For a client mistake, I'm losing money

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diigo1979

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Jan 7, 2009
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Hello guys, I'm a listener user but I wanted to share this with you to get your opinion and alert everyone of this situation.

I work in an advertising network which manages a lot of websites' inventory. Every publisher has a dashboard much like adsense where they can track their incomes in almost real time.

So, we started to work with an Affiliate network, just like we do with many others. We use a tracking pixel so we can know to what publisher allocate the conversions revenue.

A few days ago, this Affiliate network started reporting several conversions, generating a few thousands dollars in revenue in just a few hours.

We check this with them, since it was a big jump in the revenue, they said everything was OK.

Yesterday, they tell us the client made a mistake, and he placed the pixel in the landing page, so these were clicks, not actually conversions, and that they won't be paying any money for this.

I understand the client made a mistake, I understand this actually can happen, but what is the purpose of working with an Affiliate network if they won't be assuming these mistakes? Why am I spending a big % of the revenue share with them if they won't be doing their job and covering us, the publishers from the clients' mistakes?

I'm not even asking for the full amount of the revenue, but at least, the % of revenue share I have to pay to my publishers, but no, they say "by contract we can't pay if we don't get paid".

Anyone had experiences like this one? I can't imagine how to think in a medium/long term business if there are more networks with these policies.
 


diigo1979 said:
Yesterday, they tell us the client made a mistake, and he placed the pixel in the landing page, so these were clicks, not actually conversions, and that they won't be paying any money for this.
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haha

Of course you aren't gonna get paid, idiot. Why would they pay you for your dumbass mistake (you are responsible for your damn clients)?
 
diigo1979 said:
Anyone had experiences like this one? I can't imagine how to think in a medium/long term business if there are more networks with these policies.
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Any affiliate with half a brain would realize that this was an honest mistake because no offer converts at 100%. They should be fine with a correction on leads tracked as long as you take care of it soon and don't sit on it for a few weeks.
 
This happens occasionally with us. Don't be a fool, when you see 300 clicks and 300 sales, contact your AM and let them know something is wrong.

You may be able to get a comp for real sales that came from the clicks during the screw up but before they can comp you, theyll need to see your history, so you may have to promote for a few weeks to establish a baseline, and then get a credit based on that.
 
@sgtryan: Did you read all the post?

1. The client made the mistake, it wasn't "my mistake", in fact, I contacted the network to check this out ASAP.
2. Of course I'm responsible for my clients, since I am paying my publishers these conversions no matter this network pays them or not.

@MaxSteve: Exactly, this happened a few times with other networks and they immediately offered us compensations for this. And yes, we alert them on this issue the very same day.
 
Roundabout said:
This happens occasionally with us. Don't be a fool, when you see 300 clicks and 300 sales, contact your AM and let them know something is wrong.
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Absolutely, but that was their explanation, our click count has nothing to do with the conversions number (like 100 to 1).
 
diigo1979 said:
@MaxSteve: Exactly, this happened a few times with other networks and they immediately offered us compensations for this. And yes, we alert them on this issue the very same day.
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I still don't understand your problem. A mistake happened and was caught within days. The network you are working with should be able to provide you with a list of real leads so you can reverse the ones that were accidentally tracked.

Insisting on compensation for an honest mistake that was caught within a few days and that didn't cost anyone anything is being a dick. This is NOT the same thing as a clickthrough URL not resolving or a merchant site being down where pubs are paying for clicks that go nowhere.
 
@MaxSteve: It did cost us something, we are paying these conversions to our publishers, in my vision, you can't regret on an income your publisher already saw in his account.

Remember we are a network, so clicks wouldn't be a problem, but conversions that are not real, it is a problem. Hope it's clear now.
 
That's BS... major networks I work with emailed me with a big apology letter within 24 hours, and backed out the revenues. I understood it was a mistake and life moved on. You need to do the same.
 
lol... so don't pay your publishers. Tell them what happened. There goes your reputation on webmaster forums lol!
 
No, that's out of the question, we are paying our publishers even at our own cost.

I don't know, as a publishers network I just can't stand that if one client says it was a mistake, or he doesn't pay, then the whole chain of payments goes down? That sounds crazy to me.
 
As an affiliate I've seen this sort of thing happen in my own campaigns.

My first inclination was to assume that I, Sinewave, am a motherfucker affiliate with irresistible LPs and 100% conversions. The world was all mine, no? The sky was the limit, I tell you.

But alas, it was not to be and I, Sinewave, received an email from my AM that the tracking pixel for the offer with which I was experiencing such runaway success was misplaced and my astronomical conversions did not exist.

Ah shit. Back to real marketing.

Edit: It happens so don't worry about it. I really didn't believe that I had magically transformed into that motherfucker affiliate I described above with all of those runaway conversions.
 
diigo1979 said:
No, that's out of the question, we are paying our publishers even at our own cost.

I don't know, as a publishers network I just can't stand that if one client says it was a mistake, or he doesn't pay, then the whole chain of payments goes down? That sounds crazy to me.
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Explain the situation to your clients. Pay them, and take this as a lesson learned. Your clients will be happy with the way you handled the situation, and you will learn not to repeat the same mistake. Mistake being that if you see outrageous conversions rate, then pause that offer, contact your clients, and then contact the network.
 
I think WFMESSAGE has a point and should be paid for any leads that happened after he contacted the network. The conversions were going crazy so he contacted them to look into it. From the time they told him "everything is OK" to the point they told him "oops" they should pay for the leads. I would expect any reputable network that wants my business to do this. It's a forgivable mistake, until I contact them and ask them to look into it and they tell me it's "ok" at that point I don't see it as a forgivable mistake for any conversions after that.
 
diigo1979 said:
@MaxSteve: It did cost us something, we are paying these conversions to our publishers, in my vision, you can't regret on an income your publisher already saw in his account. ...
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Bullshit

If you're legit and your publishers are legit then there should be no problem telling them the advertiser fucked up and fired the pixel on the lander by mistake.

Any publisher who's been in the shit for more than a week will understand. They will expect you to look into it to see if they can get something for their traffic but they shouldn't expect you to pay for conversions that didn't happen.

Yeah, I'd be pissed but I wouldn't expect the network to pony up 100% of the $$ for the fuckup
 
I agree with Gumby..

I would be honest with your publishers and see what they say. It was out of your control that the advertiser mucked up on the landing page.

This is not the first time something like this happens and not the last. There is not way you are going to get s single dime from this network, especially if they are one of the smaller ones.
 
diigo1979 said:
No, that's out of the question, we are paying our publishers even at our own cost.

I don't know, as a publishers network I just can't stand that if one client says it was a mistake, or he doesn't pay, then the whole chain of payments goes down? That sounds crazy to me.
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I like your attitude of paying your publishers (even if you don't have to)

However, keep in mind that mistakes like that, even though not very likely, can happen again.

So, if I were you, I would explain the situation to your publishers and make perfectly clear that it was a mistake and that "this time" you will absorb the costs for the reason you are doing it.
 
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What is the website for your company so I can remember never to use it. Asking questions like this in a public forum show that you may be WAY over your head. Start small and get big don't try to own shit before you know it.
 
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