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Who is Lammo?
Posted by Lammo in
A huge proportion of my working day is spent helping newbies out, answering questions about Affiliate Marketing in general, as well as SEO, web design, marketing, PPC, and all those other things that I used to know nothing about. I’ll be honest with you – sometimes it’s frustrating answering “what niche should I work in?” or “how much money will I make from my voucher code/cashback/shopping directory site?” for the hundreth time that week.
But most of the time it gives me enormous job satisfaction to see a newbie go from wet behind the ears to the top of the search engine pile, with a great portfolio of really useful sites – some take years, others take months. But they’ve all worked hard, made a lot of mistakes and learnt from them. Hence my job satisfaction. But wait a minute.. training newbies isn’t my job! Running my affiliate business is my job. If I help a newbie go from £0 to £3,000 a month (for instance), let’s see who benefits from our work:
The Affiliate: Assuming no PPC or massive overheads, he or she is now £3,000 a month better off. The Merchant(s): Assuming average 5% commission, this affiliate is now generating an extra £60,000 a month of business. The Network(s): Assuming Industry standard overrides of 10-30%, they’re getting an extra £300 to £900 a month.
If I’m lucky, the affiliate will choose to use Easy Content Units Pro, and I’ll be a whole £19.99 a month better off. Not exactly retire-on-a-yacht money! Which is why I rely on the 2nd tier system that most UK networks have in place – In theory I would earn a % of every affiliate who I refer to a network (and subsequently mentor), meaning that if I help an affiliate go from £0 to £3,000 a month, I might be lucky and get an extra £150 a month paid by the network(s) out of their override)
Except it just doesn’t seem to work that way..
I’ve been referring affiliates to networks for the best part of 7/8 years now, and have referred thousands of affiliates over that time, most of whom will probably have never earnt a penny. However I know of affiliates who I personally referred to networks who now earn anything up to £10,000 a month. I should be coining it in.. but I’m not.
I used to earn several hundred pounds a month from Affiliate Window from my referrals a few years back. Then one day it all dried up, and when I asked a few weeks back where the 2nd tier reporting had gone, the reply I was given was “it’s not possible to do a report.” – so am I still earning 5% of every affiliate I refer as promised or not? I see lots of £2 CPA sales for new affiliates (who have paid £5 to join), but no 5% ongoing?
At the other end of the spectrum, once again it’s hats off to Paid on Results who have the most open 2nd tier reporting going – I can clearly see those affiliates I have referred, and every sale they make. I don’t earn very much from my POR referrals, but I can trust them 100% that the figures are correct. They’re also (AFAIK?) the only UK network to pay ongoing lifetime commission on any merchants you refer to them.
I should also give credit to Affiliate Future, who I know several affiliates have claimed don’t track 2nd tier sales.. I do see a steady monthly amount coming in for them, so I trust their reports.
The other networks are much of a muchness – they either pay a pittance one-off CPA, or claim to pay a % that just doesn’t add up when you look at the reports.
The networks all want fresh blood in the Industry. They would like them to be trained and/or mentored so that they are successful quicker and on a larger scale. They all want the next generation of super affiliates. However (on the most part) they don’t bother to train/mentor themselves, and fail to reward affiliates as per their original “2nd tier” promises.
Oh well, I’ll keep on doing it for the love of it.
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If you study the relevant threads on a4u, you will see that your experiences in terms of the referral programs of the affiliate networks tally up with those of other affiliates. Most of them are abysmally run and affiliates complain time and time again that they are referring active affiliates, but not earning their referral commissions.
The reason the networks want to hide giving even basic information about the affiliates that have been referred is probably because they don’t want to pay out. And it’s losing referrers lots of money.
Hi there
Just to let you, we at Sponsormob (CPA/affiliate network for mobile) do pay a lifetime commission on sub affiliate revenues of up to 5% depending on volume. I don’t see why other networks cut down on referral commissions. This makes no sense to me.
Peter Glaeser
CEO & Co-Founder
Here’s a question – how many of the referrals come as a result of the reward and how many because of the good relationship you have with the network, the support you receive, the support you expect the newbie to get, their technology, their merchant list, etc etc?
You also need to keep in mind – affiliate referral fees should be paid for by the network, as they are the ones incentivising you. Pasing the cost on to the merchants is very dubious activity, in my opinion.
Hero, there are lots of factors why affiliate bloggers make recommendations, though I guess as John is pointing out, that in return for that recommendation, where there is already a clear referral program in place, then it is paramount (to our performance based industry) that the said reward is passed on.
There should be as much transparency as an affiliate would expect from tracking their merchants programs.
Of course no matter what the reward, bad networks/companies/merchants will not get recommended, as this will harm the affiliate blogger’s credibility.
Absolutely agree that any reward is taken from the network’s override and not passed on to the merchant.
Totally – I’d never recommend a network because they were paying me (else you’d have seen affiliate links for “the likes of” Clash/Cleverat/etc all over the blog.
Where the network is deserving of a recommendation, and such a referral program does exist, I don’t think I’m out of order in asking that both tracking and reporting should work?
I would also agree with your point that any referral fees that might actually track and be reported should be paid out of the network’s slice of the pie.
Any other networks care to comment?
I’ve already signed up to most of the networks but if you help me I’ll give you a % of my earnings!
Joe – you know I’m always more than happy to help you, and don’t need a % of your earnings to want to do that.. my post here was about the networks failing to deliver what they promise (the silence is deafening btw.. I’d have expected a few Network Spin Doctors to have been on the case by now!), and you’ve got my contact details if ever you want to ask anything or run something by me.
Cheers John. I am about to start a ‘big site’ after sharpening my teeth in the small-niche-site-keyword-domain arena.
Might be in touch with some questions.
Thanks.
It’s interesting how the affiliate networks rabbit on about how great affiliate marketing is, yet years after being set-up, most of them don’t have an affiliate/referral program themselves. Not that it’ll surprise most people who know affiliate networks, but it is hypocrisy of the highest order.
They’d rather have their fancy full-page ads in magazines and blow money on sponsoring/having jollys in far flung places like Munich rather than paying people for referring new affiliates.
I would love to have AW comment on this post…you there?
Sam – I’m surprised no-one from Affiliate Window (as well as quite a few of the other networks) haven’t seen fit to comment on this yet – The last comment I have from AW is as above: that they’re unable to report it within their interface.
That implies that they do still track (and pay!) 2nd tier payments, but I do wonder why the system isn’t transparent if that is the case.
Affiliate Window pride themselves on having one of the slickest affiliate marketing interfaces, but I’ve noticed many times sales showing up then mysteriously disapearing within the account.
Fraud? Technical errors.
You decide….