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The Fight Over Tight Affiliate Control
WebProNews
Staff Writer
2004-02-26
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
Yesterday's Performance-Based Marketing session at the DMA/AIM net.marketing conference struck quite a passionate debate regarding how much control companies should have over branding and affiliates.
The open panel session started off with basic information about performance based marketing but quickly spiraled into a juicy discussion over affiliate control.
The debate came down to whether companies should put strong effort into controlling affiliates and brand representation or whether companies should try to get affiliates as possible and be less concerned with brands and adjacencies.
Wendy Salomon, Vice President, Account Management, LinkShare, believes the more, the merrier in terms of affiliates. Salomon quoted that only about 20% of affiliates will actually do good business for a given company.
On the other hand, Jeffrey Molander, President of Afftrack, believes every business should tightly control the representation of its brand. Businesses need to control where their advertisements are appearing, he says, and if you have thousands of affiliates you have less control.
Wendy rebuked this remark by saying that the key touch point should be the customers who actually buy the product. One great example is Amazon.com, which has (we can only assume) hundreds of thousands of affiliates and therefore no tight control. However, Amazon.com drives home the branding on its site at the place where its customers are actually buying books - and therein lies the key. The Amazon.com branding is so strong that there is no confusion.
Of course, both sides of the debate had strong points and neither side would concede to the other. The fact is, there are times when businesses don't need tight control and there are times when it's necessary.
So, what is more important to your business? Having more affiliates or having control over your company's branding?
Discuss this issue and other hot topics on WebProWorld, your forum for e-Business.
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