Affiliate Account Suspension - Bad Joo Joo

I’ve received a few of these types of emails in my affiliate career, but today, I felt particularly irritated. Maybe because it’s Monday morning and I wish I got a bit more sleep last night…but mainly I think it’s because this just doesn’t make sense (I have removed names and company names to protect the un-sweetie behaviour):

Dear Alice,

In an effort to help our affiliates get the most benefit from the XXXXX Affiliate program, I recently reviewed the XXXXX banner and text ads on affiliate websites.

I was surprised to see that many affiliates websites, including yours, did not display any XXXXX advertising. There are many possible reasons for such an absence: you simply have not updated your website, your site runs alternating banner ads and XXXXX’s did not appear at the moment I viewed the site, or the XXXXX ads are further within the site and I was not able to find them with relative ease (example: a directory without categories relevant to XXXXX’s business such as homeschooling, education, or learning).

In an effort to streamline the focus of the XXXXX affiliate program and based on the lack of XXXXX banner or text ads on your website, we are suspending your affiliate account until further notice.

If you are actively displaying XXXXX ads, please send us a web page link that demonstrates usage, or let us know if you are using a rotating banner feature. Please send the information directly to me at XXX@XXX.com. We will review the information, and, if appropriate, reactivate your account.

Thank you for your participation in the XXXXX Affiliate program. Please contact me if you have any further questions or need assistance of any kind.

Sincerely,

XXXX XXXXXX
Marketing Specialist
XXXXXXXXX, Ltd.

So, I wrote back. I was going to edit a couple thing, but I hit “send” instead of “save” - DUH - so this is how it went out. I was going to remove the cocky statement in my first sentence, but maybe he’ll the point that he’s alienating potentially high-performing affiliates with his suspension technique:

Hi XXXXX,

As an affiliate who has sold hundreds of thousands of dollars in products for other companies, I found the email suspending my account very strange. I have heard other companies try to “streamline” their affiliate process and they suspend affiliates, but I really have to question the method. I am not asking you to reinstitute my account, but am sharing another perspective.

I don’t understand how suspending affiliates streamlines anything. When you create promotional materials, it doesn’t matter if you’re creating them for 1 affiliate or 1 million affiliates, the work is the same. For affiliates that aren’t performing right now, there’s no extra support involved because they aren’t asking for help. How does suspending an account make your organization more efficient?

If the suspension is meant to coax affiliates into action, it seems like such a negative approach. I was a naughty affiliate for not having my banner on your website, so I got suspended. Perhaps an email trying to give the non-performing affiliates a hand to get going would have been better to build that relationship and loyalty from your affiliates.

But outside of all that, I can tell you that as a busy affliate I may sign up for an affiliate program today, but I may not immediately start promoting a product. This could be due to a number of reasons:

- I just didn’t get a chance to do it yet…or I’m working on it.
- I am planning to promote it on a future project.
- It doesn’t fit into what I’m doing right now as I thought, but it might in the future.

So, why close the doors? I also found this part of your email particularly puzzling:

“I was surprised to see that many affiliates websites, including yours, did not display any XXXXXXX advertising. There are many possible reasons for such an absence: you simply have not updated your website, your site runs alternating banner ads and XXXXXXX’s did not appear at the moment I viewed the site, or the XXXXXXX ads are further within the site and I was not able to find them with relative ease (example: a directory without categories relevant to XXXXXXX’s business such as homeschooling, education, or learning).”

To me, it sounds like you are suggesting that I should have a banner ad on my site or some ad text and then I would be an “active” affiliate. The problem here is that displaying a banner on my pages is not going to give us the best sales conversions. When I promote an affiliate program, I create specific pages on highly-targeted topics with specific recommendations for your product. I then drive highly targeted traffic to that page that reads my page, sees my recommendation and then is more likely to buy from you when they visit your site. Slapping on a banner ad is rarely in my affiliate plan.

Adding to that, I (just as many other good performing affiliates) have multiple websites with multiple pages, mailing lists, etc. on topics related to your products. It would be impossible for you to come to my main site and find exactly where your links were.

You seem to recognize this in the paragraph I quoted, but if I had already done the work, you would have made my links inactive by shutting down my account. Then you would have created more work for me when I have to request that my account be reactivated. Of course, you can look at your records and see if I was sending you any traffic, but that just means there is no traffic today. As pages get indexed in search engines and various promos were set up, the traffic would start flowing in.

Anyway, I’m just hoping that as a fellow business owner, you don’t keep shutting the door on your business partners like this. As a person who runs a few of my own affiliate programs and sells products through affilate programs, I only hope to provide the best to my affiliates and the companies I promote.

All the best,
Alice Seba

So, whatcha think? Am I just cranky or does affiliate account suspension just not make any sense?