As a person who is heavily into affiliate marketing , I am constantly amazed by the number of merchants who feel it is alright to do the dirty on affiliates.

Merchants stealing? How is this possible.??

I go into details here

Mmmm, Interesting - I've added my thoughts

On ya northie

thanks for the tips....I use affiliate marketing a lot....I never thought of this....I'll start looking at my reports more carefully.

It's not the reports you should look at -  it is the sites. Do an audit - you might be surprised...

The best solution is to depend professional companies offering affiliate management. This way are in better control of your various affiliate accounts.

Read: http://www.giftsspaceDOTcom/learningcnt … =Affiliate

Companies offering affiliate management has nothing to do with it.

I deal with the large networks, including the one you are hoping to get affiliate signups through via you link above.

No network actions on this, which is odd because they are being skimmed as well - but of course they get sign-up money and annual fees...

Enjoyed your blog post Matte.

My question...is there a company that will go fighting for you to get your money earned?  Because my problem is getting the money from the retailers that leave...never pay...and then often - even more frustratingly...come back to the affiliate managing companies.  Even if there were such a thing as commission-recovery-agents, LOL, the affiliate probably couldn't make it worth their while to use them.

"You will need to communicate with the company directly for commission recovery payments".  I can't tell you how many wasted hours collecting proof of commissions earned - just to be told it's not proof enough.

Now THAT is stealing.

  ooohh ranting is sooo relaxing!

I do not know of a company that specialises in affiliate money recovery - probably just best using normal debt recovery services.

Even the big network can get caught, but most now require sufficient money in the 'account' to cover all owed commissions, or the linking is turned off.

As with all, you need to choose your merchants carefully - do they exhibit business sense?

Not sure where this quote came from thebjer

"You will need to communicate with the company directly for commission recovery payments".

matte wrote:

I do not know of a company that specialises in affiliate money recovery - probably just best using normal debt recovery services.

Even the big network can get caught, but most now require sufficient money in the 'account' to cover all owed commissions, or the linking is turned off.

As with all, you need to choose your merchants carefully - do they exhibit business sense?

Not sure where this quote came from thebjer

"You will need to communicate with the company directly for commission recovery payments".

That is what I was told from one of the 'big networks' (which shall remain nameless, since I am still with them. ).  They send 1 email to the merchant on your behalf.  Then I got that response.  Then I contact the merchant directly and got the response in the prior post 75% of the time.

All-in-all I haven't done bad with non-payment of commissions...I think I am at $167 or something not paid total.  It is just irritating.

BTW...I did NOT know about the "most now require sufficient money in the 'account' to cover all owed commissions..."  That is very interesting and quite the comfort!  Thanks for the info!

I suppose we are lucky with affiliate marketing.
we have hundreds (poss thousands) of affiliations with lots of companies. these are all handled by affiliate management companies (you know the ones).
Luckily, with the way we do things, our members tell us when they have done something and it hasnt turned up in their statement within a fortnight.
Again, luckily, we track EVERYTHING.
If there is anything missing at all, we contact the aff management holding all the cards. we can tell them the exact time down to the second that the user clicked to the aff site, we can tell them what IP address it was, if the transaction involves any kind of purchase, we can provide them with the correct transaction and payment details.

We have never lost a claim (touch wood) although we have had other probs.

Like "Uhhh, we accidentily put you in the wrong tier, so we've dropped your commission by 2K"
that one is on going and has been for 4 months. We have the Aff company (well part of it) on our side so it should turn out ok.

One tip i would give everyone, dont allow users to see the aff url EVER.

Northie is a self confessed "affiliate avoider", as am I. What we do is see a link we want to follow and decide whether we want the site to earn money from us. If the site is crap and has basically dragged me there and got in the way of where I want to be, Ill either strip out any aff ID, or Ill go follow the link, clear my cookies and get on with it

Hide your aff links people. www.tinyurl.com is a godsend for quickness.
If you're doing it on a mass scale, think about sticking your links in a DB and have a script to redirect through it.

On a slightly different, yet very interesting note. If Im correct in guessing "the big network" you are thinking of here, then Time Warner AOL has just put in a 160 million bid for them (about 2 weeks ago). expect some big changes and even less customer service.

If there is anything missing at all, we contact the aff management holding all the cards. we can tell them the exact time down to the second that the user clicked to the aff site, we can tell them what IP address it was, if the transaction involves any kind of purchase, we can provide them with the correct transaction and payment details.

Interesting how do you ever know what the transaction and payment details are?? - this all happens on the merchant's site - if you point them to their site then all tracking is lost isn't it?

Posted a reply but not sure if it got through. Is the comment being moderated?

griffinsbridge wrote:

On a slightly different, yet very interesting note. If Im correct in guessing "the big network" you are thinking of here, then Time Warner AOL has just put in a 160 million bid for them (about 2 weeks ago). expect some big changes and even less customer service.

What doesn't Time Warner own?, LOL

I have to disagree with the whole 'phone number' thing.

This entirely depends on what type of market your in. For instance, we have an outdoors company and at least 50% of these guys don't go on-line for a darn thing.

Just this week, the advertising kicked in and I've been getting phone calls. They wanna talk to someone and place the order over the phone.... OR, they just don't have a computer.

Thus I see know reason why a company shouldn't post a phone number.

/2cents

I have to disagree with the whole 'phone number' thing.

This entirely depends on what type of market your in. For instance, we have an outdoors company and at least 50% of these guys don't go on-line for a darn thing.

Yeah but what if they have found your business through the affiliate marketing effort??  Then you have the phone number there and the percentage that prefer to ring - I have a site - not affiliate where I have the phone number.

This week 50% of sales were over the phone.

Image. if there was an affiliate program and their marketing efforts were short circuited because the customer chose to ring and no commissions

griffinsbridge wrote:

One tip i would give everyone, dont allow users to see the aff url EVER.

Hey Griff,

I'm playing at an affilliate site. Meaning, I never quit the day job

How do you conceal the affiliate url? My stuff, you click on a function page which records just about everything I'm interested in and redirects you to the items details page on the merchant site.., carrying my ID. I omit the ID, I'm pretty sure no one ever sees a commission check, EVER.

Could you elaborate?

thebjer wrote:

griffinsbridge wrote:

On a slightly different, yet very interesting note. If Im correct in guessing "the big network" you are thinking of here, then Time Warner AOL has just put in a 160 million bid for them (about 2 weeks ago). expect some big changes and even less customer service.

What doesn't Time Warner own?, LOL

GOOGLE

If there is anything missing at all, we contact the aff management holding all the cards. we can tell them the exact time down to the second that the user clicked to the aff site, we can tell them what IP address it was, if the transaction involves any kind of purchase, we can provide them with the correct transaction and payment details.

Griffin,
Are you selling that utility, and, if so, how much?!

This whole thread is making me queasy about aff. marketing! That little ability ought to fix my tummy turning!