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I’ve been in the online game for almost 5 years now. I’ve seen, done and heard some crazy things. Besides the general noobs you see making up answers on Digital Point and Warrior Forum, some of the silliest things have come from my affiliate managers and their networks. They say and do some stupid things to say the least. Here’s a short list of things I hate hearing and seeing my affiliate managers and networks do.

The Threat

“If you don’t run traffic with us soon, we are going to delete your account.”

If your affiliate network’s idea of doing business is to create threats in order to scare some traffic your way, great job! You’ve just burnt yourself a nice bridge. No affiliate network should feel so privileged that they need to threaten you in order to get your clicks. I understand the need to clean up databases and emailing lists and feel free to do so after a 6-12 months of inactivity. But I keep myself applied to a lot of affiliate networks for the networking ability it gives me, good emails of information, and the ability to see an offer I like and not have to apply to a new network to run it. I’m probably signed up in around 50 different places, but only a few actively get a majority of traffic from me.

If you want my clicks so bad, other than threaten me, here are some other things you could do:

• Suggest some strong new offers, or better yet, private offers that the general population doesn’t have access to yet.
• A new traffic source that is doing well for xyz niche
• Asking if there are any direct offers they can get going so I can test some traffic.

If you are going to threaten to shut down my account if I don’t send traffic, just do it. While I certainly don’t think I’m high and mighty, just remember I have choices where I can send my traffic and you should be gracious to any affiliates that have applied for you, private, public or invite only, no matter what kind of affiliate network/manager you are.

The Ditz

Or should I say the titz? Lots of affiliate networks like to employ attractive women in order to lure men to their network. Let’s face it, this is a male dominated market, and even for us marketers, sex still sells. While some of these women are great marketers themselves, I’ll just say that their chest is sometimes bigger than their brains. Getting emails like “HEI! SEND MORE TRAFFIC TO ME PLZ XOXO” is not my idea of good marketing or baiting for me or other experienced affiliates to drive traffic to you.

Affiliate networks – HIRE KNOWLEDGABLE AFFILIATE MANAGERS! I don’t care how fat, skinny, black, white or what size bra they where. They can be a cross dresser for all it matters. Your skanky ho powers will not work on me. This is why networks run by successful affiliates always do so well. Just look at EWA, WolfStormMedia or ProfitKingsMedia – while they certainly aren’t the most professional networks around – they know their shit and they get things done the right way.

The Copycat

“Hey Justin. Check out these ads and lps my other affiliate is just killing it with right now. If you copy these I bet you’ll make a load of cash!”

Oh boy. While you think you are being helpful, I can only imagine that you’ve taken my ads, offers and lps and shown them to other affiliates when I see this. This really crushes my confidence in my affiliate managers. As an affiliate manager you should be an upstanding business partner – keeping my ads for our eyes only, and especially my business only. I know affiliate networks out there use their affiliates data to build their internal campaigns, and while it sucks, I’d much rather them just keep that to themselves instead of spreading it to all peering eyes. This isn’t a perfect world or business model (in a perfect world everyone would have their own networks or creating their own offers – however this isn’t a realistic goal if you are just starting out), but simply doing this makes it less-imperfect.

Ever had a bad experience with an affiliate network? Comment below and let them know how much you hate their BS!