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ClickZ.com Dec 8 and Dec 15 Shawn Collins identified the "Biggest Affiliate Complaints" from a survey of his "Club Mom" affiliates. These articles appeared as we were developing our own affiliate program and helped guide us in some of our choices and confirmed the wisdom of others. Biggest affiliate complaint: merchants that do not remove affiliates when requested to do so... We will move quickly to remove affiliates that do not adhere to our Terms
of Service and standards of
conduct. This is why we are upfront about our standards and policies,
and we will be vigilant in protecting our business and our affiliates. No matter what the relationship, we will never come unwelcome to your inbox. We will have a irregular email that will only be used for announcements that active affiliates must be aware of. These would be any changes to the program and will be kept at a bare minimum. The rest of our email communication will be on a 100% opt in basis. All of our communications will strive to be relevant and useful. Biggest affiliate complaint: merchants that do not realize that some honest activity slips are considered fraudulent, such as the use of Internet boosters like Netsetter and the fact that AOL and WebTV users are represented by a finite bank of IP addresses. This is why we chose to be generous with our pay for performance structure. Sales are what count, not impressions. Our program is designed to convert clicks to sales and reward affiliates for their part. This is also why use every means available to identify customers for life. We don't have to worry about cheaters, because our system isn't prone to this type of abuse. Biggest affiliate complaint: closing a program without advance notice. While this complaint is levied primarily at the 'third party' affiliate
solution providers, it is a valid concern when selecting any affiliate
program. Our program was designed from the ground up with the affiliate in
mind. We are self funded, no VC money here, which means that like
you, we know the value of every dollar coming in and going out.
We're built for distance, not speed. We spent a lot of time analyzing different solution providers and software
before settling on My Affiliate Program. Having been on the other side of the affiliate
fence, we know how important accurate, timely, and complete reporting is.
We chose the best possible solution we could find to provide the type of
tracking and reporting you need to be successful. The very nature of our program roll out will 'incentivize' segments of the market. We will introduce a limited number of niche domains periodically, that affiliates will be notified of in advance to plan their marketing campaigns. In addition, we will have special offers for new products and upgrades, as well as contests for affiliates and customers. Biggest affiliate complaints: poor navigation, product search that can never find products, and inability to join programs through the merchant site with a current user name. Another reason we chose not to use one of the third party solution providers. Our site is designed to make it easy for customer or affiliates to find what the want quickly and easily. We are committed to listening and responding to all of our users to make our site extremely user friendly. Biggest affiliate complaints: can't use the 1 x 1 pixel in text newsletters, banner rotation scripts, and software. Another reason we chose to pay for performance rather than impressions. Again, another reason we chose My
Affiliate Program as our affiliate management solution for
the ease of integrating with our accounting system. We also encourage affiliates
to sign up with PayPal.com for receiving
compensation. We expect our customers to pay in a timely manner, and will
pay our affiliates timely as well. Our minimum of $25.00 can be met on as
little as two transactions in a month. Our policy is to respond to all email the same day whenever possible, and no
later than 24 hours. Updates will be posted to the site, sent to all
affiliates who elect to receive these notices, and we have a discussion
board exclusively for our affiliates. We know how important communication
is in building lasting business relationships. We are committed to doing
our part to make sure that our affiliates know what we doing at all times. We will have a wide selection of banner sizes and creative available for our
affiliates. In addition we will make articles
available for publication on affiliate websites and newsletters through an easy
to use web and email interface. Also available are free reports, training
programs, tools, and resources exclusively for affiliates and customers. While we can't say never, we can say that we have carefully thought out our commission structure to make sure that we balanced our need to cover expenses and make a reasonable profit with treating our affiliates fairly. We anticipate no need to adjust our commission since most of the infrastructure is in place and paid for. Expansion of the infrastructure will only be necessary as our income increases. Biggest affiliate complaints: links for time-sensitive promotions that continue to promote an offer after the end date, links that go dead with no notice from the merchant, and graphic link codes that leave the "alt text" blank. Biggest affiliate complaints: overly restrictive criteria for affiliate acceptance, too much time taken to approve sites, and minimums for affiliate output. We expect to approve most affiliates within 48 hours of application. We
don't have any minimums for traffic or subscribers because part of our program
is to help our affiliates build their traffic and subscriber base. We're
looking for quality, not quantities. This is why we are looking for quality over quantity. We are selective
about the company we keep, but if you're approved to be an affiliate, then we
are proud to be affiliated with you. It's a two way street. You
choose us, and we choose you. The selection process was too difficult the first time around. We selected My Affiliate Program because of the developers commitment to improving the product and our ability to customize it to meet our needs and the needs of our affiliates and customers. What's your affiliate complaint? And how can we respond? |
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