Quote:
Originally Posted by JesseQuinn
I figured you'd weigh in here as it's clear from past threads this is a topic about which you have passionate opinions. which is cool, the metrics you bring to the topic are super-helpful when parsing value amongst sponsors genuinely curious as to your thought process in posing the following. why should affs or anyone else on the b2b side of things expect or tolerate a different, lower standard?
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Jesse,
In business like anything else you must make decisions based on the information you have available to you. As an affiliate you do have direct access to some information, and you will never have access to other information. Fortunately, the information you need is the information you do have. Affiliate marketing is an auction and always has been. Sponsors compete for your traffic by making offers. Novices, hobbyists and idiots compare the offers. People who make a living in this business ignore the offers almost entirely and compare the results instead.
When someone offers you a set of terms... that's what they say they will do. When they offer you up to a certain amount per sale, that's what they say they will pay. However you will never know if they will actually pay you when the bill comes due, and you can never know if they shaved your sales or did some other thing outside your POV that is negative.
On the other hand, here is what you do know..... you know if they paid you the last time. You know exactly how much they paid you. You know exactly how much traffic you sent to them. You know if your traffic got fucked (because you should be doing test joins and cancels etc on your own). You know what the campaign cost you to run because you should be tracking your own expenses. You know how quickly the payment arrived. You know what other offers are out there competing with this one.
Based on that information, if a sponsor isn't damaging your brand or your traffic, and is paying you quickly every time and is paying you the most... the rest of the analysis boils down to conspiracy theories, guesses, rumors, and sour grapes. If you don't like the business model, that's great... neither did I... so like many others I decided to launch my own sites. That's always an option. You can also do your own due diligence and make whatever ethics based decisions you want.... but at the end of the day, you will still be dealing with the information you do have... and the information you don't have.
Decisions based on Net EPC are the best ones you can make based on the information you do have available as an affiliate. That has always been true, and will remain true.
