AM is managing if we didn't post it here, etc... And even then, I doubt they watch that closely

[mayfly]

Originally Posted by DaveAMWSO

I think the idea that you'll be able to keep everything secret is a fleeting idea, especially with the trend toward more open systems, more transparency. Affiliate Marketing is business, and ALL successful businesses get copied.

How about the AMs/OPMs who also play affiliate side open their affilte sites information to us, including where their best traffic come from, what products brought them the most commission...? Then we can play a fair game on the same level.

[DaveAMWSO]

Originally Posted by mayfly

How about the AMs/OPMs who also play affiliate side open their affilte sites information to us, including where their best traffic come from, what products brought them the most commission...? Then we can play a fair game on the same level.

AMs only only apply this information if they have an affiliate site within the same niche, correct?

Otherwise, an AM that has affiliate sites in a completely different niche outside of the program they manage have no competitive advantage or additional information that anyone else couldn't have....no?

Oh..and I agree....no issue with AMs having to open up their sites and have full disclosure on any affiliate sites they have. I'd suggest any affiliate ask any program AM directly if they have any affiliates sites and what are they. I'm all for FULL disclosure!!

[Rhia7]

Originally Posted by DaveAMWSO

AMs only only apply this information if they have an affiliate site within the same niche, correct?

Otherwise, an AM that has affiliate sites in a completely different niche outside of the program they manage have no competitive advantage or additional information that anyone else couldn't have....no?

If the AM is aware of/has knowledge of all the affiliate's sites then the AM could have an edge.

[webworker]

Wrong assumption, Dave.

Originally Posted by Rhia7

If the AM is aware of/has knowledge of all the affiliate's sites then the AM could have an edge.

Agreed! Especially if they know what's cross-selling. They would't need a website, they could just do DTM PPC and have an edge.

Sometimes "niches" can be more related or good for cross-promotion than some people realize, and it's unfair when one "side" has a proprietary, informed competitive edge.

There shouldn't be "sides." In the final analysis, it all comes down to ethics, commitment and trust.