One thing that is sure to get under the skin of any affiliate marketer is deactivated campaigns. deactivated campaigns are a major nuisance for performance marketers using PPC to drive traffic to their landing pages. As for content publishers monetizing their sites using affiliate networks, deactivated campaigns can be a real nightmare.
In each case, choosing an affiliate network to work with should be based on two questions in relation to deactivated campaigns.
How often do campaigns deactivate within your affiliate network?
If you’re performance marketing using PPC, you’re probably on top of all the offers your affiliate manager has for you to promote. PPC marketing requires constant attention to detail and staying abreast of changes is essential to prevent unnecessary loss of revenue. In this case, using a high performance network such as Market Leverage or Hydra Network where campaigns deactivate quite frequently with advance notice should not impact your marketing efforts.
If you’re a publisher monetizing your content with affiliate programs, you definitely will want to choose a network such as CJ or PepperJam with a lower rate of deactivated campaigns. The reason being that once you’ve found advertisments that match your site’s content, you don’t to have to keep changing your banners and links every time an advertiser deactivates their campaign.
How does your affiliate network handle deactivated campaigns?
Not all affiliate networks handle deactivated campaigns in the same manner. The only thing all affiliate networks do that is the same is they all notify you via email when a campaign is expiring and when it deactivates. However, if you do not change or remove links and banners, every network deals with it in a different manner.
Some networks will redirect traffic to a similar offer, passing you the credit for the commission. Others will just throw up a blank page that says the offer is no longer valid. A third, unscrupulous type will actually throw their own landing pages with their top offers to snag any of your clicks and pay you nothing.
Once again, you can see that how important this question is to both performance marketers and content marketers. If you’re a content publisher, you don’t want your visitor leaving your site for nothing and if they do you would rather it be nothing than the affiliate network snagging credit for the traffic you’re driving to them.
PPC marketers especially need a network that stands behing them because they are paying a premium to drive traffic from search engines or sites like Myspace and Facebook. I’m certain nobody wants to be paying $1 a click to have the affiliate network snake commissions.
You can see why it is so important to choose a Affiliate Network to work with that is solid and reputable, that works to make sure their Affiliate marketers are earning the commissions they deserve.
I hate it when I have to go and change my banners because an advertiser deactivates their campaign.
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I just saw your post about BlackHatBootCamp.com doing referrer spam and when I saw the title I realised that I was the guy that busted him at DigitalPoint forums by starting that thread.
Pity the guy still hasn’t stopped though
This is great information…Is Commission Junction one of the affiliate marketplaces that redirects your banner to a similar offer?
great info…
i want to learn more about affiliate.. and this blog is so nice to knew information
It’s really hard to understand affiliate marketing. But it’s the best source in monetizing a site. Thanks for the information.
I still like to promote affiliate programs through websites as a safe way.
Nice post, always. I’ve been online trying to make money now for about 6 months and your blog is one of the best i’ve come across. Always great content.
Thanks, I enjoyed reading your post. It’s nice to see someone writing something worth reading. Take care.
- Jack