Anyone telling you that Affiliate Marketing is easy is not giving the full truth! It becomes simple enough once you get the hang of it and once you master it – then it becomes easier, but I don’t think its easy. You are still required to do the work to earn via Affiliate marketing.
What even more makes the waters murky are some vendors that use strategies I consider to be questionable. And while as a product owner myself I can understand multiple concerns we have to deal with – I believe that EVERY affiliate who helped you make a sale, deserves to get paid!
If you helped me sell my product – you are getting paid because without you this sale NEVER happened!
But I also know that not every vendor subscribes to this position and I had to deal with the problem I’m about to describe. Better yet – I will explain HOW you can avoid it all together!
The Problem!
Although this one is not very frequent, you can still get caught in it if not reading the Affiliate Agreement carefully. I know I still have at least couple / three affiliate programs where I made sales and still didn’t get paid. Some sales are from couple years ago and I write it off as complete loss, because I FAILED TO READ THE AGREEMENT! Here is an example:
This one is actually was very upfront and as I mention its my fault for missing it. I did stop actively promoting it once I realized that my commissions will be held hostage and now I got couple hundred bucks seating there and probably will continue to seat as I have no intentions to promote this one actively anyway. I would like to get my money at some point so I do have his links in few spots:
While this amount is not a big deal, if you become a part of few programs with similar draconian terms – it can start impacting your bottom line in a hurry! So here is how you can avoid it, easily!
The Solution
1. Read the affiliate agreement and AVOID anything like what I have described above! I personally now stay away from ANY affiliate program that has a minimum payout amount. It’s OK to see that payment might be made to you 30-90 days after product sold, as for some high ticket items vendor will only pay once the Money Back Guarantee is over.
But stay away from any affiliate program with minimum pay off! Quite frankly I don’t care what reason vendor has for doing it – if I earned $0.01, pay it to me! With ability to pay your affiliate via PayPal widely available – there is no reason Not To Do it!
2. Use affiliate networks where your commissions are paid by third-party! ClickBank is one of the most known that does this service and it protects you, as affiliate from these shady strategies as you get paid by them.
Great option but often it has its own set of issues, commission theft is one of the main problems. Also if you choose to promote any vendor via ClickBank – check to see if they have some form of Affiliate Management tied to CB. Often vendors will use a low-cost product to get customers into sales funnel and then up-sell your lead to other products and services.
Unfortunately unless you become part of this funnel – you will miss out on those sales.
Or, use a totally different approach, what I would like to call a
Instant Commissions Solution!
As a vendor who also uses Rapid Action Profits script I LOVE promoting products that use this script for all the sales and management related activities. And there is a good reason for it – I get my commissions INSTANTLY to my Business PayPal account!
Here is how it works…
Let’s assume a vendor (me in this case) sells the product for $47. Review Blog System will be used as an example. If you choose to become an affiliate and promote it – instead of getting paid on some predefined schedule – you simply get whatever defined percentage paid directly to you, in case with Review Blog System – you get 50% or EVERY SECOND sale paid to your PayPal account, while I take care of all the product delivery and customer support functions.
Here is an example table of sales and who gets paid:
Here’s an example:
| Front End Sale | Affiliate’s Commission |
| 1 | $0.00 (vendor share) |
| 2 | $47.00 |
| 3 | $0.00 (vendor share) |
| 4 | $47.00 |
Simple huh? Best part – you don’t need to worry about whether you will get your check on time or not! From vendor perspective it is also great tool as I don’t have to deal with affiliate payout and all the tax related activities 🙂 Everybody wins!
But finding vendors who use RAP script up until recently was not an easy task, as there was no single location. What made matter worse – is that you didn’t know how well the product performs for other affiliates prior to you choosing to promote it. You had to rely on the words of Vendor and other affiliates you might personally know.
Marketplace in many ways similar to ClickBank but dedicate to vendors using RAP script. And what perhaps most important – marketplace that allows you to see how well other affiliates do in promoting the product you are evaluating for possible promotion.
It shows you what percentage of sales was by affiliates as well as shows you “index”, which is similar in concept to the CB “gravity”. See image below with my own products places on RAPBank:
Now you have a way to effectively see if a product worth the time to promote it and also get paid for your sales without the need to wait on affiliate payout!
Enjoy Your Instant Commissions and let me know what you think!
Related Affiliate Marketing Articles
- What if ClickBank and RapidActionProfits got married!? (marketersdaily.com)
- Make Money as a Clickbank Affiliate (ronmedlin.com)
I used to work for a large affiliate marketing company. I know that dealing with thousands of affiliates, its difficult to make payments on time to them let alone make $.01 payments. That’s just my experience
.-= Amos´s last blog ..Miami Herald Reports Push for Small Business Loans =-.
Hi Alex,
Great article. I need to think about the RAP script. I actually don’t like Clickbank, yes I am one of those rare ones. I don’t like it because it does hold your affiliate money to hostage due to their 5 different payment options and not only that if you are not actively promoting or earning sales they start charging you fees!
At the moment I have been using paydotcom as my affiliate processor. I have not had any problems with them at this stage apart from the fact that I have to remember to pay my affiliates! 😆 Don’t worry I am a good publisher and pay my affiliates like clockwork.
My concern lately has been the fact that we need to know more about our affiliates from the FTC point of view to make sure our affiliates are promoting us correctly. It is all a little confusing and something I think I need to spend some time researching more.
Thank you for suggesting the RAP script. I hope everything is going well.
See you back here soon! 😎
Jacinta 😀
.-= Jacinta Dean´s last blog ..John Thornhill’s Internet Marketing Master Class Coaching Program Week 25B! =-.
Jacinta,
Yeah, I like paydotcom as well but I also have run into issue there with non-paying merchant. Granted they were banned from PDT a bit later, I assume due to complains from others but it is a scenario that can happen. RAP is excellent option in my opinion. It has its own minuses, such as seemingly constant upgrades but process is generally straight forward and support is SUPERB!
RAP is good for those with or without their own products, right?
.-= Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Would You Like a FREE Banner Ad Position? =-.
Correct, you don’t need to have script to promote products using that script
Did I say something wrong, TheSpotter. My comment didn’t show up.
Here’s what I wrote:
There’s another dirty little secret about ClickBank – two actually:
First, Clickbank’s Customer Distribution Requirement
https://findebook.accounts.clickbank.com/accounting.html#A15
Here are the details… you must refer sales made with 5 or more different credit card numbers, and your referred sales must be made with two different payment methods (either Visa, MasterCard, or PayPal). Note: PayPal purchases do not count toward the minimum 5 different credit card numbers.
I know affiliates who have had their owed balances zeroed out because of this “unique” payment threshold scheme.
And that’s the other catch — if you have a balance, but don’t meet the payment threshold and you haven’t generated earnings for an extended period of time, your balance is considered dormant. And dormant accounts are subject to a charge of $1 per pay period after 90 days of no earnings, $5 per pay period after 180 days of no earnings, and $50 per pay period after 365 days of no earnings.
My account is “dormant” and I’m watching $5.00 being taken out of my account every 2 weeks!
So while ClickBank earns interest on the money they won’t pay you, they tack on an additional “dormant fee” while holding your money that they won’t pay you.
All of this in the name of preventing fraud.
But here’s the best (or worst part). ClickBank (on occasion) has bounced checks. What’s amazing is anytime someone posts about this, ClickBank offers a rebuttal and says it’s the affiilate’s bank’s fault. Now that’s creative blaming. Search Google about ClickBank bouncing checks, and you’ll see it’s not an isolated problem.
On the flip side, I tested instant payment systems like $7 secrets and RAP… and earned a few instant payments into my PayPal account. Nice. And RAPBank seems to kick it up a notch by combining all of your RAP promotions under one roof.
The only issue I see are refunds. How to we handle refunds? I’d love to see RAPBank offers stats about the refund percentage per RAP vendor… that would help me decide which RAP vendor to promote.
Markus,
I apologize, I think I deleted it by mistake last time. It ended up in spam queue with dozens of others and wiped out by mistake.
Cool. No problem, TheSpotter.
I consider myself a newbie as far as affiliate marketing is concerned. Recently tried commission junction but I’m yet to receive a conversion!
Not sure what I’m doing wrong but unfortunately it looks like affiliate marketing will always remain a dream that never came true for me 🙁
.-= TechChunks´s last blog ..Google’s OS Expands to Other Devices: These are Androids, But Not Phones =-.
If blog is your primary marketing – it takes traffic. Until you manage to get a lot of people to see the relevant ads – you will not see conversions. I recommend you look into integrating email marketing into your blog. I have entire series on that subject:
http://www.howtospoter.com/series/email-marketing-for-bloggers
Check it out, I think you will discover that your conversion jumps! Once you properly implement it.
I can certainly relate to the problems you’ve had receiving your payments as an affiliate. I also learned my lesson the hard way by not fully reading some affiliate agreements. It only takes a few additional minutes to read those agreements and I recommend everyone do it.
I hope all affiliates, especially newcomers, read your article. I’ll be spreading it around wherever I can.:-)
.-= Robert´s last blog ..Sound Advice For The “Newbie” Affiliate Marketer =-.
Thanks Robert,
Yeah, unfortunately things I described and those shared in comments by readers do happen and if we, as affiliates stop promoting those guys – they will die eventually!
I,too, having been waiting for my funds to be released to paypal from a very well know marketer – you would all recognize his name –
and repeated requests for payment have been ignored. The amount is slightly under $500 so one would think he can afford to pay me as promised for promoting his offer. It is discouraging to spend time and energy for naught so I will never again promote for this person again.
Special thanks to Marcus Allen for the lowdown on Clickbank. I had no idea!!
And thanks to you, Alex, for continuing to provide valuable information for us.
Nancy, unfortunately you are not alone 🙁 I’ve been there and also with similar amount. I actually had a post on it a while ago
I also promoted a well known marketer with his own affiliate program. Over two months, his reports showed I had only 45 hits while my system logs showed 626 redirects to his products. My inquiry (showing the actual data) was responded to with “we pay on sales, not leads.” There was absolutely no offer to check the matter out. I cannot believe that out of 626 referrals, there were no sales at all. Obviously, as there was no third-party tracking system, I have no proof of sales and no recourse. My tip is to NEVER, NEVER promote anybody or anything not tracked by a third party tracking system.
Well, I don’t know about never 🙂 I did have a good luck with private programs as well as bad luck. Generally the bigger the vendor is – the less he cares about you or your problem. Unfortunately it was true in each case for me.
I’ve been “stiffed” by a worldwide household brand name for a commission I should’ve got.. It was only one transaction, and not a massive amount of cash, but the principle of the matter is at stake. Doubt I will ever the the funds though!
Hi Alex,
Nice article and I am in strong agreement (smile)! I had a situation very similar to this, when I first started out, where I did not read “the fine print”. I’m not certain why some vendors put this stipulation into their affiliate agreements, but you’ve given some good reasons to avoid this type of product altogether. Thanks!
.-= Eric J´s last blog ..ClickBank Cash On Demand – Four Tips on Promoting The Best ClickBank Products =-.
Thanks for the heads up, I’m just looking into doing some affiliate stuff in the future. I think I’ll start out with Swoopo as I’ve heard good reviews, then move onto something more when I have decent traffic.
I’ve too experienced this policy of Clickbanks’, once discovering I had actual sales I wasn’t aware of but was unable to get paid on them due to the low limit in my acct and sporadic sales that were coming in.
But another thing mentioned here I’ve heard before is some ‘big name guru’ not paying on sales. The thing that bothers me with these comments is few are willing to name names’. I can tell you now, if anyone doesn’t pay ME ‘intentionally, I’m definitely calling there name. How else is this type of activity going to be stopped?
I have looked at clickbank and have made a choice not to use them. This is the first time I have ever herd of RAP. I will do a little looking in to this and see how it will work with my websites. Thanks for the new info.
Hi Alex,
I’ve never heard of RapBank before, so thanks for bringing it up.
Getting paid properly and without any withholding of earned commissions should be a standard.
Sadly, like in your example and that of one of your commentors about Clickbank, the standard seems to be a bit unfair.
Doing proper research and reading the conditions before deciding to promote is not always done.
I know that I don’t always do it because it’s either that you have to agree or take a hike.
Thanks to your post I’ll be more careful in future.
Vance
.-= Vance Sova´s last blog ..Marketing With Alex 3.0 Preview, Gurus Nightmare Alex’s New Ebook =-.
Hey Vance, you are welcome! RapBank is a good place to find something to promote that will guarantee you get paid 🙂
I’ve been involved in affiliate marketing for over a decade and I’ve never once been stiffed. Knock on wood!
.-= Alison Moore Smith´s last blog ..WordPress Backup: A Two-Step Process =-.
Good for you Alison, you are more unique then one should think should be natural, unfortunately.
I’m very comfortable with just using Clickbank, RAP, Amazon, and a couple of well reputed CPA Networks for my affiliate needs.
Of course maybe one day I’ll start thinking about private or independent affiliate programs, but you can never really trust the merchant to pay you.
TheSpotter, you’ve probably joined some lesser known affiliate programs, how do you find good ones?
.-= Junior´s last blog ..Important Advice That Will Help You Have A Well Run Product Launch =-.
I think the idea of using third party systems like Linkshare, Clickbank, CJ, etc. is a better option as there will be more transparency in the prices. But I have seen some people still complaining these third party systems…don’t know why..:(
Excellent article! I have looked at many sites and not come across such a site as yours that tells you what you really need to know about affiliate marketing.
I like the instant commissions plan, it is always frustrating to wait weeks to get paid
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