Morgan Stanley - how to ruin an affiliate program
Here is how not to run an affiliate program, courtesy of Morgan Stanley.
I received this email on the 12th December.
Dear Kieron
First and foremost we would like to thank you for being a part of the Morgan Stanley affiliate program and for all the support and commitment you have provided.
In preparation for 2007, Morgan Stanley has recently completed their end of year review of the program. The outcome has identified the need for several important strategic changes. As a result, it is with regret that we wish to inform you that we will be terminating our relationship with you as from Monday 18th December.
This decision has not been taken lightly but has proven to be an essential requirement for our 2007 program.
We would therefore request that you remove all web links and advertising related to the products offered by Morgan Stanley and all other references to Morgan Stanley in whatever form by Monday 18th December. In accordance with the program terms, we will honour leads and applications generated up to, and including this date.
Moving forward we will be continually evaluating our approach and hope to be in a position to work together again in the future.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you would like to discuss this further.
Thank you again for your support during your time with the program and we wish you every success.
Kind Regards
How bloody offensive. They send a Dear John email and don’t even tell me why they are terminating me from the program. I mean forgive me if I’m wrong but I thought the whole point of affiliate marketing was that it was a “pay for performance” model with absolutely no risks to the merchant. So what difference does it make if they have 10,000 affiliates or 100? So why the cull? And please don’t give me any crap that it creates extra admin as that just won’t wash and networks are geared up for any increases in the economies of scale.
I can only presume that just because I haven’t delivered any great volume of sales that I have been kicked off the program. What they don’t know is that I have just built a new Credit Card site that I will be launching in January with a monthly ppc budget of at least £100,000 a month. What makes it worse is that I took their advice in the email and have tried to email them to discuss this but all my emails have been ignored. Wonderful.
Time and time again we see merchants rejecting affiliates who don’t make sales or have low volumes of sales, only to keep the program open to a select few. And I still have not heard one convincing argument as to why it happens, apart from keeping their in house figures looking sweet. I mean surely if they have say 10,000 small affiliates who maybe only genarate 5000, or even 500 sales a year then surely they are worth having? It’s not as if you are paying these guys wages. Affiliate marketeers are paid only on performance so why kick them off?
So, if anybody is reading this and looking after an affiliate program, the above is a step by step guide on how to offend, antagonise and generally piss off your affiliates.
What I’m listening to right now: Fantasia - “Hood Boy”
Affiliate Marketing - Morgan Stanley
Tuesday, December 19th, 2006 at 11:12 pm and is filed under Affiliate Marketing. 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.
December 20th, 2006 at 1:57 am
Hear, hear. A real Christmas kick in the teeth. It’s shocking how affiliates get treated. You’d better have another EggNog (but don’t over indulge!)
Happy Christmas and good luck with the new site.
December 20th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
Have to agree with you on this one Kieron, why so many merchants have been culling their programs this year is beyond me!? It takes no time at all to look after the smaller guys – and buy this I mean those that have yet to actively promote the brand as apposed to the volume of sales they could potentially deliver.
This “excess admin” excuse doesn’t convince me of anything other than poor admin skills. What would be interesting to know is whether or not this program is managed in house or was this decision taken by the network? I’d be surprised if somebody like Buy.at sent an email like this to you without first checking to see who’s on the recieving end. Either way, good luck with the new website which I’m sure will be a success.
December 21st, 2006 at 12:19 am
Hi Kieron,
Just had a look at your credit card site and spotted a type. In the drop down menu for ‘Compare Credit Cards’ it says banance transfers instead of balance! Just thought I would let you know!
All the best.
December 21st, 2006 at 4:44 pm
To be honest, I CAN see why a merchant would want to cull affiliates. I’m not a merchant or an affiliate manager myself, just giving it some thought as to what it entails.
As a merchant, your affiliates are representing your brand. You want to protect that brand. I would imagine that a fair bit of time is spent making sure affiliates are representing the brand correctly and fairly, within the terms of the programme, and not making false claims. This is probably especially so in the finance sector.
If you’ve got 300 little affiliates that need checking regularly to ensure they’re representing your brand / product correctly, then this is going to be time consuming task. If they’re generating next to no sales, then the cost of doing this may out-weigh the revenue generated by said affiliate. Logical solution - get rid of affiliate.
As said, I’m not an affiliate manager, just throwing some ideas around, so please don’t take offence
However, If I was an affiliate manager, then I hope I would have enough awareness of who the affiliates are that’re likely to drive the most sales for my product. In that respect, I would be head-hunting and actively trying to work with affiliates like Keiron, not giving them the boot!
December 28th, 2006 at 9:45 am
I once got “terminated” from a program because I asked them what a certain rejection description meant.
My conversion rate was just fine, I was making them and me some good money and yet they terminated me because I asked a question about a reversal of a lead.
Just pure B.S., but what can affilates do besides move onto the next merchant…