[andrewwee]

Hi Linda,
Thanks for your opinion.
Coming from a veteran in the industry, I think you expressing your thoughts add weight to this.

> "TYPICALLY, but not in this case the in-house commissions would be a little higher, possibly longer cookies, etc. to make the in-house option more attractive and offset network costs. "

My thoughts and exactly and that's what I'm hearing too.

The opposite has occured though, so that's left me feeling preplexed.

I go to events like affiliate summit and hear about stuff like affiliates, merchants and networks working closer together.

This kinda stuff just brings all parties further apart.
I guess to me "trust" is a central issue in the affiliate-network-merchant and though i'm very familiar with the caveat empor aspect of free markets, I'd have thought there's some unspoken covenant at hand.

But again, I realized as some may have mentioned the in-house program has not been managed well, and they could have just left things as they are for the last year or two and not managed anything at all.

In the end this gap ultimately hurts the merchant too, because the difference in commissions would have been something I could've used to bump up my marketing efforts (and possibly earn more for the merchant...).

I'm certainily not feeling bitter about the situation, I've experienced challenges previously and expect more in the future.

I guess the difference is that with a blog, it gives me a bigger avenue to know what others things and move on from here.

Thanks for your time and I'll do what I can to include your opinions in my balanced wrap-up.

Originally Posted by Linda Buquet

Hi Andrew,

Did see the blog yesterday but didn't have time to comment. Glad you brought it up here for discussion. It's a good topic.

It's a little hard for me because in issues like this I can see and relate to it from each different angle. These are so many issues at hand here. I'll comment on a couple.

If I were you I would be upset too. So I am on your side and feel your pain,
however...

"Regarding the “ethics”, I don’t think it’s ethical to do a two versions of the same prog."

I personally feel strongly that bigger and pro-actively managed programs SHOULD offer 2 versions.
In-house and a good network.

TYPICALLY, but not in this case the in-house commissions would be a little higher, possibly longer cookies, etc. to make the in-house option more attractive and offset network costs.

So I feel affiliates deserve a choice. In-house for higher payout and other perks OR the convenience of a network. Some affiliates only like to run network programs and some are gunshy of Indies. On the other hand some affiliates avoid certain networks, or don't like networks due to cookie blocking issues or other issues. So I do think running dual programs makes sense most of the time. (I DON'T think being on every CPA network and running on more than one network and one in-house program makes sense - in most cases.)

Now I don't know anything about the merchant or who it is, but a possible scenario hit me that COULD make sense of this situation. Not saying this scenario would make the sitn any easier for you to take but...

If the merchant, like many are was clueless and the affiliate program was not being tended to properly and they hired an OPM. The OPM said to build this program for you it, needs to be on CJ so we'll manage the CJ program. (Either the OPM said they would not manage the in-house program because it wasnt set up ideally or the mercahnt could not afford to pay the OPM to manage both BUT (good for you) at least didnt just close donw the indy, but left it open for the existing affiliates that were using it.

So now all the focus is on CJ - the OPM (working for the good of affiliates) talks merchant into raising commission after showing they need to based on other hosting companies on CJ. SO the OPM did a good thing talking the merchant into higher commish, the merchant did a good thing to agree to raise it. The only bad thing is the indy is like a small forgotten step child that no one cares about. The indy program is just hanging out there running on auto-pilot.

Again not saying thats what happened or that the above scenario justifies it, I can just see it happening.