I was upselling a sponsor and its FHG's 404 to a diff sponsor

[AmeliaG]

There is a sponsor I really expected to sell for me, but they converted at 1:3,778 out of 18,891 hits. This can just happen, so I didn't think much of it and just did not focus on promoting them. I recently noticed, however, that a gallery we put up a link to some time ago has photos which all 404 to a different program. This makes me think that it was not their tour which surprisingly didn't convert, but maybe surfers were not actually hitting their tours. What would you think if you promoted a program and its FHG's 404'ed to a diff sponsor?

Why would a program put a 404 to some other program on an FHG? Is misdirecting traffic the only possible explanation? I want to think there is some honest reason this could have been done.

[apcwebmaster]

Maybe they are an affiliate aswell as a sponsor and host both thier sites on the same servers with a htaccess redirecting all 404 traffic to one of thier sponsors, on purpose or by mistake?

[Kron]

That sucks,
I presume you send members area traffic, that is best quality traffic, in that case sending that kind of traffic to 404 is in my book just a sponsor ripoff.

[Paul Markham]

What was the sponsors reply when you asked him about this?

[hardcoreblogger]

i hate it when they do that shit, no matter if on purpose or by mistake, it's their responsibility to keep fhg links working. you can hit them up, most likely you'll get a "we weren't aware of this, it won't happen again" reply...

assuming you sent good traffic to them and given the ratios you mentioned in combination with this redirect story, i'd just drop them.

[kaz]

They have to be affiliated somehow otherwise they are basically throwing away potential customers

[Hentaikid]

Did the 404 links have an affiliate code or not?

[Head Boy]

Some sponsors are starting to view affiliates as free traffic sources rather than business partners. It's a great shame, because you get big mouths like me shouting about it, and it gets all sponsors a bad name. It seems to be particularly bad with large sponsors who offer more than $35 pps.

[AmeliaG]

Originally Posted by Hentaikid

Did the 404 links have an affiliate code or not?

They had an affiliate code on the links . . . but not my affiliate code and not for the sponsor I was promoting. It is an upsell for a totally different program.

[RawAlex]

It's okay - my favorite of the week was discovering a PPV movie sponsor I was using was no longer taking new member, and instead the join link went to yappo. Big company too. I was rather surprised.

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by Head Boy

Some sponsors are starting to view affiliates as free traffic sources rather than business partners. It's a great shame, because you get big mouths like me shouting about it, and it gets all sponsors a bad name. It seems to be particularly bad with large sponsors who offer more than $35 pps.

The responsibility lies with affiliates then. Firstly check to see what they earn from a site and sponsor, go with the people paying the money.

Secondly and more important is out the wrong doers. Post screen grabs and details of the offenders. This thread lacks a couple of things, the name of the sponsor and his reply when AmeliaG asked him why this is happening. If more affiliates were outed, less would do it.

Is an affiliate using hosted banners to send traffic to other sponsors a problem.

[Head Boy]

It's becomeing industry practice Paul, and when one posts anything, then one gets flamed and told it is the industry model. Even you have said that you need to include leaks so that you can pay affiliates more per signup.

It's almost got to the situation where any sponsor offering pps should be avoided if one is just looking for sales income.

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by Head Boy

It's becomeing industry practice Paul, and when one posts anything, then one gets flamed and told it is the industry model. Even you have said that you need to include leaks so that you can pay affiliates more per signup.

It's almost got to the situation where any sponsor offering pps should be avoided if one is just looking for sales income.

I needed it to pay them 65%. Took them down and new affiliates got moved to 50%. The strange thing was a lot of big guys signed up, the review sites, and said nothing. They guys who will never sign up ripped me apart. I took them down and still they rip me apart for having them and still never sign up. No pleasing some people.

But we see threads like tese every week, if not more, and the one thing they often lack is a name and proof. Is the thread starter trying to blackmail the sponsor into action, just sending out a general warning or what?

At least this thread gave me a clue to what the guy at Sumo.tv was doing to slow down my servers. He was using hosted banners and linking them to other sites. Easy to do and can be a big pain.

[Venril Sathir]

Well I regularly check my sponsors for any possible gimmicks. Luckily so far they all remain legit. You'll never know when one partnership gets sold or changes management, there are always many possibilities.
I'd say trust but check your sponsors from time to time. Not that hard since we all check stats and use promo tools many times

[Hentaikid]

Amelia, have you contacted the second sponsor? If they're honest (And not owned by the first, which is why I was asking if they were aff links or clean links) then they should can them. Otherwise you have to out 2 sponsors not one.

[tolik]

hm. name program. also - some program have access blocks at servers for list of countries.