and not after it has picked up, and you’re trying to increase your profit margin at the expense of your “valued affiliate partners.” Unless, of course, you want them to turn around and switch their links to your competitors
Mistake 9: Late Payments No excuses. “We can’t pay you until they pay us” is never an excuse to withhold payment from your affiliates. This always reminds me of the way salaries were, and still are, paid in the former Soviet Union: People would work for months without pay, not getting their January paycheck until July. No “Soviet Union excuses” in affiliate marketing, please!
Mistake 10: Tampering with Tracking Code Everyone who in your company has access to the pages that contain the tracking components of your affiliate program must be instructed on the importance
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of these pieces of code. More than once I have seen web designers and SEO folks delete or mess up the affiliate tracking pixels on the merchant side. This immediately resulted in untracked transactions and major problems with the affiliate program. Never let anyone tamper with your affiliate program’s tracking code. As Otto von Bismarck put it, “Any fool can profit from his own mistakes. The wise man profits from those of others.” Learn from the above ones, and may your affiliate program be healthy and beautiful! n
Award-winning affiliate marketing expert Evgenii “Geno” Prussakov is the founder of AM Navigator affiliate management agency, and chair of Affiliate Management Days conference -- the first and only professional forum on affiliate program management. He authored bestselling A Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing (2007), Affiliate Program Management: An Hour a Day (2011), and Quick Start Guide to Affiliate Marketing (2013) and is an internationally-acclaimed speaker, consultant, and affiliate marketing evangelist.
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