How to close an affiliate programme
I received this bizarre email today from OMG…
“Dear affiliate,
We have recently been reviewing the Ryanair card programme which we have seen go from strength to strength. Performance on this card has exceeded our expectations which is great news! MBNA have now made the decision to remove this card from their portfolio so that affiliates can channel their efforts into achieving the same excellence for other MBNA cards.
The programme will be closed on Friday 1st September which I appreciate is short notice but there is a wide range of other MBNA cards available in your log in which you can run in place of Ryanair.
Performing particularly well at the moment is the SonyCard and the recently launched portfolio of Premiership Football cards. Contact your Account Manager to sign up to other MBNA cards today.”
So let me get this clear; the Ryanair card programme has gone “from strength to strength” and has “exceeded their expectations”. Great news! Well done to all the affiliates who have worked on this programme and pushed it out to consumers!
Let’s reward you all by closing the program!??!!
How very odd. But what is even odder is the reason given…”so that affiliates can channel their efforts into achieving the same excellence for other MBNA cards”
Is it just me or does that just make no sense whatsoever?
I know that MBNA offer a wide range of credit cards under different brands, underneath are pretty much the same interest rates, terms and so on etc. But each card has it’s own unique selling points, with the Ryanair card it’s users can “earn” free flights. So if a credit card does well because it offers users free flights then how can we be expected to run other credit cards “in place” of Ryanair? It just won’t wash.
I would much rather that OMG (or any network for that matter) were upfront about the reason for closing a program - especially a successful one. I would respect OMG so much more if they just said “sorry - but MBNA have run out of budget, not ideal but we will do our best to get it back running again soon”. I just take slight offence when networks etc try to gloss over the reasons why programs close.
What I’m listening to right now: Cassie ft. P Diddy - “Me & You (Remix)”
Friday, August 25th, 2006 at 6:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Welcome to my blog. My name is Kieron Donoghue and I run UK Offer Media Ltd. I thought it would be fun to post a daily (well hopefully daily) blog, writing about my experiences in Internet Marketing and more specifically Affiliate Marketing. I'll include some personal stuff too, probably about my other passions, music and cars. Please feel free to post your comments and thoughts too.
August 25th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Maybe it’s related to the recent terrorism problems. Ryanair’s profits are likely to be badly affected because it is on wafer thin margins, so maybe it’s asked MBNA to cut down the programme.
August 28th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
I got that email too and thought exactly the same as you Kieron.
We often get emails sent out where the sender seems to think affiliates are stupid and are going to believe the hype!
August 28th, 2006 at 12:06 pm
That is ridiculous. Even if MBNA really did want to close the Ryanair programme for the reasons they stated, I am sure Ryan Air would have a thing or two to say about it! I don’t understand how networks can possible think that affiliates would buy the kind of garbage they feed us sometimes.
September 2nd, 2006 at 7:45 pm
I also received that email and thought it a bit of a strange excuse. Agree, a real reason would be appreciated as opposed to the insult to the intelligence email sent out. It also seems to be a typical scenario now with affiliate (esp OMG ones) programs changing at the last minute, cancelled without much notice. They don’t seem to have the balls to stand up to their merchants .. Come on networks, if you have t&c’s, impose them, if you don’t, get some proper notice periods written into your contracts.