Andy Rodriguez Almost Screws Me
Ok everyone, so as I’ve admitted numerous times to others, I am a total affiliate newb. However I am trying my best and came across this issue that although isn’t a ‘deal breaker’ with this affiliate company but definitely seemed a bit shady to me.
One of the companies I am a member with is ShareASale and one of the offers I was promoting was for a company called ChecksUnlimited. I will gladly share this with you because to be honest the campaign turned south and I probably won’t use them too much in the future. Anyways the details of the program are pretty simple, 20% commission on their designer checks for your checkbook. So I’ve been promoting this casually for a while now and have received I think 4 sales earning me $33.78. This isn’t too good considering I spent nearly double that in PPC costs….still small change, let’s continue.
So at this point I am actively promoting sending maybe 20 clicks a day. Then I receive the below email in my gmail account.
Hello Michael,
We have an exciting twenty dollar promotion for this week.
This week, Saturday through Friday, January 9 – January 15, 2010, all sales generated by your website will earn you an extra $20.00 bonus per sale added to your account.
It’s our way of saying “thank you” for joining and being a part of the ChecksUnlimited.com affiliate program. You will need to monitor your sales over the week and send us an email on Monday with the total amount of sales you generated. We will verify your account and credit your SAS account accordingly.
Here are a few links configured with your affiliate ID to get you started. Simply copy and paste the code onto your website.
[LINKS HERE]
Don’t wait, make sure you load these pre – configured links today so you can be ready to earn your extra commissions during this weeks promotional period. Remember, if our links are not loaded on your website, you can’t generate any sales.
We had an amazing week and had a record day with over $10,000 in affiliate commissions paid out in one day, read all about it here: http://forum.abestweb.com/showthread.php?t=128006
Please feel free to call me, email me or IM me with any questions, suggestions or ideas you may have. I want to do everything possible to insure you get a check from us next month. Feel free to contact me at andy@andyrodriguez.com or call me at (305) 785-4524. I am here to help you become successful with the ChecksUnlimited.com program.
Thanks again for your support,
So now this offer that I had some success with is offering bonus commissions that would’ve put me in the green on my campaign. I am thinking now is the time to capitalize on this. I whipped out my trust credit card and went to pump my PPC campaigns up and right as I am doing it I am thinking…hmmm, maybe I should check their terms and conditions first just to be sure this traffic is allowed. Now while I am looking at this I notice a ‘Newsletters’ tab for this publisher. I might as well click on it. There I see the original email I received and I realize that this area just contains all the email blasts I have been receiving from these guys. But I quickly notice another Newsletter that I never received in my Inbox. One that basically takes back the $20 per sale bonus offer. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!
Now I don’t know what kind of bull this is but it smells like scandal to me. Being so new I have no idea if this happens a lot or not. However I immediately went into conspiracy theory mode and thought, “I bet this guy knows that if you send a second email blast within xx minutes it doesn’t send it just posts it on the newsletter page!” Basically a golden ticket to get out of paying people what you promised, “what…you didn’t see it on the offer page, welp sorry!”
So this new newsletter states that it was a mistake that the email went to everyone, it was only intended to go inactive affiliates. During this point I wasn’t making too many sales (had one like 3 days before this email) but I was far from inactive. So if this is the case then why did the publisher respond to my email with the below:
Me:Hi Andy, do these have to be main page links or can I continue with the few direct product link campaigns I have up and running to receive the promo?
Andy: Mike,
You can do either…
Thank you for your support…
Andy Rodriguez
Ok… So in an email I send minutes after I receive this offer I say ‘Can I receive this on my current links I’m sending’ he responds ‘Yes’ yet this offer was intended only for inactive affiliated all of a sudden? Gimme a break!
This whole thing put a bad taste in my mouth. If anyone has any good things/bad things to say about AAndy Rodriguez I would appreciate hearing it.
Don’t get me wrong I do think it’s possible this was all some big misunderstanding but it definitely seemed fishy to me. Anyways this is a perfect example of why you can’t just hear about a good offer and go promoting away expecting a payday, EVEN when you talk to the publisher directly about it!
To be fair it could have been human error. Why not try and turn a negative into a positive and see if they will let it apply to you after all? Wouldn’t hurt to ask, or “shy babies dont get sweets” as my ex used to say lol
Mike,
I think i replied to all your emails. That was an error where i pulled up and filtered by inactives and entered the wrong numeric values. We have exchanged emails on this matter.
The CU program is one of the best programs in the industry and it did not get there with poor or shaddy management. We have 10 years in the industry managing affiliate programs, search my name and my company and see for yourself.
My aplogies again if you left with a bad taste in your mouth, that was not the intention. I invite you to engage us again and see why we are paying out over 200K per month in affiliate commissions and are SAS’s #1 program for over 3 years now.
Thank you for your time and suport in advance,
Andy