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March 30, 2008Guess what? My very first successful affiliate campaign has gone out of business and stole my commissions of $242.77. I am very ticked off because I put a lot of time and energy into promoting their products.The bad thing is that my promotional efforts were doing well. I was so proud of my campaign. I used article marketing to a tee and it seemed to be working quite well as I was making about two to three sales a month.
Since I watch my campaigns like a hawk, I recently realized that my stats stopped being updated as frequently. This was weird. I mean, I was consistently making two to three sales a month, and then nothing.The real kicker was that I never received ANY of the money for my efforts. Apparently Selmedica had a $250.00 threshold and I wasn’t able to reach it in order to request payment.
Well, I was curious about my declining stats so I did a search on Google and realized that none of their affiliates were getting paid the money they were due. The FBI was looking for them and the company had disappeared into the night (with my cash). Affiliates all over the ’net are talking about Selmedica and how they lost thousands of money from this company. I guess I should be glad that it was only $242.77, but that isn’t exactly something to pooh-pooh. As a writer who normally gets $15.00 an article, I would have to write 16 articles to make that much. As an Internet Marketer, I wrote five articles to get my sales.This entire situation has made me realized that working as an affiliate can be risky business. It is extremely important to choose your products carefully and only deal with reputable companies.Here are some tips that may help you avoid this problem in the future:
- When you promote a company that is not well known, make sure you do a background check. Make sure the company pays their affiliates properly and that there is no hanky-panky going on. Also, periodically do a search to make sure that no one is making complaints about your chosen company.
- Read the fine print. Make sure you read and understand all the terms. For instance, what are the commission rates? What are the conversion rates for the product? How are affiliate commissions tracked? Are there payment thresholds required in order to receive payments? If so, make sure they are low so you don’t have to wait a long time for your first payment.
- Choose affiliate programs that have been around a while and that offer great customer support. A toll free number or help desk would be awesome for affiliates!
- If you notice any problems, then stop promoting the products right away. This will help safeguard you against any problems.
- Never promote more than one product with a company until they have proven their worthiness. For instance, I promoted about three products for Selmedica instead of just one.
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