No Free Lunch – Not Even at Google
Seems like everytime I hear the news, or read my email, another company directly related to our Internet marketing businesses is tightening the reigns due to the recession.
Last week I mentioned that a number of banks have either temporarily suspended or permanently shut down their credit card affiliate programs.
Back in December, I received notice that the Westin and Sheraton hotels changed their affiliate program payout structures to pay on completed stays rather than on bookings.
Also in December, Yahoo! Search Marketing announced that it would no longer provide telephone support on many of their advertisers’ accounts.
Then last Wednesday, Google announced that 70 workers would be affected when it closed 3 engineering offices in the U.S., Norway and Sweden. Worse still, the free cafeteria for employees was closed and Christmas gifts to workers this year weren’t quite as lush as usual. The cutbacks at Google are apparently due to the fact that although its advertising revenues are still growing, they’re not growing quite as rapidly as before.
Aaaah, Poor Google. Apparently we’re not spending enough.
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Rosalind Gardner is a Super Affiliate blogger, author, speaker, and Internet marketing consultant.
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Companies are trying to cut costs in the wake of the bad economy. It seems though that sales and marketing would not be the place to cut. Don’t affiliates bring these companies more customers? Wouldn’t it make more sense for them to grow their affiliate programs rather than cut them, and cut another area that doesn’t bring in money?
Marie I agree on your theory but having spent sooo much time reading from so many internet professionals found that only a very small portion of affiliates are actually making all of the sales. If that is the case then they can cut out certain programs and continue to make money with the existing team. The hotels are really hurting for business as I work in that industry. Bookings are done far in advance for many functions and business trips. We have been getting cancellations. Layoffs are another factor as well as bad investments causing people to go broke overnight.
We are fortunate that our former owners sold the company and we are going to start a 25 million dollar renovation May 1, 09 We will become a Marriott Renaissance hotel. We are presently Wyndham Palm Springs Hotel
The hotel is big, 410 rooms, meeting rooms ballrooms and we are attached to the Palm Springs Convention Center. This place was just packed for the film festival.
I totally agree with Marie Ramos. The companies need every sale, more than ever before. They should find a way to reward affiliates who bring in sales, not cut them off. There are two things you don’t mess with even when times are bad, marketing and production (though this can be slowed). In order to have the latter you need the former. In order for the former to do its job, you need the latter.
I would have thought that companies’ affiliate programs would be one of their cheapest forms of marketing? They only pay out when the affiliate makes them a sale, as opposed to other forms of marketing, where the company pays for the marketing whether or not it brings them any sales. So why would banks close down an affiliate program?
Sounds like a poor management decision.
Banks closed down the credit card affiliate programs and in addition drastically reduced the existing credit limits on existing accounts while declining to open many new accounts. What you don’t know is over two years ago the FDIC already knew dozens of banks were going to close. The problem is the FDIC has to go bank to bank with a legal team to do closings. Worse yet it’s far from over. There are many more banks waiting to close. The banks took existing funds and sold assets then divided a lot of it up among top execs as you read. They either sold off the remaining business assets closed or went to the government for a handout.
They sell off their assets before closing to make this happen which is why they are totally broke by closing. The the government has nothing to work with and the FDIC has to pay for the insured depositor accounts but the investment accounts like CD and others are gone. You won’t hear that from the six o’clock news.
Speaking my mind here so I’d like to say after what the banking industry has done to this country and the schemes they devised to pull in billions in fraudulent practices for rate hikes and late charges no one should ever again sell for these companies.
What a poor management decision. Happy work are productive workers
Many use economic crisis as an excuse for many decisions