Business would be terrific if ........

[js69]

I think today you need to produce, market and sell your own content. If you want to be an affiliate as well, then that is a bonus.
I support my affiliates and update regularly with quality content and I appreciate all the hard work that they do to market and convert their traffic. But I think in today's business, you need to have your fingers and thumbs in a few pies.

[cots]

Originally Posted by js69

I think today you need to produce, market and sell your own content. If you want to be an affiliate as well, then that is a bonus.
I support my affiliates and update regularly with quality content and I appreciate all the hard work that they do to market and convert their traffic. But I think in today's business, you need to have your fingers and thumbs in a few pies.

I agree totally and the main gist of my first post was relating to my pay sites. As an affiliate I have no idea about failed rebills on my sponsors sites. I only see that they are not growing significantly like they used to. I can only guess that failed rebills etc are playing a major role in this.

CCBill clearly have issues. I guess they are aware of them all, but the big question is what are they doing about them? Getting info etc out of CCBill, especially useful info, is like pulling teeth.

I also firmly believe (call me a cynic) that some webmasters now have the ability to manipulate the affiliate systems to suit their own needs and "rob" the affiliate of commission. Why do I say that? Well what else would cause a radical drop off in conversion from, say, 1:500 to 1:15,000 virtually overnight?

I have sponsors whose conversion rates have hardly varied in over 7 years and others, like the one I mentioned, that just changed literally overnight. No one will convince me that they have not changed things to avoid paying affiliates!

[Toby]

Originally Posted by cots

I also firmly believe (call me a cynic) that some webmasters now have the ability to manipulate the affiliate systems to suit their own needs and "rob" the affiliate of commission. Why do I say that? Well what else would cause a radical drop off in conversion from, say, 1:500 to 1:15,000 virtually overnight?

I have sponsors whose conversion rates have hardly varied in over 7 years and others, like the one I mentioned, that just changed literally overnight. No one will convince me that they have not changed things to avoid paying affiliates!

I don't think it's anything new, but it's most definitely possible to manipulate things to avoid paying an affiliate commission. BUT, it's all but impossible to do so with CCBill without it being detectible on the site(s) if someone checks things closely.

[Bman]

Originally Posted by js69

I think today you need to produce, market and sell your own content. If you want to be an affiliate as well, then that is a bonus.
I support my affiliates and update regularly with quality content and I appreciate all the hard work that they do to market and convert their traffic. But I think in today's business, you need to have your fingers and thumbs in a few pies.

+1 this