How Hydra Affiliate Network Screwed Me Out Of $25,000
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Akanoc.com is owned by a guy named Steve Chen (if things haven't changed in the last year or two) - he has started a number of web hosts & at least in the past has been legit, but it seems that he transitioned Akanoc to a provider specifically targeted towards foreign Chinese looking to get servers in the US a few years ago.
Networks shouldn't allow registrations from IPs that trace back to datacenters, and at the least, should make sure that addresses exist before accepting publishers.
Ok man, you're right, I have no idea what I'm talking about.
I stand by my opinion - The guy netted $75k in 2 months from Hydra and lost out on an additional $25k in profits - let's not forget that. Could Hydra have struck a better deal? probably.. but one thing about issues that end up on a board: there's 3 sides to every story.. with the truth rarely seeing the light of day.
Making $30k a month is drug dealer type money - when you make that kind of coin it's implied that you are taking risk. Sometimes you get burned.
I'm not really interested in name calling and playing in the sandbox with the kiddies. peace out.
30k/mo. is drug dealer type money? Lol.
I've never dealt drugs, but it better be a lot more than 30k/mo. if you are going to do it. A HELLUVA lot more.
I make x times that doing AM and feel relatively safe sitting here in my underwear. (No I won't send any pics of a spoon).
Whats the risk? That a network might not pay me? Bah.
By the way, I dont think that was 25k in profits. He had expenses, yes? So he actually lost more than 25k, correct?
I feel the need to counter-balance the complete lack of intelligence in your reply (and all the other profanity laced stupidity) with some actual thoughts.
How about, if you are an affiliate and you promote high-risk offers (CPLs are always risky since advertisers can arbitrarily decide on quality, high-paying CPA offers on negative option continuty products are risky) you ask the network to withhold a %age of your payouts as contingency, as an insurance policy against the advertiser going AWOL.
You have to realize that alot of these advertisers jump into the game without knowing what they are getting into. They agree to pay $X per lead, thinking they can handle the volume.. then they get overwhelmed with the size of the invoices and start scrutinizing the leads.
Affilaites should mitigate their risk by working off a risk-discounted CPA (example: offer pays $6 per lead with a 25% risk contingency, RDCPA = $4.50). If you can't profit on the RDCPA then it's probably not worth the risk.
It's just an idea - it's unlikely that networks will change their T&C across the board. The best they could probably do is have "Guaranteed offers" where they explicitly back-up the offers. That would probably only happen when the network is the AOR for the offer.
Here's another idea - Affiliates can choose to opt-in to "advetiser AWOL insurance", where the network holds back a very small %age of all payouts from all participating affiliates in the network in 3rd party ESCROW. If an advertiser decides they aren't going to pay, then the affiliates who got shafted made a claim against the pool of 'insurance' money.
It's too bad that someone lost $25k.. but what's the point in whining, crying and swearing about it? Problems need solutions, not angry mob mentality dumping gasoline on the witch-burning fire.
he said 8 weeks at 50% margin, grossing $25k per week.
so he had 8 weeks of expenses ($12.5k x 8) and only 7 weeks of gross (7x25k). Total gross was $175k, total expenses was $100k. He should have grossed $200k and netted $100k.
PS - I think if you made $30k a month cash dealing drugs you would be doing alright.. but yes I'm sure there are drug dealers making more than that.. lol. My point was, with relatively high reward comes inherent risk.
The point of whining, crying and swearing about it is to warn other affiliates and potentially get his money back if Hydra decides all of this isn't worth it. Because of the post I'm not going to work with Hydra again if I have a choice of places to use. I'm also not planning on promoting quality health again. I'm pretty sure that other affiliates feel the same way. Your affiliate insurance idea is clever, but I would probably not work with any network that offered it.
Here is an idea you moron. The affiliate network has a deal with the advertiser. If the advertiser doesn't pay its THEIR problem.
If the affiliate network can;t prove we did anything wrong. Then they have to pay up. How hard is that to fucken understand.
WHAT if my traffic doesn't back out... can i ask google for my money back.... or what if i don't get paid... can i ask google for my money back.
Affiliate networks must abide by their deal with the affiliate. Its a black and white issue.
I don't think you want to go to the "black and white", because the black and white explicitly says that (paraphrasing) "If the advertiser stiffs us we won't pay you". So, networks don't guarantee that you'll get paid. You are misinformed if you think that you are guaranteed to get paid no matter what.
As I said - it's unlikely that many networks will have a blanket policy to guarantee all payouts.. on a case-by-case basis they probably could.. but it just wouldn't make sense to put it in the T&C. Ultimately, a solution has to be somewhere in the middle.
Any T&C has loopholes that can allow the network not to pay. But networks are only as good as their reputation. I believe we should only work with networks that take that insurance policy on them-selves. The few times that advertisers don't pay... THEY should cover it.
Most networks i work with... pay out... when the advertiser stiffs them.
It's the risk that networks take when they push a lot of offers. The more offers a network has, the lower the average quality is going to be. Not promoting Quality Health is a completely rational response.. and ultimately the choice to not work with this network or that network is available because of competition.
About 10 years ago when adult was much bigger than it is now, the industry went through these same growing pains - I've seen it all before. The bottom line is Affiliates have the sweetest deal: the most leverage and the least risk. Advertisers assume the biggest risk (remember they are the source of the revenue.. not the network) and the networks run on the slimmest margins of anyone, hence the double-edged sword of the need for volume.
you didn't really make any new points here. You didn't really even respond to my post.
FAIL
try again
There are networks that pay affiliates, regardless of advertiser payments. Those who are regulars here on WF know who these companies are (and arent). Hydra was supposed to be one of those...hence the reason for the thrashing on this thread, and, rightfully so.
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