R.O.EYE Blog

By Danny Roche, Programme Assistant, R.O.EYE

The first month working at R.O.EYE has been a very eye-opening experience to say the least. Before I started here if anyone asked me to run an affiliate programme my response would have been- “No thanks, I did the Krypton Factor last weekend, I’m shattered.” How naive I was.

Cashback –site, aggregator, merchant, affiliate- what had I let myself in for? These are the words that haunted my dreams for the first two weeks at R.O.EYE but now they are regular words used in my vocabulary. Some people say to learn more about affiliate marketing you should visit blogs regularly and check out the up to date information on the industry, which is true, but I have learnt almost everything I know from my colleagues and also our very informative training days.

From my experiences so far, the affiliate marketing industry is all about building strong relationships with key people that can make your programme a success. A bond has to be built with your merchant, your affiliates and also the networks as they can provide useful information on managing different types of programmes. The ideal scenario is to be in the office managing your programmes for half of the month and for the other half be out wining and dining your key affiliates. We can always dream….

By building these strong relationships with your affiliates you may call upon them to compromise at times but be wary that they are more than likely going to do the same. Affiliates may be prepared to promote a programme they are unsure of if there is a bond of trust, and similarly this can go the other way when affiliates need something extra from their agency, e.g. client/merchant requests.

There are always chances to build these relationships and do a bit of networking such as gallivanting at Expos or going out to lunch with affiliates and merchants. This is all an important part of the wonderful world of the affiliate marketing industry that I have not yet tasted and I am very very hungry.

To end my first blog entry I will introduce my not yet famous “Tip of the month” section. This tip is for all of the new beginners here at R.O.EYE.

Tip# 1: Speak to every employee working in the office as they can teach you a lot about affiliate marketing and the different verticals (finance, retail, travel etc). You should get a good grasp of everyone’s programmes so you will firstly be able to inform affiliates of these programmes and also be able to cross sell between your areas and your colleague’s areas.

By Richard Wright, Programme Exec, R.O.EYE

In August I will be launching 3 affiliate programmes for a new merchant here at R.O.EYE. We will be running these both on a closed and open network and I got to wondering… what is the general perception of this kind of strategy in the affiliate community? Are the benefits and drawbacks of both widely understood? To throw my two pence worth out there I’ve put together some observations which may help to explain some of the thought processes involved.

In my experience merchants face two very important considerations when deciding on which strategy to employ depending of course on the industry and product, and these are typically reach and control.

For example, a non-premium branded retail merchant will be more concerned with driving sales than brand compliance and have few reservations about allowing affiliates from as many different genres join the programme as possible. In contrast a premium-branded, FSA regulated finance merchant will need considerably more control over the programme as they need to consider compliance as well back-end quality if the programme is paying out per lead for example.

Closed networks offer the merchant a good degree of control because the affiliate manager or agency can keep affiliates close and develop mutually beneficial working relationships with them. Good communication then facilitates effective programme optimisation from a quality perspective and compliance management, ticking two very important boxes.

Another big box to tick is of course volume of sales (or leads) and for this it helps to have access to large numbers of affiliates. Open networks offer considerably more reach in terms of accessing affiliates and depending on the network can attract specialist affiliates in a variety of different verticals. Other benefits include the extremely valuable add-on services such as XML product feeds, widgets, APIs, etc which can be of huge benefit and often integral to making the programme a success.

However it is also true that these add-ons are not always required and in some instances are left completely redundant, which then brings into question the justifiability of the network override. This becomes a very important consideration where for example the programme objectives involve working to a cost-based KPI.

If only a standard tracking solution is required then a closed network is preferable as this eliminates the inflationary impact of network overrides and creates cost efficiencies. This means the programme is not inhibited in its ability to deliver to the cost based KPI and the maximum commissions can be passed on to attract, recruit, and nurture top performing affiliates.

In summary it’s very much ‘horses for courses’ but decisions whether to run an affiliate programme on a closed, open, or mixed strategy often stem from some of the considerations covered in this blog. In all instances however the decisions made must satisfy the merchant objectives and provided that is the case there will always be a successful programme for affiliates to be part of.

By Daniel Austin, Programme Executive R.O.EYE.

The relationship and open communication channels between affiliates and agency staff is a top priority. This becomes even more apparent when trying to recruit affiliates on to existing or newly opened programmes. Affiliates are very busy people with limited time for all of those affiliate programmes that exist. I have outlined what I think are a few key points to think about when trying to recruit those more allusive of affiliates.

Out Lining The Programme.

Asking yourself what an affiliate needs to know is your first step. Is the merchant relevant to there site? What would make the affiliate push this programme above others they maybe already promoting. Other important points that affiliates need to know are commission structures, cookie length, EPC’s and, if its an existing programme how well is the programme performing.

Affiliates will frequent forums and blogs to do there own research on existing programmes, especially the A4U Forum, If there has been a problem with a programmes let the affiliate know. Be open, honest and upfront at all times. If there is limitations to the programme then let the affiliate know from the start. These things will make an affiliates mind up when choosing to promote your merchant and also help build a trusting relationship.

Listening to your affiliates.

They are (usually) experts in this field and their thoughts and ideas can be solid affiliate gold. Listen to there concerns take on board there ideas and if necessary go back to the merchant and outline them. Get to know you affiliates and there sites on a personal level. Find out how they plan to promote your merchant (SEO, PPC, Email Campaigns) find out if you can assist them in any way. Offering advice and practical solutions for things like where to place creative and tips on how to generate more traffic can be invaluable to affiliates, especially if they are entering a new sector for the first time. Growing there sites and generating more conversion for them will ultimately grow your programme.

You will often find affiliate sites will be suitable for more than one programme. Cross selling is of huge importance to us at R.O.EYE, and should be to any agency. If an affiliate is promoting say bank accounts on there site they may want to think about loans or credit cards as well.

Recruitment is only the beginning, don’t stop there.

Different affiliates prefer different methods of communication. Some only stick to emails or MSN. Others prefer a chat over the phone, some affiliates prefer none of these and opt for the silent treatment. Either way don’t be to pushy, find out the best method for your affiliate and keep them update on all aspects of the programme. This is ultimately a working business relationship and good communication will benefit all parties.

Remember the objective with affiliates is to develop long term business relationships….

By Richard Wright, Programme Executive R.O.EYE

As if affiliates, networks, and agencies involved with promoting loans and credit programmes don’t have enough to worry about what with the ever increasing costs involved for paid search, the credit crunch, and the sheer level of competition out there, they also have the worry of falling foul of the various financial regulations.

Affiliates can run the risk of being removed from a programme, but ultimately of course it is the merchant who may suffer the most from any issues of non-compliance as they can suffer hefty penalties, and in extreme cases have their trading license revoked altogether.

From speaking with finance merchants personally I know that this is a massive headache for them, it is an issue that troubles them all the way up to board level and can effect their decision whether to embark on an affiliate programme at all. In fact some merchants believe that affiliate marketing exposes them to non-compliance as they feel there is little control over what their affiliate partners are doing.

A pro-active response to the problem is therefore required, and I think it is vital for everyone involved with promoting loans and credit programmes to be aware of the issues and demonstrate that they are committed to being compliant.

I believe by doing this we can all help to present a more professional image of the industry, making finance merchants more comfortable (therefore more willing), to allocate more of their marketing budget to the affiliate channel.

BTW, “20 Seconds to Comply!” was a line from Robocop and a song by Silverbullet for those still scratching their heads!!

By Colin Telford, Affiliate Director, R.O.EYE

OK, I’ll be the first to admit that the journey into work this morning wasn’t my best ever. But then again, 2nd January has never really been my favourite day of the year. It was only made slightly better because the roads were not as busy as usual, due to plenty of holidays and sickies by the look of it. However, on arriving at our office on Oxford Road, it was more than the heating that gave me a really warm feeling. It was Revolution magazine’s Agencies and Suppliers Survey 2007 that really cheered me up.

Being “Focused on Results” is our strap line and I think that the secret really is out now having come joint first in the Return On Investment section of the results. Backed up with a joint second in Data Collection, joint third in Account Management, a strong position for Technical Support and in the top thirty for every other category, we’ve really shone through as a serious contender in the direct response agency arena.

In our three years of existence we have continued to ensure that all of our client’s budgets are spent in the most cost effective way. This means setting realistic yet efficient CPA’s based on the products on offer, whilst maximising the delivery of results. Following effective cost and commission structuring, we can ensure that account managers are at hand for both client and supplier queries. There is no ticketing system, unfair prioritisation, answering machines or call screening - just an account manager on hand when you need one. Further to that, our support departments know our client’s programmes too. This means that the team can work to effectively deal with any queries and provide realistic responses. This is what we have been doing so far and what we will continue to do moving forward. It’s the way that we know clients want to be managed.

So a huge well done to the team here at R.O.EYE. and thank-you to all of our clients who cast positive votes for us. Happy New Year!

By Mark Kuhillow, Managing Director, R.O.EYE

When we founded R.O.EYE in October 2004, we were pioneers in the affiliate space, who believed that the fledgling industry represented a big opportunity. It seems that we were right, as three years on the affiliate market is booming and we are now the largest affiliate marketing management agency in the UK! We’re now well beyond our third birthday, and the time seems right to look back at how far the industry has come already in its brief history.

The huge difference in the affiliate market of today and that of three years ago is perfectly illustrated by the A4U Christmas Party in 2004. The event was populated by young affiliates and their families, all of whom were excited about what the future would bring. Some light networking was followed by various games - designed to appeal to the attendees’ competitiveness. I would estimate that there were maybe a hundred people there, the vast majority affiliates who had come along to enjoy themselves and not take anything too seriously.

There was some business talk, but no mention at all of RFIs (Requests For Information) or RFPs (Requests for Proposal). Affiliates, clients and agencies were content to just sit down, discuss their existing projects and try to see where value could be added. There was no strategy behind it at all. This was where R.O.EYE differed - we were the first in the UK to introduce an account management service that provided a strategic approach focused on the needs of both the affiliate and the client.

2005 marked the rise of the Pay Per Click (PPC) affiliates. Due to a commercially aggressive business model, they rapidly began to account for a significant slice of online advertising share. However, Google did respond to this trend by raising the bar for affiliates. To that point, if you had entered any random search term, you would have been presented with a link informing you that one was live on their auction site - which, after much exhaustive searching, you swiftly realised it wasn’t.

At this point, the market dynamics began to change, as corporate money was making its presence felt. PPC affiliates were making significant sums, which allowed them to invest in PPC, Development and SEO teams to broaden their product portfolio. Google for one made no secret of the fact that is was more than happy for affiliates to make money through its system - they were making a solid contribution to its Profit and Loss sheet.

More recently, some affiliates have guaranteed their success by building rich content sites, which add true value to the consumer journey. Affiliates such as Flightmapping spring to mind - great sites which offer a unique service on the web.

There is a caveat to all of this, however, and that is the increasing number of affiliates who are being forced to abandon the industry, for various reasons. I have seen many who have announced their decision to move on - either because of overly aggressive competition, higher click prices or simply the long term impact of working alone. Many of these have been people who were there right at the beginning of the industry, and it is sad to see them go.

So where does this leave us? My own view is that the inevitable consolidation of ’super-affiliates’ (however this is fundamentally defined) will continue as traditional market forces take affect. Those with a strong proposition will further enhance their position in the market, while I would expect to see those affiliates who have built up funds to look for new ways to invest, potentially diversifying or looking at other territories.

Yes, the affiliate space has become more corporate - but we are probably only about 65% of the way to being truly professional. I believe that it could take another 12 to 24 months for all the current activity - mergers, acquisitions and closures - to die down. After this period, expect to see the affiliate market emerge as a robust, mature, self regulated channel which can stand head and shoulders above its siblings - PPC, SEO, Email, Design & Build, and Media.

Here’s to the next three years and more…

By Gavin Hudson, Manager

Well, I think we’re finally getting back into the swing of things after a great few days at a4uexpo. We’ve caught up on our emails and been busily chasing up all those leads and sending the stuff we promised out to affiliates. This was the first event of its kind in the UK, and I think it’s fair to say it was a success!

Sessions

As I was manning the stand, I didn’t get the chance to go to as many of the sessions as I would’ve liked, but from speaking to the rest of the guys and other people that went to them, it seems that they were really well attended and received. As always, it’s difficult for speakers to judge who to aim their speeches to - they could turn up to a room full of merchants, some beginner affiliates or people who know (nearly) everything there is to know about the business, but on the whole feedback on the sessions was excellent. Particularly well received were Lee and Ciaran’s talk on social media, and I suppose I’d better mention the session Mark attended on “The Future of Networks”, there were some interesting opinions expressed and a couple of controversial comments, which is always nice if you’re in the audience… One strange quirk was that if you had paid for an “exhibitor” pass and a stand, you weren’t supposed to be able to get into sessions - this seemed a bit strange to us having paid several times what the delegates paid, but with a nod and a wink it didn’t seem to matter anyway.

Attendance

We met some great people at a4uexpo - thanks to all of you who came to our stand for a chat, a bottle of water or to enter our competitions! Expo was excellently attended and the speakers, exhibitors, delegates and organisers all rightly seemed happy with the mix of people at the Expo. Our stand was busy almost all of the time when people weren’t in sessions. There was plenty of business done, and plenty of partying too. Those people who made it for all 3 nights and still managed to look alive in the days in between deserve some sort of award of their own!

Awards

Speaking of awards, the Existem team organised the very first affiliate awards in the UK. This was a great initiative, and well overdue. No awards ceremony can hope to keep everyone happy, but that’s no reason not to run one! Affiliate Window were a popular choice for the best network this year. We work with most of the major UK networks, and it’s clear that AWin have taken some steps forward this year, so it would be difficult to begrudge them the award. I’ve got to say that we were disappointed not to win the award for “Publishers Choice of Agency”, being beaten to second by Existem-AM, but really we should be pleased to receive the “Highly Commended” certificate, and indeed to be nominated in the first place by our affiliates - thanks to everyone that voted!

Venue

The venue out at ExCeL was pretty good, a good sized hall with lecture theatres - I’m not sure if being out in the Docklands and away from the more obvious nightlife in London was a good idea or a bad one, but the Fox pub seemed to be busy enough in the evenings, and the Novotel bar was busy until the early hours every night. I’m still not sure whether the bar staff greeting me by name on the second night was a good sign, or a bad one!

Overall we had a great time, and will definitely be back next year. There was a lot of enthusiasm for the event, and the affiliate industry appears to be in robust health, which is great to see.

We look forward to seeing you at next years event - if not before!

By Andy Mitchell - Senior Programme Executive, R.O.EYE

Part of the R.O.EYE office is getting ready for a migration South! It’s not often so many us get to venture to the Big Smoke at once, and we are very excited.

Information packs have been made; Posters are being printed; Competition prizes are being played with; Freddo’s are being eaten.

If you don’t know already, R.O.EYE are on Stand 20. We’ve got plenty of prizes up for grabs in a couple of competitions we’ll be running….

We have several Molton Brown gift sets from Mankind and Beauty Expert. We also have some top quality gift packs from Origins. They’ll make a perfect gift to take back home!

We have a HD Projector from our merchants MacWarehouse, MicroWarehouse and PCWorld Business to give away too.

You can enter our competitions at anytime during the Expo, but the prize draw will take place at some point on the second day, so make sure you ask us for details on how to enter!

Gav, Andy, Colin, Stu, Tony and Mark will all be at A4UExpo. So if you are looking for a serious talk about your opportunities within affiliate marketing and our programmes, want to grab some freebies or just want to catch-up with us for a chat, you are more than welcome at the R.O.EYE stand.

See you all there, bright and early on Thursday!

Afternoon!

Affiliate Summit was a great event for our sector - meeting friends and colleagues from all areas of affiliate marketing and making new contacts. Even though it was a top event, I think it’s been a while since there’s been a real buzz about our sector, I get the feeling the a4u Expo event will be just that.

Although I’m not one for partying… there are actually three over the course of the event! As always, Buy.at will inject their usual style on the event - kick starting the affair with a “networking session.” A great way to start the event, just gotta take it easy on the beers with two intensive days ahead. The second party will highlight some of the respected players in the industry and many will be truly deserved. I think that the cred that will come from an award will hold more weight than many would think. And then the closing party - not quite Ibiza style but I’m sure will go on into the wee hours of Saturday.

We’re actually exhibiting and the pop-up stand will be back out of the box, fresh from Ad:tech and the Summit. There will be two car loads coming from up north, armed with new business documents, programme collateral, merchant prizes and even a box load of Freddo’s! So even if you’re not interested in the business stuff, call by for a sugar top up.

Seriously though, we’ve came a long way in our three years of leading affiliate management. We really want to shout about it now and show how we can maximise the performance of the programmes we manage. Even today I’ve been reading NMA and old issues of bad management of programmes and lack of resource are still being raised. There’s a solution to that and there is a way of having a direct relationship with your affiliates, managing fixed budgets and spreading the mix of affiliate genres. Whatever your company or programme requires, we’ll be happy to talk to you about it.

Gav, Andy, Tony, Stu, Mark and I will all be down at the event, so we look forward to seeing you then. We’ll be at all the sessions, on the exhibition floor at all times and yes, at all the parties,  so don’t hesitate to stop one of us to talk about what you’re looking for from affiliates. Because I’m sure we can help.

See you at the Freddo stand  (Stand 20.) ….

Colin Telford

Affiliate Director

By Michelle Anthony, Programme Executive

Here at R.O.EYE we consider programme reporting to be a large part of our jobs and many of our systems are geared up for accurate reporting.  Indeed, we have just launched a swanky new reporting tool, Icon, but it is not just client reporting which is important to efficient programme management, but affiliate reporting as well.

The frequency of validations varies from client to client, but we make an effort to feedback to affiliates at least once a week.  On certain programmes we are able to do this more often to keep publishers up to date on pending leads and conversions on a near daily basis.  In addition to this and the key word reporting available in Tracktor, we can offer bespoke reporting tailored to the needs of the affiliate.

We also focus on providing feedback on quality wherever possible. This enable us to work with affiliates to improve the suitability of the leads they are supplying to the merchant, be that making changes to the copy on their sites, adding images and creatives or editing the look and feel of the affiliate site.

Benefits of regular reporting includes allowing us to spot any problems early and work as hard as possible to resolve these, these may be simple to resolve within the account management teams, but may engage our technical solutions department, who are always on hand to offer assistance.

Our reporting and suggestions are always incredibly well received by affiliates.  It is often about the incremental changes in communicating the finer details of the product to the audience, honing in on the validation criteria and clearly explaining that the customer will be passed through to a merchant. We have seen on screen conversions rates double with minor adjustments to text.

For our finance programmes regular affiliate reporting is essential in pushing our programmes forward. Feedback goes both way and has led to changes in application forms on the client site and advancements in the information we request from clients.