Affiliates have a greater choice of networks to work with than ever before, and it’s therefore crucially important that networks pull out all the stops to maintain some form of Affiliate loyalty. New affiliates may not be aware of how different networks work, so I thought it would be useful to chronicle two networks to see how their processes differ.

For this experiment, I have decided to look purely at the process of getting paid the commissions you have earned, as this is obviously the single most important part of the relationship. The two networks I have chosen to compare are Affiliate Future and Clash Media. In the interests of fairness, I have chronicled my own personal experiences with both networks for the past nine months, as this should ensure any temporary “hiccups” would be ironed out.

Network Number One: Affiliate Future.

• December 2006: Earn commissions.
• Mid January 2007: Check bank. Commission is there.
• February to September 2007: Repeat as above.

Network Number Two: Clash Media.

• December 2006: Earn commissions.
• January 2007: Earn commissions. Manually create invoice for December commissions and send to Clash.
• February 2007: Earn commissions. Manually create invoice for January commissions and send to Clash.
• March 2007: Earn commissions.
• April 2007: Earn commissions.
• May 2007: Earn commissions. Manually create invoice for February to April commissions and send to Clash.
• June 2007: Earn commissions. Manually create invoice for May commissions and send to Clash.
• 7th June 2007: Send e-mail to Clash reminding them they now have four invoices outstanding.
• 14th June 2007: No reply to e-mail, so further reminder sent.
• 19th June 2007. Still no reply to any of the last six emails, starting to get frustrated now, which leads to this blog post.
• 22nd June 2007: Still no reply to e-mails, so a seventh reminder sent.
• July 2007: Earn commissions. Manually create invoice for June commissions and send to Clash.
• 3rd July 2007: E-mail received from Clash (after we managed to track one of them down on MSN Messenger), advising we have been sending invoices to the wrong person. I point out that I was merely sending them to the address listed on their site. Account Manager very apologetic, and say “Please leave this all to me – I will sort it out”
• 17th July 2007: Nothing sorted still. Really getting pissed off now, which leads to this blog post.
• August 2007. Earn commissions. Manually create invoice for July commissions and send to Clash.
• 6th August 2007: Still no payment, so email sent to Account Manager who asked to “leave it all to me”. Reply received from original person I’d sent invoices to – Account Manager has left! She will approve our invoice, and find out why we’ve not been paid, and get back to me tomorrow (That’s 7th August for those of you without the use of a Calendar). I advise that if payment is not received in full by the end of August, I will be instigating legal proceedings against them to recover the money.
• 8th August 2007: No update received, so emailed to chase.
• 9th August 2007. Still no reply, foaming at the mouth by now, so posted this on a4uforum. Funnily enough I received a reply within an hour! Now they don’t have all our invoices. I send copies of all six, and receive a promise that “they will all be paid straight away”
• 13th August 2007: Email received from Clash, this time promising that “a payment will be made for all your outstanding invoices this week”
• 21st August 2007: Still no payment, so email to confirm whether a payment was made as promised.
• 28th August 2007: Still no payment, and no reply to my last email either. I also notice that the one campaign we had left running on clash had stopped tracking for some reason in August. so I fire off another email asking for this to be solved, and payment received in full by 31st August, or I would be going down the legal route.
• 28th August 2007: Reply received, stating the campaign is tracking fine, and that they will “make sure you are paid by the end of the week”. Oh, and I have a new account manager, and could I please email her in future, as “she will be able to respond to your queries a lot quicker” I reply, asking, if the tracking fine, why my conversion rate has gone from 48% to 0.5% in one month, and that I won’t hold my breath regarding payment.
• 29th August 2007: I receive a reply from my new account manager. No answer to my question about the untracked sales, but offering her “sincerest apologies that your account is still outstanding” and that she is “looking forward to working with everyone at Big Mouth Media”
• 31st August 2007. I reply to new account manager (See how I leave them hanging for a few days? See how they like it!), advising that as unfortunately we’ve still not been paid, we will now be removing all Clash links, and if payment is not received by Monday 3rd September, we will be instigating legal proceedings. Oh, and by the way, we’re Big IDEA Media, not MOUTH.
• 31st August 2007. All Clash links are removed from our sites.
• 3rd September 2007. Still no payment is forthcoming, so a Letter Before Action is drafted and sent by Recorded Delivery to the home addresses of all the registered Directors of Clash Media Advertising Limited (including one in Florida, USA), as well as their registered office, giving seven days notice of our intent to commence court proceedings to recover the commissions we are owed. Copies of all invoices are attached to each notice.
• 7th September 2007. Final invoice sent to Clash for August’s commissions (well, those that they managed to track!).
• 11th September 2007. At the very last moment before I filed a claim through the court, I receive confirmation that I have finally received a payment from Clash, for the full amount. Brilliant – It’s only taken me nine months to get paid! Not to mention how many hours I’ve wasted chasing them, ranting about them, and sending threatening legal letters to their directors.

Summary

I’ll leave you to make your own conclusions as to what network you would rather work with, but I know which one I’ll never touch with a very large bargepole ever again! We all have problems with every network from time to time, but until now, none of them have ever screwed up so royally that I’ve actually had to start legal action against them just to get paid!

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