Sponsors who suspend webmasters for inactivity

[Trixie]

What is the PURPOSE of this? Why in the world would a sponsor possibly want to stymie the efforts of someone who signed up to promote them? What do they possibly have to gain by doing this?

I am never going to comprehend this, but if anyone has any insight, I will try.

Most of my efforts are spent on our own paysites so I don't have the time or a ton of traffic to send to other people, but when I do it totally chaps my hide to have this happen, particularly since I try to promote smaller sponsors with unique, underexposed content.

Who cares if I wait one month, one year or five years to promote you after I sign up? Why do you want to alienate someone who cannot send a steady stream of traffic?

Sigh.

[Toby]

I've had this happen several times, always by a small CCBill program. My best guess is that they think that most inactive affiliate accounts are really surfers looking for more free content.

Some of the accounts likely are non-webmasters, but it seems to me that the cost vs reward would be pretty low. In fact, it may even have an overall detrimental effect if they 'piss off' a couple of affiliates with big traffic that just hadn't gotten that planned niche site built yet.

A far more effective use of the time would be to review new affiliates sign-ups as they come in, before sending an email giving user/pass to the promo area. But that would mean checking things daily.

[Trixie]

Yeah, that's the only thing I can think of, too. Or if the owners are more interested in having accurate stats of how many "active" webmasters they have than they are in making sales.

Totally chaps my hide. The one I ran across today was http://cl-cash.com/ -- they have awesome content and I wasted time over a year ago plugging some of their galleries into my tgp rotator which I do not have a lot of time to understand/work on so for some reason they haven't been cycling through (the old galleries with the new). But I don't think I should have to write to these people and tell them that.

I mean, the reason my account is inactive is because I'm BUSY with other projects; nothing is more annoying to a busy person than finding out they wasted time with something or have to redo old work. Lame.

[Ms Naughty]

I'm with you on this Trixie. I've signed up to numerous sponsors but haven't got around to any serious promotion. It seems such a silly idea to cull affiliates. If someone has been good enough to give you their details, surely you'd want to keep them on side? And if you suspect they're a surfer, maybe an email is all that's required.

I hate to think I'm signed up to a sponsor and they've removed me without any warning. They would then be getting free signups via my pre-existing links.

[terry]

I agree as well. Totally pisses me off when I find out my account was closed or suspensed for inactivity. I have dozens of sites running and I submit galleries on a daily basis... so it comes down to their loss not mine.

Thanks for posting the url too... I'll be sure not to use them now.

[LD]

This happened to me once, although I did contact the sponsor and explained that I was a webmaster & showed them my site, and they re-instated me. Still pisses me off, though.

[Trixie]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. I will write to them, but it does really anger me; is this something I'm going to have to do again unless I'm sending them mad clicks every week? Because that is really discouraging to me as someone with not-a-lot-of-traffic, but good quality traffic. It's such a waste of everyone's time and completely purposeless. If it's a surfer trying to scam free content he can just sign up again, whereas a webmaster who actually has work to do might not bother to jump through the hoops.

[Toby]

Originally Posted by Trixie

....whereas a webmaster who actually has work to do might not bother to jump through the hoops.

Why do so many sponsors fail to grasp this simple concept?

[Trixie]

I know that I am hardly one to brag about making stuff easy for affiliates, but yeah -- on something like this where it takes absolutely no effort to let sleeping dogs lie, it skeeves me that they have a policy to go out of their way to suspend webmasters.

I know I'm an asshole for taking the time to bitch about this when I could have just used the time to sign up again/write to them but DAMN! I resist!! I resent!!

[papagmp]

That would "chap-my-ass" as we say her in Colorado. I have links all over to small sponsors - and I'm supposed to find them all and pull the,? or is the sponsor hoping they remain and by canceling you, they get 100% credit? WTF

[nibbler]

This has never happened to me, but I've gotten plenty of the gentle email reminders from sponsors saying that we noticed a lack of activity (traffic) from you and that if there's anything you need feel free to contact us.

[GonZo]

Originally Posted by Toby

Why do so many sponsors fail to grasp this simple concept?

Heres another concept... what a waste of money to acquire that webmaster to begin with... wake up moron program owners!

[Greenguy]

Think of all the small payouts they'd save by canceling the accounts of webmasters that have not promoted them in a long time.

Think about it - I'm signed up to 550+ programs, some of which I've probably not actively promoted in years. But there's still link codes out there & maybe even some very old rebills. If my account at Adult Whatever was canceled, odds are I'd never know & they could keep any money my account generated.

[Toby]

In each of the cases where I had a sponsor close an account I had yet to send any traffic.

I'm also a CL affiliate. I promoted them at one time, several years ago, but they didn't convert for me and I've not sent them any traffic in ages, but my account is still active.

I believe that with CCBill if the affiliate account has been terminated the CCBill referal link redirects to an account closed message rather than to the sponsor tour. So the sponsor wouldn't be getting any residual benefit from orphaned links.

If I'm correct about the above, then it lends even more credence to the theory that they believe they are killing off surfer accounts. CL has been around long enough they should have figured a few things out by now, but the others in my case have all been fetish models with minimal promo tools and obviously little knowledge of what is really involved in running an affiliate program.

[James_HotMovies]

Originally Posted by Greenie

Think of all the small payouts they'd save by canceling the accounts of webmasters that have not promoted them in a long time.

Think about it - I'm signed up to 550+ programs, some of which I've probably not actively promoted in years. But there's still link codes out there & maybe even some very old rebills. If my account at Adult Whatever was canceled, odds are I'd never know & they could keep any money my account generated.

I wonder how many of those 550+ programs are still in business.

I went through my list a couple of weeks ago and found 40% of my sponsors gone and buried.

[Greenguy]

I actively promote 50 or so, so if half of them were no longer open, that's still 250 programs that I no longer promote & I'd never know if they kept a sale or recurring revenue because I don't check.

[James_HotMovies]

I'm in the same boat. I was cleaning up an old site and seeing where the links were going. Lot's and lots of dead links.

I need a script to check my sites for dead links. Too freakin busy.

[bdld]

i keep a text file of all the sponsors ive ever signed up with. every few months i log in to each one to update my info or see if im sending any traffic. im surprised to see with every check-up that either i cant log in anymore or another sponsor has disappeared.

[Jel]

I fucking hate when they do that, and here's why:

I may not be sending any traffic, but what about the webmasters I've referred? Could well be that I've referred 1 or more decent affiliates and earning 5 - 10%, and by getting kicked lose that. Even if I sign up again, that revenue stream(s) is/are now gone.

[NY Jester]

I dont agree with programs nixing any affiliates account unles sthere is due cause. Many webmasters do promos on a "cycle" - whereas they promote a certain niche or sponsor for a certain period of time whether its a week, or month..then move onto another group of sponsors. Saes dont come just because something is promoted...sometimes it takes time to generate the traffic to get the sales. If it is hurting you to have that affiliates signed up...then why not keep them. I never understood the concept.

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by Jel

I fucking hate when they do that, and here's why:

I may not be sending any traffic, but what about the webmasters I've referred? Could well be that I've referred 1 or more decent affiliates and earning 5 - 10%, and by getting kicked lose that. Even if I sign up again, that revenue stream(s) is/are now gone.

I have 1 program that I no longer use, but I referred a couple of webmasters & a check for $20-30 shows up once a month.

[Jel]

Originally Posted by Greenie

I have 1 program that I no longer use, but I referred a couple of webmasters & a check for $20-30 shows up once a month.

Is the account still active? Also, out of curiosity is it a ccbill sponsor (as these programs seem to be the keenest on terminating accounts)?

[ronnie]

Funny that CL Cash, also has a $150 min payout. For a small niche, could be tough for many to get it up past the min. I've been pushing them lately only to get past the min and finally get a check.

I don't see how it costs to keep affiliates if they don't promote much.

I was going to say the same for inactive sponsors as others have mentioned. Pisses me off that their sites are still up and taking webmasters, but try actually getting paid or getting a reply from them. Found one the other day, owe me like $480 or so, don't think I'll ever see that. Course no reply to e-mails or contacts.

Another one to stay away from, fetishcash. Last news on their site was 2006, but it's like they are still open for business.

Since there is a "What Sponsor sent me this Check?" list, maybe there should also be a "What Sponsor won't send me a Check" list.

[tickler]

Originally Posted by Jel

Is the account still active? Also, out of curiosity is it a ccbill sponsor (as these programs seem to be the keenest on terminating accounts)?

Funny I just merged some old ccBill accounts that I lost track of a long time ago. Still a little bit of money in them, and they were down in the 5*** to 7*** range.

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by Jel

Is the account still active? Also, out of curiosity is it a ccbill sponsor (as these programs seem to be the keenest on terminating accounts)?

It's my Money Tree account - when I 1st saw the checks, I thought I might have some old dialer codes laying around, but then I logged in & looked at my stats & the money is from webmaster referrals.