Your analogy is also fundamentally flawed as he is not styling himself as a policeman in any way, he is not arresting anyone or bringing charges. A much more fitting analogy is that of investigative journalist who sees something that seems untoward and brings it into public scrutiny. There are plenty of valid concerns people have about a lack of transparency in relation to these kind of issues with PPC. As far as I can see Dan is simply acting in goodwill to try and improve the situation.

Firstly:

“If I owned Alpharooms I’d be looking at you right now thinking how many people is Dan going to alienate in the market by his self styled affiliate police role”

If I am alienating anyone its affiliate who break or pay no respect for merchant rules surely?

My job at Alpharooms, and also what id like for the industry as a whole is to have affiliate programmes that work. Work for the affiliate, work for the merchant and work for the network. Imagine the scenario where I broke a merchants rules for my own benefit, hid all evidence and covered my tracks very well, lets say nobody found out and I was their top affiliate in a day and I got away with this for 4 months making double the nearest affiliate to me. Then they found out. How do you think that merchant would feel about affiliate marketing? And lets say they didn’t have an affiliate manager and it was just an accountant making decisions, pulled the account because it was a waste of money. What about every other affiliate promoting that merchant by the rules? One rouge affiliate could have just cost 100 other affiliates a portion of their monthly wage.

Take this to a bigger scale, 10 rouge affiliates on 20 programmes each, 200 programmes. If each of these merchants dropped their programmes it would affect hundreds of other affiliates, it could even force some affiliates out of the industry. Im exaggerating surely, its nt on this sort of scale, im talking crap – I wish I was.

Secondly:

“Strong convictions and beliefs right or wrong are one thing…..voicing them in public is another….especially when you dont have all the facts”

As I mentioned im not anti-affiliate, I believe affiliate marketing is one of the best ways for merchants to gain a strong online presence and forge strong relationships with key marketing partners and that is my honest belief. What I posted above is all factual, screenshots show each step of what I found and I’d love to know what bit you see as fiction?

Id also like to thank Roz from Buy.at for clearing that up, if there is a genuine reason then no harm is done the affiliate was doing their job and stepping in when needed.

Further to my last reply we have spoken to the agency and affiliate in question. The affiliate is asked to step in on the brand term on the rare occasion that the agency search team run out of budget, which is what happened over the weekend.

Many thanks,

Roz

I am the Account Manager for play.com at buy.at. Play does not opperate a closed group in regards to brand, and both buy.at at play both take any actions against the terms and conditions of the programme seriously,
and will therefore investigate the above asap.

Many thanks,

Roz