At what point is a company justified in stopping payment for a single click?
 

This isn't about the specific drama of the moment, but more about the matter in general.

Does there come a point at which a company is justified in stopping payment for a single referral? Does it matter what kind of program or referral it is?

Note that the companies in adult can end up playing seriously high amounts for such single clicks. The VS example is one, of course, but from my own experience I think that, while it is obviously uncommon, it does happen with at least some regularity.

In my personal view, there are arguments for both sides.

On one side, one can argue that the effort involved at some point simply isn't connected to the reward received in any way, shape or form whatsoever anymore. Perhaps, in such cases, the webmaster in question should simply count his blessings - he's already received tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars for ridiculously little effort.

On the other hand, affiliate programs generally do not state any limit on the amount to be paid for a single click or referral. And if a webmaster gets lucky, so does the program.

What are your thoughts on the matter?

Uhmm, its my fucking referral, I gave you a member pay me the fucking money till that member leaves.

There is no negotiating that shit. I will never promote any mother fucker or any mother fucker related to the mother fucker that does that kind of thing to affiliates.

To the 3rd degree, I mean this in the light that even other folks that do promotions with the program that rob's affilaites of referrals. I will have nothing to do with.

FOr example ya got VS in your members section? Fuck you I am gone.

I may spend a week, for example sake, working on a project. For whatever reason, that project may only produce one click a day. One day, somebody signs up and is a total whale. This guy makes me $1000.

Was my week worth of work not worth that $1000?

Just because somebody may send "one click", it bares absolutely no reflection on how much work was behind that "one click".

without the webmaster they wouldnt have made $xxxxx amount of dollars less, he gave them the money

If the contract says "50% revshare for life", you pay me 50% revshare for life. If you're not willing to pay that, put a clause in your terms about it.

As I stated in the the thread that inspired this question, it's a mischaracterization of the individual webmaster when anyone says that it's merely a "single click." In essence, it's a single click amongst hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of clicks.

The fact that it was one click is irrelevant since they all start as one click. The important part of this debate, in my personal opinion, is that the webmaster put forth an overall effort that expands beyond the bounds of a single click and so, arguably, days, months, and even years of effort resulted in that click.

So, more appropriately the question should be framed as, "At what point is a company justified in stopping payment for a prolonged and concentrated marketing effort on behalf of an affiliate?", in which case my answer would reasonably be "never".

We could also ask, "At what point is a company justified in stopping payment for a single customer?", in which case my answer would be "when the customer stops buying". This is something that has yet to happen in the case of the individual who inspired this topic.

Ah, but often it actually does reflect the work behind the click. For example, about 4 years ago I had a certain program in my sig for a short while. By now, that old sig has made me $100k. No work, but a fair bit of money. Virtually all the effort involved in making that money came from other people. Should I still get paid?

Or take the example of a guy promoting, say, a webcam sponsor. He tries out several different sponsors, then decides going with sponsor X. Meanwhile, during his testing, he actually sent a single whale to the webcam sponsor, who brings in $5k a month for several decades. The effort involved in making that money mainly comes from the program that worked hard to satisfy their customers, rather than the webmaster who didn't actively promote that sponsor for more than a day.

They need to reward active affiliates, so they should pay a higher % for an active affiliate. No reason to stop paying someone cause they stopped sending to you though.

Continuing payouts on referrals indefinitely actually does reward active affiliates, though. It rewards them with future earnings, and the knowledge that their current traffic will continue to make them money for as long as the referrals they sent keep paying.

Indefinitely for sure. Canceling an affiliate that has recurring members they sent you because there is no new traffic is bad for business and in bad taste.

Say the webmaster spent hundreds of thousands on ppc advertising and was relying on the long term profits to break even...

If you do not like paying out lifetime of customer on all non fraud joins, then just offer PPS instead of revenue sharing.

as long as the "click" is still making money for the sponsor, i dont see the problem of giving the affliliate his cut...

Hmm. It seems webmasters are mostly in agreement on this.

Anyone got arguments for the other side?

Lifetime = Life of the member not some interpretation
We have affiliates who are still making $$$ from members who joined in 2000 thats almost 8 years now. Even if the affiliate never sends us a single hit and becomes a monk the checks will still go out !!!

I look at it this way if any affiliate sends me a member and they keep buying memberships to our sites the affiliate deserves the 50% 60% 70% etc. If it's the only click he sends and he hits the jackpot good for him we are still making our cut so im happy to pay what we promised for however long is required. Affiliates work too hard for their $ to be stuck with all this account closing crap :angrysoap

I can understand the company contacting the person and saying, hey we are sending you a check every period for like 1 or two dollars over the company min, Can we adjust that or something to 1 time a month, But when they earned the money, they should get paid.

Your thoughts are totally fucked. I don't give a fuck if I spent 30 seconds promoting your program, if I make a sale, I should get fucking paid. If I send 100 sales with my 30 seconds effort, I should still get fucking paid.

We get paid per referral, not by the hour.

They aren't "my thoughts". Rather, I'm trying to see both sides of the argument.

To understand the side you disagree with, it often helps trying to imagine yourself in that position, trying to argue the point you disagree with.

Personally, I agree with the majority here, but I'm trying to get the other side's reasoning.

im still getting checks from 2002 from sponsors i dont even promote anymore, i get the checks every two weeks without problems.

I get those too.

With the exception of Adult Check I have never had a program terminate rebills

It's hard to defend the side of terminating the payout. The user who clicks, stays and becomes large makes up for the traffic you sent and lost because it didn't convert.

More to the arguement, at what point does the changing of the rules after the fact become fraud?

Companies can spin it any way they want, but theft is theft. They may say they have it in the small fine print of their TOS, but if they brag about how they pay for life on the boards to secure more webmasters, doesn't this also become a contract???

I'm surprised no one has picked up on this.

quoted cuz it's true.

When the webmaster dies.

If the traffic sent is still buying/selling and it's a revshare prog of course, then I should keep getting paid until said traffic discontinues buying/selling...period. It's my choice to discontinue sending traffic to the program, but if traffic I originally sent is continuing to purchase...you better pay because your own damn program rules state as such! PERIOD!

Very nice example, I totally agree with this.

I doubt there is a single agreement that can be made on other side, except greed of course.

I say sponsor should still make payments, if his referrals are active. What other people think?

There are not two sides of this argument. If you have a deal with a sponsor to receive a "lifetime" revshare then the contract is for the lifetime of the referred customer. To not deliver on that that lifetime revshare commitment is breach of contract by the sponsor. If programs don't want to pay "lifetime" then they can come up with another formula and try to get affiliates that way. There is no other side to this argument. To suggest otherwise is ludicrous.

we'll legally I don't think you can pay a dead person so unless your checks are already in another persons name it wouldn't be legal, although I know people who still use their dead spouses name to get away with credit fraud and other things.

I don't think there is another side, is there? It's just outright theft. It's pretty cut and dried.