Several reasons for this decision.
32red initially launched their affiliate program under the direction of Lee Simmonds and Kate Blackmore, who were a great bunch to deal with. Both were active on the site and at the conferences, which made resolving issues via CAP much easier. They were also quite attentive to matters such as the tracking that Engineer pointed out.
Since their departure, we’ve had nothing but bad luck with 32red and their marketing team. We’ve attempted to contact them over 30 times within the past few months regarding several issues with no interest in responding.
32red’s new marketing team then went ahead and accused CAP of being unresponsive, which every other CAP certified program knows this to be not the case.
Directly quoted from Mark Quayle, 32red’s Marketing Manager:
“As you probably already know, our marketing team is pretty small at 32Red and we simply do not have the hours to put in to CAP to reap the full rewards, regular posting in the forum, attending conferences etc. I felt that since we were not taking the ‘full package’ then we should look at negotiating the quarterly cost. We also took advice from some of our larger long term affiliates, who, after building a personal relationship with us, said that our CAP certification didn’t affect their decision to promote us.”
We had two issues with this response:
1. CAP represents affiliates large and small, new and old. With over 6700 members we have to consider the needs of everyone and its appears that 32red has decided to focus their efforts and support on what they consider to be established, larger affiliates only. We don’t feel like that attitude is inclusive of all our community.
2. We are not a charity and just as any other affiliate, we will only negotiate so much on the service that CAP provides.
So is it that 32red doesn’t value the members that do use our mediums such as the forums and conferences to resolve issues, negotiate new deals, build personal relationships, etc.? Your call.