Your worst experiences with affiliate programs?

[Danlucy]

Hey guys,
Please share your stories, what are your worst experiences with affiliate programs?
I just want people to be aware of the affiliate program pitfalls and problems.

 

[ultimateseo]

The worst thing you can do in affiliate marketing is to pick a bad niche, one which is either over used or has no popularity. Always undergo heavy research. I created what I thought would be good and done great seo but got bad results, totally not worth my time.

 

[Maxwell]

Maxwell

Do you have any experience in avoid bad niches? what should we do when researching a niche?

 

[ultimateseo]

I have good experience when it comes to finding a trend, knowing what to type into google has brought me success. I disregard my 'experience' in bad niches, I like to think I have none. Determine whether the product is popular, we avoid wasting our time in a bad niche when we understand what 'scientifically' will sell based on find-able niches that have interest nowadays.

edit: to stay on topic I will add that we should know that failing to provide support quick enough will leave customers impatient and they will obviously disregard the product. Also another pitfall would be creating many affiliate selling websites which all look similar. I have come across so many websites which I know have the same owners because of writing style and layouts. Lol

 

[immechanic]

When I was just new,a year ago I have promoted an affiliate program in Clicksure and spent some money and time to get a few sales. Since there is a minimum amount before I can get the commission($200 minimum If I remember it right), I spent 1 - 2 weeks promoting for it.

When I am about to reach the $200, my commissions was suddenly voided. The vendor says that those are fraudulent sales and cannot be considered. So I continued promoting and when I was again about to reach $200, the vendor voided my sales again.

This vendor is a d*ck and I was really frustrated so I did my research and found that I'm not the only affiliate that was scammed by that vendor. So I walked away empty handed after spending my time and money on that program.

I've learned my lessons, so before I promote for a product I do my due diligence and try to reach out to the vendor first. If he doesn't reply to me or they have poor support then I won't promote for that person.

 

[elcidofaguy]

Hey guys,
Please share your stories, what are your worst experiences with affiliate programs?
I just want people to be aware of the affiliate program pitfalls and problems.

For me I'm really wary about promoting vendors whom do not have a direct sales page with a buy now button.. In other words you have to sign-up to their email list... I'm sure I've lost a lot of commissions through that... In addition one needs to be careful on leaky sales pages e.g. vendor site has an exit capture or popup offering freebies for email signup - again I'm sure I've lost commissions on that... The best way to protect yourself is to signup to the email list through an affiliate referral and see if the affiliate ID/affiliate cookie is picked up on the email messages when the vendor promotes their product...

When I am about to reach the $200, my commissions was suddenly voided. The vendor says that those are fraudulent sales and cannot be considered. So I continued promoting and when I was again about to reach $200, the vendor voided my sales again.

Wow - that sucks big time! I've never used clicksure but after reading your experience I dont think I'll ever bother with them... Surely the affiliate platform should have supported you? After all that is the main reason to use a platform provider - they provide the payment gateway and after sales pay vendor and affiliate as well as make sure that the vendor or affiliate is not gaming the system... I'm curious to know if you contacted Clicksure and why they could not ensure payment to you?

I would say overall to choose a reliable, trusted affiliate platform and further to do your own research as to the affiliate vendor... If people are being ripped of then for sure you will find their complaints online...

 

[immechanic]

immechanic

I've been hearing a lot of negative feedback from that platform but I ignored it because it was referred from the "product" that I bought before. Another lesson, I've learned here is never follow blindly, Do your due diligence first even if it's someone who's already have a name in the industry.

I did contacted Clicksure, they said they have no way of telling whether it is indeed fraudulent sales. As far as I know, I've been promoting legally and I never spam that time.

 

[elcidofaguy]

elcidofaguy

That's really odd that Clicksure have no idea if sales are fraudulent... What that really means is that they are totally rubbish and not worth anyone's time and effort... The whole point of having an affiliate platform is so that you have an independent broker between affiliate and vendor... If they cannot even do that then forget it and run for the hills ;-) Good move on your part to forget and move on...

 

[RyanC]

My post is coming from the other side of the coin, I am an affiliate manager and manage the program for the company I work for(not sure if I can use the name of the company). We run our program through ShareASale and have had some good affiliates and some very bad affiliates. Due to our niche it is really important our affiliates follow our terms and conditions. I have had a couple of affiliates do some blackhat things that have been very problematic.

I wish all affiliates were willing to put the work and effort into promoting products and services the right way! I know there are lots of bad program managers out there too.

 

[oldnickb]

One of the biggest problems is keeping your links current. Recently a lot of marketers have been changing to Clickbank because of the EU VATmess, so their links have changed.

Many marketers are unaware that they need to charge and account for Value Added Tax on any EU sale. Every OECD country has already agreed to enforce each other tax laws, so no matter where you are, you can't ignore it.

By using Clickbank they do all that so you don't have to.

As to the other problems, every one I know has had experience of not getting paid commissions from marketers running their own affiliate programs. Clickbank and JVZoo are much safer.

If you are putting out reports with links in them you should use a redirect from a subdomain of your own site. That way if the link does change you can still edit it without all your links becoming obsolete.

Make sure you have a spreadsheet with all your affiliate links and make it a weekly task to check they are all still working. There is nothing that puts people off more than having dead links on your sites or in your reports.

 

[imjagad]

I never promote a product in payspree, and already many are sold but many people are asking for money back, it turns out they did not get the product they ordered. so unfortunately have to reimburse them for 100% commission entered into my paypal. I hope you do not experience the same thing as me