Affiliates finally taking action against Linkshare

[sjdave]

An ABestWeb post I found interesting:

"...Enough is enough! I have personally contacted, via email, over 95% of the LinkShare merchant affiliate managers, directing them here to read specific posts about our plight. I did not recommend they change networks but I did strongly recommend that they realize we will not work with merchants if we can't get paid, can't get communication, can't get to our reports and that the merchants need to insure that their selected network is working with us on all aspects of our partnership at every point.

The emails are just starting to come in and I can tell you, these merchants are HOT! Everyone of them has said they have received several complaints from their affiliates about the problems. The affiliate managers and owners are not happy about the way LS has handled this entire thing and their holding back our commissions. There were many gripes from them about communication problems with LS as well, so it's not just us affiliates that were ignored.

For me, this is a very sad period in affiliate marketing. One of the big network players is losing it's footing in the market and even if they are making grand improvements that other networks don't offer, the perception by affiliates and merchants is that they are doing a poor job of running their business. What kind of organization structure does LS have in place? Can LS handle a real crisis if they can't seem to navigate through an upgrade?

Affiliates are leaving...merchants are leaving. Confidence in the LS networks is at an all time low. A sad time indeed."

Check out the ABestWeb thread titled "Enough is Enough" for the full post.

- Dave M.

[C French]

We had a big problem with LS a few months back. All our links were showing as "Deactivated". It took 3 weeks and 10 emails to LS to finally get an automated response that was pure B.S.. Naturally we couldn't afford to leave all these "Deactivated Links", so we had to remove all links. We cancelled our little account and told them to shove it.

We received a message last week from LS telling us to update our account so we could get our $$$ they owe us. I've tried numerous times to update only to get the message that the update is "Incomplete" somewhere???

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Dave,

I'm curious what you do or who you work for since there is no site in your profile. Are you an affiliate, or an industry watch dog of some sort? Just wondering...

You've posted on several forums negative info about DT and now LS. Not that I mind having people share warnings that may help others at all. Every network and tracking system has problems at times. But you seem to be on a mission and I am just curious what that is? Just inviting you to share a little bit about yourself :-)

[kerer99]

I've had nothing but bad experiences with Linkshare throught the company I work for. We're literally making $14.00 off $500 in sales! Why? Because for whatever reason, no commission is being paid out for most items, even though there is a minimum commission stated on the merchant details page!

I went back and forth with a LinkShare representative - let me share her name: LINET, who can be contacted no other way than by contact@linkshare.com. How USELESS she was! Initially she was eager to help, but obviously she realized that there is some sort of a mistake on their end and they are simply holding back on paying commissions. Her last e-mail said "Just a note to let you know I am working on resolving this issue." Yeah right! She never e-mailed back, even after repeated e-mails from me.

I would get rid of our partnership with LinkShare altogether, but they do offer some good merchants. I will say that they do cut checks on time, but the checks we receive are pretty lame!

Ugggghhh, not impressed to say the least. I think they're more trouble than they're worth...

[Kwabble]

Funny, I never had a problem with linkshare, but then again i only use them for one merchant that sporadically delivered results. I would check into it from time to time and see that $50 was coming our way. I do know they pay on time and I found that their stats were fairly accurate.