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Affiliate Opinions: Adware, Badware, Spyware, and Malware

January 14, 2005 by Shawn Collins

What do affiliates think of adware (and affiliate programs that permit adware affiliates)? Well, I asked a bunch of them, and here are some of the responses:

‘Most merchants do not care who gets paid – it’s about the sale. Only a few go after and remove commission stealing web sites.

I have seen them give kudos and rewards to top affiliates, who are known to use Adware and ParasiteWareâ„¢. A few places are starting to be pro-active, but I think I loose 20-40% in commissions every month.

How else can you explain sales conversion rates dropping 60 – 80% on the same type of traffic? It’s very annoying that most merchants don’t care.’

———-

‘I’m tired of affiliate managers wanting me to promote their program when they are working with parasite companies.

I have several companies who contact me for better positioning on my sites, yet I recently discovered when a visitor comes to my site that company’s website pops over mine, because of WhenU and other scamware taking away any commission that I might have received. I refuse to work with any company that advertises in that way.’

———-

‘I would much prefer not to do business with companies that play with the bad boys (Ebates, WhenU – God I hate them, gator, etc. and the email Spammers) but have a couple of problems. First, it’s hard to keep track or find out who is sleeping with whom, and companies will lie about it (Amazon leaps to mind). Secondly, as a one-woman shop with niche sites, sometimes I have few choices as to who to promote if I want to make sales. It would be great if all companies publicly stated their policies and stuck to it. It would be great if we could continue to pressure them on these issues.’

———-

‘Affiliate managers need to look at how affiliates are promoting their site. Spamming search engines with multiple look-alike pages with keyword stuffed, no content pages. Some people do a good job at product presentation; others do crap. Weed out the ones that are crap. Avoid the BHO (Parasites) like the plague.’

———-

‘Merchants who dump parasites and maintain active communication and fair cookie durations will get exposure regardless of other factors.’

———-

‘If a program allows BHO’s as affiliates, at least admit that it is an injustice to the rest of us. I hate the “what’s the big deal?” response from merchants. Merchants should think about their brand requirements before opening an affiliate program so that affiliates can get a clear picture right away of what is allowable with that merchant. Major changes afterwards can cause communication and trust problems.’

———-

‘They should all provide decent data feeds & links and kill BHO’s!’

———-

The comments above are excerpts from the AffStat 2004 Report, which includes candid comments from affiliates on a variety of issues.

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