Discontinuation of our Cooperation?

efeezy

efeezy

New member
Oct 5, 2007
5,250
136
0
50
I had been working directly with a German gaming company (you know those Germans make good quality stuff) and I was running some CPL's to them. It was only paying a couple bucks per lead, but I was doing a 150-200 signups/leads a month for them the past 3 months from organic traffic through banner ads.

This morning I get an email from their affiliate/partner account manager with the subject Discontinuation of our Cooperation. He goes on to say that none of the 600 leads I sent have gone on to be paying customers on their site, so they have to terminate our relationship. Wow, now that's interesting.

He and I had never discussed that my relationship with this company would be based on the actions of customers AFTER they had signed up for this particular gaming offer. And even if it was, what control do I have on what these leads do after they've signed up. I was hired to send them leads, that's it that's all.

Anyway, I'm guessing they're just trimming the fat on lower lead producing affiliates, and that's the category I fell into. Only a few hundred bucks a month down the drain, but it pisses me off when these companies can't just be honest, and they have to make up bullshit like this to give you the boot.

/rant

ib4coolstarrybra, coolstorybro, rivetingtalechap.
 


send him this

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQaZWL8uxtQ]THE LEADS ARE WEAK - YouTube[/ame]
 
Why is this surprising? All advertisers are looking to see if the leads convert on the backend. If they don't, they're not going to want your traffic. The only issue I see is that you should be paid for the leads you already sent. It shouldn't have taken 3 months to determine your traffic quality sucks.
 
just be sure that when they sent the monies via paypal, make sure you tell them to check the services option so you don't have to pay any paypal fees.


troll_icons_2_28891_7697_thumb.png
 
Andrew Scherer said:
i'm sorry for your lots efeezy
Click to expand...

Thanks man. I think I'll make it through this a stronger person :thumbsup:

gimmedat said:
Why is this surprising? All advertisers are looking to see if the leads convert on the backend. If they don't, they're not going to want your traffic. The only issue I see is that you should be paid for the leads you already sent. It shouldn't have taken 3 months to determine your traffic quality sucks.
Click to expand...

It's only surprising because 1. People were signing up to play a free, online MMO game. They could purchase upgrades to their account after they signed up, but there was no requirement that they do so. They could happily play the full game without upgrading equipment, profiles etc.

and 2. It was never discussed with me prior that if my leads didn't buy these account upgrades that I could be terminated as an affiliate.

Hell, they paid me $2.50 per lead and they captured name, email, plus other demographic data that they could market to. What the hell kind of leads did they want for a couple bucks a pop? The leads were extremely targeted. My site content was exactly what the game offer was about, so it's not like I was sending untargeted traffic.

I don't really care, because there are other CPA networks who have this offer for just slightly less per lead. I'll just run it with them now instead.
 
If it was a direct relationship they should have reached out to you first with feedback, giving you a chance bump up the quality.

But as long as your paid, so be it.


Opportune time for a plug

If you have quality teen/tween gaming traffic hit me up!
 
Taken from the movie Boiler Room:

"You want leads? I'll give you leads. There's a whole fuckin phone book full of leads!"
 
Did they stiff you on payment?

If not, then you should be happy it took them this long to realize your leads are shit.

Take your money and move on to a better advertiser. They clearly don't know what the fuck to do on their backend to monetize the lead.
 
This is the problem with most "in house" affiliate programs, aff managers don't know a fuck about leads.
If you are not Amazon, focus on your products and give ads and leads to guys who know their job.
 
Um, this happens all the time. It can take months to figure out if leads convert. Especially if you are only giving them a couple hundred a month sign ups.

We had an affiliate feeding us leads for over a year. For nine months, they converted. Then he changed the subject content of his website (went from a niche to a more general newsie format).

He ran up $12K worth of leads before we realized that the leads were shit. Did we pay out? Absolutely. But did we terminate with extreme prejudice as soon as we realize the leads were shit? Absolutely.

Such is this business. I guess just be happy they paid you out. Lots of merchants out there would have shaved your balls and just refused to pay.
 
efeezy said:
I had been working directly with a German gaming company (you know those Germans make good quality stuff) and I was running some CPL's to them. It was only paying a couple bucks per lead, but I was doing a 150-200 signups/leads a month for them the past 3 months from organic traffic through banner ads.

This morning I get an email from their affiliate/partner account manager with the subject Discontinuation of our Cooperation. He goes on to say that none of the 600 leads I sent have gone on to be paying customers on their site, so they have to terminate our relationship. Wow, now that's interesting.

He and I had never discussed that my relationship with this company would be based on the actions of customers AFTER they had signed up for this particular gaming offer. And even if it was, what control do I have on what these leads do after they've signed up. I was hired to send them leads, that's it that's all.

Anyway, I'm guessing they're just trimming the fat on lower lead producing affiliates, and that's the category I fell into. Only a few hundred bucks a month down the drain, but it pisses me off when these companies can't just be honest, and they have to make up bullshit like this to give you the boot.

/rant

ib4coolstarrybra, coolstorybro, rivetingtalechap.
Click to expand...

Bigpoint?
 
nothing unusual here. turn off the non-converting lead faucet. $2.50 for a lead for a free online game sounds pretty high. I have some good game typein traffic (>10k/mth) that I can't monetize for anywhere near that amount with what I've tried so far (parking).
 
I invoiced just invoiced them for the few months we worked together so we'll see if I get paid or not.

The aff manager emailed me back this morning with a lecture on how affiliate marketing works, and specifically the gaming industry. Apparently if I send them leads that sign up for their free game, but they can't pull their fucking heads out and find a way to monetize, then it's my fault. So not a single lead, out of 500, bought anything? C'mon, something isn't right there. I told him that I do about 2000 leads a month with one of their competitors, and those convert just fine, so maybe they should change their approach to how they make money from these leads. We'll see if I get a response. I wasn't trying to start a pissing match with the guy, but don't lecture me on lead quality when they don't know how to convert them.

The stupid thing is that there's a CPA network that runs this offer and only pays slightly less per lead. I actually ran it with them before hooking up with the company direct. If I wanted, I can just go back to sending them my "shitty" leads and not make much less per month.
 
Paper_Chase said:
Did they stiff you on payment?

If not, then you should be happy it took them this long to realize your leads are shit.

Take your money and move on to a better advertiser. They clearly don't know what the fuck to do on their backend to monetize the lead.
Click to expand...
Quoted for truth.

Thread summary: OP sends crappy leads to a company and blames them when they don't make any money from him.
 
BluAffiliate said:
Quoted for truth.

Thread summary: OP sends crappy leads to a company and blames them when they don't make any money from him.
Click to expand...

So you get 500 people to sign up for something free, which they're obviously interested in or they wouldn't have taken the time to fill out the form, and then they don't like your sales pitch to buy something once they've signed up. How does that make the leads crappy? I put that shit on the idiots trying to to do the selling. I more than fulfilled my obligation. They got leads that were interested in their product. What happens after that is out of my control. Just because the company can make a free MMO game doesn't mean they know how to sell it.
 
efeezy said:
So you get 500 people to sign up for something free, which they're obviously interested in or they wouldn't have taken the time to fill out the form, and then they don't like your sales pitch to buy something once they've signed up. How does that make the leads crappy? I put that shit on the idiots trying to to do the selling. I more than fulfilled my obligation. They got leads that were interested in their product. What happens after that is out of my control. Just because the company can make a free MMO game doesn't mean they know how to sell it.
Click to expand...

I am starting to understand why they had to explain Internet marketing to you. To sum up, different leads from different sources generate various degrees of quality. Your quality wasn't good enough for them. Nothing personal. Rotate another game into the spot.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom