UK Insurance Companies Withdraw Affiliate Program

Written by

adam

in

Insurance Daily reports that Virgin Money has closed their affiliate program, or affiliate scheme as they call it in the UK.  The article also reports insurance companies have scalled back or closed their programs, such as First Alternative, Click4Group and Lloyds TSB.

"The withdrawal comes on the heels of a shift at the end of last year, which saw a large number of providers in the financial services sector move their affiliate marketing campaign from Tradedoubler to rival providers, especially to OMG and Buy.at."

What’s going on in the UK?  I know the UK Mortgage Rates and Housing market have taken a beating recently. But if you are going to scale back your marketing efforts, why cut back on programs that you only pay for on a performance basis?  It doesn’t seem to make much sense.

Insurance is a profitable niche for many affiliates, unless the entire industry is going to abandon the affiliate channel, then closing your program just pushes your best affiliates to your competitors.

Odd, it will be interesting to watch…

Comments

2 responses to “UK Insurance Companies Withdraw Affiliate Program”

  1. cougarmark Avatar
    cougarmark

    Occasionally companies have rules in their program making an affiliate program more expensive than it would otherwise be.
    At a large network I managed we recognized that we were paying the affiliates who had the last click even though our search team could prove they drove the sale. We were in essence paying for the new customer twice – once through search, Google, and once to the last affiliate.
    We did not turn the program off – but we did alter the program substantially happily paying the affiliate when due but also crediting search where credit was due.
    Many companies have rules in place that do similar things making the program appear less cost-effective than it really is. Affiliates are a golden channel and generally make sense to have in any marketing plan – with appropriate terms and conds.

    Reply
  2. Adam Viener Avatar
    Adam Viener

    It has to be a win-win for everybody, and the whole “credit” issue of who was responsible for driving the sale is a huge long debate, everyone want’s to claim credit for the sale, it’s really a big problem that if left unchecked could undermine the perceived value of affiliates in general.
    That would be a huge shame in my opinion.
    Adam

    Reply

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