I know that in this business that there are good days, bad days….good weeks, bad weeks…and even good and bad months.  I know that there’s some statistical fluctiations to be expected, and that like snowflakes, no two days are alike.  However I’m talking more about those oddities that we see.

I recently made a deal with a casino affiliate manager to increase their exposure on my sites.  In exchange I was getting a slight increase in commissions…this is a common way to negotiate - both parties win.  They get more of my overall traffic, and I get paid for the increase.  Needless to say that after about a week our signups dropped off DRAMATICALLY.

I’ve worked with this particular casino group for almost 5 years now, and have had the same affiliate manager for over half of that time.  I tend to trust them as they were one of the biggest online casino groups a few years back, and I’ve always had good conversions and excellent player value with them.

I watched our stats slow to a crawl…suddenly we were getting about 75% fewer signups.  We were still sending the same amount (and quality) of traffic, but nobody was signing up.  I waited a while and then emailed my affiliate manager back and asked what was up…of course he said nothing was wrong and it was just the way things work out sometimes.  Fine, I can sort of accept that.  Except…

48 hours later we had our best day in over a month.  Right after I emailed (politely, as always) and asked for him to check our link, backend, account, etc…things started working again.

Needless to say, this has put them on very thin ice.  While I’ve worked with this casino group for years and I tend to trust them…my bottom line won’t wait much longer on slow signups.  Whether it’s the casino ’shaving’ our stats, or just slow signups, we won’t keep sending our traffic into oblibivion…especially when we have to wonder if something fishy is up.

So who knows.  Are we bring shafted?  Are my stats being shaved?  I don’t know, but the whole things seems too coincidental for my liking.  I’m giving them one more week…we’ll see how we feel at that point in time.

Sure, there are some times when perfect spelling and grammar can fly out the window…like when you’re chatting on MSN with someone you know well and are comfortable writing stuff like, “i have to poop, be back in 10.”  But remember, if you’re posting in a place where your business contacts frequent, you need to start putting some thoughts and effort into your words.

Don’t post 3 word replies like, “yup I agree,” or, “haha.”  Yes there are some places where these kinds of replies are acceptable, but affiliate webmaster forums are not the place for posts like these.  You don’t need to run up your post count to impress other webmasters - you need to post intelligent and helpful comments.

Why Don’t You Ever Use Capital Letters, Are You Inept?  I think it’s extremely lazy to treat forum posts as if they’re MSN chat windows.  It’s akin to wearing some shitty clothes that you picked up off the floor to work….you’ll simply make a better impression on the people around you if you find something respectable to wear.  If you are too lazy to take the time to put captial letters on the words that deserve them, I’ll be inclined to think that you don’t take yourself or your business seriously and you probably won’t be around for the long run….therefore I won’t bother replying to your posts.  I’ll save my time and help for someone who shows me that they care.

All you need to do is try to spell your words properly (sure we all make misstakess), use decent sentence structure, and capitalize some letters.  Is it that tough?  I sure don’t think so.

Just try to invision the impression that you’re giving off to your potential business partners.  You just look weak and lazy, and it’s such an easy fix.

Usually within hours, or sometimes within the first couple of days….bingo - a new sale with the new company!  Things are looking good.  I like this company….looks like they can convert my traffic.  The quick sale gets me motivated, even a little excited.

And then nothing for a month.  WTF?

I honestly believe that these bastard affiliate programs will give you a quick sale in order to prove their worth…to prove that they deserve your ad space on your site.  But they don’t.  I’m not dumb.  Convert on a fairly regular basis, or buh-bye.

I’ve seen this too many times to count on one hand.  Seriously.  In different industries as well.  I’ve seen it on my sites, I’ve seen it on my wife’s sites.  I’ve seen it in porn webmastering, casino/poker, ebook sales, and just about everything I’ve ever tried to affiliate with.  There’s always a company out there that’s looking to make themselves look better than their competition with a quick first sale.

If my hunch is correct and these programs are ‘throwing us a bone’ with a quick sale, they’re really just running their own program into the ground.  Considering the number of times I’ve seen this ploy, I lose trust REAL fast.  Quick sale….nothing for weeks, you’ll lose my business.  I won’t trust you.  Ever again.  If you’re able to play with the stats/sales background to that effect….who’s to say you won’t accidentally ‘lose’ an occasional affiliate commission here or there.  I KNOW THIS HAPPENS ON A REGULAR BASIS.

Just leave well enough alone.  If your product converts, great…we’ll make lots of money together.  If it doesn’t, well….I’ll kick you in the ass on your way out.  Don’t try to mess around with stats to garner a little trust, because you’re just looking like idiots.  Affiliates aren’t dumb.  Especially the good ones who’ve been around the block a few times (we recognize your shitty ploys and will be frightened off).  You’ll end up with a bunch of newbie affiliates who keep waiting for that mythical second sale.

If you want to trust a bunch of useless newbie affiliates to try to move your company forward….this is a fantastic ploy.  I wish you lots of luck with it!

Well, my bank decided to change my Visa number 3 or 4 times in a span of 6 months.  Once was to upgrade to a travel-rewards-points Visa (which is really pretty sweet), another was because of the expiry date, and the others I can’t remember.

The fact of the matter is that I have to go around and log in to all of my different recurring companies to change the card details - each time it wastes half a day of my time.  Some places I have recurring billing set up don’t make it easy to find the payment details, which is just adding frustrations to an already annoying task.

I know there’s no perfect solution to this - so that’s what this post is for.  Strangely it didn’t make me feel better to get this off my chest - in fact it brought up all those feelings of anger from those wasted days!

I just need to be able to vent my anger somewhere.  I can’t chat with co-workers at the water cooler or in the lunch room.  I don’t have any co-workers.  I work alone, out of an office in my home.  This however limits my ability to bitch to anyone about my work frustrations - not that anyone gives a crap anyways….it just feels good to let it out.

Anyways, one day I’ll be looking back on this first post and laughing.  Boohoo, I need a place to freak out and go postal.  Fair enough.  Have at ‘er.

Enjoy.