I thought it was a great idea when they introduced it and hope they keep it in place. I actually wish they would add an additional measure like a second screen requiring the user to answer a secret question that randomly rotates between 10 possible questions.
OK - I am just kidding. I think it should go too (and I am not even an affiliate).
To me, these "enhancements" are of no use. As to CAPTCHA, since it's an image, it will not display if you have images disabled which I do from time to time when I'm using a dialup connection.
Scott, you have a great suggestion about putting abusers (or what Linkshare considers abusers) behind a CAPTCHA request. There are legitimate reasons why some affiliates have a need to automate the process of downloading stats.
Linkshare recently implemented a form for customer support, this after months of just ignoring emails to [email protected] I'm looking forward to hearing whether this will resolve whatever problems they are having. No reports yet on ABestWeb.
Linkshare should be focusing more effort on getting merchants to pay on time. It's currently at an unacceptable level for too many merchants. And Linkshare needs to keep their Merchant Payment History current as well as accurately stating when affiliate payments are actually made. Too often, it's actually days (or even a full week as was the case last month) after the date listed.
Linkshare is living in the Stone Age with their very clumsy reporting.
AffTrack by RevTrends was sued and implemented a manual workaround for Linkshare affiliates after the implementation of the CAPTCHA CHECK which allows the upload of reports downloaded by the affiliate from it's Linkshare account into AffTrack.
Linkshare reacted swiftly and took legal action once again, prohibiting AffTrack to even do that (= have the data) which Linkshare claims to own.
I believe that the Affiliate owns that data too and I was utterly disgusted about Linkshare's legal action against AffTrack. I had an AffTrack account at the time and they worked hard to integrate more and more programs into their service.
At the moment when we were not able anymore to get all relevant data consolidated via AffTrack, did the fee for the service not outweigh its benefits anymore and we cancelled it.
I am arguing for ages that access to statistics and reports is vital. This becomes more true as the industry evolves and becomes more professional and larger.
I unified reporting standard is something I can dream about until I die without becoming a reality, but at least enable access to the existing information via automated fashion. I am not even picky about the technology used, Web services, no problem, feed via ftp or http, no problem, XML, CSV, pipe, tilde, tab delimited fine, gzip compressed afterwards, if you have to.
What I am not okay with is the need to either waste a lot of precious time on manually making sense of the data via manual downloads, re-entering numbers etc. Time is a commodity non of us affiliates has to spare. It is sometimes more efficient to become a hacker and obtain access to the data, my data, via brute force instead.
I don't know about you, but I don't have any children slave workers doing the manual job for me in a cost effective manner and I also do not intend to consider this as an option.
Here is my rant. But you can see that I also offer suggestions and not just scream and yell about it.
I scream and yell not just at Linkshare, but also other old networks. I know they started listening recently which might have to do with the emerging thread of new and foreign networks that show that it helps to listen to hand that does feed the hand of the hand that feeds you.
Cheers! Carsten
Talking About Affiliate Network User Interfaces...
Sam Harrelson over at CostPerNews.com' href='http://CostPerNews.com">CostPerNews.com'>http://CostPerNews.com">CostPerNews.com was looking for the best sign-up form and process of affiliate networks and praised the one from Commission Junction and at a later post the one from ShareASale as well. This post is somewhat related......
It was said there is a circulation of love in this world, the only thing can be seen is the beginning but no ending. Someone wants to make a start whereas someone wants to finish. It is all like that.
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I couldn't muster a more interesting headline for this story, rising only to the level of excitment that Linkshare's most recent changes instills in me.
Interface Alerts, Private Offer Management, Merchant Status Screen Updates? yawn You can read more about it here and here (exhibiting similiar excitement levels), or see all the recent affiliate community's writing about Linkshare here.
But maybe there's a silver lining here. Is this is a sign that the LS product team has thawed out of their Pauly-Shore-Encino-man-like frozen state? Back to life after an eternity?
My criticism of Linkshare runs long, with roots back to my arch-enemy Be Free days. Time heals all wounds, and I'm not only encouraged by this, but also by a conversation I had with Linkshare's Adam Weiss at Affiliate Summit in Last Vegas last week. His excitement for Linkshare was very apparent, and that means a lot to me.
BUT...I've got one suggestion for the Linkshare development team, and it's nothing new:
DROP THE CAPTCHA CHECK (wikipedia link, including nofollow)
I fully recognize that you may have problems with certain parties scraping the interface for stats and other info. If it's really a problem, flag them and put their logins behind the captcha check. Don't bother your regular affiliates with this.
Why do companies do this? it's to thwart spiders and automated processes from scraping valuable data. While unconfirmed, I believe this was put in place years ago to stymie AffTrack, an affiliate statistics aggregator, from grabbing data on behalf of affiliates. It's time to let it go.
What's the big deal? It's merely an annoyance. For me, it's enough of an annoyance that it keeps me from dropping by to check on things. That prevents me from seeing those nice alerts, private offers, and merchant status messages. Out of sight, out of mind.
Drop the CAPTCHA and I guarantee that your affiliate activity will increase.
I will view that and only that improvement as a true sign that Linkshare cares about their users.
Do you agree? Comment here. Maybe they're listening.