How long do you keep them?

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Originally Posted by mickey

but it sounds very much like we have to agree to disagree on this , if we can agree on that even..

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Haha absolutely, on that we can definately agree :)

Incidently, something that wasnt brought up which i actually thought would have been...

What about programs that mention in their TOS affiliates MUST convert at a certain level in order to get paid a certain amount?

This is an ancient way of doing things but some of the newer programs, in addition to some of the programs now offering PPC payouts, do require you to convert at 1:400/1:600 or less to make PPS/Revshare/PPC if you dont convert at those levels, they totally swap your payout option.

Regards,

Lee

When I have an agreement with a sponsor that says rev-share for the life of the client I expect to get paid for each and every sale for as long as the sponsor is collecting their share from the eternal rebiller. That is the "contract" for THAT sale not dependent on Future sales or Future traffic levels. If you were to put something in the TOS to say rev-share will only be paid to active webmasters then that is a different story altogether.

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Originally Posted by Lee

But a typical conversation with an affiliate to get raised payouts (which is what this scenario is) goes like this....

Affiliate: I want higher payouts.

Program: Why?

Affiliate: Because i can send you a lot of traffic.

Program: Traffic i have, i want new sales.

Affiliate: Then i can send you a lot of sales.

Program: Okay then lets raise your payouts.

The second new sales stop coming in, the payout should be lowered, because the affiliate is no longer holding up their end of the deal.

Regards,

Lee

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Lee I'm really sorry to do this but I have to tell you the other side of the conversation.

Affiliate: I want higher payouts.

Program: Why?

Affiliate: Because I can double my traffic to you.

Program: Traffic i have, i want new sales.

Affiliate: I don't guarantee sales. I can double my traffic to you and you should do double your sales. If you don't do more sales maybe you need to re-evaluate your conversion funnel or why you are not converting because it's not my problem after they leave my web site it's your job to convert the sale and my job to send you the traffic to sell to.

Program: Okay then go pound sand because now the 20% shave off the top is now 40%.

Thanks for reading,

BIGBOB

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Originally Posted by BIGBOB

If you don't do more sales maybe you need to re-evaluate your conversion funnel or why you are not converting because it's not my problem after they leave my web site it's your job to convert the sale and my job to send you the traffic to sell to.

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An excellent point, and actually i must disagree with you.

If you are sending traffic to a site and it isnt converting, it IS your problem, not mine as a program owner. Because YOU are wasting traffic.

What that means is that YOU as an affiliate are doing something wrong, you either arent pre-selling the surfer to a specific site, are mis-representing the site you are sending them to, or are basically sending the surfer somewhere they just plain dont want to go.

9 times out of 10 when i have been asked 'why isnt my traffic converting' by an affiliate, its because of something THEY are doing wrong, a wrong link code (the most recent reason i had), sending traffic via blind links, sending twink traffic to a bear site (yes this happens more than you would think) or some other equally problematic issue.

Affiliates automatically assume that if a site doesnt convert, the program owner is doing something wrong, experience has taught me differently, if your traffic isnt converting, its because you arent sending the traffic to a site that they are interested in, i mentioned last week (i think) the most i send to any paysite in terms of traffic is 1000 hits before re-evaluating the site, if i have sent 1000 hits and not made a sale, my traffic goes somewhere else... I would assume that my affiliates to do the same thing, its common business sense, isnt it?

More traffic doesnt equal more sales, thats a huge misconception. If that were true id sign up for a PPS program and send them millions of hits of 404, CJ, TGP and blind linked traffic to get all those extra 'magical' sales just because i increased my traffic flow to them $0.02

Regards,

Lee

I have to agree with Lee on this one. TRAFFIC is not KING. Qualified traffic is. We have several affiliates that send less than 15 clicks per day but are converting 1:5. The nets out to a far better deal for the affiliate and for us then a site which may send 500 clicks in one day with only one sale. It is all about the quality of the traffic. Yes indeed, there are sites that join an affiliate program that don't have a chance to sell a thing. A single girl live cam site with a 'hot sex site' banner is so totally off base that it is only right to delete the account. Affiliates do indeed use incorrect link codes far more often then I think most folks know.

Here's my take, and i just posted something related on another thread.

If, in the case of Puppycash, the affiliate has been told "we'll upgrade you to rebills for life" then, in my opinion, it is rebills *for the life of that member* and it would not be appropriate to terminate the rebills because the affiliate is no longer sending traffic.

If, on the other hand, the affiliate agrees to something that says "We're upgrading you to rebills for life with the expectation that you'll continue sending traffic. If you send less than x hits or x joins in a 3 month period, we reserve the right to send you a warning notice, and discontinue paying out rebills 30 days after the warning notice if you do not continue sending traffic."

In those circumstances, I don't think there's the slightest issue. But if the affiliate has been made to believe that the rebills are for life, then they should be.

I also echo the comments about qualified traffic. If somebody sends jock/college guy traffic to Boyfunk, it's probably not going to convert very well. If somebody sends barely 18 traffic to Corbin Fisher, it's probably not going to convert very well. The traffic is still good traffic, but if the affiliate doesn't know what kind of traffic it is, and how to route it to the right site, then the problem is totally with the affiliate.

I used to think there were sites that simply sucked and didn't convert. I now think that, while conversion is definitely affected by the tour and such, more of it has to do with the content and knowing what traffic to send. There are sites with guys that I look at and say "why would anyone ever pay to see *that*" but many of those sites still do well...

I agree with Lee too. Traffic is not end all be all. Quality traffic is the basic building block of any programs success. With that said, most traffic will convert at some point and there is room for everyone to work together. Sending the best qualified targeted traffic to a sponsor program that has high quality content is a winning formula for everyone.

Thanks for reading,
BIGBOB

i was consulting for a program that had a guy sending over 400,000 uniques a day and making maybe 2 - 3 sales. he was popping up one of the paysites from the program every time someone exited one of his sites worse, hissites weren't the niche of the paysites, and on some sites, the popup was hidden. this used a pretty substantial amount of bandwidth - far more than he was making the program - so i had a much lower bandwidth version of the tour made for him and everyone was happier. eventually i believe they added a single popup to "his" tour, as well.

still, it does show that traffic in and of itself, can be a burden rather than a plus.

Any affiliate program that even discusses terminating an affiliate for any reason other than fraud is waaaaay to self important for me to even consider. There are too many sites out there than can convert to deal with someone's ego trip.

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Originally Posted by badpuppyben

If they do have recurring what you are basically allowing them to "leach" from you until you lose those members.

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So? What's your point?
When those webmasters signed up they were probably told that they get rebilling for the life of the membership. The webmaster sent you traffic, they made sales, and now they're collecting rebilling. Pay them. You wouldn't have had those sales without them.
Furthermore, maybe the webmaster isn't converting new sales because the site is now over-exposed, needs a refresher, whatever. You're assuming the lack of new sales is the webmaster's fault.
Unless there's something in the program's terms about needing to send new sales, they'll be in a heap of trouble if they suddenly start pulling this now.

Michael

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Originally Posted by Lee

If i wanted to, right now, i could make an announcement that people with blonde hair can no longer promote Condom Cash, so long as i update my T.O.S to reflect that, there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about it other than stop sending traffic.

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Yes, of course you can, and then, you'd have webmasters following you around all the time reminding people of what you did. Read my comments in this thread about the Law of Attraction This kind of BS move theoretical or not is exactly what I'm talking about.

Michael

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Originally Posted by Dzinerbear

Yes, of course you can, and then, you'd have webmasters following you around all the time reminding people of what you did.

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Michael,

So what?

You really think the webmasters that DIDNT get their accounts closed are going to care one iota about anyone else? Sure a few will, but the vast majority of 'webmasters' today wouldnt piss on another person in the industry if they were on fire.

Its only going to affect the blonde webmasters, the redheads, brunettes, raven haired webmasters are still going to be happy and will continue to make money... Even without the blondes, as will the program owner.

Regards,

Lee

Well if you announced that you had a great, new program and a couple of webmasters showed up and let me know what you did, I wouldn't sign up for your program. And I'm sure lots would. But eventually you'll run out of bridges to burn.

Michael

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Originally Posted by Dzinerbear

Well if you announced that you had a great, new program and a couple of webmasters showed up and let me know what you did, I wouldn't sign up for your program. And I'm sure lots would. But eventually you'll run out of bridges to burn.

Michael

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We arent talking about 'new' programs though, we're talking about programs that have been around a while, making these types of changes.

A great example is what happened with Zango/Spyware/Adware recently and AFF, in reality, only about 10 affiliates pulled their traffic, these were the affiliates with the biggest mouths and least amount of traffic.

Also EpicCash, the guy who ran that program was a much bigger asshole than i could ever be, he would regularly go on drug enduced tirades telling multilple people they had AIDs/HIV and that they were fags, etc.

People still promoted his sites because they made money for the people sending traffic.

I agree some people would pull traffic but time and time again, the ones that do, are the ones with absolutely nothing to lose by doing so.

Sure, if a program did something that i didnt disagree with, id tell my close friends to be carefull, just as i am sure you would tell your friends to be carefull, would that stop them from promoting that program though, i know it wouldnt.

I have had people post publicly that they would 'never' sign up to Condom Cash because i have banned certain people on GWW, or called someone an asshole on GFY, guess what, a week or a month later, these people STILL join the program AND send traffic.

Lloyd for example, has 2 accounts on Condom Cash right now at last count..

Regards,

Lee

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Originally Posted by Lee

I have had people post publicly that they would 'never' sign up to Condom Cash because i have banned certain people on GWW, or called someone an asshole on GFY, guess what, a week or a month later, these people STILL join the program AND send traffic.

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Oooh, add me to the list. You are an asshole (90% of the time) and I'll never join your program. I promise, you won't see any "Affiliate Program Signup" emails with me on it. :p

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Originally Posted by MWCren

Oooh, add me to the list. You are an asshole (90% of the time) and I'll never join your program. I promise, you won't see any "Affiliate Program Signup" emails with me on it. :p

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Thats fine, i can live with that, it really doesnt bother me in the least LOL

Regards,

Lee

Back to the topic.

Once a webmaster contracts with a program owner via a service like CCBILL and had in the past generated sales, I see no logical reason - except program ownership theft - for ending their well-earned rebills, regardless if they send new traffic or not. That webmaster GAVE the program the long-term subscriber and he/she deserves the income agreed upon.