GoDaddy Affiliates At CJ

[Whogister]

Anyone that promotes the GoDaddy affiliate program in CJ been noticing some strange activity from them lately?

I got them $X,XXX in sales the past 3 months and this month they drop me from their affiliate program... no explanation, no reply from the email I sent them.

Today they reverse all the sales I got for them this month... every single one of them ($XXX worth of commission)... gone.

Anyone have anything similar to this happen to them with the GoDaddy affiliate program?

 

[enlytend]

They dumped me from their program a while back, but I hadn't been promoting them and had no earnings from them so no harm no foul.

Any messages explaining either the reversal or the termination?

 

[Whogister]

Any messages explaining either the reversal or the termination?

Nope, nothing... not a peep.
I just don't get why a company would dump you while you're getting them $1,000 per month in sales... and this month I was on pace to get them well over $1,000...

CRAZY!

Didn't they just sell the company?

 

[enlytend]

A note to their affiliate manager wouldn't hurt... Any chance you ran afoul of something in their program policies?

If they just sold the company there may be changes in the affiliate program happening too, but that wouldn't explain reversing all your transactions.

 

[mis_chiff]

I just logged in [for the first time in a while] after seeing your thread,
There was a "credit" under "Fees" added to my account [unexplained] on July 1st
but it is showing as a deduction from the Opening Amount??

Did it really just change hands?

 

[enlytend]

If the fees are in parenthesis, that is being deducted from your commission. If you click on it and it says "credit" that's a credit back to the merchant.

@NameCloset - I assume you were running a PPC campaign? Were you using any of their protected terms or outranking them for their non-compete keywords?

 

[Whogister]

As I said I contacted the affiliate manager but never got a reply.
I contacted the person right after I got the Affiliate Termination notice in CJ. The two weeks went by with no reply and I was removed after the notification period.

I didn't do anything against the terms, I don't do PPC. I was getting all my traffic by generic search engine results to one of my webmaster related websites that had the Spring Domain Sale on it (a great performing banner!).

 

[enlytend]

Ugh. You could try taking it up with CJ - not that they're known for their quick and helpful responses, but it's worth a shot ...

 

[Whogister]

Ugh. You could try taking it up with CJ - not that they're known for their quick and helpful responses, but it's worth a shot ...

I don't bother with CJ support on stuff like merchant activity... it's useless. All I ever get is "Please contact the merchant" replies from them.

You would think they would be on top of this stuff since it reflects on their revenue to since they earn a commission from the affiliates commissions.

 

[enlytend]

I actually DID get a response back (from a real, live person) from them a few months ago when I emailed about some merchant weirdness. Maybe it was a fluke, but what have you got to lose?

My guess is with the new purchasers the program could be changing hands and the email may be going to a black hole.

 

[Whogister]

Contacting CJ Support won't hurt but sure is a waste of time...
But I'll do it for sh*ts and giggles.

 

[enlytend]

Good luck - whatever the reason, it sucks. Wish I knew someone over there, but as I said, I got caught in an "inactive affiliate" purge a couple years ago and haven't a clue who is or was running the show.

 

[Whogister]

BTW, I did contact CJ Support a few weeks ago about a merchant that had all their transactions coming up as $0.00 sales (giving me $0.00 in commissions!).

After they gave me the generic "Contact the merchant" response I asked them why and got this response...

"Commission Junction provides the platform for advertisers and publishers to reach out to one another in efforts to make active affiliations with each other. Not to manage each publishers account. If there are issues with the advertisers it is the publishers responsibility to take action and reach out on their own behalf to rectify the problem."

Of course I never got a response from the merchant... lol

 

[RazorNF]

I have mixed feelings about CJ, despite them being one of the largest affiliate networks representing some very big clients, I have had more issues with them than all of my other affiliate programs combined.

 

[enlytend]

BTW, I did contact CJ Support a few weeks ago about a merchant that had all their transactions coming up as $0.00 sales (giving me $0.00 in commissions!).

I think you need to get some new merchants !

I rarely have any problems with CJ - for most of my merchants, things hum along smoothly, test purchases track, payments always issued on time ...

BUT, lately they've been letting a few merchants get away with some very questionable behavior - not a fan of that :td:.

Ultimately, good, hands-on program managers are worth their weight in gold.

 

[Whogister]

I think you need to get some new merchant

True... unfortunately you don't know they are bad merchants until after you start promoting them. It's not like they have "Get us a bunch of sales and we will just reverse them on you within a month" in their program details.

BTW, I got in touch with the $0.00 merchant and they asked for the transaction id's to check into it... I sent them all 35 transaction ID's... hope I get another reply.

 

[enlytend]

True... unfortunately you don't know they are bad merchants until after you start promoting them. It's not like they have "Get us a bunch of sales and we will just reverse them on you within a month" in their program details.

You can research them before you join - I do. If there's a lot of negative feedback, at least you know your risk. Not foolproof, but helps spare some wasted effort. If you dig around the forums, there are merchants with a long history of sales not tracking, reversals, bad management and other complaints ... And (not to be totally negative) there are a couple of program managers who I would follow to the ends of the earth because they're just that awesome to work with.

This thing with GD is very strange though - the only thing I thought of originally was that you were doing PPC and stepped on their toes, but if all your traffic's organic ... Maybe someone ran up a big bill on a fraudulent credit card? But that happens and isn't normally grounds for termination. And from what you said, it didn't sound like they were reversing a bunch of transactions on you in previous months, or were they?

Good luck with the $0 merchant - at least you finally got a reply, it's a start.