You have a good point and I also hope not all programs do too, and I dont think all will. There will always be programs open to everyone because you just don't know who will be the next big player. Technology changes and so will the players and it will be best to keep all options open.

What affiliate signups? There are still affiliates out there somewhere?

Yeah it's a vicious cycle, I understand why some program owners feel the need of going invite only because of the current state of affairs but in the long this will ultimately kill the affiliates and as a result it will kill the paysites too.

Nothing wrong with manually approving your affiliates, it actually means you care, you spend precious time doing the approval because you care and you want to succeed. Over doing it though is a problem it's one thing asking for verification that the person who signed up is really an active webmaster and a completely other thing when you start asking for screenshots of stats and payments from other programs...

:thumbsup:thumbsup I hate manual approve! Here is my reasoning. If I'm signing up to your program it's cause I found promo of your site and I thought it was hot. When I sign up I want to get promo right then and throw up links/promo. I don't want to wait 24 hours or ESP till Monday. That makes me think you make your paying members wait 24 hours or till Monday for support. If you can't reply to a email in 8 hours (people have to sleep) then you will have upset members.

Like others said just watch the signups from new affiliates like a hawk and refund or verify weird joins. I've also emailed affiliates and asked them where they are sending traffic from if the url isn't adult or they are sending weird traffic. It's easier to kill a fraud affiliate than to have to verify and make every potential affiliate wait.

I don't care about affiliates that don't send traffic after they join cause being in the biz for 12+ years I know there are tons of reasons why they haven't sent traffic.

That said I will sign up to certain programs where I have to be approved IF I know the program well and know they will OK me in a timely manner. Back in the day when everyone used ICQ I'd hit up the program on ICQ to let them know I joined to speed up the approval time.

It's not about the extra checking.. It is about the delay.

Anyway, if I sign up to a program which needs manual approval, than I contact them right away, this way the approval is fast and I also discuss other things, like reviewing the sites, etc..

So in the end I say: no biggie if there's manual approval until there's someone who can be contacted quickly during EU/US office hours.. But still, I believe [assuming there's very little risk in taking traffic from non-verified source for a short time] that auto-approval is the winner, with restricted operation until account becomes fully verified [can access link codes and basic promo content, can not access payment info for example]

There are no programs around here gathering information just to gather it. If you had any idea what it takes to even get a single site approved for billing you would begin to understand how idiotic it would be to burn your affiliates like this.

You should really stop chiming in on affiliate matters, you are not an affiliate and haven't been for years. The only thing unethical here is you trolling every single business thread on this forum pretending that you are involved as a webmaster, giving advice, when you admittedly haven't been doing so for a long time. This makes all your advice and tips moot and worthless. stick to your day job while the people who actually make money in this business handle the advice instead.

Thank you all so much for your priceless feedback, suggestions, ideas and tips. We are very grateful for all those who have participated :)

By no means am I suggesting this thread is done. I'm currently subscribed to it and will continue to eagerly await more comments that might come in.

Gracias to all and GFY :thumbsup :thumbsup :thumbsup

At Adult Empire Cash our sign-up process is not automated, as we prefer to work directly with our partners. This way we get a better idea of what the affiliate is looking for so that we can help determine the best ways to maximize traffic and conversions. We look at the website, the network, etc. and try to find the best way to help that affiliate promote. I answer all new leads as soon as I can - usually within 1 day, if not hours.

I wont approve sites that offer or support piracy, period. I also won't typically approve accounts if you dont have an active source of traffic up and running.

On a similar note: We've done whitelabel stores (and now, responsive VOD Theatres) for a long time. Our old system was very similar to the ones you see now where anybody can just fill out a form, upload a few pictures and they end up with a shitty-looking generic whitelabel. (I think of this as a "set it and forget it" mentality, which is great if you dont want to make money ;) )

Now we take the time to actually vet all potential affiliates. Our developers personally build the Stores/VOD Theatres specifically for the new partner site, so typically we want to see a high volume of traffic/Alexa rank/Google pagerank from a non-whitelabel source before building a store for a new partner, but there are always exceptions...

Its always good connecting with the affiliates and learning what they need. :thumbsup