Is Your Affiliate Program About To Fold

Is Your Affiliate Program About To Fold
By Vickie J. Scanlon

When you are a newbie, it is always a complete surprise when an affiliate program suddenly decides to close up shop. How can you tell?

If you are lucky, the Affiliate Manager of the affiliate program will send out an email to their affiliates saying that they will be eliminating their affiliate program at such and such a date.

But in most cases, you will not be so lucky. So here is a quick list of what to do and what to look out for.

1. Banners and links are not current
2. No current offers
3. commissions restructure downward


Check Your Links

Always check your links. Why?

1.The vendor may have updated their links and killed old links.

2."Sorry for the inconvenience, this vendor is not currently available".
The "Sorry for the inconvenience" statement will be seen through an affiliate brokerage firm.

This means simply-the company is not honoring their end of the contact. You may get paid, for the commission earned up to that time, but after the "Sorry" is there you may not get paid. I found it wise to take it off my site. Sometimes the affiliate brokerage firm will reinstate the links after the problem is resolved-sometimes not.
3. 404 statement-You now have a dead link on your site and your program is gone. Take the links off your site and contact the affiliate manager or the affiliate brokerage firm to see what is going on.

Sometimes the Affiliate manager will notify you if they are closing their programs, sometimes the affiliate brokerage firms will let you know, and other times you are left to discover it yourself. This translate into one important fact-always check your links to learn for yourself what is going on with your selected programs. And if you have a gut feeling, that maybe that program is on the way out-investigate.