How long do you keep them?

[Lee]

So if you want to take his loyalty bonus from him on new join thats your right but the once sent while you loved him, he should get paid for..

Which basically comes down to the affiliates sense of entitlement.

See this thread...

http://forums.gaywidewebmasters.com/...ad.php?t=23806

Regards,

Lee

[Ethan Masters]

As a badpuppy affiliate, I thought I would chime in. My opinion is that no matter how much traffic that affiliate sends to you, they should be rewarded for it. That is a customer that you would not have if it wasn't something the affiliated did. Either through marketing or a banner or what not, you have a new client because of them. To reward them, you pay them a percentage for that sign up. As a bonus reward, you get paid for bringing them a quality and long term customer, in the fashion of a percentage from rebills. As long as that client continues to pay his monthly fee to use all these sites, you should be rewarded for that.

If there was really such a concern over a webmaster not performing as well as they should, Badpuppy has always been the first one to contact that webmaster personally and speak with them with any questions, concerns and comments. I've always admired their friendly nature and respect that they have towards their affiliates.

So as long as that affiliate keeps getting paid for getting the mother company paid, everyone is happy. Keep up the good work Lisa and Ben, you guys are great...

P.S. You weren't talking about me, were you?

[mickey]

Which basically comes down to the affiliates sense of entitlement.

See this thread...

http://forums.gaywidewebmasters.com/...ad.php?t=23806

Regards,

Lee

well see my answer in said thread..

but i buggles me why you cant see that its wrong to take away the rebills just because the webmaster doesnt send new joins.. Being a program owner you knew that the affiliate most likely wasnt going to be yours for life or exclusive/loyal to your program for life when you offered him the special payouts - so the least that could be done is to clearly state the terms under which the special payout is offered - telling the webmaster that he is going to lose the rebills after the damage is nearly done is like telling a boxer to watch out for the hook seconds after he is on the floor after being hit by it..

Basically the paysite programs can do what ever they want as long as the rules are made clear up front and not 2 seconds before something bad happens..

[Lee]

It can one step even further. We have affiliates that send very little traffic but the traffic the do send is converting at a incredible rate. MY concern is that the material (images and video previews) is diluted in value to those affiliates that are actively promoting Manifest Men vs. those that take the images, stick them up on a blog and do nothing to work the program. Does this not lessen the value of the material to those webmasters that do work with us to promote Manifest?
But of course once an affiliate makes a sale, the rebills are indeed their for life.

Alex,

Thats actually a pretty good topic and i do think it deserves its own thread, you might want to start a new thread with that in it, you'll probably get a lot more direct answers than posing the question in an existing thread

Today seems to be shaping up as a great day for business discussions on GWW and id hate for your question to go un-noticed

Regards,

Lee

[Lee]

Basically the paysite programs can do what ever they want as long as the rules are made clear up front and not 2 seconds before something bad happens..

Its actually even better than that...

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.

As a program owner, my T.O.S very clearly state that i can pretty much do ANYTHING i want with the program, without warning, at any time, so long as my T.O.S gets updated to reflect those changes, because when everyone joins the program, they have to agree with the current T.O.S.

Regards,

Lee

[mickey]

Its actually even better than that...

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.

As a program owner, my T.O.S very clearly state that i can pretty much do ANYTHING i want with the program, without warning, at any time, so long as my T.O.S gets updated to reflect those changes, because when everyone joins the program, they have to agree with the current T.O.S.

Regards,

Lee

so what is all _REALLY_ boils down to is a power trip and your cock is longer than the affiliates ?

Sounds rather childish or is that just me ?

But i agree with what you are saying there, the affiliates can take their traffic elsewhere if they dont agree to your TOS but i guess it moves more to a business ethical thing then..

[Lee]

so what is all _REALLY_ boils down to is a power trip and your cock is longer than the affiliates ?

Its not even that, its business, pure and simple.

I run my business that way *I* see fit, just as i would expect you to run *your* business the way you see fit.

I may not agree with how you run your business just as you may not agree with how i run mine but ultimately, we both run our businesses to make the most money, for us.

What if i had stats that proved blonde webmasters had a significantly higher chargeback ratio than brunettes? What if i had stats that proved dog owners made 10x as many sales as cat owners did?

Would it be wrong of me to utilize those stats to make the best business decision possible in terms of who does and who doesnt promote my program?

Regards,

Lee

[mickey]

Its not even that, its business, pure and simple.

I run my business that way *I* see fit, just as i would expect you to run *your* business the way you see fit.

I may not agree with how you run your business just as you may not agree with how i run mine but ultimately, we both run our businesses to make the most money, for us.

What if i had stats that proved blonde webmasters had a significantly higher chargeback ratio than brunettes? What if i had stats that proved dog owners made 10x as many sales as cat owners did?

Would it be wrong of me to utilize those stats to make the best business decision possible in terms of who does and who doesnt promote my program?

Regards,

Lee

no it wouldnt be unfair to use that to your advantage for NEW people joining your program, but for people who had send you membership that continued to rebill, why should they be hurt by that since their member was still rebilling ?

I totally agree with you on your right to run your program as you see fit and i will defend your right to do that till the day i die, but that doesnt mean i cant agrue my point when i think you are wrong..

[mickey]

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

[Lee]

I totally agree with you on your right to run your program as you see fit and i will defend your right to do that till the day i die, but that doesnt mean i cant agrue my point when i think you are wrong..

Absolutely, i agree with you.

But ultimately, we could argue on the topic for days, weeks, months, years, until *I* change my mind again as a program owner (if i change my mind at all) its not really doing anything but wasting the both of our times.

Thats why i said pretty much the only recourse an affiliate has is to stop sending traffic to the program, so long as the programs TOS allow for the program owner to change his/her TOS at will and any well-written TOS will allow that to happen.

Regards,

Lee

[Lee]

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

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

[BIGBOB]

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.

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

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

[Lee]

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.

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

[Alex_Manifest_M]

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.

[gaybucks_chip]

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...