What you would you do?

[terry]

Imagine you are running an affiliate program, with oh lets say 1 site.

You wake up one morning and say to youself, ok today I need to get more traffic and sales to my site. What are my options.

Then you think for a second and these 2 options come to mind:

Option A: contact all webmasters and ask a few simple questions in an attempt to make it through these tough times.

Option B: deactivate all inactive and nonperforming affiliates. (yes this could be affiliates that have links up to your site or ones that have stopped promoting you for whatever reason, or simply need more content and just never got around to asking for it - and yes they could be sending traffic but just never made a sale. (well im guessing that last part from the word "nonperforming" that is mentioned above.)

Which option would you pick?

[Cleo]

I've never understood how dropping underperforming affiliates would improve a site's traffic or help in anyway at all. I know personally I'll kind of forget about a site but then at a later date be trying to find something to promote and decide to give a site a try again for what ever reason.

To improve traffic I would come out with fresh promo tools like banners, content, maybe a fresh tour.

[Pagan]

I would go with A. Reach out and let them know you are active and looking for input. Going with B could seriously backfire. Traffic and buying habits are not what we are used to, and penalizing non-performing affiliates just makes it worse. If they are sending traffic, eventually they will have sales unless they are just lousy.

How's your program doing overall? Spotty sales? How current are your promo tools? Is it anything you would click on? What do you offer that other programs don't? What can you offer?

[LD]

I'm still learning the ropes, but I'm not seeing how "B" would get more traffic and/or sales...(?)

[nate]

LeRoy with DTI chose "A" when I wasn't sending much traffic their way because I was busy doing everything else. He hooked me up with some content which I used and I've made at least one tiny sale in the last week because of it.

Props to LeRoy.

I'm still learning the ropes, but I'm not seeing how "B" would get more traffic and/or sales...(?)

It makes about as much sense as the president of the US buying GM with our tax dollars then shutting down thousands of dealerships. Maybe you need a law degree from Harvard to see how screwing people over is really the best course of action.

[whitey]

Interesting that you post that today.

I had been away from the business for several years and have recently returned to it - about 6 months ago.

Last week, I started to promote a particular site beginning with a blog post and had created a couple of galleries to link through a couple of fake tgps in my trafffic network. As soon as I started sending traffic, I got a deleted account notice from ccbill for that affiliate account.

I contacted the webmaster and their VP of Marketing replied, basically saying they are cleaning up affiliates that had not made sales in the past year. As of right now, the situation is unresolved. I am, however, not happy because I just spent half a day last week working on tools to promote the site.

While I believe the situation is largely coincidental, I still do not understand the logic, particularly for CCBill programs.

1. It really costs them nothing to retain the affiliates.

2. The downside if they are using sales as a number is that they are basically stealing traffic subsequent to the deletions of all affiliates that have links up to them.

3. People promoting sites through CCBill use man of those sites for a variety of reasons (including fill in links) and many of them are not our primary sponsors. As secondary sponsors, their traffic is normally less and the webmaster is hoping to pick up a sale now and then. Regardless, the links are up and deleting the accounts is fundamentally a method of stealing traffic.

4. You may just delete someone that has just put in a bit of work for your program, pissing them off.

Ultimately, this is a business. Since it costs them nothing to keep the affiliate account open, there is no good business reason to delete an affiliate account, unless of course one simply wants to take the traffic. Even if affiliates are notified, changing links in multiple scripts simply is something that gets added to the to do list.

I would also say that should a program only want affiliates that are going to promote their site as a primary site, the program should...

1. Opt out of CCBill affiliate management system and go to cascading processing using a NATs style system. This provides the webmaster dedicating time to the site more opportunities to make a sale, more information, and an easier interface. If they expect to be a primary sponsor, they should consequently make the investment necessary to be perceived as a primary sponsor.

2. Make their program invitation only.

Realistically, in todays environment, there are very few programs that are viable enough and/or arrogant enough to take that strategy. There is just too much attrition and fluidity in the affiliate marketing world today.

BTW, I have not identified the program because I am exchanging emails with them right now and do not wish to start unecessary drama other than pointing out how illogical the strategy deployed was.

[JustRobert]

If I heard of a sponsor that chose option "B" I would never give them a try.

Contact those that actually do produce sales and offer them more/better promo content.

[tickler]

Option "A" for sure.

Option "B" is just going to get a lot of people pissed off, and your program black-balled all over the WM boards.

[Toby]

I've had two sponsors choose Option B and deactivate my account. This was when I was still relearning the ropes and building traffic. Now that I've grown my network and traffic considerably, they're not getting any of that traffic. Although I don't think either of them are still online anyway.

[Tanker]

Option A

Of course you would no remove inactive affiliates it serves no purpose at all except making you look bad at some point

[nate]

True story:

I quit the biz in 2001-2002, and when I came back in febuary, most of my affiliate accounts were still active. Gammacash even still owes me $23 from 8 years ago, and they let me know via email every month. On the other hand, some of the other programs no longer exist.

[bDok]

I wish you would have expanded on your thoughts as to why option B would help things. It just doesn't make sense. I have some programs out in my system that I just send a couple hits to a day and recently in the same day made two sales to the same site from that sponsor. Now considering the fact that with this program I haven't reached the minimum they pretty much can gain interest on that couple bucks for awhile.

I mean you figure if you have couple hundred webmasters in that boat. If you are just making even 2% on that money you are going to come with a couple extra sheckles.

imho - i'd take a nice month of a car payment(s) for having a couple extra webmasters around making the sales here and there and having months to hold on to their money before I gotta pay it out.

[cd34]

I think Terry is trying to allude to the fact that a sponsor of his did B, and he was questioning the logic behind it.

I don't think a sponsor should ever do B, but, I have seen it done many times.

[Adult Web Host]

Yeah that really don't make too much sense to pick B.

Afterall, if someone stopped buying as much stuff from us we wouldn't drop them. Why piss off people? The webmaster community communicates really well so I don't see how that would help anything plus keeping them in the database don't really cost much of anything so I just think that's stupid.

[Ms Naughty]

I've had several sponsors do this, the most recent being the WithMarcello program, which pissed me off as I then had to go and remove links.

I have affiliate accounts with hundreds of sponsors. A lot of them I haven't managed to make sales for or I never got around to promoting them (I have so many unfinished projects). It doesn't hurt anyone to have an affiliate listed. Everything is automated. Why cut off a source of potential traffic in the future?

[terry]

Bingo.. I got an email from a sponsor who has chosen option B. And like Cleo, I sometimes move on with the intent on coming back and doing whatever if they have new content or whatever the case may be.

But in this particular case I replied, as I couldnt understand why they would do this. The reply I recieved totally shocked me, enough to bitch about it here... thinking maybe Im the dumbass.. but you all agree, so maybe we're all dumbasses? haha

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I'll be sure to send the link to this thread to them.

[NY Jester]

Ive heard of two sponsors who chose option B this year (well within 12 months) Makes zero sense really

[Allfetish]

This business is filled with scum (there are good people too, of course) and followers. I bet in 90% of cases where option B is chosen the real reason for it is basically "everyone else is doing it."

Add to this the fact that most affiliate managers don't really understand the industry well. At least not from our perspective. Instead many of them are just corporate "yes men" who often are following the demands of some idiot who pays them their secure monthly salary. They are mainly sales guys who's entire world revolves around creating the perception that they are doing the things which makes the boss happy. Sure there are many good affiliate managers out there, but sadly the above describes the typical situation very well.

Perhaps this is a bit harsh but I think many of you will agree with me in silence...

[hashbury]

Originally Posted by Allfetish

This business is filled with scum (there are good people too, of course) and followers. I bet in 90% of cases where option B is chosen the real reason for it is basically "everyone else is doing it."

Add to this the fact that most affiliate managers don't really understand the industry well. At least not from our perspective. Instead many of them are just corporate "yes men" who often are following the demands of some idiot who pays them their secure monthly salary. They are mainly sales guys who's entire world revolves around creating the perception that they are doing the things which makes the boss happy. Sure there are many good affiliate managers out there, but sadly the above describes the typical situation very well.

Perhaps this is a bit harsh but I think many of you will agree with me in silence...

You are so right. I dont think this biz is filled with scum, just ignorance.
It seems most affiliate managers (not all) have never even been an affiliate before. What kind of sense does this make. A company is going to put someone in charge of their affiliates, who has no idea what it takes to be an affiliate.
But then, you also have the affiliate managers who have to do what the boss says, even if they know its a bad descision.

[flip.green]

I love hypotheticals but i would honestly like to know the sponsor that did it to ya. I hate to hate randomly better to focus it on the cocksuckers actually at the root of the problem.

To sum up my opine, B sucks for numerous reasons

1: It's unethical
2: It's annoying
3: It makes people want to punch you in the face.

Oh shit i have said to0 much . . .

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by nate

True story:

I quit the biz in 2001-2002, and when I came back in febuary, most of my affiliate accounts were still active. Gammacash even still owes me $23 from 8 years ago, and they let me know via email every month. On the other hand, some of the other programs no longer exist.

That's funny - they still owe me $23.00, too. I'm still active - they just haven't converted for shit for two years.

Option B would be a very bad idea - most of us will still be here when the economy recovers. Beats getting a real job!

[B O B]

neither

neither would affect my traffic