My $6,400 lesson: How I discovered I have too many affiliate accounts
This story is so humorous I just had to post it because I’m sure a lot of you can relate. As affiliate marketers, we have accounts with Commission Junction, ClickBank, Share-a-sale, Linkshare, PepperJam, Copeac, ClickBooth, PayPal, Adwords, Adsense, Azoogle, Chitika, InLinks, NetKlix, Webmaster tools, hosting accounts, domain accounts, site logins, blog feed accounts, Digg, Technorati, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube, WordPress, and I could go on and on and on.
I have so many logins there would be no way to keep them all straight so I use this login management software that keeps my logins all nicely organized and can be easily transferred from desktop to laptop so your logins are always handy.
Almost all my affiliate payments are via PayPal or ACH, but one company had made payment via mailed check up until last fall when I switched from a DBA to a corporation. I had completed all the ACH paperwork, faxed it in to the company and my rep said he would take care of it.
This was a decent CPC affiliate program that I had integrated into about six different sites. Traffic has grown on all the sites since last fall, and so had the earnings. I hadn’t thought anything about it until the other day when I went to my PO box to check my mail. I got to thinking that I hadn’t seen a payment from this company for quite awhile, despite having decent monthly earnings.
So I logged into my different bank accounts to see if I just missed the ACH, and couldn’t find anything for that company. I checked my PayPal account just to make sure I didn’t direct payments there. I finally realized that I hadn’t seen a single payment from them since I switched my paperwork over last fall.
After talking with the VP (and feeling like a moron for not catching this sooner), they tracked down the error on their end which turned out to be the wrong routing info for my bank account and payments weren’t being made. He said they’d catch up on the payments with the next month’s payment.
The worst part wasn’t necessarily that I wasn’t getting paid, but rather the fact that I didn’t miss the money from not getting paid! $6,400 is a decent amount of money, especially back when I was first getting started in affiliate marketing. I still remember the first affiliate sale I made online, and it was that virtual ‘clink’ in the bank that got me hooked on making a living online.
So I’ll take this as a sign that 1) I’m doing alright as an internet marketer 2) I need to get more organized, and 3) I need to always remember that first sale and appreciate every dollar that I generate online.
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing
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Ryan,
I would say that it does say something about your success in internet marketing. I’m pretty sure I’d miss $6400.00 right now-LOL!
Jeff
In a weird way it IS good news! To not notice straight away, indeed means you are doing OK. I refer to it as the Sting factor (Sting only realized his accountant had ripped him off £6 million GBP after several years and after he bought Sting a Rolls Royce as a gift!)
Well done
A very good story in deed. I made a similar mistake but it was not nearly that amount of dough! I just need to stop checking my accounts so much looking for money that I know isn’t there. LOL…
Hey Ryan,
I’m just starting out and ya, I remember my first check too, like it was yesterday… Wait it was yesterday! Well Ryan, if you run across any other unwanted check$, you may forward them to me… They will be greatly needed & appreciated:)
Ryan’s theme’s ROCK!!!
Hey Ryan.
Yes I started out a few months ago too, and it’s as you say, Affiliate marketing accumulate a LOT of accounts.
I used to use your “login management software” too. But I needed some greater flexibility. I found Affiliate ID Manager. It’s available from my site as a free download.
Shameless plug : http://www.g-p-group.com/gpgblog/thanks/
I hope that didn’t offend you.
PS: Love the theme.
Abraham
Hi Ryan,
Nice article, but I just had to wonder if this might have stung a bit more had it been one month’s worth of income from a particular program, rather than several months that had accrued and been forgotten.
There is a difference.
Missing a couple hundred bucks here and there happens to the best of us. It certainly has happened to me. Which does not say much for my organizing skills either. But let me miss a check for any given month over a couple of grand, I’m going to be kicking down the doors to that vendor trying to get paid.
Anyway, I just wanted to post what I was thinking after reading your post. Thanks for the article.
BTW, your theme is very nice.
This was one affiliate program for a period of several months. I had originally signed up with them as a DBA, then when I changed over to a corp and updated my affiliate info, they got the account/routing numbers wrong for my payments. So some other schmuck was collecting my payments (pennies from heaven, eh?) and I was too busy to notice the payments weren’t coming ACH. So they apparently found their error and attempted to send me the amount owed again via ACH. Thay deposited it in the other affiliate’s account AGAIN! Everything is straighened out now, and I’ll be collecting the last 2K this month. What a pain…
Good info on your blog BTW. I need to look into Dragon Naturally Speaking. I’m a pretty fast typer, but it would be nice to sit here and talk to myself and have it go to good use for once.
Thanks Ryan,
Dragon can really make a difference, if you use it. I’ve got to be honest, old habits die hard, and I often find myself doing things the good old fashioned way…
Your blog really is great man. I’ll do my best to pop back in and contribute where I can.
Take care.
I find Dragon is smarter than I am in many cases. But it is not a genius, and takes a lot of patience. And practice makes perfect.
Keep at and you will be sipping Pina Colados in Puerto Rico with all the extra time on your hands.
Sam
Ryan I have used your Flexible Theme in the past and think it is a very good product and will upgrade to a full version of it. My purchase of the multiple license version of the Affiliate Theme has been a real disappointment for me. I will not say anything here because it is not appropriate. I hope you can prove me wrong in this. I had great hopes for that software and wanted to use it as my default blog theme. I am however very impressed with your Flexible Theme as I mentioned above and am looking forward to more news about it. I ave very glad that you did get your money in the above post, I certainly would have missed that amount of money, I agree with the note about the multiple affiliate accounts that one has to deal with in this business. I use Robo Form to organize this and I am really happy with it. Thank you for your informative posts!
All The Best!
Hi Ryan,
Your Theme is a master piece. I bought the ReviewAzon and working on my first project. I just wanted to thank you for the free theme that you provide, which has every thing that any one need.
Thanks again.
Jey