jayeff

If a sponsor offers, to all their affiliates, several membership options such as with/without trials, it is up to their affiliates to decide which is appropriate to their traffic and presentation. This is not an equivalent situation, because in the majority of cases, other affiliates are not given the option of a low price.

I agree there probably isn't much crossover traffic, but to the extent there is, no way am I going to sell a $30 membership to anyone who knows about TBP, checks there and finds it at $20. And if I already made a sale and the discounted price is seen later, I can wave goodbye to that surfer.

It is one thing for sponsors to reward high-selling affiliates with higher payouts, but it is another to change the pricing so that we are not competing on level terms. Either keep a single price for everyone or make the discounted prices available to everyone. We are not running retail stores (where in any case special prices are usually for limited periods or volumes) and permanent discounts of 30%, 50%, etc really puts both the sponsors and their other affiliates in a very bad light.

JJ: I'll leave this in case anyone else thinks along your original lines, but I saw your response after I posted it.