Simon Peat - 3 Mobile - Sign up and Win a Phone

Posted on 04 December 2007
Tags: 3 Mobile, Affiliate Marketing, buy.at

Simon Peat runs the 3 Mobile Affiliate Program both internally and through buy.at and is the acting head of E Commerce. 3 took the slightly controversial decision in May to take the bulk of their affiliate program in house. I think affiliate managers who are considering doing this can learn a lot from Simon.

Simon is also a good chap, I would tell you a story about one very messy day at Ascot, but that is probably for another time, I can tell you it involved Steve Mclaren, a pink hat and way too much to drink.

First off can you take us through your career in affiliate marketing? What was your first job and how did you get into it?
I only started this year! I’ve been with 3 pretty much since launch in early 2003. I’d been working in the indirect channel looking after Independent Phone Shops. At the end of last year this channel was shrunk so I moved over to E Commerce as there was an opportunity to develop the affiliate channel. We saw affiliates as having a similar role to play as phone retailers, and felt we could build up similar relationships with them and work together to grow our businesses.

In the relatively short time you have been involved in affiliate marketing how have you seen things change?
We obviously took a big step in late March to set up the Direct Programme. That’s been the biggest change, and I think the industry took quite an interest in the move.

Three seem to be going from strength to strength with some great products hitting the market this year, has this been a big challenge to manage? What are the issues with telling affiliates about launches and how do you manage this?
It’s been a massive challenge as we were obviously building our programme at the same time, however it’s made easier in that many of our leading affiliates are on the ball with the phone industry and often ask me about products before we’ve even launched them. We have recently been doing some work on improving our communications to affiliates and making it a weekly thing. It’s easier to communicate with our direct affiliates obviously, which is the whole reason we went down that route.

how is affiliate marketing viewed in the company? How high is it on the radar? and how do you see that changing in the future?
It’s a major part of one of the leading channels in the company. I’ve had a lot of interest from people within 3 I’d never previously spoken to, and word spreads pretty fast in this place!

How do you see affiliate marketing changing over the coming years and how do you think that will that affect Three Mobile?
I think there was a lot of interest in our decision to break away from the traditional set up of having an affiliate network run things for you and some merchants might be looking at us and wondering if they could do the same. I’ve also had affiliate networks speak to me about different ways they can do things as an alternative offering to merchants. I’m certain there is much more to come from the 3 affiliate programme yet.
You took bulk of your affiliate campaign in house and away from the network this year? can you talk about the reasoning behind that? Would you recommend it to other merchants? what learning’s have you taken from the experience? Do you think this will start a trend with merchants?
All of the team involved in the E Commerce side originally came from the indirect team, so we’d seen the model of Phone shops working directly with us or working through Phone Distributors. We looked at the affiliate channel and felt that we could replicate this. After all, one of my main responsibilities was to come out and meet you guys and try and build relationships. The only thing we lacked was the technical expertise to track sales properly - once we had this in place from Summit it was an easy decision to make. With all due respect to the affiliate networks, we were paying a substantial amount of money for effectively a tracking solution - we can’t expect them to give expert advice on which phone or tariff will sell well, but you can get that directly from me, or from Kerry who has now come on board. I think whether a merchant wants to go down the same route would depend on how much energy they would want to put into the programme.
As for learnings, it became pretty clear who was with us and who was not when we made the move - we had a few affiliates effectively end successful campaigns after the move - fortunately most saw the business sense in what we were doing, and I don’t think those who have been involved in the programme or in our incentives have complained either.

What tips would you give other merchant side affiliate managers for running a successful campaign?
Listen to the affiliates first and foremost. They can be your eyes and ears on the online marketplace, so contact with them should be regular. Similarly, give them as much information as possible and guide them to make their sites more effective.

The affiliate mobile marketing is highly competitive, what do you do to ensure affiliates choose you over other programs?
We make sure our tracking works - I think that is the number one thing for all affiliates. We have also just put in place some improvements which will make our validation process much slicker. We try to keep our commissions competitive - this isn’t always possible, but we try to reward those who bring us good value business. We are also trying to improve our communications and get them more regularly out to the affiliate base. Ultimately, we want our programme to be recognised as the best in the affiliate world and I very much believe we can do that.