How long do you keep them?

**badpuppyben** · 05-24-2007, 07:49 AM

Hey guys,

Lisa and I were having a debate, and I won't say who is on which side etc, but I would like your input.

Scenario;

You have an affiliate program that is doing well and gets many webmasters signed up. You offer a percentage for new sales and a recurring percentage for a member site.

Ok now here's the debate. How long do you keep an affiliate "active" if they have not had ANY new conversions, though they are sending traffic (minimal or not) yet they are still collecting from rebills? Do you give them a warning after any length of time to get new sales or you will disable them? Or do you guys just let them ride it out because they are sending some amount of traffic at all?

I'd appreciate your honest input on this.

**Bec** · 05-24-2007, 08:44 AM

Why disable their account? If you owe them money, you'd look like a real horses behind to tell them that they need to send new signups or you're not holding to your end of the rebilling on prior sales.

**mickey** · 05-24-2007, 08:59 AM

i am with Bec on this one..

Why close an affiliate account unless there is a very good reason for it... Just because they are not sending in buttloads of new traffic doesnt mean they will not start doing so again at a later time in the future..

If you close their account you might not get them back next time they start a new project that will send good traffic again.. They signed up and showed interest once so they might do so again if you leave their account open but closing it and you cant be sure they sign up again next time they have traffic that fits your program/sites..

**badpuppyben** · 05-24-2007, 09:02 AM

Playing Devil's Advocate here;

If they don't have recurring I can understand that, and I agree. There's no reason to close the account

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

Please keep in mind that this is a hypothetical here.

**mickey** · 05-24-2007, 09:12 AM

Originally Posted by badpuppyben

Playing Devil's Advocate here;

If they don't have recurring I can understand that, and I agree. There's no reason to close the account

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

Please keep in mind that this is a hypothetical here.

I dont see how they "leach" from you if they do have recurring members rebilling.. Just because they dont send new traffic that doesnt mean that the membership that are rebilling isnt paying for their access does it ?

or am i misunderstanding you here

**badpuppyben** · 05-24-2007, 09:25 AM

The "leach" argument is that while it is certainly a credit to the affiliate that they brought you a new member, where does the credit stop? The website in question is the one that is keeping that member a paying member. The affiliate just brought them in.

I realize there are all sorts of reasons to offer recurring as an affiliate program so I don't want to get into all of that, just that if the affiliate isn't bringing in any new members after (said amount of time) when do you start to say "why am I paying them for ME keeping my own members when they aren't doing anything for me now" type of thing.

I'm also not saying whether that statement is moral/right/wrong, etc Just giving one side.

samebb · 05-24-2007, 09:28 AM

In my opinion, if you disable their account, i see that as corporate theft. You are stealing money from them. You promised to pay them a % reccuring for life, so you need to pay that.

Do you think, if a large company who stopped promoting you, but STILL have a few hundred members rebilling, and suddendly their account is closed and they loose thousands of dollars will not take legal action? I know i would.

**DEVELISH** · 05-24-2007, 09:29 AM

Just remember this:

mostlikely a contract between the sponsor and the webmaster exists which sais something like "50% refshare for life" - this means for the life of membership of the customer and not "until the sponsor feels like he can kick an idle webmaster".

**DEVELISH** · 05-24-2007, 09:30 AM

hehe - samebb had the same opinion

**lisa** · 05-24-2007, 09:34 AM

LOL

Me thinks Ben showed in his last post which side he's leaning towards....

Love ya Ben!

No seriously, I want to ensure first of all that anytime an account is canceled, for any reason, whether by them or by us, they are paid up to date on the final check.

My feelings are and have always been, if a webmaster is promoting us and sending traffic, he's promoting us and whether he's making any sales or not should not matter.

I will often contact the affiliate to try and see if I can help them to better promote Badpuppy and even give them suggestions on how they can increase traffic to their sites, which will in effect mean more traffic to Badpuppy.

Not only is it true that this webmaster may have other sites, or future sites that will increase that traffic, but I also look at it as he or she assisting in the continued branding process. The banners are being seen far more than they are being clicked on, adding to the branding and name recognition process.

A perfect example is when in Vegas this last January I had a meeting with an affiliate that at the time was sending us not so much traffic and maybe had a sale or two since being an affiliate. When we met I found out that he owned over 100 websites and most of them TGP sites and literally had direct access to send upwards of 30,000 or more click throughs a day! We are now working closely with that webmaster! So a webmaster today may send 20 visitors a day to you and next week it could be 20,000.

Now, where I do agree with Ben is that if sales stop completely for a period of time and I contact the webmaster and he's not promoting us anymore, sending no traffic and still collecting rebills and has no plans to resume promotions, then I would let him or her know that this will result in termination of their account and they'd be paid what is owed as of that termination date.

Summary, I believe that if an account is sending traffic, whether sales or not, they are still promoting us and their account should remain active. I believe there is still benefit from them having our banner on their site, even if only from a brand name recognition standpoint.

Their promotions to me are worth what little bit of space they take up in our database.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

We would like to hear your story too, so keep the responses coming!

**basschick** · 05-24-2007, 09:45 AM

it doesn't cost you any money to NOT cancel accounts, so why do it at all?

i've signed up for programs that seemed good but that i had no traffic for and taken months or even a year to start sending it.

i've stopped sending traffic to programs that stopped converting for me, and i had rebilling members that rebilled for up to 4 years - and often had members rebill for a year or more. without me sending my traffic, those programs would not have had those 1 - 4 years of rebills, and since they aren't paying me extra by paying per sale and taking some risk, why should i send them traffic if they will stop paying me for rebills? after all, i could have gotten paid for the life of the member elsewhere.

if you both agree that it's okay to cancel affiliate rebills if the affiliate stops sending traffic, it makes me happy that i don't promote badpuppy. i like lisa, but the program pays less than almost any other program around and now it turns out that they keep your rebills unless you perpetually send traffic - yet they won't pay up front per signup

**badpuppyben** · 05-24-2007, 09:54 AM

Guys remember I never said we cancel anyone. I was just posing the question out there.

**mickey** · 05-24-2007, 09:57 AM

Originally Posted by badpuppyben

The "leach" argument is that while it is certainly a credit to the affiliate that they brought you a new member, where does the credit stop? The website in question is the one that is keeping that member a paying member. The affiliate just brought them in.

I realize there are all sorts of reasons to offer recurring as an affiliate program so I don't want to get into all of that, just that if the affiliate isn't bringing in any new members after (said amount of time) when do you start to say "why am I paying them for ME keeping my own members when they aren't doing anything for me now" type of thing.

I'm also not saying whether that statement is moral/right/wrong, etc Just giving one side.

Well in my opinion that is a moo point as they bought in the member and you offered a recurring affiliate option.. So if you disable their account while they have rebills running you would be "stealing" from them.. They sent you the customer and you promised to share the profits that customer brings in - simple as that..

Not really a matter of wether they do anything for you right now or not ...

Also they might not do anything for you right now but deleting their account will ensure that they dont do so in the future either..

Imo it would be a stupid move..

**mickey** · 05-24-2007, 10:01 AM

Originally Posted by basschick

it doesn't cost you any money to NOT cancel accounts, so why do it at all?

Well technically that is not correct as they are paying XX% on the rebill to the webmaster not sending the traffic anymore insted of canceling the account and keeping the 100% for the rest of the time the member rebills..

**basschick** · 05-24-2007, 10:01 AM

but since you and lisa feel this is a reasonable thing to do, your business perspective is one that makes it seem thatthis is possible in the future. in fact, you seem to feel that people who don't continue to send traffic are leaching. leaching what? you wouldn't have those members at all without the affiliates who sent them - even if they aren't sending new members. you aren't losing anything - you gained those rebilling members.

i took down over 100,000 web pages on june 22, 2005. thank goodness that all the programs i promote continued to pay me for the members i referred so i could make the changeover and still get regular checks.

Originally Posted by badpuppyben

Guys remember I never said we cancel anyone. I was just posing the question out there.