New AzoogleAds Referral Terms Screw Affiliates
It wasn’t til today that I caught attention of the new terms and conditions set forth by AzoogleAds on their affiliate referral program. I’m pretty sure I didn’t get their email notice, and I’ve talked to a couple others who also didn’t receive it, but are still an affiliate of the network. The news is already a couple days old, as already discussed by CPA-Affiliates, Cashtastics and many posts on WickedFire, but I will go into some detail on what I think of the changes of how it will affect future relations with AzoogleAds.
Let’s first take a look at the new terms in place by AzoogleAds:
The new terms and conditions are made up of nine new bullet points, though it’s really only two big changes, which are shown below.
• Referral commission will continue to be 2% of referred publishers’ revenue but will now expire after 6 months.
• You must maintain a minimum revenue level of $1,000 in your primary account on a monthly basis in order to receive any referral payouts for that month.
Let’s first focus on “Referral commission will continue to be 2% of referred publishers’ revenue but will now expire after 6 months.“. I can’t stress enough how awesome “lifetime” commissions are, and that some affiliate networks are offering this as an incentive is great. I know many networks that only pay commissions for 3-12 months of the affiliates earnings with the network. While I’m not sure how much volume AzoogleAds’ earns each month based on referred affiliates from affiliates, but I can’t imagine the 2% “lifetime” that they were paying affiliates, would put them out of business. After all, you are only making money if your referrals make money. I believe AzoogleAds is large enough and have been successfully pulling large enough margins on their offers to have a decent profit margin. (Despite recently laying off a bunch of staff and removing their rewards program!)
Second point, “You must maintain a minimum revenue level of $1,000 in your primary account on a monthly basis in order to receive any referral payouts for that month.“. I’m currently an affiliate with almost every network out there. I want to see what offers are new, which can make money, and update my blog readers on network news. This new requirement of having to earn $1,000 a month from actual AzoogleAds campaigns, to get credit for any affiliate referrals is just ridiculous. What about all the bloggers or network directories out there that only specialize in referrals to networks? Well, if you were making money with AzoogleAds, now you’re screwed. I’m sure $1,000 a month isn’t much to many, but to make it a requirement… you’re just digging your grave. I put forth the time and effort to give you accurate and detailed information on how to make money with these networks, a clear example of this success is my “My Blog Readers Have Earned Over $100,000!” post. I will no longer recommend AzoogleAds to my readers…
I really hate to see when an affiliate network doesn’t have it’s own referral program, but the new terms are AzoogleAds is almost at that. How much would it suck, for you to look at your stats and see you made some earnings off your referrals, but won’t be paid because you didn’t hit your $1,000 monthly mark… or to see a “big” referral go black after six months. While it sucks for us, it makes sense for AzoogleAds to not do away with the whole referral program since any referrers will probably still keep their existing links up (I wont), which results in free advertising money for AzoogleAds. However, if AzoogleAds keeps up their tactics and pisses off enough affiliates and referral networks, they may find that their advertising costs to bring in new affiliates would possibly match or outweigh that 2% lifetime in which they used to offer. With the removable of the rewards program and now a horrible referral program, AzoogleAds is now a network for big media that cares only about profit margins and not a meaningful relationship, which I heavily emphasize on.
To finish off this in-depth post, let’s focus on two testimonials from Jordan Visco at NeverBlueAds and Kris Jones from PepperJam Network, whom I will point out, heavily respect their affiliates and referrals to their networks and continue to pay honest commissions on all referrals.
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