Annoying sponsor policies for affiliates
 

I've been signing up to many new programs, and often notice some things "out of place" with their policies. Since I have to join so many programs because I run review sites, I'm going to start implementing some basic policies for all sponsors, or I simply won't spend time on their program. Why can't I have policies too?

Most of these rules are designed with my own business model in mind, because if all programs had these kind of asinine policies, my business would suffer greatly.

- Minimum payouts. I've seen some sponsors as high as $200 minimum, which is just too much of my money to have in someone else's account.

I will not do business with anyone who doesn't let me set my minimum at $100 or less.

- Fees for checks. I have no problems paying for postage, even the envelope. Most sponsors cover these costs, but hey, it's your company. I guess it's more important to give away money in contests than to take care of the people who already do business with you huh. :)

I will not pay more than $1 for a check to be sent to me.

- Epass and Wire only sponsors, I will seriously consider whether I should do business with you. I don't mind having some epass sponsors, but I'd like to keep the number as low as possible. I love epass, but they're no Deutsche Bank. Losing money isn't an option.

Other annoyances:

- Please let affiliates know when your program sells, your sites go down, someone hacked your shit, my linkcodes don't work anymore, you changed to NATS, etc etc, in the SUBJECT line of e-mails. Stuffing that shit into a newsletter is evil!

- Display in your WM areas what your checks say, regularly I have no idea who the fruck is sending me money. I'd love if your check said that clearly, or inside the envelope there was something about your sites. Only a handful of sponsors send me news about their programs, promotional info for new sites, etc. Why?

I'm also a strong believer in being PROUD of what we do, and not caring who knows it. I showed my own grandmother what I do, there's no shame in it if you're conscious and knowledgeable ie: clean front pages, warnings, etc. Anyways get a fucking private mailbox, you're in porno, admit it. If your argument is you have kids, yadda yadda, then wtf you getting your porn mail to your home for in the first place? Reduce the risk!

-endrant-

True dat!

The only people that have ever sent me ANYTHING other than cheques - is MayorsMoney and TeenRevenue. I've made both of them thousands of extra dollars in the years since they did that. Could you argue that they might of made that money without sending me anything at all? Well maybe, but unlikely.

Wake up sponsors! Yes - it might cost you a little to do something nice for your affiliates, but on the off chance you get someone like me, my loyalty is worth real dollars in your pocket, as well as mine, because unlike most affiliates, I intend to stick around.

When a new affiliate signs up, send them a welcome mailer, friggin sign it with your own hand, send me some promo stuff, a pic or two I can actually HANG UP on my wall, SUPER BONUS if you get the girl you want me to promote to sign it personally. You know? The little things are huge and knowing you appreciate MY efforts will get me to work hard for you, and your ROI will be realized many times over.

:angrysoap :angrysoap :angrysoap

playboy's program policies are silly too . they wont let me say PLAYBOY on my page , yet they let gfy advertisers profit from stolen playboy dvd's. talk about silly..

Again I can count on two hands the number of sponsors who mailed me something cool in the last 5 years. Best thing I got? A signed copy of Hustler magazine, with Jenna on the cover, signed by Jenna and Larry Flynt..

Thanks Hustler! :)

Affiliates, what annoys you?

finally, high quality thread
as aff program owner ill be reading carefull all answers here

thanks for the thread Humpy Leftnut (damn your nick makes me smile :> )

- BS minimum payouts.
- programs that don't have an epass payout option
- Companies like desirespace for example that pull their affiliate program without notifying their affiliates.
- Companies like payasyouclick.com that redesign their site and even after a year still don't realise that all old affiliate reflinks are returning 404s.
- Programs that delete inactive affiliates.
- programs that only have 468* banners (common, it's not 1998 anymore).
- programs that pull sites from their network without notifying their affiliates.
- Traffic brokers that only pay for US/UK traffic but fail to mention that.... yet still accept all other traffic you send them.
- programs that accept spyware traffic.

good post...

bump for biz....

Yes indeed. :thumbsup :thumbsup :thumbsup

Sponsors not accepting TGP gallery traffic because it just waste bandwith... can't remember where I saw it but it's for real.

Just promote my programs and forget about the rest :)

Dig the sig!

:pimp

Sponsors who brag about how they credit you for ALL console sales, but at the same time, totally bypass you in their free membership (dating) areas.

eg. If you are an ND affiliate, you better decide which product you want to promote: Fling, or the other sites.

If your surfer signs up to Fling free membership, they are spammed (with links) in the free area for the other ND sites (which you are probably also promoting) but WITHOUT YOUR AFF CODES.

If "We credit you for all exit/console sales" is such a valuable statement, how does skimming free members fit into that "high" standard?

Min payout is fine, but most important that I get the money ..lol
Also prefer higher payouts because of the fees, so with new programs I start with the minimum min and then rise it if money comes :)

I think that's because it's 2 different (kinds of) people handling it. One hand not knowing what the other is doing. I bet if Playboy corporate and legal knew what GFY was doing with AFF, they would seriously frown on it.

programs that instead of writing you and politely asking "how can we get some traffic from you" say "we are deleting your inactive account"

why would you delete an inactive account and not try and work with that webmaster to get some traffic?

Bookmarking this thread. Great post Humpty.

nice post.

see sig, if you haven't.

no annoyances that have been mentioned so far are a part of our program... but I'll be sure to keep an eye on this thread to see if any come up.

My annoyances are small, but here they are anyways:

-Sponsors who count hits differently to make stats look better. I don't give a shit about 2nd page, join page, etc. Sure, I'd like to see them, but I want to know how my traffic does on unique visitors. So many programs are fucking with the numbers to try and make ratios look good. It's just annoying more than anything.

-Sponsors who don't notify you in advance of the closing of a site. I know sites close, but give us a couple weeks to pull links and swap. Or at least redirect the old links to a new site. I hate getting an email on a Monday morning saying that a site was pulled and links need to be pulled immediately.

-This will never be added, but an option to cancel my account. Sometimes I just don't want to be in 200 sponsor's databases and receive e-mails and other stuff from them. Give me an option to close my account.