Are networks supposed to pay your earnings even if advertiser doesnt? (26)
Are networks supposed to pay your earnings even if advertiser doesnt?
For example cpi offers with retention rate rules. If the advertiser doesnt pay up, is the network supposed to make up for that and pay for it themselves?
The network however should be an advocate for you. They should pursue the payout on your behalf within reason.
Sometimes the network will do their best but I dont think they are going to payout when an offer doesnt.
Yes. That's why I'm such a fan of A4D (smaxor), have heard some great stories about them honoring huge payouts.
It's the responsibility of a network to cover this and do proper checks on the advertisers they are working with. The networks are there to protect you. Otherwise everyone would just go direct. However, in all too many cases - a lot of networks will refuse to pay. That's why it's so important to go with a trusted network. They'll want to maintain their reputation and will honor all traffic as long as it has been acquired legally.
There is no law or way to enforce it but I think it's the right thing to do except in some situations clearly indicated before you start sending traffic.
We have been unpaid by Advertisers a few times already, the biggest amount was $200k by a known Indian advertiser who just says that we need to wait because they have some internal problems etc.
Of course in that situation we paid all the affiliates on time and we are taking legal actions about the advertiser locally.
Another uk company also declared bankruptcy past year leaving a lot of companies unpaid including us, and again we paid everybody on time.
In those two situations its out problem to try to get paid and can't ever be the affiliates problem.
The only situations where we wouldn't pay an affiliate and of course we make it pretty clear before working with us, are in case of proven fraud, and of course we would provide all the required proofs, and in the case of cpi with clearly explicit KPIs, that the affiliate knows in advance and that luckily are not much as we always try to deal with the advertisers to soften those KPIs.
Even in those two situations we have paid a lot of times as the amounts are usually small compared with the overall business that those affiliates give us and it s not fraud that can be easily proven or that has been committed by the affiliates but by some of their traffic sources, so we just take the loses to keep the good business relationship. No point on discounting $2k from the affiliate that makes $300k per month with us as its been the case.
I think one of the values of working with an affiliate network instead of going direct must be both the security of being paid and to get the payments in advance, as in the case of mobile carrier billing offers for example, it can take up to 3 months to be paíd by the carriers.
We had a case of an affiliate jumping over us on one of the offers he was pushing initially through us (the uk one) and later telling us how he regretted doing it after he was unpaid $XXX,XXX while he knows we paid all our affiliates from our pocket.
In resume, a network must always pay their affiliates in time unless very in specific situations clearly indicated and accepted by you before you start sending them traffic.
Yes, unless you commit fraud.
Otherwise, most will just go direct.
There is no law that says that they have to unless it was commercially agreed upon in your contract with them. You should read your T&Cs carefully before just clicking I accept..
100% the network should pay, especially if they know the traffic was legit. If it's proven to be fraud, ban and do not pay, warn other networks.
We've been burned a few times, it gets expensive but to protect the integrity of the network, this is just what you have to do if you expect to last.
The hardest thing when running a network is finding the correct offers (especially when you move into new verticals) and finding trusted partners that know how to manage the data you are sending them. It's the networks job to be up front about what type of traffic will be sent to the offer and the affiliates job to be up front with the network. If any part of the equation is left in some gray area, you are bound to create problems for yourself and others. So just be honest about what ur doing, you will get a lot farther a lot faster.
Everyone that burned us is sitting somewhere in a dust pile and we are movin on up in the world. Just food for thought. Be honest, even if u think what ur doing is questionable or a little bit shady, you may be surprised who is interested in what you are doing and ready to pay you top dollar for your traffic.
Originally Posted by moneylovers
Lots of networks would steal your campaigns and run internally if we reveal our traffic sources. This is one of many reasons we hide our landing pages...etc.. from the networks and advertisers.
Originally Posted by moneylovers
That's how I see. Otherwise why else am I running through a network and not direct? If they're taking a cut from my revenue they should also share the risks. Reputable network will always pay their affiliates even when they get scammed.
Originally Posted by lolzap
Technically of course, that's the whole point of working with a network, they act as a layer of protection between you and the many shady advertisers in this world.
If they don't provide that, and better payment terms (ie weeklies) then whats the point of having another redirect domain in a chain of click loss waiting to happen?
That is a very good question.
We always pay all our proven affiliates on a weekly basis, and the new ones on net15 for the first month. Then after one month they get switched to weeklies as well.
Becoming a succesful affiliate network depends very much on superaffiliates wanting to work with you. Timely payments are of MASSIVE importance in attracting these superaffiliates.
The one and only reason we would not pay an affiliate is when we have clear proof the affiliate committed fraud or did not respect the advertiser/campaign guidelines.
E.g. advertiser does not want incent traffic and we detect the affiliate did send incent traffic on the campaign. Its important all advertiser/campaign guidelines are clearly communicated to the affiliates before they start sending traffic. Good communication is everything.
Paying fast and respecting agreements with your affiliates is the key to success in this industry as a network.
Originally Posted by lolzap
100% agree with you Matuloo, spot on!
Originally Posted by matuloo
Originally Posted by cmdeal
However if you think it makes sense to add it to our terms if its not there (which I doubt) I would be happy to
But you can ask any affiliate that knows our network if they have been scammed out of a penny and I would be willing to bet you get the same answer from all of them.If you send me fraud I'm happy to ban u, not pay you and warn other networks about you.
Originally Posted by cbrughmans
If you are up front about your traffic, what it is, where it comes from how you get it (to a degree without giving up methods .. no need to be exactly specific) you are less likely to cause a problem for anyone, most importantly....yourself!
Originally Posted by lolzap
But yah the network should be paying you out if they get stiffed by the advertiser.
You should most definitely get paid if you actually did your job, but unfortunately you cannot foresee what is about to happen. A bit of research about your partners is always a good start. Just try to be careful who work with
Here's the long and short of it. If you're worrying about charge-backs, try to make sure you have a close working relationship with your AM. Be honest with your AM. If you're honest with your AM, and you've worked together and devised a strategy as a team and everything was clear, then yes 100%. You should get paid out... It's not always right, but if you made a Network 20k in the last few months, then they wont have a problem paying you out 4k. It just makes business sense.
I've worked personally this week with a guy, who was running an offer, and it was clear as day what was expected of them. This person had no history with us,. This person lied repeatedly, couldn't back up their lies with proof (in the form of screenshots of accessible data for any affiliate) and advertiser knew something fishy was going on. They didn't pay, and we didn't pay them, because they didn't disclose things to us. We can not make an informed decision whether something is safe/unsafe to run if we don't have ALL the information.
This is my take on it, I like to work as a team, I work closely with my guys, we laugh and become friends. On a personal basis, I'm not looking to fuck anybody over for the sake of one payout!
we always pay our affiliates if the traffic is clean and then we take it up with the offer/advertiser. we have been burned by an advertiser coming back and scrubbing out good leads claiming that it was fraud or sometimes claiming that its low quality and still paid our affiliates that sent good traffic.
but if an affiliate is bad traffic intentionally, that is a different story. most the time I would say pay them and close their account.
I try to only work with networks that have a proven record of paying affiliates when advertisers disappear. A4D and AdsDirect are good examples that have paid their affiliates 6-7 figures when advertisers failed to pay their bills. If an advertiser doesn't pay their bills, they'll pay you... as long as you didn't break the rules.
If you break the rules... that's a completely different story.
For example, I ran a campaign once, was given the rules to follow by the Aff Network owner. He said as long as I follow those rules, I'd get paid no matter what. But if I broke the rules and the advertiser held payment, I was screwed.
- I ended up taking the risk and breaking some rules.
- The advertiser held all payments to our account.
- I didn't ask any questions, I just said "Got it" and took my lumps.
Key is to get whatever you're doing approved by the Aff Network with an agreement on payment if/when the advertiser has a problem with it. That way you know when you're covered and when you're on your own.
Affs like to hide their assets, which is understandable. But in some cases, total transparency is the best way to go.
This question comes up all the time and the long and short of is it really depends on the situation.
Almost all CPI advertisers especially for gaming/utilities provide guidelines on what kind of retention rates you need to hit in order to receive full payment or partial payment, if this information has been provided up front before you've ran the offer and you do not meet the metrics necessary its unreasonable for you to expect the network to cover all or partial costs. Here is why having a good relationship with your AM comes into play; if they know you are not experienced in this vertical or you will be spending on networks like pop cash and trying to run IOS/Adr offers with requirements- they would tell you right off the bat that its a terrible idea and you're taking a major risk. This is also why it's important to keep your AM in the loop.
Second option is if you're just running a pin submit/ lead gen/cc sub offer and the advertiser wants a chargeback, unless they provide specific proof demonstrating FRAUD (not poor quality) then a reputable network would not charge you back. Transparency again is key- how can an AM fight for you if you're not giving any details on how you're running?
Third option is an advertiser that doesn't provide any proof and claims fraud- in this case an investigation would have to be launched and the network should try their best to get something in writing for you from the adv. Its in your best interest to try and help by providing screen shots of your presumably legit traffic buys.
All that being said, I've personally credited affiliates many times if I believe that they were not intentionally not following the rules or sending fraud traffic; which yet again is why you should be in constant communication with your AM + being honest.
Yes. Otherwise why not just run direct at higher payouts?
There's a few reasons why running direct is not always better as an affiliate. Sometimes its better to go through a network.
1. The network will get (way) higher rates since their total volume is a lot larger than any individual affiliate
2. If you are an affiliate you're probably running +10 campaigns at the same time. If you work with a network, they are your only point of contact instead of working with +10 account managers on the advertiser side. It makes communication and coordination easier for you.
3. Faster payments. A good network will pay you net7 or weekly if your quality is good. Advertisers generally pay net30 or even slower
4. If your traffic quality is OK (not good, not bad) the network can mingle your traffic with very good sources. If you would work with the advertiser in direct, they would either lower your payout or stop working with you. Your "OK-traffic" getting mingled in with good sources enables you to keep on going
5. Tracking is easier and faster to set up. Especially if you are already integrated with the network. Advertiser companies can be very bureaucratic machines which means it takes time to get your tracking set up and tested.
Originally Posted by cbrughmans
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