My shitty experience with Program3.
 

This all happened a couple of months ago but haven't taken the time to write out a post until now. I do a lot of media buying on websites and promote affiliate links on them. I had registered to an affiliate network called Program3. I decided I would try out DancingBear with the traffic I was buying. I added a guy by the name of "Hanz" on ICQ and had a nice chat with him. He kindly gave me banners, statistics on the best converting pages, etc.

The first time I bought traffic, It went very well. I paid for 30k clicks and ended up getting 21 sales. Just three days after this, I see that program3 is buying advertising on the same website. I contact Hanz about it and he says that there was a mix up with his media buyer and that he would not buy any more raffic from there. He also told me if I stop advertising on the website, to tell him (:disgust). I also contacted the website owner and he said program3 contacted him the day after I had sent links to his website.

I took his word for this and decided to buy more advertising since it was very well converting. I proceeded to buy 60k clicks and only ended up making 3 sales from all of that... After this point, Hanz has never been on ICQ since and Program3 advertises on this website till this day. If you buy traffic, or want an honest affiliate network. I would HIGHLY suggest you stay the fuck away from Program3.

:2 cents:

hah douchebag move.

sadly that is well common these days, all big guys are trying to cut the middle men.. :S

Which website was that :)

Hans hasn't been with Program3 for a while now.

Only took them 2 months to approve my account. That's about it for my experience them in this set up.

This is why we have decided NOT TO compete against our affiliates and do no major media buys.

It's flat out just not fair to your every day webmaster who may not have the budget some larger programs have.

You learned your lesson, now don't show your referrers to the affiliate program.

I think if he did that he would open himself up to more drama with programs when they go to audit affiliates and see if they are sending legit traffic.

run your traffic through an "enter" page. That way you only have one page to edit if you change sponsors... good for weekend promos as well.

Plus, all of your traffic will come from the enter page and not the actual source you paid for.

What do you feel about people using link management software?
instead of having the surfer going through an extra page

Redirect your affiliate links from now on.

Make a jump script so they all have to go through one page that redirects them to another, nothing looks different for them and the sponsor doesnt see

Unless the link management uses something like a meta refresh, the prior referer is almost always passed along thus they can still see where the traffic is coming from.

That will work.

The enter page can allow you to show a special promo as well.. say that all of the celeb traffic you had was going through your enter page, and a new sex video hit, you could promo it on the enter page. If no new promos, then auto redirect the enter page to program of choice.

Thanks for the heads up.

Let's just call it what it is. Another scumbag move. The people suggesting hiding the links might be suggesting valid tips but it misses the point - why promote scumbags who are working AGAINST you in the first place?

Also someone please tell me if Program3 is affiliated with BangBros. I've seen it suggested that it indeed is numerous times.

They are. I remember Hanz telling me that Program3 is affiliated with BangBros.

in mainstream pretty much everyone hides their links assuming they will be ripped off. adult people a bit naive maybe?

nasty dollars/bangbros/huge traffic/program 3/muffia/hazecash all the same ....

*shakes head*

Might be time to start sending the little guy your clicks. BoozedWomen is converting around 1:600 for me with good rebills. :2 cents:

A lot of smaller programs will appreciate your efforts as opposed to shitting on you. I think this might be the way of the future for affiliates. Cut out the guys trying to cut YOU out. We should ALL do this.

They won't get on your case for this?

Interesting... I didn't know that. Explains some things. Thanks. :2 cents:

You should never buy traffic and send it directly to your affiliate link. Any affiliate program with a brain will be looking at their referral logs and seeing where the best converting traffic is coming from. As an SEO by trade, I go out of my way to hide the referrer and even encrypt the keywords that are converting to make sure the affiliate program has no clue what my top performing sites/keywords are.
WG

Hey highly msg me tomorrow at 438528520, I'll get to the bottom of this for you

if this really happened thats not fucking cool

ironic sig banner.

That's what I am thinking:disgust

If your looking for a link management system, check out TALS - It's FREE!
http://www.bigdotmedia.com/tals.php

I use a combination of php redirects and frames to hide the origins of my traffic when it's something that can easily be duplicated. Chris mentioned affiliate auditing above but fuck that. You can see from any reasonable number of signups whether or not my traffic is legit and it will be a cold day in hell before I hand over my blueprints to some program I'm promoting.

Whats the best way to hide refs?

Two meta-redirects?

Just move on...

I will msg you sometime today. I really can't see what can be done at this point, though. Program3 has already raped my traffic to fucking hell.

hans is not working with p3 anymore..
also.. try to do sth like:
[your traffic source] ---> [your middle site like blog] ---> affiliate program ;)

What a bunch of outright scammers. Thanks for bringing this up, will avoid them.

we don't scam. i don't know what agreement hans had with him. its already been pointed out that hans isn't with the company any more. he left to pursue other interests. it has also been pointed out that bangbros and program 3 are related, so i'm not sure why its ironic. if i wanted i could make my sig say bangbros/p3/hazecash.

what i can do is try to rectify the situation. i apologize for the bitter taste its left, but we don't try to screw anyone over. when hans left, a lot of things were kinda left unopened. like i said, i can try to fix and make it better, but i'm pretty sure 99% of our affiliates will tell you that dancingbear is a site that converts consistently for them.

Dancing Bear?


Whats next, fresh roadkill for necrophiliacs ?

Yeah I was going to contact you, but from your posts it's quite obvious you're just trying to fix the reputation of program3, and trying to minimize situation. You clearly don't give a shit about my situation. Pointing the finger at Hans does not help you, as you guys STILL advertise on the website. Hans also mentioned that it was someone else working for program3 who was buying the advertising (Probably someone higher up). What you guys did to me was clearly a scam, and it has left more than a bitter taste in my mouth. You want to fix the situation and make it better? How about starting off by giving me all those sales you shaved off on my 60k clicks. If you want to talk about giving me my shaved sales back, we can talk. Otherwise, go fuck yourself, Steve.

:2 cents:

this is so bad, wms will go crazy

actually i did really want to have you back on board with us and try to correct what hans had agreed to you. and i'm not pointing a finger at hans. i'm saying i don't know what he had spoken to you about, i've never spoken to you as far as i know, and i can't comment on something i don't know about. i don't even know which website you are referring to, so yes, most likely we still are on that site.

you said he wouldn't purchase on it, so i'm going to go on good faith for the moment since again, i don't know what affiliate you are, and i don't know the conversation you had with him, and assume he didn't buy on it and that perhaps another affiliate did. if that happened, thats out of my hands but i would try to figure out a solution so everyone is happy.

and now you've gone from us stealing traffic to shaving sales. we don't shave sales. point blank. i've been pretty upfront about asking you to speak with me rather than debate this here. of course i'm going to try and save our reputation because people are coming in and chiming in "yeah that suck fuck them". i saw this late last night, and i could've let it die and hope it didn't get bumped, but i didn't. as i've already said, i'd like to fix the situation and ask that you icq me or email me at [email protected]

Hey your usual post should be "links removed" :1orglaugh

I agree if it happenend like you say (they bought your spot) than thats not really nice, but to say they shaved you or scammed you....nah not really :2 cents:

This is a highly professional and responsible corporate statement; this alone sets them apart from the majority of programs out there when it comes to dealing with these types of issues.

You should give him the benefit of the doubt and contact P3 directly to work something out. Instead of the "fuck you" stand in his shoes and try to see it from both points of view. For the record, I do not promote P3 nor do I know anyone there or have any reason to say one thing or another about them... other than I really don't see why the guy with a fuzzy bear head on is popular but if it is then more power to them. It is better executed and less objectionable than that old CE site called "Trunked" and hell of a lot less blasé than that Adult.com site with the dude's penis sticking through the pizza boxes... so that stands for something. :winkwink:

:2 cents: