asshole sponsor

[plateman]

found a program I like and made some sales off my LL with it and had money carried over and I knew how much, so I had two more this month, so I am happy I'll have my 100.00 min. payout reached.. So for the hell of it I went back in my stats to see exactly how much, and something didnt look right like there was a sale missing so I spent more time going back in periods till I was sure there was a 35.00 sale gone, So I emailed support and said a 35.00 dollar sale is missing, So I assumed it would be a week till I got a reply so I checked 1 more time and went back on the stats and found it, the 35.00 sale.. So now I think WTF I am still missing some money and with finding the 35.00 sale I have it down to a few dollars missing.. So up pops an email from the sponsor.. And Its Says "We Cant find any 35.00 sale on your account anywhere and everything is working OK" So I reply and say "I Found the 35.00 sale, why didnt you if you checked my account and there is still a few dollars missing please reply back"

So people if you dont have a fancy stats program write down your shit on the carried over money that you dont see on the next month.. I know I will be doing it from now on..

And the sponsor sure looks like they dont care about your money just there's

[Mishi]

This is one of several reasons I'm focusing more on small programs that are owned and run by people I can actually contact and speak to directly. I'd rather take a risk on a small-timer who needs and wants my business than send my traffic to a "playa" (most of whom probably aren't) who feel fee to abuse my trust.

Another 48 cents and you can buy a cuppa joe at Quick Trip...

[Surfn]

Originally posted by Mishi
This is one of several reasons I'm focusing more on small programs that are owned and run by people I can actually contact and speak to directly. I'd rather take a risk on a small-timer who needs and wants my business than send my traffic to a "playa" (most of whom probably aren't) who feel fee to abuse my trust.

Another 48 cents and you can buy a cuppa joe at Quick Trip...

I agree. Having a personal contact or even knowing someone at a program can have great benefits. Whether it's promoting them or not promoting them.

[Certifiedbitch]

true! it's better if you have direct contact at least you avoid problems like this.

[GunnCat]

Damn, I thought I finally found a sponsor with great asshole content!

[alessandro]

Hi plateman!

This is what happened with one of my sponsors. Even if I'm new and started recently in the biz I have a sale missing from a sponsor that I wont mention here. The problem is that the contact person I've been chatting with quite a lot lately seemed to be a very nice guy and I thought that the whole company is so.
I'll tell you the whole story.

I had a sale about 2 periods back for a specific site... let's call it site A.

Next period ... I had another sale for the same site. I was glad because I had reached their minim payout and I was going to get a check ... but guess what ... when I took an overall look for the stats of the entire year ... I noticed the first sale for that site was missing. I've been very dissapointed. As I said before ... I contacted the nice guy ( the contact person of the sponsor ) and he told me they took a look into my account and everything seemed to be just ok. Well .. .next day I looked again and STRANGE:
I was seeing the first sale for that site ( 2 periods back ) but the sale for the same site that occured in the actual period was missing. I contacted them again and the same answer. Everything is OK |raygun|

I'm really interested to see if the sponsor you're talking about planteman is the same. Please PM with the sponsor that f***ed with your stats so I can decide if I stop promoting them.

[lassiter]

Originally posted by Mishi
I'd rather take a risk on a small-timer who needs and wants my business than send my traffic to a "playa" (most of whom probably aren't) who feel fee to abuse my trust.

Yep - I finally stopped promoting one major sponsor (who shall remain nameless for the moment) who always seemed to show less than 1/2 the number of hits (and almost no sales) compared to similar sponsors being promoted with similar galleries & sites. Granted, it could have just been a total lack of surfer interest in that sponsor's sites and not actual shaving, though I suspected the latter.

Well, I recently set up a "daily galleries" page for some exit traffic, that uses hosted galleries from about a 1/2 dozen different sponsors. Since this little project of mine is new, I've been checking stats pages closely to see how things are doing. And being a generous "benefit of a doubt" person, I included several of this suspect sponsor's galleries.

Well, I had no sales, but the stats showed 11 hits last Friday, but when I look at that same days's stats now, there are only 4 hits shown.

Shaving sales is one thing, but why the hell would anyone shave mere tour hits?
And geez, 11 hits a day to a sponsor is such utter small change - why would they even bother?!?!?

Anyway, that sponsor's probably going back on my shit list. |pissed|

[plateman]

What's bad is that having a good size LL it takes a good number of sponsors to fill it.. So you are gonna have shit sponsors

And these shit sponsors are gonna find out that word gets around and when there's nobody promoting them, they will be out of biz..

[FacialGiver]

Not even sure I understand your story with the missing SU that wans't missing. Lol

[alessandro]

I know my english sucks many time ... but thats what it really happened.

[Alphawolf]

Why are the sponsors 'nameless'.

No use in posting this unless you cough up the sponsors.

Isn't that one of the better aspects of the boards- to avoid similar mistakes if we can learn from others?

[Surfn]

Originally posted by Alphawolf
Why are the sponsors 'nameless'.

No use in posting this unless you cough up the sponsors.

Isn't that one of the better aspects of the boards- to avoid similar mistakes if we can learn from others?

[abe]

I think things like this happens a lot.
Myself I'm still waiting on a 100$ check for sales made in March. I sent the sponsor 3 emails (kind - neutral - less kind). No reaction.
Also I received 2 smaller checks from iBill (it's against my principles to give names, but here I do). Only they were on the wrong name. I had changed the pay-to name in the admin, but apparently they don't even look at this. Result: 2 checks in the trashbin.

But I learned 2 things from all this.
Off course I was pissed of when this happened. I was so angry that it costed me a day of work. And that's not good. So now:
1/ when shit like this happens, I write it with the losses, don't promote that sponsor anymore and forget about it.
2/ I spread the risk even more then before.

[Alphawolf]

Originally posted by Surfn

Well, OK.

So as to not piss anyone off...can the people who complained about the sponsors shoot me a PM. Would appreciate it.

[Surfn]

Originally posted by Alphawolf
Well, OK.

So as to not piss anyone off...can the people who complained about the sponsors shoot me a PM. Would appreciate it.

[chilihost]

Its interesting that these threads pop up every once in a while. I always say the safest way to ensure you are not getting shaved and are getting money from previous sales carried over is to go with a sponsor using a 3rd party billing company for their stats (ie, ccbill, ibill, etc). That makes it impossible to shave and the good thing is that if you find their program does not work for you (say you only got 2 sales), its easy to find another ccbill sponsor and add them into your consolidated account so you will still get paid for those original 2 sales when your overall balance is upto your minimum.

And the other thing I truely believe in is that it is YOUR choice who to promote, if you feel in any way that a sponsor is not up to your standards then move on! Its better to lose credit for a couple of sales if you are under their min payout than it is to continue sending hits to a poor converting sponsor.


cheers,
Luke

[finnbear]

Strange shit happens when you're a foreign webmaster, like one sponsor's checks used to come via Albania. My office address in envelope was right but someone had erased Finland and wrote Albania in that place. I must thank Albania's post office who sent those checks to Finland, lol!

There is sponsors who seems to use that one tactic: when you sign-up for them and you build couple of sites you get nice sign-ups but when you build more sites, nothing.

As I have been in this for years I test new sponsors building something like 2-3 free sites. If I have nice sign-ups, that's good. It's always money in bank. Then I build one more, and if I still get sign-ups, I build one more. If sign-ups stops I forget that sponsor.

I also build a lot for sponsors who use CC Bill. It's nice to have their check every Monday morning. Also those smaller sponsors are glad to mail with me and help me to promote them more like giving more free content if their sites are so exclusive you need it. Many times their sites are very small niches that don't give you many surfers, but those surfers are buyers, because they know there is not many places on net where they can find what they want. Usually those sites are excellent, you don't even have to know anything about that niche, just copy text from tour.

As an example, one sponsor has cbt site. WTF is cbt I thought...well, I took tour and now I know. I downloaded free content and built couple of sites and got some sign-ups and I still got new sign-ups and rebills. Not so many per week, but that sponsor use CC Bill...

[Mishi]

Originally posted by finnbear
There is sponsors who seems to use that one tactic: when you sign-up for them and you build couple of sites you get nice sign-ups but when you build more sites, nothing.

This seems to happen too often to be just a fluke...or maybe not, I dunno...but yeah, I have a couple of sponsors with whom I made one sale almost immediately, then nothing. Nothing! Of course, I continue sending a trickle of traffic, hoping I can reach that whopping $50 or $100 minimum payout...hey, money is money.

I'm gradually training myself to grow out of that mindset, realizing that there's a good chance I'm being shaved to the quick and wasting more money trying to get that one check than I could be making elsewhere. Still, it sucks to be ripped off, whether it's for $5 or $5000. (Yes, I am a tightwad, lol.)

[CybrFire]

I see now I'm not the only one who builds & promotes new sponsors, gets sign ups and then sees nothing afterwards. I used to get all happy about getting those sign ups right after promoting a new sponsor...but nowadays I just move on and let it go. If the sign ups are there, fine. If not...it happens.

Move on and build/promote for another one. About the only thing you can do.

But it's still nice to see a check in the mail no matter what the size, or from who

[lassiter]

Originally posted by CybrFire
I see now I'm not the only one who builds & promotes new sponsors, gets sign ups and then sees nothing afterwards.

One thing to do occasionally is to check the tours you're sending your surfers to.
One megasponsor was giving me occasional sales and then suddenly nothing. It took me a couple of months to get around to noticing that what was a $39/month membership was now $49/month. That difference in price can probably affect signup ratios, I'd wager.

[CybrFire]

Good point. That's something I was trying to get into the habit of doing, checking the tours for changes like that, but it's easy to forget about doing things like that from time to time.

[JenC]

Well not to sound too spammy but this is the reason I created my own paysites. I got sick of being screwed by all the big sponsors. So I promote my own sites and a select few of other sponsors. It pays to give the small guy a try because they really want you to succeed because when you make money, they make money.

Let me know if I can help you. I own my program. It's small, but you'll get personalized service.

[Mishi]

Originally posted by JenC
Well not to sound too spammy but this is the reason I created my own paysites. I got sick of being screwed by all the big sponsors. So I promote my own sites and a select few of other sponsors. It pays to give the small guy a try because they really want you to succeed because when you make money, they make money.

Let me know if I can help you. I own my program. It's small, but you'll get personalized service.

Tell me more! It's not spamming if I ask, right? Feel free to PM me if you'd rather, but I'm very bad about not checking PMs...for like, months...

[Odie]

Originally posted by lassiter
One thing to do occasionally is to check the tours you're sending your surfers to.
One megasponsor was giving me occasional sales and then suddenly nothing. It took me a couple of months to get around to noticing that what was a $39/month membership was now $49/month. That difference in price can probably affect signup ratios, I'd wager.

I'm glad that you brought this up. This has actually happened to me with a webmaster.

What I've noticed is that alot of webmasters sign up, send some traffic and wait for sign-ups. They then get upset or change sponsors when they don't see any. This is a mistake. Why not take the time to get in touch with your sales rep and find out what you can do to change your results!

I'm a sales rep and part of my job is to get in contact with my affiliates and keep a rapport with them. Many times I am ignored by the webmaster b/c they think I'm just spamming them. Keeping in touch w/ your sales reps helps when u run into these issues. It can be as easy as changing the membership trials to changing the style of the banner. But if you don't allow the sales people to help and don't give the sponsor a chance, then you're really not putting any work into it and you're losing out on possible sales.

[Shannon G]

Originally posted by Odie
I'm glad that you brought this up. This has actually happened to me with a webmaster.

What I've noticed is that alot of webmasters sign up, send some traffic and wait for sign-ups. They then get upset or change sponsors when they don't see any. This is a mistake. Why not take the time to get in touch with your sales rep and find out what you can do to change your results!

I'm a sales rep and part of my job is to get in contact with my affiliates and keep a rapport with them. Many times I am ignored by the webmaster b/c they think I'm just spamming them. Keeping in touch w/ your sales reps helps when u run into these issues. It can be as easy as changing the membership trials to changing the style of the banner. But if you don't allow the sales people to help and don't give the sponsor a chance, then you're really not putting any work into it and you're losing out on possible sales.

I totally agree with you! AND, I also can see where people have been S*&t on by shaved stats. Not to sound spammy, but promoting sponsors through a network like RealBigCash can alleviate the shaving concerns... because WE don't want to get screwed and because we don't want our affiliates to ultimately get screwed, we cross-check all of the sales that are recorded in our system w/ those of the corresponding sponsor program.

So, say for example that you joined RealBigCash as an affiliate and you wanted to promote site XYZ from sponsor ABC... not only do we monitor the sales that OUR program says you've made for XYZ, but we go into the stats program of sponsor ABC to be sure that THEY have registered that sale as well. They don't want US to claim a higher sales rate because then they have to pay us more, and we want our affiliates to be paid on every damn sale they make so they keep making $$... so the only option is to report the true sales.

Cheers!

$hannon