The Missing Super Affiliate
At some point in a person’s life, they invariably hear about the Playboy brand. For some, the dream manifests itself in appearing in one of the magazine’s storied publications. For others it doesn’t involve appearing in it themselves, but still involves those appearing within its pages. As the brand has grown and become more commercial, a new level of access once only available to personal friends and celebrity invitees has become known – access to the Mansion. There are many great homes and beautiful estates, especially in Southern California, but only one referred to as The Mansion – The Playboy Mansion. Showing the true power of scantily clad and/or barely painted women roaming in their natural habitat (a large backyard with pool), events at Hugh Hefner’s home draw enormous interest, in spite of the decades out of style decor. And, while always a draw, the Playboy Mansion has become a motivational tool used by businesses to increase sales, an especially effective contest when one’s constituents consist of mostly men with the emotional interests of a teenager.
Azoogle Ads could tell us first hand just how effective a Party at the Mansion is for business. They hosted an invite only event at the Playboy Mansion for 25 of their top affiliates along with a handful of other special entrants this past weekend. The contest didn’t happen overnight. It became made aware almost seven months ago, giving publishers and other potential entrants plenty of time to get their games ready. Smartly, the contest compared two three month periods of time, with the winners being judged by top incremental revenue growth, as opposed to awarding the prize for top earners in a given month. And in a gesture that bespoke the caliber of the event, the trip included a stay at the W Hotel and a jam packed schedule of events for the winners. While Azoogle no doubt shouldered most of the financial burden, several of their advertisers sponsored some of the ancillary events. And what advertiser wouldn’t want to meet and be associated with such a weekend. These are some of their biggest sales people after all.
That Azoogle would host this event says much about them and how they like to treat their top performers. It might also say something about the nature of the industry. A skeptic would argue that no such competition is needed if the company has a differentiated offering. The counterargument would talk about the intangibles that come from the experience, the goodwill that such VIP treatment yields. The skeptics point of view assumes no friction costs in switching and a purely rational marketplace. While the switching costs are generally low, the true barrier to switching is in the very thing time together yields – trust and comfort. People might be tempted to make five to ten percent more but not if it comes with uncertainty, e.g., does the company have a track record on paying, will they back me up if issues arise, will they protect my intellectual property, and so on. That track record is expensive to buy. If it were just about a prize, we would see more such contests.
In thinking about those who attended, it seemed worth looking into those who didn’t attend and why. Those who did go not only won the competition, but they had businesses that could plug into the current offerings. Switching costs don’t just apply for offers, they apply equally to traffic. The good news about those in attendance, they represent some of the best marketers out there. One in particular wasn’t there. Who he is specifically isn’t important but why he couldn’t be there sheds a light on a topic that we don’t always ponder – the true challenge of gaining new, long-term partners not to mention keeping older ones. If I had to guess, were we to look at the top performers from most recent period and compare it to the top performers from the first period of the challenge, a good 30% from the former didn’t make it to the latter. That’s mainly a reflection on the changing landscape of performance marketing. In a world of primarily arbitraged traffic driving the majority of the volume, it’s hard to stay number one. People’s ability to trade media ebbs and flows, creating new entries and causing older ones to fall off.
When it comes to uncovering the new affiliate, it’s not easy for an affiliate to go from zero to meaningful traffic overnight. In the day of easy email or links off of site traffic, you could go from no one to someone pretty quickly in the eyes of a network. But now, especially in areas that are both highly competitive and require a decent amount of integration to start, that instant pop doesn’t happen. So we have a Catch-22 that goes on. The unknown super affiliate is looking for some attention and the network/advertiser is looking for some proof. And since the advertiser doesn’t know the publisher, they don’t want to start out at the highest rates, which then makes it harder for the publisher to reach the level they can. It’s another reason why the switching costs are higher than we think. If you are in a network currently and doing well, they will start out at the higher rate for the other offer. But, that history doesn’t translate when trying someone else. If, however, the affiliate can get started at the better rate, the pressure is on to perform, and as one told me, "people expect a miracle." Yet, it often takes a while to figure out new areas. Effort in equals effort out in both cases. Each side has to give. The next super affiliate is out there, but not if the focus is on plug and play. And, like anything of true value, it will mean sifting through some noise before finding the signal.
