We have been an affiliate of Benson’s World for at least four years and have generated thousands of pounds in sales for them. It is disappointing that we have seen this affiliate program deteriorate beyond recognition in recent years.

We were shocked to discover today that they have added even more CPM banners to their site. Now there are three different CPM banners at the top of most pages! The ads (currently promoting O2, Debenhams and Orange) are served by Doubleclick and affiliates don’t enjoy make a penny from them.

See, for example, this product page at Benson’s World.

Why should we send our hard-won traffic to a merchant who then makes a tidy sum hosting advertising for other companies and doesn’t share the rewards with us?

We have contacted the network on which the affiliate program runs, TradeDoubler, a number of times about issues with this affiliate program, but sadly the merchant doesn’t seem interested in playing ball.

There are so many things that need to be improved. Their mediocre banners, for instance, still promote videos even though DVDs now account for over 99.5% of purchases in this sector.

Not only does the banner below do this, but it advertises the merchant’s URL, which is a major no no in affiliate marketing because affiliates don’t earn commission for people going direct to the website. And there’s even a third mistake. You’d expect people selling videos and DVDs to know they don’t have an apostrophe in them (or,  then again, maybe not, judging by the educational standards in modern Britain).

Benson’s World have never communicated once with us in all the years we have been an affiliate of theirs. Not even a mass-mailed affiliate newsletter. They didn’t even bother to inform us when the structure of their site changed and our deep-links to their DVDs broke.

A perfect example of how not to run an affiliate program.

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