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Search People Cannibalizing Affiliates

March 13, 2008 by Shawn Collins

Q: I have an in-house affiliate program that pays on a cost per lead and a revenue share. Also, my company has an in-house search marketing team that advertisers via Google AdWords. I am losing some affiliates, because they are leaving the program to promote the same offer in AdWords. I can’t exactly go to the SEM team and ask them to turn off the content advertising or reduce their spend, as they are getting a healthy ROI. What can I do?

Shawn CollinsA: I faced a similar thing many years ago… I guess eight years ago when I was running the affiliate program at ClubMom.com.

I had a very successful affiliate program, and I started noticing that some of my biggest affiliates were disappearing.

It turned out that the woman doing media buys (one desk in front of me in the same department!) got the go-ahead to pay these people twice the amount I was able to pay them per lead without my knowing about it.

Meanwhile, I was routinely turned down when requesting more budget to increase the affiliate rates.

I’d say it’s really just a matter of getting the search and affiliate teams together to talk about it. If the market dictates that affiliates are working at your existing commissions, it just doesn’t make sense that the search crew is inflating the market.

Sure, they’re getting a nice ROI, but it would be better if they weren’t overspending.

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