Quote Originally Posted by tigermom View Post
I want to clarify something here, if I may. What upset me the most in this thread was the attitude, especially from Lee, treating affiliates like some lowlife (I already provided the quote that infuriated me), who are there to scam the program owners from their hard earned money.
Nowhere did i say that affiliates are lowlifes trying to scam program owners, what i actually said was that most affiliates (with some exceptions) are like that based on my own experiences and not just those affiliates promoting gay sites affiliates across a wide spectrum of niches across the entire adult industry.

I don't think being selective in choosing your affiliates is a bad thing. Not at all. What's more, I don't think sponsors should babysit affiliates and provide their every whim. I see programs that offer affiliates everything, from domain names to hosting, from learning tools to FHG's, movies, free content, everything! It's my opinion that this is too much and is a bad thing for all of us that are serious about making it in this biz for the long term. If there are people that need to be spoonfed in order to bring you sales, then by all means, weed them out. They are a waste not only of your time, but of mine as well, because all they do is oversaturate the market.
You seem to be missing the point that, whether you like it or not, 99% of affiliates in the industry today want just what you posted above. These are the affiliates that both Brian and myself are talking about, yes, there are a few affiliates as has been shown in this thread that do work hard, that dont demand a lot, that do add to a programs overall profitability and these are the ones that every program owner respects and wants to build bigger and better business relationships with.

But those that send traffic but not enough, I think you should contact them and discuss things and see where they are, what their plans are. See if they are going for long term traffic and what their goals are in regards to your program.
Therein lays another problem, speaking from experience, when i have actively approached affiliates from the two programs i have owned, and the numerous programs i have worked with, 99.99% of those very same affiliates come back and tell you they dont need help, and that if you contact them again, they will stop promoting you. In my mind, these are affiliates who think they know everything there is to know about everything and are in essence, worthless to the continual success to a program, doing nothing but costing the program money hand over fist whilst making perhaps 1 or 2 sales a year.

I think that if a program owner chooses to work with affiliates, then show those affiliates some minimal respect and don't go on making such insulting generalizations in boards that your affiliates frequent... If you think they are such a pain, don't start an affiliation program. Market your own sites and let us do business with other programs instead.
Again, as this thread has proven, that isnt the way the 'real world' works. Yes affiliates are a pain (for the most part), yes affiliates are demanding above and beyond what they should be (for the most part), and yes some affiliates cost a program much more than they make the program.

Whether you start an affiliate program or not, there are always going to be issues with affiliates and potential affiliates, those that want to promote your sites and bitch when you dont let them, even though you dont have a program, those who join your program and bitch that you arent giving them enough, those that join a program, send 100 hits in a month and expect to convert at 1:10, the list goes on and on and on.

You cant please everyone all of the time unfortunately, it all goes back t what was mentioned earlier in this thread, over the last 5+ years affiliates have been pandered to so much that they expect their demands to be met without hesitation on the part of the program owners, this has to change otherwise we [the industry] have no chances at longevity.

There are always exceptions to the rule and this thread shows that those of us posting on GWW make up a good portion of those exceptions. On the other hand, go to any other industry board and honestly tell me you cant find at least 10-20 posters bitching about programs, asking programs for more, more, more, more and who make more than 5 sales a month for those same programs they are bitching about and asking more from.

We [program owners] have pandered to the affiliates we have so much that we've pretty much fucked ourselves in the process because, now we have offered our #1 affiliate free content, everyone wants it, now we have offered our #1 affiliate 60% instead of 50%, everyone wants it, and that just cant continue to be the way affiliate programs are ran, it doesnt help the program owners, and it certainly doesnt help the programs affiliates.

Regards,

Lee