I’ve been an affiliate marketer for 12 years (practically since the affliate program as we know it has existed) and these “tricks” will, hopefully separate the wheat from the chaff program-wise. Redirect those links to their stiffest competition, people! Vote with your links, cash out and move on.

Motivation comes from pushing people TOWARD a goal, not from fear of falling short. We affiliates have nearly limitless companies we can promote. Affiliate managers need to get with the program and realize we can be their strongest asset, or from a competition standpoint, their worst enemy.

There are many concerns with this new “agreement”. Their acknowledgement that they may override Affiliate cookies with other channels should be unacceptable to Affiliates. Unfortunately, some may feel they have no choice but they do – seek out merchants who value the Affiliate.

Some super- affiliates may be able to get a special deal to compensate but what guarantee is there that other unethical practices won’t steal more?

Stealing commissions is wrong, whether it is done with the Affiliate’s knowledge or not.

Affiliates need to decide if they will accept this practice or not.

My standards are higher.

This leak can be fixed without sacrificing the affiliate cookie. Some merchants are very receptive when they learn that it is a leak, that affiliates lose out. These receptive merchants take the necessary steps to correct the problem when they learn about it.

Several months ago I contacted a merchant about the links on their website to their sister stores. When I told them it was a negative because affiliates lose commission. Their response? They fixed it and linked the stores affiliate programs. Took less than 48 hours for them to implement the fix.

Yes, there are other merchants who override with their newsletters but many do not.

As Affiliates we need to set our standards and find merchants who meet those standards. We should never settle, there are always better programs to choose from.

Thanks Rob, good to see that a merchant also thinks this is poor practice. Positive actions would net them greater rewards. I don’t even think they said they would terminate low producers, just that the commissions would be forfeited.

horrible practice! I would also bail on this program if I was an affiliate. And if this IS an effort to motivate low performers, well … I agree that positive reinforcement should net them better results. And what is the harm really in having some low performers? I don’t see the point in removing them – and definately disagree with commission reversal if a performance threshold is not reached!

This post was mentioned on Twitter by mellies: Merchant Announces They Will Steal Commissions http://tinyurl.com/yej3a2q...