I’m Affiliating with this Merchant…NOT!
I thought I’d come up with something unique and interesting when I discovered SmokingDate.com…
As I’m often on the prowl for new offers to promote to my dating site crowd at Sage-Hearts.com, I thought I’d come up with something unique and interesting when I discovered SmokingDate.com.
The site bills itself as ‘Online Dating for Smokers and Smoker-Friendly Singles’.
Well, as a good affiliate who wants to make sure that the site will be acceptable to my visitors and is a lucrative prospective for my business, I had to check the site out.
So, I used their Search function from the homepage and they’ve placed Google Adsense at the top of their results pages!
YIKES!
Not only that, but against the SmokingDate.com blue, white and rust color scheme; the Adsense box is a BRIGHT, impossible-to-miss green.
That should have qualified as Strikes 1, 2 AND 3; however, being the nice affiliate that I am, I decide to them another chance and see whether I can find a workaround.
It occurs to me that if I’m allowed to send visitors from my site directly to the Free Registration page on SmokingDating.com, I may stand a better chance of earning a commission.
WRONG!
SmokingDate.com has Adsense ads on every flippin’ page on their site.
Worse, not only are they monetizing the top of all their pages with Adsense, they’ve got a “Win a Plasma TV” banner from Advertising.com at the bottom of most pages.
SHEESH!
What the heck are these people thinking?
ARE they thinking?
That they choose to push their own traffic through those prominent ad placements and make just pennies on the dollar is their problem.
But they went to the trouble of setting up an affiliate program which they link to on every page of the site, so they obviously want affiliates to promote their product.
I’ll send them traffic which I’ve earned through either paid or natural search listings, THEY earn revenue from Adsense, and I’ll make nothing.
SURE I will… NOT!
That’s hardly what I call a win-win situation.
Perhaps they think that affiliates are too uneducated to notice this flagrant abuse?
Well, here’s the shocker.
We DO notice, and we WON’T sign up for ANY merchant that places Adsense ANYWHERE on the public sections of their site.
Note to Affiliates: Review your existing promotions and remove those that have ‘leaky’ links (ie. Adsense or other advertising that leads visitors offsite and for which you don’t receive a commission) in the public areas of their sites.
Replace those offers with comparable offers to merchants that respect their affiliates.
Now watch your income soar!
If you don’t ‘get it’ quite yet, you will. Just read the Super Affiliate Handbook to learn more about sneaky merchant tricks.
Note to Merchants: Affiliates can be your company’s best asset. Treat us with respect and we’ll return the love.To learn how to make the most of your program, I recommend the Lurn’s “AC Certified“.
Now play nice everyone!
Want more info?
Rosalind Gardner is a Super Affiliate blogger, author, speaker, and Internet marketing consultant.
If you enjoyed this article and want to be notified the next time Rosalind writes something, subscribe to her RSS feed or the No-Hype, No-BS, No Spam NPT newsletter. You can also follow her on Twitter and Facebook. Thanks for visiting!
Related Posts
- Affiliates: Is That Merchant Cheating You Out of Commissions?
- Resolving Merchant-Side Affiliate Commission Tracking Problems
- Four Questions to Ask Your Merchant
- Affiliating in the Season of Love
- Make More from Your Merchant Affiliations
