Affiliate Marketing Forum

Guest

You all must have heard of Corey Rudl [www.marketingtips.com]. He is one of the biggest names in Internet Marketing. His success has been due to the fact that he has thousands of affiliates marketing his products for him.

I am also an affiliate and made a shocking discovery recently. He is scamming his affiliates out of their commission by having his own Affiliate code placed all over his own website, in the pop-up offer when you exit his page and even in the letters he sends if they sign up for his newsletter. There is absolutely NO reason for you to have affiliate codes on YOUR OWN site that promotes your OWN products.

The only way to earn a commission is if the visitor buys immediately which is very unlikely. The visitor is likely to check around his site before spending any money.

Please check for yourself. If you delete your cookies(in case you have already been referred by one of his affiliate) and right click on one of his links (Step 1,2,3 at top of his page), you will see his own affiliate code in your status bar. If you just pass your mouse over the same link, you will see a disguised url in your status bar.

I am sure his other affiliates would find this interesting.

What are your thoughts?

AllanGardyne · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 12:49 am Post subject:

This is a good topic. Thanks for raising it.

However, please remember that "scamming" means to defraud or swindle - in other words, an illegal act.

Do you don't really believe Corey is doing something illegal, do you?

The actions you describe wouldn't be in the best interests of affiliates, but I doubt very much if you could find a law under which you could prosecute him.

Also, a large proportion of affiliate merchants do all sorts of things that aren't in the best interests of affiliates.

If Corey keeps on producing good stuff and keeps on having a good conversion rate - which, in my experience, he has - I'll keep promoting his products.
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Charlie · Joined: 22 Aug 2003 Posts: 3305 Location: UK

Though I don't like the idea of what you describe, at the end of the day I'd rather have a better return than pure intentions, if I can't have both...

imcaffmngr · Guest

I am the Affiliate Manager at the Internet Marketing Center. The reason the links on our web site had a different code than the one we cookied you with was because you cleared your cookies.

If a cookie is set on your computer for our Course and you go to our site and mouse over the course link you will notice that the ID shows up. If there is no cookie set then it defaults to our own.

Sorry for any confusion but nothing wrong identifed here. Please keep these coming in as I am personally responsible for taking care of our valued affiliates.

Much obliged,

IMC

Guest · Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2004 11:05 pm Post subject:

Hi IMC Affiliate Manager,

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my concerns. I am still however not convinced about the need for you to have your own default affiliate ID on your own site. Why don't you just have regular internal links like everyone else. This will stop any confusion.

I also know someone that was sent an email promotion from Corey Rudl (IMC) about the new version of mailloop. The link to your page had an affiliate ID in it. If the email is being sent from your company, which it was, why would you need to have an affiliate ID in it?

Also, you used to have a pop up whenever you exit the page the sales copy was on and the home page. This pop up directed the user to the direct sales page i.e Mr H. The link in the pop up always had an affiliate ID (does 9570 or similar sound familiar).

The exit pop up on the home page no longer contains any affiliate codes (as of a couple days ago). The exit pop up on the sales copy page no longer exists (as of today). Now tell me...why did they have an affiliate ID in the first place. I think this is where the affiliate IDs got changed over.

You must appreciate my frustration. I spent a lot of my time AND my money on your affiliate program while neglecting my other programs. I was really looking forward to helping you market your products, which I believe are second to none.

PLease excuse me for being paranoid but I honestly thought you were backstabbing the people (affiliates) who have played a major part in your success...all for extra cash in your pocket.

Just provide the adequate assurances of your integrity and I will be more than happy to start back promoting your products.

AllanGardyne · Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 2:05 am Post subject:

imcaffmngr · Guest

The only reason you will ever find our own ID in a promotion is for testing. Before we make affiliate promotion materials public we have to test to make sure that all factors, of which there are many involved in a promotion, are all optimized. If we did not do this we are setting our affiliates up for failure by supplying them with untested, unproven promotion material.

Our company owes a lot of our success to our affiliates, like yourself, whoever you may be. We would never do anything intentional to harm any of these valued relationships.

We would not pay out such huge commissions and have paid out millions of dollars over the years if we did not want to ensure our affiliates are well compensated and get the monies they deserve; to take their business to the next level, along with our promotions.

messy04 · Joined: 08 Feb 2004 Posts: 5

I just had a quick check on the marketingtips.com website. On exiting the sales letter page www.marketingtips.com/tipsltr.html I was confronted with a pop up about Mr H and how he makes $3,500 every day. In this link contained an affiliate ID (9735).

I understand what the IMC affiliate manager is saying about testing, which is very important. I also understand why the affiliates would be annoyed.

Whatever the intentions of IMC, the fact seems to be that the affiliate sending the visitor would loose out on any sales as a result of the visitor clicking on the pop up on exit. The longer the visitor takes to make a purchase, the higher the chance that they will click on such a link.

I am not accusing anyone of anything but from an affiliate point of view, I would think twice about sending my visitors to IMC unless I did not care about making any commission.
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Charlie · Joined: 22 Aug 2003 Posts: 3305 Location: UK

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