© Copyright 2003 (c) Rosalind Gardner, All Rights Reserved.

One of the rules of affiliate marketing, is to partner with
merchants that don't have too many external links on their sites.
This is especially true if you pay to advertise your site. You
might just as well burn your money as send it to sites that steal
your traffic.

If the site does have links out, then those links should be coded
with your affiliate ID. You should be credited for sales
made through those links.

As I learn and grow in this business, I get pickier and pickier
about such things.

For specifically that reason, I recently stemmed the flow of
traffic to one of the dating networks I've been affiliated with
for years. Soon after doing so, I received a call from the
president of the company, who wanted to know what it would take
for me to start sending traffic back to their sites.

I asked that each of the links out to their other dating sites
either be removed, or coded with my ID. Although he discounted my
request as being irrelevant in terms of lost commissions, he
agreed to have the links removed from my affiliate sites.

Ask and ye shall receive, right?

Not quite. I checked back a couple of weeks later, and saw that
the changes hadn't been made.

Easy enough. No changes made, no traffic sent.

Shortly after that I got another call from the company, this time
from the affiliate program manager. I told her about my
conversation with the president, and the remaining 'leaky' links.

She, fortunately, took my request very seriously. Not only that,
but she had the sense to do a little research into 'the problem'.

Today I received the following from that affiliate program
manager.

    ...based on the performance, there was a 30% increase in
    conversions when we did remove the "other" links. Thanks to this
    test and your persistence in removing the "other" links, we will
    soon be implementing this feature for all the sites.

    Here's the data:

    Before:
    Free Signup/Uniques: 10%
    Paid/Free Signup: 3%

    After:
    Free Signup/Uniques: 13%
    Paid/Free Signup: 4%

    I will keep you posted as to when this should take place across
    the board.

Those numbers may LOOK small, but they are HUGE! Have you ever
had a 30% pay raise? Well, if you are an affiliate of this dating
network, you just got one!

Proof positive that ANYONE can make a difference.

Be persistent and Be successful.

Rosalind Gardner is the best-selling author of 'The Super Affiliate
Handbook: How I Made $436,797 Last Year Selling Other People's Stuff
Online. Her incredible online success  has been profiled in numerous
popular publications including 'Secrets to Their Success', 'Small
Business Opportunities, 'Six Figure Income' and 'Revenue' magazine. To
learn how you too can grow your own lucrative eBusiness, please visit:
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