Affiliate Commissions: Don’t Get Screwed

November 4, 2008

Affiliate commissions from some programs can be huge. In fact some advertisers will pay you more than 50% in affiliate commissions, if you advertise their products on your website or blog.

If you’re not familiar with affiliate programs - they work in a similar way to advertising. But instead of being paid when someone views, or clicks on an ad on your site, you are paid a commission if one of your readers buys something from the advertiser.

Unfortunately, some advertisers will go out of their way to screw you out of your affiliate commissions. So, if you’re considering using affiliate programs to make money on your website, or blog, you might want to read on to make sure you don’t get ripped off.

Are Affiliate Commissions A Good Way To Make Money From Your Site?

On some sites you can definitely make a decent amount of money from affiliate commissions. Some affiliate programs pay commissions of 50% plus. On the other hand, some pay a paltry amount. So, do your research wisely.

Some Tips To Avoid Getting Ripped Off On Your Affiliate Commissions

You wouldn’t expect businesses to steal your affiliate commissions would you? After all, affiliates work hard to promote their products and if they cheat them, they might wind up with no affiliates at all. Trouble is, some of them are short sighted and seem to think nothing of stealing their affiliates commissions.

Advertising For Affiliates At The Top of The Page:

Check that the seller isn’t advertising for affiliates at the top of the page. Some do this, to encourage potential buyers to use their own affiliate link to buy their program. I know of one company who actually comes right out in their sales pitch and tells buyers to sign up as an affiliate and buy through their own affiliate link.

I guess they do this, because it’s easier for them to sell their product at the lower price. They’re not losing any money, or gaining any but they’re making more sales. And when this happens, you’re losing your affiliate commissions.

You really need to avoid companies who do this to affiliates. I recently ditched one company completely. They have a good product but the customers I was sending over there just weren’t converting into sales. So, I checked the link I was using to send readers to the site and there was actually a little banner floating across the page, encouraging buyers to join there affiliate program. Very tacky - and a low way to con folk out of their affiliate commissions.

Affilliate Management Programs That Encourage Advertisers To Rip Affiliates Off

It’s terribly unfair but apparently this does happen. Commission Junction have been accused of this and I recently received a postcard in the mail saying that publishers are taking legal action against Commission Junction.

I don’t use Commission Junction much now because of the allegations. And I don’t know how true they are but I do know that I’ve bought two different products through my own affiliate links and didn’t receive a commission. In one case, the advertiser actually encouraged affiliates to use their own link to buy from them. So, it’s easy to see how these companies got caught ripping affiliates off.

Companies Who Use Their Own Domain Name or Phone Number In The Affiliate Ad

Companies who use their domain names or their phone numbers in their banner ads are a waste of time too. If people see the banner on your site and either type in the domain name, or use the phone number you get bugger all for your efforts.

So Do All Advertisers Rip Affiliates Off?

No. There’s still plenty of good affiliate programs to join. Not everyone is stupid enough to bite the hand that feeds them, or dishonest enough to con you out of your affiliate commissions.

I like LinkShare Referral Program, as they’re a reputable and they have some excellent quality advertisers, including Nickelodeon, L’Occitane, Zales, Cheap Tickets and Fujitsu.

Also, I recently joined Pepperjam. The network was created by affiliates for affiliates and they are providing things that aren’t possible with most other affiliate programs. For example you can create your own ads. They look similar to adsense but you can mix and match ads by various advertisers.

Pepperjam are a fairly new affiliate program but they have some great advertisers signed up and many of them pay excellent affiliate commissions. Advertisers include Baby Phat, BBC America, Ebay and Jelly Belly. And Pepperjam Network is now offering a $10 affiliate sign on bonus. So it’s worth joining today.

If you’re interested in using affiliate marketing to earn commissions on your website or blog and you’re only just starting out, I highly recommend Rosalind Gardner’s Super Affiliate Handbook. Unlike some so called Guru’s, she actually makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from affiliate marketing. And you shares some great advice on how to build a real affiliate business from scratch.

And if you’ve been doing affiliate marketing for sometime, but you could use more traffic to help you make a decent profit, Secret Affiliate Code 2 shows you how to get plenty of free traffic and rank number one on Google for your keywords.

Affiliate Resources On Other Websites

For Affiliates, Run By Affiliates: $10 Sign On Bonus for All New Pepperjam Network Affiliates.
Learn From The Woman Who Earns 500K A Year + In Affiliate Commissions
This Guy Is A Pain In The Ass But He Makes Huge Affiliate Commissions

Posted by cathlawson | Filed Under Marketing, Running a Business

Comments

18 Responses to “Affiliate Commissions: Don’t Get Screwed”

Davina on November 4th, 2008 7:45 pm

Thank you Cath. You are a wealth of information. The few affiliates that I’ve stumbled upon offer 5-10% return and it hardly seems worth it. I haven’t yet spent a lot of time investigating advertising options for my blog, but this will be useful to me very soon.

Davina’s last blog post..A Ghostly Life Experience
John Hewitt on November 4th, 2008 8:57 pm

I always view affiliate programs with suspicion. Commission Junction is one that never worked out for me either. I stick with Google just because I know they aren’t going anywhere, but I do sometimes look around to see if there is something better.

John Hewitt’s last blog post..The Fiction Description Prescription
Patricia on November 4th, 2008 11:36 pm

Thank you Cath for the StumbleUpon tutorial - I finally got on this week, and got adsense running. Could not get any thing going with Commission Junction and will pass on your 3 recommends on this post to my techie who has huge midterm papers due this week.

Wow there is so much to learn about blogging and building a business. None of the news markets are buying any of my research this week so it gave me an opportunity to learn some more from your good site.

Congrats on SOB I did not know you were there!

and for some reason last week I lost my subscription to your blog and Rita’s Digest on my igoogle page. I got you back and resubscribed but now I can’t find Rita…( I lost Writer dad too about 6 all together)

I seem to still be coming up a twitter failure…Thank you for the new information…You are so good at this business blog stuff Thank you, thank you. I don’t know what I would do without you and Barbara…

Patricia’s last blog post..Hats Off to The Ladies of The Club
Stacey / Create a Balance on November 5th, 2008 2:34 am

Great topic! The biggest problem I have with affiliate programs is that there are very few that I think my readers would be interested in pursuing. If my readers aren’t interested, the ads simply become clutter.

Stacey / Create a Balance’s last blog post..Top Ten Signs I May Always Look Pregnant
11/05/2008 Writing Jobs and Links | PoeWar on November 5th, 2008 6:03 am

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Cath Lawson on November 5th, 2008 7:22 am

Hi Davina - it’s worth shopping round. As you say some aren’t worth joining. There’s some pretty good ones on Pepperjam. Plus it’s fairly new so you’re not getting the same old ads you see everywhere.

Cath Lawson’s last blog post..Run Your Small Business Like A Rock Star
Cath Lawson on November 5th, 2008 7:29 am

Hi John - I’m not a lover of CJ either. You do really well with private ads too, which is brilliant. I know what you mean about Google. I always know my money is going to go in the bank with them. Still experimenting with better clickthrough rates though.

Hi Patricia - Thank you. Commission Junction is not my favourite. You’ve got to use the email connected to your domain to join. They don’t tell you that though - they just don’t get back to you if you use another.

Rita is not blogging anymore - she’s taken all her posts down.

Hi Stacey - it’s difficult to choose ones your readers will like isn’t it. It’s worth looking at blogs similar to yours that have been around longer to see what type of stuff they’re advertising.

Cath Lawson’s last blog post..Run Your Small Business Like A Rock Star
Kelly@SHE-POWER on November 5th, 2008 11:52 am

This is a very timely resource for me Cath as I have been wondering whether to reconsider the affiliate angle to monetize my blog. So far have resisted simply because I don’t have time to do the research and really give this area the attention required, but I think you’ve done a fair bit of work for us here.

Thanks. Kelly
Kelly@SHE-POWER’s last blog post..What is Life Balance & is it Achievable for Everyone?
cathlawson on November 5th, 2008 11:57 am

Hi Kelly - It’s definitely worth you giving it a try. I would say that Linkshare and Pepperjam probably have a lot of products that would be good for your blog.
John Hoff - eVentureBiz on November 5th, 2008 4:51 pm

I tried clicking on your Secret Affiliate Code 2 link but it didn’t do anything (f.y.i.)

This article really interests me but in the opposite way. I’ve been considering creating an eBook and would like to allow affiliates to sell it from their website.

I see what you’re saying about how when people click on your link (to an eBook let’s say) and are taken to a landing page where they can sign up in a way you don’t get commission - sucks.

Question: So if I create an eBook and sign up with a company like Commission Junction, for example, should I not sell the eBook on my site or . . . ?

I’ll definitely get in touch with you after I write the book for some advice.

John Hoff - eVentureBiz’s last blog post..30.1 Web Tools For Online Success And To Make Your Life Easier At The Same Time
Barbara Swafford on November 6th, 2008 3:24 am

Hi Catherine - This is a great review. I’ve tried CJ and still have the 18.75 sitting in my account that I had six months ago. I’ve tried link share, too, but haven’t had much luck with them either. Right now I’m sticking with Google AdSense (on my second blog) and even though their payouts are low, they seem to add up faster than anything else I’ve tired.

I think unless we have a huge number of page views on a daily basis, making money through affiliate links will take quite some time. Right now I’m using my time to concentrate on other blogging activities.

Barbara Swafford’s last blog post..Blogs - Information You Won’t Find In A Text Book
cathlawson on November 6th, 2008 8:45 am

Hi John - Thank you. I’d made a tiny mistake on the code and it broke two links.

You could still sell the book on your site. That would work for you selling it yourself and for somewhere for affiliates to send folk to. And I guess it’s fine to have a link for affiliates in the footer. Folk who understand affiliate marketing will know to look there.

I will get back to you on your email soon. It’s quite long and I’ve had to think about it a bit first.

Hi Barbara - It’s funny you should mention page views because I’ve actually done better on sites with less page views but using a newsletter. Not on Google Adsense obviously but on other things.

I used a newsletter on here to begin with. But as you can imagine, it was tough to keep it up and blog everyday. I think I may reintroduce it though. I don’t know if you read Caroline Middlebrook’s blog but she’s making a fairly decent amount from a fairly small amount of page views because she uses a newsletter.

And with my first site I used to use a newsletter to drive traffic to updates on a Friday. It was really exciting watching thousands of people click through to my site. If only Adsense had been available then. But I just sold my own product and amazon things.
Kathy @ Virtual Impax on November 6th, 2008 11:51 am

I too am STUNNED at the IDIOTS who will bite the hand that feeds them!!!

I’ve had a TERRIBLE time with CJ. The links their tool generates don’t work (in Firefox) so I had to create “custom” ads - ads that WORKED and had the code.

To add insult to injury, I have ads running on a site that is making NICE adsense money yet according to CJ I haven’t had a single sale. GRRR!!!!

Kathy @ Virtual Impax’s last blog post..Buyer Beware: Be an Informed Consumer
cathlawson on November 6th, 2008 12:00 pm

Hi Kathy - the idiot with the banner is someone who sells some popular webdesign software. I bet you’ll guess who I mean.

I’ve had it with CJ. And getting the postcard really put me off dealing with them. IMHO Pepperjam and Linkshare have just as good quality advertisers.

When you’re making more with Adsense than anything else - you do start to get suspicious.
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Jack Clarke on January 3rd, 2009 9:01 pm

Just stumbled on this site and must say it is quite informative. Affiliate marketing can be profitable but the main thing is to be careful about which advertisers you use.

Jack Clarke’s last blog post..Blogging tips for beginners
Rev Jeff Lewis on April 30th, 2009 4:07 pm

I hate to say it but anyone running only one site is limiting their affiliate payouts. I’m not saying to run a bunch of auto blogs, but if you target 4 or 5 niche blogs that you can handle on a regular basis, you can get a few of the affiliate programs to pay a bit. Finding those niches aren’t always so easy, but once you do manage to find them, you can start earning more than the small payouts.

Rev Jeff Lewis’s last blog post..What are the Types of Affiliate Programs and Different Marketing Opportunities?