- 05
- Oct
- 2009
Traffic Needs Failure Teaches Affiliates A Critical Lesson
Posted by: Ruck under Randomness
I’m really going to hold back and not get to personal with the Traffic Needs Affiliate Network. If you dont already know, they have gone out of business. There really is no need to link to them considering overnight they took their website down. This is one group of people you will want to stay far away from in the future. As a network they failed often times with affiliates awaiting payments for months and just recently they screwed over a ton of networks and publishers by not paying them accordingly.
The lesson to learn is that even C2M had trouble getting payment on time. Unfortunately for them, (an excuse the unprofessionalism), Traffic Needs is filled with a bunch of no-face pussies. I look forward to meeting any of one from that sorry excuse for an ex-company at any event. As a matter of fact, I’m begging for it.
Personal hate aside…
Traffic Needs recently had a couple of offers that converted exceptionally well. First let me start out by saying that the reason they converted well is that they had Domestic Processing on their backends. Anyone that is familiar with domestic processing on the backend already knows that you have to be one of two things to make this work and not get your merchant accounts shut down.
- Extremely awesome on the backend for support to keep chargebacks down below the ratio threshold.
- Extremely shady and changing up offers before the chargebacks hit.
Unfortunately what most affiliates dont know, and even more importantly, they didnt understand was that this company with the exception of Gomin (this is my opinion on him) was filled with morons who failed in every previous business they entered thru the parent company of Razor Media. I have to leave Gomin out of this personally because he was the only reasonable person I dealt with and he went to bat for us and got us settled up on a network level.
However, Traffic Needs in whole screwed a ton of my friends, my own publishers and even partner networks regarding payments. They played the game very well at scamming everyone. Unfortunately for affiliates, most NOT All their loyalty lies in who carries what offers. That is a very dangerous game to play. Sure you want the highest ROI you can get but at what price? What good is promoting the best converting offer when there is a possibility of not getting paid?
I almost blame myself. I could have stepped and stated what I really knew. I first had a go at them in the Wickedfire Affiliate Marketing Forum. It’s very easy to see when a company is full of shit however my vision is typically different than 99% of the people in the industry. They may not know what I know and publishers for sure are at the bottom of the totem pole as far as knowing.
My apologies go out to all of those who did not get paid by Traffic Needs. Seriously, a terrible situation. When you have your publishers calling your cellphone, contacting you via LinkedIn and Facebook asking for help on recovering funds, it really says a lot. Had I spoke up sooner, a lot of this could have been avoided.
However…
For all of you I DID warn, (and there’s a lot). I told you this company was bad news. I knew from the very second we dealt with them, they were a sinking ship. Yes, I do think it is crappy you wont be paid but next time you might just pull your head out of your ass and start listening wont you? Sometimes, it’s hard to tell whether your network is telling you the truth. I know with our publishers, we had competing offers we were trying to put them on to get them away from the Traffic Needs offers. Unfortunately, I think a lot of publishers were thinking we were just trying to get some business from them. I dont have to explain how stupid it was to think that as a publisher do I?
Traffic Needs fiasco and non-payment does all the explaining for me. Affiliate, pull your heads out and pay attention who you work with. I know publishers out over 50K from them and are facing large advertising debts because of this. I cant stress how much moral can be damaged in something like this. I’ve faced it as a pubisher and as a network owner and it can be brutally tough to recover from.
{edit} At this time it looks like the Traffic Needs website is up. Is there still life here?
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I am often asked “What’s a hot niche” or “where is the money being made”. When first starting a network, often times this was a generic question that resulted in a publisher wasting my time typing or answering this over the phone for them. Lucky for me with the changes at C2M, when this question is asked, I’m actually happy to start talking.
First I would like to explain how this change took place briefly. Yes, it may bore with my inner thinking and company business model but in the end you will understand what I mean when I say work ethic is #1.
Alright so I really started focusing more on publishers who work. When I mean work, I mean work their ass off. Publishers who are greeedy, they want it all, they want their businesses to do well and KEEP doing well. Not tire kickers, not the type of people looking for a hand out. You go through life looking for a hand out and you have more of a chance of finding a one-legged ballerina than you do a solid piece of information.
Work ethic is a piece of the puzzle that 95% who get into this business will never understand and probably will never develop. Why is this? That’s because nobody AND I MEAN nobody ever tells you what it’s truly going to take. Sure you can copy the latest flog and hop into the niche and probably make a few bucks but guess what? That’s not successful business. That’s a short sighted idea OF business. That’s the guy at the end of the month who is found bitching about something and possibly EVERYTHING in a forum. Are you really trying to solve and issue? Because to the ones who truly “have it”, forgive me now but, you look like a complete retard.
I’ve been in this game for quite some time now. I’ve known friends that have gone from $100K+ a month in profit to zero. As a matter of fact, I know two personally that come to mind at this very moment that went back to “jobs”. To have it all, only to piss it all away. I will give you an idea (not an exact replica) but damn close of how this happened.
Things were going great. I assure you that 100K+ a month in profits as an affiliate marketer means a little bit of laziness. If you havent experienced it, I dont expect you to understand. However for the ones who have, you know exactly what I am talking about. You found yourself each day looking over your campaigns. You were probably:
- sleeping in till 10-11 am
- checking your traffic stats
- checking your earnings
- checking your sites and servers
- oh wow, it’s lunchtime. I’m not humble so I go out and eat and blow 2 hrs.
- Man it’s the afternoon, what’s going on in the forums?
- I visit one forum
- I visit a second forum
- I go read dumbass blogs
- I check back into the forums
- wow, time to go play basketball or xbox
- man’s it’s 7pm already? Time to go out to a nice dinner
- decided to hang with friends for a few drinks after dinner
- got home with alcohol in the system, man I am tired
- crash at midnight
- Wake up and repeat?
Sound typical? Possibly not but you get the idea. Here’s where someone with the “ethic” kicks your ass.
- Wake up at 7 am
- Check traffic stats
- Check with affiliate manager
- check sites and servers
- fixes a sandwich or dips into the lunchbox for the meal prepared the night before
- while eating the sandwich cruises, forum 1, 2 and reads the dumbass blogs
- gets back with affiliate manager, what’s hot, explain points of strategy
- takes what is told, starts building, keyword and site research, competition analysis
- afternoon snack from the lunchbox to keep the metabolism and energy up
- finishes site/landing page/ grabs links/ sets up tracking
- goes to the gym for a healthy workout
- Goes over current campaign, finishes up the new campaign
- goes to bed 10-11pm
- wakes up at 7 am, launches new campaign
- repeats process
For everyone in batch 1, good luck.
For everyone in batch 2, I commend you. May true success come sooner than later. You truly deserve it.
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Typically I like to keep this blog aimed towards Convert2Media business. However, since I totally crashed from blogging when I gave up Cashtactics, I was lying in bed tonight and had a vision. Call it stupid, call it ridiculous but at the end of this vision comes a very important lesson. A chance I took, a source of notriety I gave up and ultimately the belief in myself and from others that we really could make the big money online turned into nearly 40 Million dollars in revenue in 16 months.
Here goes…
I sit here tonight. A lot of things on my mind. I remember in November of 2006 I was approached by guys I worked with online on a publisher basis. The consensus was that while working together on certain aspects of our affiliate business, there had to be something out there bigger. While I had been online working for nearly two years back then, it wasnt until November of 2006 that I took the plunge to come online fulltime.
I had one goal in mind when I walked into Convert2Media and that was to have “the little guy make a difference”. Have we made a difference? I leave that up to publishers and advertisers of Convert2Media. As a publisher or advertiser or even a competing network (god knows how many of you read these ramblings), I can say that in 16 months of operation we have revenues nearing the 40 million dollar mark.
The epiphany I had was, less than three years ago I was working as a WalMart Distribution Operator, running crop chemical in coop refuelers and doing construction work as a side job. In less than two years fulltime online, I’m now President and Co-Owner of a multi million dollar affiliate network. As if that was not enough, the guys behind C2M will now enter yet another multi million dollar venture at the start of the new year.
This post is to not brag or bolster. This post is not one of the rags to riches stories (I was making great money as a publisher before). This story is meant for those who hit a rock or a bump. Dont you ever fucking give up. I dont care what people say to you, I dont care what you read online and I really could care even less what you think you might know.
Stop thinking about it, and be about it. It’s out there waiting for you. Questions is, what are you going to do about it?
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One of the biggest things to plague me since I been online are people who want something for nothing. I’ve dedicated my business and personality to helping as many people as I can, whenever I can. Why? Because the more people I help, the larger my own business grows. It’s simple economics in my business. The more publishers I help, the more money I make. However, for people who dont know me, some things tend to get overlooked. I think the mindset of affiliate managers telling publishers to go run some offer they dont know anything about has seriously diluted the quality of relationships in this business. I saw it as a publisher and I see it even more now. Managers take note, dont rub shit off onto your publishers for the sake of trying to get traffic to a campaign. I know there is a certain protocol to follow in each CPA Network but you are only harming yourself, especially if you cost the publisher money.
Now that the quality of relationships ARE diluted to a degree, there is a crop of publishers who come to CPA Networks flat-out demanding they be told what is hot, where it’s working, and how it’s working. On this past Saturday, I was told to go f#ck myself because I refuse to provide sample landing pages on a specific campaign. Good lord people, it aint that hard.
Do you want the secret formula for launching an offer?
Here it is, in all of its glory.
Take keywords related to your offer and put them into a search engine. Look at your competition. Dont copy them because that shit is seriously lame and the more this happens, the more our lack of creativity sinks to a level where people outside of Affiliate Marketing refer to us as “scumbags”. Look at your competition, analyze them. What are they doing that you could do better? Find that out about them, and do it.
The lesson here is this. Nobody is going to give you shit. Nobody owes you shit. If you think anyone in this industry owes you anything, you need a serious wake up call. Unfortunately for you, that wake come call will probably come later than sooner. Take what little pieces of info you can get from anyone giving it and use this to start testing on your own. There are plenty of guys and gals out there giving a little bit back here and there but if you want the real answer it is coming from those who are giving these tips. The answer is that tips are being given, so that you will figure this out on your own. Sure, we are going to help with almost anything you ask but the truth is that if you do not get this down for yourself, you are always going to be relying on others to help you.
When you are in business for yourself, reliance is an issue that can break a business overnight. Dont do it.
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It’s very rare to see a CPA Network come forward and air their dirty laundry and even more rare to make public apologies when you screw up. This past week, I screwed up and I screwed up big time. Even though I had no idea this was going on before I was notified, it’s still a screw up.
Shoemoney sent me a Cease and Desist while I was at Adtech for a publisher using his image on offer landing page. I had already read about Jeremy having problems with this and I should have done a pre-emptive strike by searching the network to see if this was going on but I never even thought about it.
I immediately notified the publisher that using copyrighted images are unacceptable. Listen guys, when a network receives a cease and desist like this we have to immediately notify you of the violation. According to certain Terms of Service you can possibly be terminated from a network and a lot of times your earnings are kept by the network. There are sorts of loopholes in network Terms of Service for how you can get screwed over from your network but that does not negate the fact that using copyright images without permission is definitely wrong and can have consequences.
When a cease and desist is issued there can be all sorts of demands. I wont go public with this one because currently the image has been taken down and I have offered my cooperation into a closure of the C&D. Just know that when you use copyrighted images without permission, you risk all sorts of trouble that can come of it.
I would like to publicly apologize to Jeremy for this incident. I’ve had the priviledge of meeting Shoe in Vegas at the summit and I am a daily reader of his blog. To receive a C&D from Shoe was like a kick in the balls. However, it should have not even gotten that far and had I known that his image was being used I would have taken care of it immediately. In light of this situation as a network we are putting more focus and attention with publishers so that copyrighted images are not being used without permission.
In the light of everything, there are certain processes that sometimes have to be handled in a certain manner and I fully plan to cooperate with any more issues that are concerning to Shoemoney Media. This apology is not an attempt to worm our way out of anything that Shoe feels should be still discussed or taken care of. We will still do whatever it takes to bring closure to the situation should there be anything else but since Shoe fishes with dynamite I wanted to issue a public apology to him.
