The vBulletin affiliate program sent out a “you’re fired” email to lots of affiliates yesterday.
Hello,
After very carefully evaluating all of our Commission Junction
publishers who generate affiliate revenue for the vBulletin Affiliate
Program, we have come to a decision to deactivate some of our accounts
as they are generating traffic, referrals etc. that we may already
receive. I regret to inform you that your account has been expired and
will take effect within the next 7 days. We here at vBulletin would
like to thank you for your past support and wish you the best of luck
in the future.Best regards,
Valerie Janda
Marketing Intern, vBulletin
Internet Brands
Affiliate programs kicking out affiliates isn’t anything novel, but I think the way this was done was pretty poor.
Not only is the reason for termination ambiguous, but vBulletin was careless about the process by not using bcc with the emails. Oh, and we’re weeks from Christmas – sort of a hectic time for affiliates.
I think one of the problems with the vBulletin affiliate program is their lack of quality control on the front end. I applied to the program and was auto-approved.
And no offense to the interns out there, but do they have an intern in charge of their affiliate program?
Anyhow, if any affiliates who were booted are still interested in promoting vBulletin, they could try going through SkimLinks.