My blog post yesterday about how an affiliate marketing campaign run by Fairfax Digital chasing traffic for their RSVP site caused a stir.
Crikey.com.au picked up the story for their daily email bulletin and their website.
It was fascinating watching the quick disassembling of the RSVP affiliate campaign. It’s not easy and during the day one could see the retreat. The Google cache remains the only live online evidence I suspect that other affiliate campaigns purchased by Fairfax Digital were disassembled too as a result of our outing this affiliate marketing practice by Fairfax.
I received several calls including one from the CEO of Commission Monster. He said that what I reported was the action of a rogue affiliate, possible someone looking to commercially harm Commission Monster, and that as soon as they discovered this they took the campaign down. I don’t know if it was the action of a rogue affiliate and frankly I don’t care. Given the thousands of dollars Fairfax would have running in its RSVP affiliate campaigns with Commission Monster, both companies ought to know when a ‘rogue affiliate’ is at work or not. If they were concerned about such things they would have checks and balances in place to ensure that the scam I outed yesterday did not continue beyond a day. That it was running for at least two months demonstrates to the cynic in me that they were happy to turn a blind eye.
I suspect that RSVP suffers from a significant churn – hence the need for even dubious campaigns such as affiliate campaigns. Fairfax would know something about churns from their newspaper experience. They would also know about the need to engage in practices acceptable to the Audit Bureau. The scams used in some affiliate marketing campaigns ought to be enough to scare off any respectable company regardless of the new traffic generated.
It will be interesting to see how this issue plays out and whether I hear anything from Fairfax Digital.
Affiliate campaigns can be an absolute b!tch – as you say Mark, like credit card suppliers (& other finance products) RSVP must just need that much volume they end up resorting to affiliate programs at such a breadth & expense that something dodgy occurs.
I would like to comment on this: Mark you should have at least checked who owns the alleged culprit site before accusing Fairfax Digital. Anybody (including Google) cant punish someone for anyone else’s doings!
Anyone (your competitors) can start doing this for your site – will you then admit you are running a scam? And if you do admit, I bet you’ll see hundreds of such culprits within a week trying to bring their competition down!
I am just shocked at the fact that you don’t have a clue about the issue & your knowledge of this issue & marketing practices appears very limited!
but the difference being is that fairfax is paying these affiliates seopro. therefore encouraging them to do so. if they are going to have affiliate programs, then they need to monitor that they are being in accordance with whatever rules there are…. they can’t simply wash their hands of it and say “it wasn’t me”.
Fairfax should be culpable for how their site is advertised by people who are paid to do so.
Seopro, Fairfax Digital engaged Commission Monster. That is a fact. The affiliate process is open to abuse. That is well known. Fairfax and Commission Monster ought to have processes in place to ensure that leads are generated legitimately – without duping searchers. My site is not part of any affiliate program and we do not undertake affiliate marketing. Mark
I usually agree with much you write Mark but I tend to agree with SEOPRO on this one.
I personally looked at your links to this thread and it appears that SEO done by this website is not the responsibility if either RSVP nor Commission Monster, rather the website owner himself. They cant be responsible for his actions.
Did you take this up with the website owner prior to your post? I suspect not from what you have written.
To add to this, as a fellow newsagent, I suggest you are very brave or a foolish man to be acting like this towards Fairfax given they supply some of your inventory to sell.
You state “It will be interesting to see how ths issue plays out and whether I hear anything from Digital Fairfax”
My gut feeling tells me you will hear from them for acting this way but it just may not be what you were expecting.
I just rang my son re this as he is making a respectable solid living from Affiliate Programs he operates here and offshore.
I told him re your comments and he simply stated “This guy obviously has no idea what he is talking about to be making comments like this. Many large brand names globally now are using Affiliate Marketing….its a billion dollar industry now dad”
Anyway – only my 2 cents.
David, Fairfax/RSVP is the beneficiary of the affiliate marketing undertaken in this instance. Commission Monster is the company offering the affiliate services. Both parties have obligations at law and, as ‘users’ of Google, need to adhere to Google rules.
I appreciate that affiliate marketing is huge and I am nit fighting is as a marketing tactic. My issue is that the beneficiaries have an obligation to ensure that laws and ethics are followed.
What happened in this situation is an embarrassment for RSVP and Commission Monster. They have acknowledged that by their swift action. If I was wrong in my original post then the scam would be continuing today. I am not happy that I discovered it – I wish the scam was not created in the first instance. Indeed I wish that those involved would have had processes in place to ensure that it could never happen. Mark
Sorry Mark, but please try to understand that it was an affiliate under the flagship who went corrupt – and obviously if such a practice is brought to a company’s attention they will stop this by all means. Therefore that must have been actioned upon by the company.
However, I also wish to add that you have changed your tones twice in this blog: First you were accusing rsvp; then you started saying that affiliate networks are bad (“Seopro, Fairfax Digital engaged Commission Monster. That is a fact. The affiliate process is open to abuse. That is well known. Fairfax and Commission Monster ought to have processes in place to ensure that leads are generated legitimately – without duping searchers. My site is not part of any affiliate program and we do not undertake affiliate marketing. Mark -Posted by: mark fletcher at March 2, 2007 11:00 AM”)
Now you are with affiliate networks & have started talking about the reaction from Fairfax & churn rates etc…. – you definitely seem to have personal grudges!
About why the scam was created (“I am not happy that I discovered it – I wish the scam was not created in the first instance.”)- grow up! Who will pay an affiliate to compete with themselves in the organic space in the first place? If they have to create a scam, why not do it themselves???
seopro, if you approve of scams and illegality, please give me your address so I can steal from you.
David, if the website owner was an agent of Fairfax, RSVP or Commission Monster, then under agency rules Fairfax, RSVP or Commission Monster are responsible for the actions of their appointed agent – they cannot do the Pontius Pilate washing of hands thing. Oops, I forgot they are Australian companies and are probably reading the gospel according to John Howard and thus know nothing and don’t want ot know anyhing.
Seopro,
How can anyone take you seriously when you hide behind a pseudonym?
I don’t know who ‘went corrupt’ or if anyone did? You seem to have inside knowledge. All I know is what I saw and the evidence collected at the time.
I have no grudges.
The facts speak for themselves. Fairfax / RSVP engaged Commission Monster. Each of those parties ought to have known what was happening and what could happen. That it went on for at least two months without action not only for my site but for many others suggests either lax management or the turning of a blind eye to it.
As for your advice to grow up, you’re entitled to your anonymous views.
Mark
Seopro, you’re so full of it. It’s a tough job to defend your “industry” at the best of times, but you’re on the shakiest of ground in arguing that fairfax is blameless because Monster Commissions is a contractor and the “rogue associate” is a subcontractor.
If Richard Nixon had carried the day with a similar line of argument he would never have had to step down: Watergate burgular Gordon Liddy worked for the Committee to Re-Elect the president, which was funded but not controlled by the Republican National Committee which, at least on paper, wasn’t taking direct orders from the White House. By your logic, Nixon had nothing to apologise for.
But it isn’t just your logic that’s self-serving, it’s also your command of facts.
Nip across and check out Commission Monster’s site. There’s a long, self-righteous paragraph about how the outfit has a slather of super duper sophisticated software to identify associate fraud, and how it’s committed to honesty above all and you’ll never met straighter arrows and it’s bowel movements don’t stink, either.
No doubt the CEO of Commission Monster is Shocked! Shocked! to find fraud amongst his associates. Who ever would think that offering $8 per sign-up might lead to keyboard ticklers subverting fair business practices.
Incidentally, check out some of the love offerings on RSVP. There’s one hell of a lot real’ dubious ads.
You reckon, for $8 a pop, some of those associates might just have registered a few bogus belles and make-believe men?
It can’t be too difficult to set up an RSVP account. While googling around on the subject I found a blog entry about how someone had set up a looking-for-love entry in the name of Andrew Jaspan, the Age editor.
seopro is placing comments from within Fairfax so the questions are – is this being done with the knowledge of Fairfax management and why hide behind a psudonym?
I hope you’ve passed on along seopro’s IP address to Google. It’s the ultimate refutation of his claim that Commission Monster is an autonomous, totally independent entity.
My god, let the paranoia run wild.
Mark, it would be interesting to see how you know seopro is placing comments from within Fairfax. You don’t know this so please don’t make such a baseless lie.
From reading your blogs and the comments here, you have opened yourself up to several major lawsuits from both Fairfax Digital and Commission Monster which upon having read your first blog, i thought you had a legitimate claim.
Having read the subsequent blog, these comments and looking at the information on your sites, I now believe that you are solely seeking to push your own agenda and get free publicity in an attempt to promote what is obviously failing businesses.
You obviously use SEO practices to promote yourself. You are playing the innocent victim but it is obvious that you were aware of this happening some time ago but have let it continue only to try and generate greater sympathy for yourself.
Why did you not contact either Fairfax, Commission Monster or Google about this? Not much of a story if you were to say “this happened, i called someone and it stopped instantly” is there.
I hope they sue you over this. Your claims are without fact or proof that either Fairfax or Commission Monster did this to you deliberately.
I do not know any way that either company could have known what an affiliate was doing.
Norbert if you want to attack people so outrageously with such self-righteous and pious positioning why don’t you clearly identify yourself and what company you work for.
As for the comments by Pascoe. Knowing your experience in advertising, the clients your agencies have looked after and the media campaigns you yourself have planned all i can say is, you HYPOCRITE.
If you were still at Mindshare I would forward this directly to their clients to show them what sort of a person is planning their campaigns. What about Ford campaigns and others where you solely generated traffic or results on a cost per performance basis. You want to attack RSVP but not any of the campaigns where you have provided the same inducement to sites to do whatever it takes to make good results.
Your involvement in this makes me consider whether or not it is relevant to contact Sputnik management directly or to contact their clients to ensure that they are fully aware of the type of person who is involved in their campaigns.
As a person who is a client and has my agency utilise affiliate marketing as part of the overall online media strategy, I will ensure that when we review our media agency, our business will not go to a company that you are associated with.
To abfab,
I’ve posted evidence. Will you not retract your claim that I lied?
Mark