Affiliate Programs That Make You Wait To Be 'Approved'

[Lee]

Seriously, whats the fucking point?

If im joining a program its because i want to start sending you traffic right away, why cant these programs put a small warning on their signup forms that the new affiliate account im signing up for isnt going to be active until one of their affiliate reps see's the email, decides if they want another affiliate in their program and actually 'accepts' my application.

Its stupid, i understand why some programs do this but really, if you are a relatively new program doing this, you are losing out on traffic.

I signed up for 3 new programs in the last 5 weeks alone that have done this and after finding out i had to be 'approved' to send them my traffic went elsewhere.

There are plenty of other places for me to send my traffic, if you, as a program owner cant have the courtesy to allow me to start sending traffic immediately, then im not working with you, period.

I cant afford to waste time 'waiting' for an affiliate rep to 'approve' my application to join your program which i dont even know im going to be paid by for the traffic i do send.

Not having an instant signup to an affiliate program just makes it much easier for me to send my traffic elsewhere and im more than happy to do that.

Regards,

Lee

[100boys]

I agree 100%, I hate this too. When looking for new FHG's and signing up for sponsors I oftentimes just forget about it after some days and sometimes I have to wait up to 3 days for approval. It's quite unclever to not autoapprove new webmasters and ban them later if they violate any rules...

[timoxxl]

with us www.cupidocam.com you can sign up and start sending traffic immediatelly ... but the welcome message will triggered manually .... after you have been checked ...if that makes you happy ... feel free to sign up ;-)

[Alex_Manifest_M]

"Seriously, whats the fucking point?"

The "fucking point" is that if one of our banners or images shows up on a trash site (stolen content, questionable age content) NOBODY will say, "Why that affiliate is really behaving badly" but rather "WHY THE FUCK WOULD MANIFEST ENDORSE THE THEFT OF MY CONTENT!!!!" If an affiliate that has been banned for violations in the past, WHY should they be allowed to sign right up again to send more chargebacks?

If an affiliate does not understand how our site should be sold, then I do not want them. Early on, I had an affiliate that sent traffic that was converting like crazy. They made sales at a rate never before seen by our company. These were not fraudulent cards, these were customers that were PISSED OFF that we did not have bareback or fisting or watersports inside our members area. The affiliate had created a preview of their own using our images that linked directly to our join page. 97% of those customers had to be refunded to avoid chargebacks.

Not screening your affiliates is foolish. Just as foolish as those personals ads that list a home address saying "I'm face down, ass up. Come breed my cum filled ass. Leave the lights off and just fuck don't speak" When this guy gets clubbed in the head, who would be surprised?

If an affiliate can not wait a maximum of 12 hours, then they are pretty clearly not going to have the patience to see if their strategy or program is even going to work.

[attis]

I can understand both sides and as an affiliate I'm prepare to wait a reasonable time for approval. However, if a company says that I have to put up their stuff before getting approval I certainly won't do so. Check out my site as much as you like, let me know that I'm okay to promote you and your banners and things will be there. But I'm not sending traffic in advance.

[timoxxl]

i think most of the times affiliates should start promoting right away .... if somebody wants to harm you you cant to anything against that anyway ... he would just use another identity ...

we have never had bad experiences ... and usually its enough to close the nigerian or vietnamese accounts when you find them ;-)

[Alex_Manifest_M]

But I'm not sending traffic in advance.

I can't imagine a reasonable person would ask an affiliate to send traffic in advance of an approval. We just want to know where and how our site would be promoted.

Affiliates are the first exposure to new surfers that will be visiting the sponsor site. If they do not make the right impression, then why bother having them? Unless you are running a niche site, you have no idea how screwed up some affiliates can be with regard to the way the present the material. Our site makes a LOT of our revenue from rebills. If the site is not sold properly, then members do not stick because their expectations were not met. In the worst cases, they chargeback. Since we don't let chargebacks just slide by and because we investigate each one of them, this costs us time which is certainly money.

[Lee]

Not screening your affiliates is foolish.

I agree, but i screen EVERY single affiliate that joins Condom Cash and i allow the affiliate to start promoting my sites immediately after they signup to the program.

Saying you make an affiliate wait before approving them because you want to 'screen' them just doesnt cut it because i know they can be screened and still approved instantly because thats what i do.

Regards,

Lee

[DEVELISH]

Hi,

how do you screen or check your affiliates.... how would y'all screen me who does not quite show up on the US market and leaves a quite light footprint on the internet in general?

[Alex_Manifest_M]

I agree, but i screen EVERY single affiliate that joins Condom Cash and i allow the affiliate to start promoting my sites immediately after they signup to the program.

Saying you make an affiliate wait before approving them because you want to 'screen' them just doesnt cut it because i know they can be screened and still approved instantly because thats what i do.

Regards,

Lee

Good to know that we just "don't cut it".

So grab some traffic, cut the affiliate loose and never pay them a dime. Sweet deal for you it seems.

The way you do things is not the only way. Clearly.

[Lee]

Good to know that we just "don't cut it".

So grab some traffic, cut the affiliate loose and never pay them a dime. Sweet deal for you it seems.

The way you do things is not the only way. Clearly.

Alex,

Dont get all defensive, im not talking about you specifically, im saying that for any program to say they make an affiliate wait because they want to screen the affiliate is crazy.

In todays marketplace with the technology available to us in the industry, there is absolutely no way an affiliate should have to wait to be manually approved.

Plus, if you are saying you are only not approving affiliates that have been banned from your program before or are misleading the surfer by lying about what is inside your members area, they shouldnt be suprised if they get booted out of the program again.

Regards,

Lee

[Lee]

Hi,

how do you screen or check your affiliates.... how would y'all screen me who does not quite show up on the US market and leaves a quite light footprint on the internet in general?

There are some really basic methods any program owner can use to check the validity of an affiliate, the first is to make sure that the new affiliate signing up to any program has an active website and that the site is hosted somewhere that isnt 'yahoo' or 'geocities'.

Then there are name searches based on exisiting affiliates, you would be suprised how many affiliates join the same program over and over again.

Then there are those who simply dont read the T.O.S if someone signs up from say, Iraq, and they havent emailed me first, their account gets removed, it clearly states in the T.O.S where the 'banned' countries are and if they reside in that country to contact me before joining.

There are also IP checks that can be done and of course if you run a CCBill program, you can always send a flag over to CCBill's fraud dept and ask them to check an affiliate out for you also - This is actually how i catch most of the scammers that join Condom Cash, something just wont sit right with me and ill ask CCBill to work their magic.

Regards,

Lee

[sc32803]

I agree with Lee and think that sponsors should auto-approve new affiliates.

But I don't think it's unreasonable for a sponsor to include a clause in their TOS that says they can terminate the account at any time (actually, I think most sponsors already include this, right?). Then the sponsor can check out the affiliate at their leisure and if they see a problem, pull the plug. This is the "innocent until proven guilty" approach that I think most people agree is fair. The sponsors that require pre-approval are taking the "you're guilty until I find out otherwise" approach and I could see why it would frustrate honest affiliates.

[Alex_Manifest_M]

So after they have put up our banners and video previews on their sites filled with stolen content, then I should not expect to get the same "Why the hell would Manifest use the theft of our videos to make money for them" vilifying our sites in the same way I have seen others done.

If an affiliate can not wait 12 hours max then they do not have what it takes make sales.

We do not work on the premise of shutting the barn door AFTER the horse has run off. It is much harder to have this material removed then it is to simply not get it out there to begin with. But if a site owner has zero interest in the quality of the promotion, or the dilution of the value of the content they provide to their blog clients then I imagine putting it all out on the curb for anybody to grab is just fine.

Everybody's friend is everybody's fool.

[Lee]

If an affiliate can not wait 12 hours max then they do not have what it takes make sales.

Really?

Did you ever think it was because we have bettter things to do with our time than 'wait' to be approved to start sending traffic to a home?

Im sorry but with so many sponsors in the industry im not waiting to be 'approved' by anyone im just going to move on to another program.

Im the first to admit i have no patience, i hate waiting in line at the store, i hate having to wait to download content, theres no way in hell im waiting for some self-absorbed affiliate program owner, who doesnt think their shit stinks, to tell me when i can start sending traffic to their sites $0.02

Regards,

Lee