Affiliates can do a lot for a business. As well as boosting sales, affiliates can act as a customer service layer between the merchant and the customer, raise the profile of merchant by active promotion and attract other affiliates. Often compensated on a pay-per-sale basis, an army of affiliates can be the most cost-effective and zealous salesforce imagineable and yet some merchants treat their affiliates like dirt.
In my experience as an affiliate, I’ve had the disappointing experience of dealing with some unresponsive affiliate managers who couldn’t care less about treating me and my efforts with due respect. Getting overdue commissions, simple email responses and replies to forum posts (when they’re not being deleted) are apparently too much to ask for.
I have great difficulty in trying to understand the mentality of this approach.
When an affiliate has converted sales, but isn’t being paid for their efforts, what can they do?
Technorati Tags: Affiliate Marketing, Managing Affiliates
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I totally agree with you. Affiliates are probably the best way for a business to make sales without having to payout first. Simply pay someone a percentage for every sale - the virtual salesman working on commission.
I know you’re aware of my situation with 123-Reg and a missing affiliate cheque. Whilst the amount wasn’t worth the chase, the principle was. It took almost 3 months to get a cheque sent to me and considering the amount of sales I’d made them to get to that amount, the first several emails went completely ignored. It made me wonder if affiliating for large companies was really worth it.
Will, I can understand your disappointment over some of the affiliate managers. I’d also say that one has to also verify if the affiliate commission split-up software used by the affiliate program works properly or not.
I had a very bad experience with Mike Filsaime’s PayDotCom. I had some of my clients purchase ‘Link Directory Submitter’ using my affiliate link. Some of the purchases were made in my presence, however commission reflected in my affiliate account only for one sale. I was very much disappointed with this and approached PayDotCom helpdesk, but that time Filsaime was busy with his Butterfly Marketing, he had no time for me; my mails were not answered or answered with a blanket reply ‘We will investigate into your problem’. Finally I gave up and got in touch with Tom Dahne of ‘Link Directory Submitter’ directly. I could receive my commissions after sending proof of purchase of all the sales. If one is selling affiliate products on internet using such faulty system, one can never get an idea of the real sales. I’d never again become an affiliate for anything sold on PayDotcom. Filsaime himself is selling his BM on clickbank now - a big contrast from my previous employer Dell Computer - which takes pride in the slogan ‘Dell on Dell’ - all critical systems of Dell work on Dell servers !
Sarah - Good to know that you finally got your 123-reg cheque. I’ve had a couple of cheques from them in the past and never had any problems. I wonder just how large/active their affiliate scheme is given that the cheques are hand-written.
GS - I’ve also had some variable experiences with PDC, so much so that I try my best to avoid it as much as possible. I think it says a lot when service providers don’t use their own services without good cause. “Dell on Dell”, I like that!