After last week's
fiasco you would think that
Figleaves couldn't do anything more to damage their affiliate programme and their relationships with affiliates would you? Well think again as they have just reduced their cookie period from 30 days to just 3! All this just a week or so after drastically reducing their commissions levels.
I'm beginning to think that they are taking advice from
Nick Robertson from ASOS.com who was famously quoted as calling affiliates grubby in early 2007. He turned his back on the affiliates who helped grow ASOS from humble beginnings as a startup to a leader in the online fashion sector.
How very sad to see a once great affiliate programme go completely and utterly down the drain. I understand that we are living in difficult economic times but there are right ways of controlling costs and there are wrong ways. I have my suspicions that Figleaves' new media agency are trying to craftily reallocate budget away from affiliate marketing into other channels where they will earn a bigger commission cut. Call me cynical but I've seen it happen before and undoubtedly will see it happen again.
Who wants a wager on when the programme will be closing? 1 month? 2? I give it 6 months tops before we get the closure notice email.
Here is the original email received today. Note that it does not give a date as to when this change will happen. Also note that it says to contact them if we have any further questions yet gives no contact details whatsoever and the senders email address is no_reply@ext.tradedoubler.com. Oh dear.
"Dear Affiliates,
We are writing to give you an update about the cookie period length on the Figleaves programme.
Due to the fact that we are not de-duplicating the Figleaves affiliate programme against other online marketing activities we have decided to shorten the cookie period from 30 days to 3 days.
We would like to emphasize the fact that this measure has been taken to reduce the impact of unprofitable orders generated by the programme to date, and is one of several temporary measures that are being taken as part of a major programme overhaul. We will be re-launching the programme in due course with a structure that creates a more positive contribution to the Figleaves business.
If you have further questions then please contact us.
Kind Regards,
The Figleaves Affiliate Team"
What I'm listening to right now: Beyonce Feat R Kelly – "If I Were A Boy" (Remix)
Welcome to my blog. My name is Kieron Donoghue and I am the founder of ShareMyPlaylists.com, ContentNow.co.uk and some other stuff. I have no idea why I'm blue on this photo though but I like it!
Ah ‘no reply’ email addresses, one of my pet peeves. “If you want me to take the time to read your emails, take the time to read my reply should I do so. It’s just good manners.”
Received this email as well this morning. Although I’ll still keep them on up until Xmas, come January I’m reviewing all my shops to see how things can be improved and who is worth promoting…fig who?
If the programme closes it will give bloggers a number of possible headlines though.
Figleaves programme closes due to lack of support
Figleaves affiliate programme goes t*ts up
Storm in a D Cup over Figleaves affiliate programme
Figleaves affiliate programme goes all thong
Jason
Jason mate, you missed your calling writing headlines for the Sun.
It seems Figleaves is doing everything in its power to deter affiliates and agree the program will more than likely close shortly.
They have just been crossed off the Christmas card list.
Daniel (and Kieron);
What if, when they review their decisions on the affiliate front in 6m time, they work out they’ve actually saved significant amounts of money, not sacrificed volume and regained some control over their brand?
Don’t merchants have a right to do exactly as they please, all based on their responsibility (or legal requirement, if they’re a US company) to return the most profit they can?
Bob,
that’s all well and good – I’ve commented elsewhere that Figleaves have the right to adjust things as they see fit, to fit in with their overall plans – however not in this way.
To reduce commissions because of an internal c0ckup and then slash the cookie length in the space of a couple of weeks, in the busiest month of the year is just ludicrous.
As the affiliate manager at Figleaves from 2002-2004 it breaks my heart to see the program going down the pan.
Graham
Bob, yes of course Figleaves can do what they want with their programme. But to have 2 such dramatic cuts in commissions and cookie levels at the busiest time of the year is a bit hard to swallow. What makes it worse is that nobody knows who is managing their affiliate programme now, its faceless. As Graham says, they used to be one of the nest programmes and now they are one of the worst, such a shame.
All the signs are that Figleaves are wanting to kill off their affiliate programme. The new deal is hardly likely to attract new affiliates in the months to come and they don’t appear to value their current ones either.
Good news for affiliates who want to promote lingerie!
At LoveHoney we’ve just relaunched its affiliate program on POR, with longer cookie lengths (120 days) and higher commissions that our old in-house program.
Plus you get Jess, Catherine and Chrissie from APA to look after you.
We don’t stock the day-to-day lingerie that Figleaves does, but we’ve got plenty of undies that’ll plug the gap.
Oh, and free delivery on everything!
Richard
It surprises me that this sort of thing doesn’t happen more often, given the reality that who has lunch with who does actually have a significant influence over management decisions.
There seems to be quite an overlap now between agencies acting as affiliates, networks acting as wider media agencies (TD promote this actively from what I can see) and vice-versa etc. etc. which leads to vested interests in particular forms of marketing. I think that lowers the chances of impartial advice on marketing spend for even an independent-thinking merchant.
Perhaps the conversion specialists will gradually bring more factual judegement to marketing decisions ?
Im very suprised at figleaves doing this. With the amount of coverage they have had from affiliates over the years I would of thought they would have the insight to look after their affiliates more.
Well one mans loss is another mans gain. So for us at deadgoodundies.com perhaps some of their best affiliates on the mens underwear side of things might move to our program at paid on results. If figleaves have knocked their cookie length down to 3 days compared to our 90 days then it might be an incentive for affiliates to move their links over.
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