[davidh]

New commission offer:

Sale: $0.05 USD

So sign up and start promoting today! Soon you can be the proud owner of a shiny new Singer22 Commemorative Nickel! Show your family and friends what a successful affliate marketer you are!

[Trust]

At GAN? I got this from them:

We regret to inform you that your affiliate relationship with Singer 22 has
been deactivated by the advertiser.

[davidh]

This is on CJ.

They've gone hog-wild on reversals this past month, too.

No nickels for you!

[Trust]

Alright, something is screwed up somewhere.

I see - Commission - $0.05 USD which would be our binding agreement.

In the terms they have:
* Payout: 7% of sale
* Average Sale is over $290

which would yield an average of a little over $20 per sale.

[davidh]

7% is the regular/current rate.

An offer was pushed out changing it to 5 cents per sale. "Sale: $0.05 USD".

Maybe I'm the only one getting the nickel offer. Who knows. It's still absurd.

[Trust]

No, I see it too. I see the 7% in description for the merchant but in the actual Program Terms, I see the $0.05 USD. Looks like the EPC was a steading $10+ for at least over a year then started to drop a little last month, then Oct 8 just dropped to under $2 and now in the 1's.

[davidh]

The EPC is probably due to the reversal binge lol.

Scroll further down and you'll see; 7% is the current commission rate, .05 is the "pending" change.

I don't generate a lot of sales for them, but I do generate some. Knuckleheads like this don't seem to realize that a handful of affiliates who each send a few sales per month is just as good as one affiliate who sends a bunch. To hell with them.

[SINGER22]

Davidh, Trust,

Our standard affiliate program terms have commission rate of 7%. It can be increased for top performing affiliates.

Recently we have found some affiliates that violated program terms and used pay-per-click ads targeted at "singer22" trademark keywords. These affiliates were temporally switched to $0.05 per sale terms.

I apologize if you were switched by mistake, I will check it. Can you please send me you affiliate name to affiliates - at - singer22.com.

[AffiliateHound]

I don't know abut the rest of you guys, but I am sick and tired of crooked, scummy merchants who screw over their affiliates and when called on it say "Oh, it was a mistake".

[teezone]

Not all affiliates received the email...

I know this is a CJ thread, but I don't see $.05 in the GAN interface for the program, just 7% of sales.

I can understand the frustration here, but the merchant has reached out quickly to rectify the problem, so I wouldn't go so far as to call this crooked.

[davidh]

Jon - No thanks.

I did not violate any terms and I don't do PPC on anything that I link to Singer22 from.

This is not the first time this has happened, so I have no faith or confidence any more. At this point I'd rather just send my traffic to other places; I won't have to worry about the nickel switch getting accidentally flipped again and again and again.

I'm just an average affiliate who manages to send a small handful of customers to you each month; you won't miss me.

As far as the "term violators" and "trademark poachers" go... why even keep them in your program? It does not make sense to keep them as active affiliates. Unless you want to ride them for some (almost) free traffic if they they don't notice that they've been nickeled.

[davidh]

Originally Posted by teezone

......so I wouldn't go so far as to call this crooked.

When a merchant reduces your commission rate to Five Cents Per Sale, and at the same time reverses 100% of the commissions you already have pending, the message is pretty clear to me: I interpret that as "we don't want to pay you". If a merchant did this to you, how would you feel about it then??

[thegyppo]

They set our commission rate to 0% without telling us even though we continued to send sales. A simple email would have sufficed.

I've moved on to promoting their competitors. Clearly merchants have no idea that affiliates have to spend money to promote them too.

[megamoney]

They lowered my commission as well to $0.05 twice during the last months of 2011.

Does anyone actually get paid by these guys?
Out of my last 15 sales, 11 of them have been reversed....

[davidh]

I wasn't able to remove their links from my sites fast enough, so I wound up generating a few sales "for nickels". But though they may have gotten a couple hundred dollars in sales in exchange for less than what it costs to turn the knob on a gumball machine, they won't have the ongoing sales activity that I would have generated for years to come if they hadn't tried to chisel me. So they have really only screwed themselves.

[jenniferson]

I received a sale and it was taken away and I was changed to the $0.05 commission structure, did not violate any keyword violation. This company is pathetic, AVOID THIS MERCHANT

[jenniferson]

Our site received a big commission and immediately they declined order and changed our commission to $0.05 and no we didnt violate anything via adwaords. They simply dont want to pay.

[davidh]

[holds out and shakes an empty cup]

Can you (and anybody else who is lurking) please send me a nickel each time you make a big sale for them? Pretty please? I need 36 more of them to buy a cup of coffee.

[/cupshake]

[markymark]

The question is: why has Commission Junction allowed them to get away with this. Surely it's not in CJ's interest to allow anyone to pay $0.05 commission. They should have just been kicked off the network immediately.

[Jorge - SHOPiMAR]

It's perhaps a mistake, message them Singer22 | Facebook

Affiliate pages still says 7% of sale and only see GAN join link.

Affiliate Program

[davidh]

Jorge can you describe any plausible scenario where any merchant or AM could accidentally change an affiliate's (an affiliate who is PRODUCING SALES) terms from the standard commission percentage rate to a flat FIVE CENTS payout? Or accidentally do this to more than one affiliate? Or to do it more than once to more than one of the same affiliates that they had already done it to?

[Jorge - SHOPiMAR]

Originally Posted by davidh

Jorge can you describe any plausible scenario where any merchant or AM could accidentally change an affiliate's (an affiliate who is PRODUCING SALES) terms from the standard commission percentage rate to a flat FIVE CENTS payout? Or accidentally do this to more than one affiliate? Or to do it more than once to more than one of the same affiliates that they had already done it to?

David, agree there is NO excuse for any merchant lowing commisions drastically or to .5% but sometimes a panic is what happens and merchants often do not know what to do or is causing many fraud sales or trade mark abuse so they have no choice to lower things before they loose their shirt. I know for a fact that if affiliates explain to a merchant that he/she is a good affiliate that follows the merchant TOS often the commission is increased again but it's if they ignore emails or don't increase your commission back to normal after you explain to them that I would say, switch programs and run.

But in singer22 case see my update...

[Jorge - SHOPiMAR]

Update:

After reading and posting my reply here this morning, I sent an email singer22 pointing them to this thread. I know singer22 had already replied/posted back in October but I figured let me help with an update request. Well, guess what singer22 ( Jon ) replied to me quick just few minutes ago to my email to explain a little more. To me any merchant that replies to affiliate concerns here on ABW or quick via emails and even on a Saturday is a merchant that cares and does want to help.

The problem is that merchants get abused by a few using their trademarks and coupons and get mis-information from others for their own benefit, like having programs on dual networks. No merchant should be on dual networks no matter what tracking or cookie software is used. Most all top affiliates are on all the top networks and will find you the merchant, this is what we tell merchants all day and what I explained to Jon too.

1 - So you should switch over to GAN but they will be cautious who gets approved and who does not so start here: http://www.google.com/affiliatenetwo...l?advid=131837

2 - Reapply to an advertiser's program
Reapply to an advertiser's program - Affiliate Network Help

Advertiser Name: singer22
Advertiser ID: 131837

3 - You should email Jon at affiliates@singer22.com and explain, if you follow TOS rules, then show Jon your site and also if you were lowered commission or deactivated to then approve you so that you can transition your links over to GAN.

Hopefully all will get good again and within GAN.

[davidh]

I know for a fact that if affiliates explain to a merchant that he/she is a good affiliate that follows the merchant TOS often the commission is increased again

I "know for a fact" that I already ran around this block with this merchant.

Just as some merchants may get abused by rogue affiliates, affiliates also sometimes find themselves in the position of being abused by rogue merchants like this. The things they do to affiliates do not happen by accident.

[AffiliateHound]

Blah, blah, blah....

What I said before:

Originally Posted by AffiliateHound

I don't know abut the rest of you guys, but I am sick and tired of crooked, scummy merchants who screw over their affiliates and when called on it say "Oh, it was a mistake".

Honest, productive, experienced affiliates do not need to jump through hoops to prove their honesty, productivity or experience to some gunslinger of a merchant who shoots first and asks questions later.