Archive for the ‘Affiliate Networks’ Category
Ah, the drama of affiliate networking. For those of us that have been in the business for years you come to accept that each network has their pros and cons. It’s unfortunate that we’ve met our first network that we can’t share any perks about.
We’ve had the pleasure of working with Marne Semick at Online Media Diva over the last month or so. We went with OMD because of a contact we had done business with prior that was recently hired on at OMD. The second reason was because they guaranteed to back their email drop out to a CPA. Hey, can’t complain about that. They either prove themselves and put their money where their mouth is, or we don’t lose out. Win win, right? Wrong. Read on to see why we feel Online Media Diva scammed us out of some deposit money.
For starters our $2,500 deposit was billed at $2,575. An extra $75 is not that big of a deal, but where did it come from? We contacted Marne Semick’s group and come to find out it was a fee for processing the deposit on a credit card. Well, that would have been nice to know. Anyway…
We decided to start with OMD running a contextual campaign. Well we quickly learned that after $100 in contextual and zero people actually clicking through their source of contextual did not work. We’re not only talking about $100 and zero sales. We’re talking about $100 and no one even clicked through. If your CTR is that low through your contextual source, how in the world could you expect to take the next step and make a sale?
As our discussions with Marne Semick moved forward we decided to try a CPA email drop. We were only out about $100. Why not give them another shot? We quickly came to find out that Marne did not have a background of CPA either, but only contextual. Well, as long as Online Media Diva can deliver an ROI it shouldn’t really matter the source of traffic. Contextual didn’t work, perhaps their emails sources will. After a drop to an approximate said 570,000 emails we received about 70 clicks. Now, for those of you that know email drops, that is horrible. We had an average CTR, so it wasn’t the creative.
After inquiring about such an over sold and under delivered list we asked for some statistic. They came back and said that they were showing hundreds of clicks. We showed 70′ish. We let them know that was something seemed wrong. We forwarded them a screenshot from our tracking system. Their "email guy" wrote back saying there’s no way that’s accurate. So, we went to definitive reporting system for hits in a day… Google Analytics. Online Media Diva was the only company running any traffic that day. So, however many clicks Analytics show should be accurate of Marne’s group’s efforts for that day, right?
Well, there’s now a tracking system and Google Analytics right on par. Pretty obvious that Online Media Diva’s capabilities of tracking are not promising and things were under delivered. These stats were then forwarded to their email guy again and he came back with, "what is Google Analytics?" and asked if it was some sort of freeware program. That comment really says a lot.
After years in the business it’s ok to overlook a small issue or two, but when you have a string of large gaps in reporting, performance and more it speaks volumes for that operation.
At that time we politely asked that, based on their performance guarantee, we would like our money refunded. Miss Semick was kind enough to oblige. They said they hoped we could give them a second (really was a third or fourth) chance. To avoid boring you, this lack of performance repeated itself 3 drops over again and the contextual performance tanked on a second effort as well.
We’ve been patient long enough. Time to pack up shop. It’s not that hard to launch a free+ oriented model and get it up to 100 sales a day. By the end of the first month you could be up to hundreds and hundreds of sales a day. Over the course of weeks and weeks with Online Media Diva we were able to rack up a whopping 3 or 4 sales.
Now that we’re ready to bow out, suddenly Marne is no longer wishing to return the money. Let me give you a couple email quotes.
On Aug 14, 2008, at 5:59 PM:
know we are very sorry the drop’s have not performed as promised. Due to our commitment to your success we are refunding the $1000
As the correspondence continued we obliged to give Online Media Diva a second chance. I asked if they could provide some sort of performance goal. Marne declined. It’s pretty amazing when you can’t back up your own company and their performance. Here is her reply, again confirming the refund and commenting that they cannot guarantee any volume, what so ever:
On Aug 15, 2008, at 10:23 AM, Marne Semick wrote:
I’ll agree to refund the $1000, but we cannot guarantee volume…you just have to agree to get what you get. However, we think you should be able to get some decent volume. The refund is our effort to keep you as a long term client so I hope you’ll work with us moving forward and not pull the plug.
Best,
Marne
Guess how much that "decent volume" equaled to after two weeks to the day? Two of our three overall sales. Two sales in two weeks?
These emails continue on and on. As we politely asked today for us all to move forward, Marne officially declined to refund the money applied to the under delivered drop. Ironically enough, as she declines to act on her own word she admits that her company "oversold and it under-delivered".
On Aug 29, 2008, at 1:01 PM, Marne Semick wrote:
… I accept the responsibility that we oversold and it under-delivered…
Best,
Marne
It is amazing that someone will admit their comany "oversold and it under-delivered", but will deny any wrong doing in the same reply.