PlusOne - Musings of a marketer

I must admit, being a merchant participating in the ClixGalore program I was rather disgruntled to receive this email yesterday:

Dear Merchants,

In the interest of improving the performance of your program and showing a professional commitment to the Affiliates that are promoting your program, a new Merchant program minimum balance policy will be introduced on the 21/04/2006.

Merchants will have to maintain a minimum balance as per the table below. If a balance were to fall below the minimum balance level, all customer traffic generated by your Affiliates will be redirected away from your site.

Currency: Minimum Balance:

US Dollars $50

AU Dollar $65

UK Pounds £30

EU Euros €40

NZ Dollars $70

CA Dollars $60

JP Yen ¥6000

IN Rupees RS2250

Our research and Affiliate feedback indicates that by maintaining a reasonable balance, as detailed above, your program performance could improve. Affiliates will see that the Merchant is demonstrating a strong professional commitment to the valuable customer traffic they are driving to that Merchant’s website.

Yours Sincerely,

Jane Sweet

Customer Service Manager

Tel: USA:(716) 626-3414 / UK: + 44 01908 847077 / Australia: + 61 2 9006 1225

www.clixGalore.com ……..Solutions that boost revenue, sales, leads and hits to your web site.

No I am not a high flier at all - just a small player with my discount hotel accommodation site with banners paying 5c per click.

But I am especially confused by this line:

Our research and Affiliate feedback indicates that by maintaining a reasonable balance, as detailed above, your program performance could improve.

RI have a reasonable balance. Right up until I have $1 in my balance this will still be reasonable - besides - how can having more than this improve my program performance?
My satisfaction with the whole deal has been fairly flat. When I originally joined I thought, what the heck, put $150 in and I’ll just let it run and when the balance reaches $1, I’ll send a messsage to the affiliates saying the program is closing, please remove your banners.

At current clickthrough rates, this would give them over a fortnight to get the banners and text off. (This of course is indicative that despite having been with Clix for over a year I have only spent $40 - such is the capability of many affiliates to generate clicks - there are educational requirements here!!)

As for Clix, they charge $40 program deactivation fee - why? - They just need to spend 30 seconds to deactive the campaign.

Not so now….It seems I will have to blow the last $65 because Clix will treat the affiliates badly and not honour the clickthroughs to go through to the site (thus honouring their site visitor’s expectations). There is no mention if affiliate will still be paid, or where the clicks will lead to.

As we know, with most things computer, it only takes 30 seconds to do most things. Clix even wants to charge a US$40 fee to close down the account. With the backend development they have this is a huge ripoff. If they can set up click redirects when the balance reaches A$65 then it it equally easy to just stop the program when the balance reaches $0 or a figure that represents the outbound bill for commisssion style payouts (rather than we 5c per clickers).

In forums in the past I have indicated I have never been a great fan of affiliate networks from an affiliate perspective - now this is matched by my mood from a merchants perspective.

You need to lift your game ClixGalore, from both sides of the fence

COMMENTS/VIEWS are welcome