Entries tagged " affiliate "
Ever wanted to take out an affiliate manager you do business with? If you've done any sort of affiliate marketing, I'm sure you have. While we don't want to actually kill (murder, rub out, smoke, ice, put down, etc.) the person, we can get pretty frustrated with them and the company they represent. This post is about a real gripe I have with a real affiliate manager. That's right... I'm calling out names.
WebHostingPad.com
I was contacted by Ben Hong (ben@webhostingpad.com) a few months back. He is the affiliate manager for webhostingpad.com, a new web hosting company that has launched recently. Apparently the company is a spawn of Omnis Network of web hosting companies. I have a website that does a lot of web hosting promotion and so Ben wanted placement on my site.
After a sweet offer of $200 per sale for the first 30 days I said I would give them a shot. I hopped on the phone with Ben and talked numbers with him. He promised me a minimum of 4% conversion on qualified traffic. I sent him traffic slowly and I realized their conversion rate was no where near 4% (more like 1%). Still, I got new sales notification emails and watched my account balance grow. I was happy because the payout was so high and I would just throttle the traffic. I had planned on dumping them after the first 30 days if I didn't notice an increase in the conversion rate.
Then I started noticing sales emails with no record of it in my affiliate account. I got on the phone with Ben and he investigated. After a few weeks, and many annoyed emails/calls from me, he explained it was a "bug" in their software (which is iDevAffiliate, something everyone uses).
I started seeing the writing on the wall so I immediately stopped sending traffic his way. Figured I would let the relationship go and collect what's owed to me at the next payment cycle. Well, when that cycle came I got an email notifying me that I had been paid via Paypal. Well, I hadn't received anything from Paypal confirming and when logging into my account, the payment wasn't there. Now it gets interesting.
I email Ben and got no response. I call Ben and leave voicemail and get no call back. I email again and finally get a response. It was another "bug" in the software and I will get paid on the next billing cycle (a month away) because the sales I was to be paid on had not reached the 30 day requirement (in other words, if the user cancels, my commission is voided). OK, that's fine and I understand that.
Well the next payment cycle has come and gone nearly 2 weeks ago. Ben is no where to be found. I call their number and it's changed to a new one. I call that one and I get no option for his extension. I can only get a tech support rep who promises that he as no way of transferring a phone call. Oh and he is unable to get me on the phone with Ben Hong, or anyone else for that matter. There is no other number I can use to reach Ben or anyone in their affiliate department. It's only him, the mighty tech support rep, and guess what, he is not able to help me with affiliate issues. Of course not.
What are my options?
At this point I am calling it a loss. I'd rather forget all about them and try to get the word out.
I should head down to their office (also in So. Cal. where I am located) and ask to see Ben in person. Thing is, I would rather let the affiliate world know how they run their business and hit them where it hurts, their bottom line.
Funny thing is, I am not the only one with a negative experience. A friend of mine jumped right in with them (after I told him about the $200 offer) and began sending them a lot of sales. See, he has a string of new clients who require a website to continue working with him. He was sending them 4-6 new sales a day. Now these are confirmed sales because these users are his clients and he is on the phone with them while using their WebHostingPad.com accounts.
Guess what? His sales started disappearing. Ben claimed they had cancelled their account, but of course they hadn't. Obviously they are my friends clients and he can easily confirm their accounts were active and the user had not requested cancellation. At least he was able to collect payment on most of his sales. Now he has no way of reaching Ben either. Shady shady!
Feel free to link to, republish, whatever this posting on your blog, forums, etc. Be good to help out our fellow marketers and let everyone know not to deal with these clowns.
Update: - This morning (3/13/08) I received a call from Ben Hong saying he apologizes for all the "mixups" and I have been sent a payment via Paypal. Word travels fast in the blogosphere and less than 24 hours later I was paid in full. Funny thing is, it wasn't a lot of money that was owed to me (less than a thousand) so it wasn't the end of the world and that's why I decided to call it a loss and write the post to begin with.
So for anyone out there having trouble, write a blog post about your issues. The social web has given us a powerful tool to "fight back", so why not use it?
Technorati Tags: affiliate, affiliate marketing, ben hong, commission, shady, webhostingpad
This is a quick recap of my progress for January. I made a crazy goal for this year and so I am keeping people updated here.
Business
The company I co-founded is doing well for our current stage. We are live and actively getting subscription sales. We are right on track for the volume of business that we are currently able to handle. One negative is our customer up selling. It's progressing slower than we would like but we still need to put together a proper training system for our only sales guy. I am still not ready to announce the company name / website; maybe in the February recap.
My affiliate marketing efforts fell a little behind because I was super busy with other projects. I have been spending my personal time catching up and tuning campaigns, etc. I still made slightly more than 6K profit for the month. I am positive if I had more time to focus on these efforts I could have squeezed out another thousand or two. These are small numbers compared to others, but I am very happy with my progress in these ventures.
Personal
One thing that has been really tough is my dieting. Well, the issue is, I haven't been dieting! Prior to this year I had been working from home for quite a while and got used to the convenience it provided in terms of making a healthier lunch, etc. Now that I am commuting into Los Angeles again, lunch is usually the nearest place selling a hamburger. Not good.
February Goals
I will spend more time on my affiliate marketing efforts. I do have a full plate on my hands this month but I will make the time to tweak my campaigns and try to up my profit for the month.
I am also starting on a new project that should have a beta available by March. It should be ready for full public consumption by the end of March. I don't want to say too much about this yet, but it will be a service to help with visitor conversions. More on this later.
I will continue to hit the weight racks every morning. I need to design a new work out routine, as it's been far to long since the last time I switched it up. It's generally smart to switch routines every 6-8 weeks to keep your muscles guessing. I will also focus on running a little more, though my left knee has been pretty sore for the last week.
I have to start eating better. My usual lapse here is my lunch. I have to make the effort to get a lunch ready the night before and take it into work with me. If I could drop 10 pounds of fat I think I would be satisfied and try to maintain at that point.
Wrapping Up
That's a basic recap for January on my progress of hitting the $1 million dollar goal I have for 2008. When I announce more about the company I co-founded I will give more details in terms of financial gain, etc. Will I hit my goal of a million bucks this year? I don't know, but I sure will try! Regardless, it is shaping up to be a very good year in my life. A life changing year.
Technorati Tags: affiliate, business, make money online, marketing, weight lifting
2008 will be a landmark year in my life. As of today, January 7th 2008, I am my own boss. I have resigned from Groovr for various reasons, leading me to take the jump and be responsible for my own income. This is a scary and exciting time for me but I will make the best of it!
How will I make $1 million dollars?
Well, I probably won't quite reach that goal but I sure will try! I have been trying my hand in internet and affiliate marketing in my free time and have already seen some success. Enough success to sustain my bills and keep my head above water. I figure if I dedicate a larger chunk of my time and work smart, I could earn a pretty penny.
I also have a few idea's I am working on. Generating leads for niche markets that, as far as I can tell, are basically competition free! I can't tell you exactly what that is of course ;) As my methods and techniques get more fine tuned, my revenue will grow. I honestly see no reason why I can't make $1 million dollars in the next 365 days.
Make a million with only affiliate marketing?
I don't pretend to be that good—yet! While there are people who do generate millions of dollars per year using affiliate marketing techniques, I know I am no where near that level. I also have something else in the works.
A few months ago I was approached by a friend to co-found an internet related company. This company is more of a service provider than a "Web 2.0" style startup. My friend is already a millionaire internet entrepreneur and successful business man; it was very important that I consider his offer.
After a month or so of thinking it over—and after I made my decision to leave Groovr—I agreed to help co-found this new company. I will give more info on this later as the company progresses.
My buddy, and new business partner, is already an established affiliate/internet marketer and is actually a fairly well known person in the community. We have other ideas that we plan to team up on to generate income. Each of us brings to the table something that the other lacks and the combination of our skill sets is proving to be a profitable one.
Blogging
I plan to post a lot more often to this blog. Not only to give progress reports on my goal but to also write valuable and useful posts related to marketing, software, tech, etc.
Also I realize that this blog is a big part of my "brand" online. I have gotten work from it before, but I never really took the time to cultivate it into a larger following. I will try to do that in 2008.
If you haven't done so yet, now is a good time to subscribe to my RSS feed so you can stay up to date with this blog.
Other methods of earning income
I happen to have a small leg up on most of my competition in the Affiliate world; I am able to write my own software, manage my own servers, etc. I've been doing that for others for a decade. Of course they have more marketing experience than I do, but I am a quick study. Luckily I also have my buddy to turn to for help and advice. I also have a few ideas in the works that will actually help other marketers and allows me to turn a profit at the same time.
My goal is to automate as much as possible with custom software so I can focus about 75% of my time on the new company and the rest on my various projects. This is a pretty easy thing to do with my lead generation sites, but not so easy with other things I am working on. So I will need to dedicate a chunk of my day to the affiliate stuff.
In a pinch I could always do a little consulting or projects for various companies to help boost the income that month. Luckily I have made a lot of contacts through the years and I should be able to find decently paid short term projects pretty easily. I would rather not use this option but it's always there as an alternative.
Family
On top of all this I also need to make some time to spend with my family. My daughters both play soccer (basically year round if you count all-stars and tournaments) and I have a lot of fun at their games. But they still need to practice and I make it a point to help them with that. My wife is obviously a large part of my life and will be helping me out as much as she can. We still need our evenings out and personal time together, etc.
Personal Health
I believe that you need to keep your mind and body healthy. For the mind I try to read a few books a month. Usually anything that is NOT computer/internet related, though lately I've been reading books on writing and marketing.
For the body I work out 5 days a week with a full body weight lifting routine. I do cardio exercises 3 times a week as well. I refuse to give this up and I generally go to the gym at 5:30am, so this shouldn't interfere with my work days anymore than it currently does.
Whew!
So that's it. My basic outline for 2008. Whether or not I make $1 million dollars isn't the point. It's the fact that I am shooting for the stars that will make this a special year for me. What are some of your plans for the year?
Technorati Tags: 2008, affiliate, business, internet, marketing, one million dollars
