(potentially?) controversial topic - Sponsors vs Affiliates

[marcjacob]

No, i think pretty much all affiliates are lazy and over-paid. Granted there are some exceptions to that.

You only have to look around and see what affiliates are asking for these days to realize that they have become lazy, free content, free hosting, FHGs, hosted blogs, hosted TGPs, hosted free sites, hosted banners, console free tours, free submission service, $1 trials, free trials, cascading billing, instant payouts, epassporte payouts, the list goes on.

There are even programs now where all you have to do is sign up to the program and they do ALL the work for you, they build you galleries or free sites and even submit them to the TGPs or link lists you ask them to LOL

What happened to sending traffic to a sponsors tour, waiting 15-30 days and getting a check in the mail?

Regards,

Lee

if there bringing in sales why shouldnt they ask more of you? if other programs have hosted this and that and different payout methods, surely you need to, if your going to attract good webmasters.

as an affiliate, im going to go with a program that offers me the tools i need to do well.

[Squirt]

if there bringing in sales why shouldnt they ask more of you? if other programs have hosted this and that and different payout methods, surely you need to, if your going to attract good webmasters.

as an affiliate, im going to go with a program that offers me the tools i need to do well.

An affiliate that will be successful is one with access to traffic that converts and is supplied promo content by a sponsor that has a product people want. Anything else is icing and not mandatory for an affiliate to make sales.

An affiliate that demands everything under the sun just to make a sale is just as bad as the sponsor who wants to pay affiliates on a sliding scale IMO

Man I'm glad I've never had problems with affiliates so far *knock on wood*

[Squirt]

double post :bunny:

[Lee]

if other programs have hosted this and that and different payout methods, surely you need to, if your going to attract good webmasters.

Marc,

Thats just it, just because some other sponsor offers hosted this and that, and $125 PPS for a $2.95 trial, that doesnt mean everyone else has to.

Infact, there are several very large programs that are going to be closing to public affiliate signups in the next few weeks and going strictly invite only.

Every other affiliate program isnt invite only, so why do they have to be that way? Id venture a guess its because they know that 5% of their affiliates make up 95% of the sales.

That 95% of affiliates that are making up 5% of their sales are actually costing them money as a program.

Regards,

Lee

[marcjacob]

No i dont think they have to be. But if you offered a sliding scale like this and others didnt, but had sites that still convert well, why would an affiliate promote you over the other? My point is that programs need to remain competetive.

[Lee]

No i dont think they have to be. But if you offered a sliding scale like this and others didnt, but had sites that still convert well, why would an affiliate promote you over the other? My point is that programs need to remain competetive.

Marc,

As with Squirt, you are debating a completely different topic to the one that is being discussed.

We know programs must remain competitive but, at what point does offering affiliates $125 per sale become a waste of money?

As a program owner, i can think of a lot more things i could do with $125 than paying it to an affiliate for a $2.95 trial that would probably end up not recurring anyway.

The industries program owners over the last 5+ years have slowly contributed to the problems that are rife in the industry today because they have wanted to remain competitive, they have offered affiliates every type of hosted promo tool under the sun, for free, they have offered affiliates payouts upwards of $150, for a single sale, they have offered affiliates everything they have asked for, because 'competitiveness' has turned in to 'pandering' to the affiliate.

You wouldnt walk in to Currys and ask the salesman to give you a 52" plasma TV for sending him a customer ordering a $30 MP3 player would you? Because that is exactly what many affiliates are asking of their program owners.

Regards,

Lee

[Squirt]

Marc,

As with Squirt, you are debating a completely different topic to the one that is being discussed.

Lee you keep CHANGING the topic on most every other post you make AND you keep contradicting yourself. The only thing you're consistant about in this whole thread is that you think affiliates are mostly lazy, over paid, and you want a sliding payscale for affiliates. We got it.

[Lee]

Lee you keep CHANGING the topic on most every other post you make AND you keep contradicting yourself. The only thing you're consistant about in this whole thread is that you think affiliates are mostly lazy, over paid, and you want a sliding payscale for affiliates. We got it.

Squirt,

Thats just it, it isnt ME that is changing the topic being discussed.

Bottom line, as with Brian it would seem, affiliates are getting paid more than they are worth to a program, they are, more often than not, to demanding, by pandering to their needs, programs are wasting money (you even agreed with this yourself).

I dont see where i am changing the topic at all, everything i have posted thus far has been the same, just in response to different points raised by others participating in this thread.

Regards,

Lee

[Becky]

After reading all these posts, I'm not sure what is really being debated LOL I must be retarded.

[marcjacob]

Lee i 100% agree with you that affiliates that make silly demands are idiots and and a waste of money - unless - they make you alot of sales. If thats the case, then you need to look after them or risk loosing all that revenue.

What im saying is that the bar has been raised with regular affiliates, and yes, what we want has got bigger than before. Thats because we know that if you wont provide the tools we want, someone else will. Thats not being over paid and lazy, its making the best for my business.

I cant believe that you think 50% is over paid. Without us you dont have a program and you dont make the sales. If you could make as many sales as your affiliates do without them, why dont you?

You run the program because its a good money maker and you need us as much as we need you. Stop being greedy. If you wants the sales we generate then you have to pay, simple as that.

[Becky]

Ok, as I see it, now that I've had time to digest what I've read, here is what I think.

95% of sales from affiliates usually do come from 5% of the total affiliates sending traffic. Those 5% most of the time don't require anything further than decent promo materials (banners mostly) and sites that convert and retain customers. If you can provide this to them, the partnership will be profitable to all involved, and those affiliates will usually be loyal to you.

On the flip side of that, you have newer affiliates that want to make a ton of money without spending any money and as little effort as possible. These are the affiliates that demand all sorts of things from sponsors, free content, free hosting, FHGs, FHSs, etc. These same affiliates will bitch about conversions, and leave instantly the moment they think conversions are a problem, even if the problem resides with their traffic quality and not with the site they are promoting. No loyalty, no working relationships, nothing. Spending all that time to provide these affiliates with what they ask has achieved nearly nothing.

So, how do you find the former affiliate while helping the latter become better? What is the one thing that needs to be set in stone (payouts, tools, sites, content, etc.) to keep affiliates sending traffic to you? If you concentrate on providing a great product that is profitable for you and the affiliate, how do you then concentrate on providing affiliates everything they need to do their job? Where is the balance? Where does the line get drawn?

If you can find this balance, you are in a good place indeed

[marcjacob]

Becky is it really that much to ask? A few fhgs, some banners of different sizes? Most serious programs are providing this anyway. Why does asking for it make me a bad webmaster or a "lazy overpaid" webmaster?

Ive asked programs for content before now, most just give me access to the site. They give me content and i make sales with that content. Its a good partnership. Whats wrong with that?

[tigermom]

Ok, I admit I only skimmed through from page 3-4 of this thread. It's late here and this thread managed to piss me off.

To quote Lee: "No, i think pretty much all affiliates are lazy and over-paid." Well, thank you, dear, that's very nice of you to say. I guess it's nice to know that a sponsor I promote thinks that way about me. Same for Corbin Fisher, whom I have joined no more than two weeks ago, right? Brian, kindly tell me why in all our emails between us you never mentioned the fact that you're about to pull the rug from under the work I do? And no, I am probably not sending CF bundles of traffic, so I'm pretty sure I'll be among the cut off 1300 webmasters. If that's the case, why take on new affiliates?

You think my time is worthless or what? I do some RSS feed blogs, but hey, those take time to build too, believe it or not, and mostly to promote. I also do "quality" blogs with my own posts. Know what, why do I even have to apologize to you guys for the way I am promoting your sites or creating traffic? I work hard, ok? my hour is as good as your hour, even if you don't seem to think so. I worked my ass off for over a year now, in adult, to get to the point where I send 5000 clicks a day to sponsors. Guess what, many of those sponsors convert like shit, wasting away my efforts. Maybe they shave, maybe they don't, I don't know. All I know is that when I work in mainstream, I make a whole lot more of money from a similar amount of traffic.

You only see this from your point of view as a program owner, obviously. Try looking it from our side, see how much time and effort is put into this by us. And screw those FHG's and banners and stuff. I never ever asked a sponsor for any of those. All I'm looking for is an honest sponsor with a good product, that actually converts. A sponsor that won't cheat me, won't shave, won't have leaks in his tour. Doesn't sound like much, I know, but not that easy to find, believe it or not.

What can I say, I'm glad I found out about the plans at Corbin Fisher now, before I put up too many links or invested too many hours of work into promoting your sites. I apologize for being just a humble affiliate, a work from home mom who doesn't attend conventions and conferences and is out of the social loop. I just focus on promoting sites honestly and fairly, and with a lot of hard work, see. I just expected a sponsor to be fair enough as to not take on new affiliates without telling them they're about to be kicked out of the program very soon. :thumbsdown:

I have yet to meet an affiliate who makes a bundle of cash without working very hard at it. Are there lazy affiliates/webmasters out there? sure, but they don't end up making much money. Go browse some boards where you have fewer sponsors and more affiliates and you'll see how much affiliates actually make, and how hard it is to make enough money per hour in this biz as an affiliate. I don't usually post harshly, but the tone used by some sponsors in this thread is downright insulting.