Anyone know of a case(s) where a website / business was sued for traffic leaks?
Where the affiliate sent traffic and returned no sales
Can show proof of their own and at least 2 other member joins as record of membership
can prove real, working linking codes in the link source
Had a record of total traffic numbers
I ask because I see a lot of sites with major leaks
Example: A video site with sample videos behind an age check system that, when verifying, removes your affiliate link.
Be Who You Are!
I am not aware of any.
It takes me about 20 hours to put together a complaint, and then adding court filing fees and service fees you are going to spend at least $5,000 to just to file suit at Day One, so you need to be assured of some return on that expense to make it worthwhile. Expect $35,000 in costs to "go to court" and hope that you win damages AND attorney's fees.
It would not surprise me that some will shave joins because they know that the small affiliates cannot afford to fight for what is rightfully theirs.
Chad Belville, Esq
Phoenix, Arizona
www.chadknowslaw.com
Keeping you out of trouble is easier than getting you out of trouble!
with the right company doing the shaving ... I would assume an affiliate class action could be called on.Originally Posted by chadknowslaw
It's not hard to find a few affiliates by google-ing the site name.
and if not, just to set the bar, it's almost worth it.
Be Who You Are!
Traffic leaks are the new black. People seem to be suddenly all verklempt about them.
Yes.. there's dirty tricks like removing affiliate codes and having all your traffic going to a landing page filled with banners to other sites but I've had some affilaite cry blue murder over the very few tiny links to our DVD sell page.
My attitude is this.. if you're making money on an affiliate.. keep promoting them if you're not.. don't.
Jasun Mark. Crass of the Titans.
It does get out of hand. I had an affiliate with two sales in the last three months write to insist that we remove links INSIDE our members area to our cam site or pay them for any sales that we make to members that joined under their affiliate code.
Its like the cascading billing. "We won't promote you without cascading billing!" Well, we don't get enough declines on our direct sales to even cover the cost of the Visa fee for a secondary processor much less to cover those affiliate sales. Our site just doesn't get that many declines and (knock wood) has only had two affiliate chargebacks ever.
I don't believe folks should support sponsors they believe are treating them unfairly. I also believe that affiliates have a responsiblity to insure that their sponsors are providing them honest information. If not, move on and quickly.
When you join a program, you are agreeing to play by their rules. Its up to you to visit their tours and assess the traffic leaks before agreeing to join their program.
I know, it sounds cynical, but I am betting that is how the law would interpret it.
I'm kinda thinking that a lot of the kurfuffle is about affiliates who don't know how to sell anything. I've seen affiliates making the stupidest mistakes and them blaming the programs for not converting.
Jasun Mark. Crass of the Titans.
Yeah program owners don't sit around in the Axis of Evil Lair plotting ways to defraud affiliates (at least not at any of the meetings I attend). What works for one sponsor won't always work for another!
My motto is this.
"If I am making money with an affiliate w/ traffic leaks, how much more could I make if they didn't have them.?"
One of the MAIN issues I have with traffic leaks is this -
When I first market a site it may have ZERO leaks. Then they decide to add a second processor. Ok. Then they launch a DVD store. OK. Then they link to a blog they just created. OK. Then they get 20 reviews somewhere and link to those. OK. Then they get a mail server and add a mailing list. OK.
Soon, it's a totally different tour than what I originally decided to create galleries for, free sites, AEN sites, put links all over the place, add FHG's to my tgp, write blog posts about. That's a lot of work, only to find that the tour I started to market has now turned into a mini hub just taking my traffic and not giving me credit.
My opinion - Do whatever you want with your traffic. Send it to your store. Send it to Porn Inspector. Send it to a myspace blog. But send my traffic to a join page I get credit for. It's just the fair thing to do.
If affiliates now don't say anything about traffic leaks, pretty soon every site will have links to blogs, dvd stores, and "friends". And of course the best leak of all a VOD theater.
Luke,
I agree with you. However, it gets annoying when programs CHANGE their sites after you send them traffic.
I could not say it better.
This would be true for some.
However I am against traffic leaks in a very big way. One sponsor i was sending 7 signups on average a day. (I know how to sell stuff). When he gave me a clean tour it went up to 10 a day. Win Win for both of us.
The main issue I see with this is,
Since there are so many gay sites out there that sell very well and have no traffic leaks, why not just point those ones out and point out the leaky ones and let webmasters decide.
I don't market sites with leaks and I make a very nice living. Other webmasters could do the same as well.
Isn't the point really that you do know how to market, which is why you make a good living? Irrespective if the tour has leaks or not? Granted, you will make more if no leaks, and that many simply do not know how to market? Thus 'traffic leaks' are a bigger issue than they should be?
In my article 'Walking The Affiliate Tightrope I look at it a lot differently. I think we expect more than we deserve, because I don't think we OWN the traffic we send to a sponsor. We filter it, using many techniques, including competing sponsor content, yet we don't give them a cut. We give them the traffic, they give us the content.
I think many of the up sells are part of doing business. I do think the tours should be clean, but exit consoles, up sells in members area is theirs to make, not mine.
Call me naive, but I just don't think we should be bitching about up sells inside, or exit consoles for traffic we send, that decides not to buy. While sponsors should give us a choice on exit consoles, it comes to our own choices to make.
Yes if they change things, they should notify us, and we should also be checking every now and then as well, for those who don't bother. Still, it is our business, our responsibility.
my two cents :innocent:
Webmasters: Add Custom Stories To Your Sites Custom Gay Stories
My Blogs Gay Talk, Free Gay Fiction, Erotic Fiction Online
Gay Story Man,
Upsells in membesr areas don't bother me at all.
Exit consoles don't bother me, though given the chice between making $30 on a console tour and $25 on a non cocnsole tour, I will choose the $25. I want bookmarkers.
Not sure I understand about giving content. I pay around $30 - $50 a set for my content. It's a nice feeling I get when I know that the traffic I send to a sponsor on content that I paid $50 for goes to a join page with my affiliate code and not to a VOD theater that a customer may spend $200 and I get nothing. I have my own VOD theater, and many DVD stores that I can link to. i don't need a sponsor to help me filter my traffic to those. I can do that on my own.
Inside the members area - do whatever you want. On revshare I look inside and feel if my traffic will retain before I market.
What are your opinions on excessive amounts of content on tours? This could be sample content directly on the tour or a link to a blog.
This content may have a negative effect on affiliate traffic. In some cases this content provides multiple days worth of jerkoff material or at the very least a "Too much to look at, I'll check this out later." response. This could be problematic if the affiliate cookie expires before the surfer reaches the end.
I post here to whore this sig.
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