They must be doing better with media buys someplace than with affiliates.
That may be true. presently. But one thing I’ve learned on the net is you’d better be damn careful what bridges it is that you burn because it ain’t like climbing the ladder. You may have to pass over that bridge several times just to stay even on the ladder.
nothing is forever on the net and what’s working today, or who’s on top today, isn’t necessarily going to be all that and a bag of chips – 6 months from now.
I take that back; one thing is perhaps not forever, but it definitely has staying power, and that is treating people in an honorable, and honest fashion. That not only never goes out of style, but when that motto is closely followed, it breeds something called “loyalty”.
Nobody here is stupid. If we can all agree upon that, then I think the rest of the path I’m going to lay out is given.
experience + similar example = reasonable expectation
because we are (if anything) overly-reasonable people; we accept a subtraction into the equation; that being chargebacks, wins, and my favorite, the column marked simply … deduction – or my vote for the stats hall of shame, the ever-lovin’ “manager credits”
but when something looks a bit out of place, even with all the above mentioned taken into consideration…. AND then on top of that we compare notes and see that all of us are seeing similar oddities….
well it doesn’t look good for the home team under the best of circumstances.
CR needs to take a long look at what has happened to other programs that have gone the route they are now headed and do some serious soul searching.
for myself, they can turn things around quite easily. (as Referback has been doing the last 6 or 8 months- and I’m beginning to get back the kind of confidence it takes to start really sending traffic: though since I’m exceptionally shy once bitten it is and will continue to be a slow building process, at least I can say they’re on the right track again.)
I hold no grudges towards them nor do I have any with CR and would miss very much working with Brent. But they’ve got to at least leave me feeling like I’m working with someone that is doing right by me.
Its just too hard to send such expensive traffic to someplace where you are worried about if things go bad for you for a spell; (and they likely will, if the past is any kind of indication; meaning the way SERPs change, the way our advertising venues are changing, etc) that you can be able to count on your residual income to carry you past the hump of getting your sites poised to getting the traffic amounts it once enjoyed.
In fact since our advertising venues are continuing to shrink I would think a sponsor would more than ever …. be trying to keep its affs happy.
if every traffic source but natural SERPs was to be cut off by big brother; a program that had proven to be less than trustworthy might find itself in a world of hurt in a very short amount of time.
Time will tell. In the meantime, as usual, I will hope for the best, prepare for the worst.