Is it time that extensions “standing down” became universal across all networks & platforms?
James Little
Group Commercial Director at TopCashback & PerformanceIN Top 50 Industry Player in 2017 and 2018
Before I go any further, I should probably explain what "standing down" is in the affiliate space and why it's so important; this article is also mainly geared towards the US affiliate space, where browser extensions are more widely used.
These days as we all know, there are a lot of extensions. TopCashback, Honey, Rakuten, Capital One, Klarna, etc, the list goes on. If you don't run an extension you may be unaware that there are some rules that networks like Rakuten and CJ have put in place that you have to follow.
The biggest one is the need to "stand down" if another affiliate/publisher has been recently involved in the journey; meaning that the extension is not allowed to popup - be it on the homepage or the checkout page, if another publisher has been involved in the journey before you in the same browsing session.
Do all networks work this way?
The answer to the question above is no - there are some other ways in which it might work:
Soft Cookies; some networks, instead of enforcing stand down rules, instead set the cookie for that publisher to a "soft cookie" - which means that they can still popup but won't override an existing cookie that is in place. It's worth noting that I believe that the IAB Guidelines on Software (when the IAB was a thing in the affiliate space) recommended soft-cookies as the approach.
Are Soft Cookies not the best solution?
The challenge with soft-cookies is the impact that it has on the customer. For a voucher/coupon only type publisher, it's potentially a very good solution but as soon as you start offering rewards (points, cash back, etc) it falls down as the customer doesn't understand why they have not got their reward. The other challenge is that the technology for soft cookies is not necessarily available across all networks.
SIDE POINT: Typically this is also how it works for tech publishers (Upsell it, etc) who have code on the advertiser's site and I do think that this is the right solution here.
Any other ways of doing it?
The other way of doing it, which I am very much against & is where I think we need to see movement, is the approach of "digging your head in the sand and ignoring it", or rather "let the advertisers set their own terms".
This, I believe is a huge cop out; advertisers are not being given the advice/knowledge from these networks or platforms when they are setup that they have terms for this and speaking to a large, very knowledgable and respected agency recently that almost solely use a platform that has no rules in place, they had no idea at all that this wasn't standard across the whole industry already.
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Should there be rules?
There could be an argument from some publishers who have extensions that there should be no rules here - going back to the customer point earlier in the post; it may cause confusion on if the product is working correctly if it sometimes displays and other times does not on the same advertiser - and whilst I symphysis with this view, I believe that ensuring that the industry has better standardization and also finds ways to ensure that affiliate cookies are not unjustly overridden supersedes this.
Testing across networks:
As part of the article - I thought it would be useful to test a few networks/clients with a couple of the toolbars I have installed, the results can be found below - I should make it clear that I am not suggesting that the publishers in question are doing anything that is against the rules at this stage and all of these are via the US networks/publishers/links.
As you can see from the results above - there are some inconsistencies but a few things worth highlighting:
Another interesting observation that I made is that on Webgains - another toolbar from a fairly large publisher was automatically loading the affiliate link / activating the cash back across a number of different advertisers; I am not sure if this activity has been allowed by the network or if that is breaking the rules but anyone from Webgains that might be reading should probably have a look into this.
So what now?
I'd love to use this article to kick-start a conversation and get views from the wider industry here - agencies, advertisers, networks, publishers - on if stand down should be universal or if there are reasons why it should not be.
It's high time we have a conversation on the matter at the very least and I'd love to hear the thoughts from those who have got as far as to the end of this article.
Media & eCommerce Director | Revenue diversification | Digital operations & commercial leadership
1 年Great debate starter JL, I'll be playing "the opposed"! User experience is (or should be) the most important factor with any of these tools. We're meant to be building technology that makes people's shopping journeys better, not cynical cash grabs. As soon as we start lobbying to introduce rules that prevent these tools working at the expense of the user, we've failed. The user doesn't understand: all that's happening is some big scary anonymous ad tech companies are throwing their weight around and changing the rules on their own browsers so they can get paid more. It reminds me of when the taxi companies tried to ban Uber. I'm not saying theres no problem to be addressed. But holding back new technology at the expense of a consumer just isn't the solution. This isn't a new problem. Content publishers have taken the same issue with cashback and voucher sites for years, but most have lacked the weight in the affiliate space to inspire any real action. It's GREAT you're shining a light on it now ?? but I disagree with your solution... The real challenge is to figure out a way to reward affiliates based on the actual value they've driven, and standardise it, so we can all ditch this terrible last click model from 1997 ??.
Cofounder of YASO / Cofounder of Pouch (Exited) / Startup Advisor
1 年Sorry to stir the pot, but I think the stand-down policy on extensions is an absolute joke. It is one-sided and unfair. When I was running Pouch we had to implement standdown on all the networks that had this compliance rule. We were admittedly quite scared to implement it as we thought it would impact our revenue. Once implemented and checked off by the network control teams we saw a <1% impact in our revenue. Why? Because extensions are a loyalty product that consumers trust and use every day, whilst voucher code sites are transient and live just on SEO. We found that people who used Pouch had stopped relying on voucher code websites, so us having a stand down had no impact. This is reflected in the 5*s reviews Pouch has across platforms. Maybe there are other extensions that act badly, but that is a different issue. Yes, have all extensions implemented standdown across every network! But make it equal and have voucher code and cashback websites implement standdown when traffic has come from an extension first. I am buzzing to see the time when topcashback says "sorry you cannot use this website because you have used an extension first"
Brand Partnerships | Leadership Excellence | Digital Solutions
1 年Thanks James Little, interesting topic. A question - do you think it’s still the network / platform providers role to be the arbiters of who gets credit and under what circumstances? It made sense to me that a network should help apply appropriate ‘value’ to the various marketing methods that have found a home in the industry. Those assumptions of value may seem pretty sweeping, but I think they also play into genuine advertiser and industry concerns about the value of ‘advertising’ to a user that is already on a brand’s website. It always felt like it was the platform provider’s role to help mediate the value of the advertising that ran through the industry? I think that’s where ideas like ‘soft-click’ ultimately came from. I wonder if that’s really what people think now? Or is the platform’s role now just to provide the ‘rails’ and to butt out on these wider ‘value’ questions? ??♂?
I think this is a classic example of "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." And if there was a clear and complex unambiguous answer I don't think even that has been found. Vouchers (whether or not underpinned by CPA attribution) are more obviously in play to the consumer. Then there are decisions to make on how vouchers and affiliate interact. And also then other channels too. And the allocation of commission to the model/referrer can be controlled in many places e.g. at the time of referral, at the checkout, within the network. The affiliate model feels the pain of the complexities more that other channels because the user often has a vested interested in the distribution of the advertising expenditure. Brands are inherently making decisions that mean their publishers have different experiences with regards to cookie length, whether consent is required for first party tracking etc. They have different cohorts of users too. I cannot see a one-world view, but transparency is clearly beneficial.
Entrepreneur in the affiliate marketing space.
1 年Great post, James Little. For additional perspective, per this article, "12 of the 13 top Chrome extensions in the Shopping category offer some flavor of automated coupon codes, price comparisons or cashback.” https://www.mytotalretail.com/article/shopping-extensions-are-here-to-stay-learn-to-measure-and-test-their-impact/