Another OPM (Outsourced Program Manager) asked me this evening about what can he do with all the pending applications in one of his Client’s programs on Commission Junction. The thing is that there isn’t much you can do, but there are explanations as to why you have so many, things you can do to help clear them, ways to be proactive and not have as many, etc…
First lets go over why you may have so many in your pending offers folder in Commission Junction. I’m going to take this from the Affiliate side instead of the Merchant side so Merchants, pay attention because Merchants don’t always realize that Affiliates work with thousands of advertisers and even though you are important, you are more than likely very small in the grand scheme of things so here are some of the reasons you may be in pending for years.
1. You are not active enough with your Affiliates. Merchants who write me, send me ideas, thoughts and suggesstions and actually make an effort to me get my attention also have my attention so when they change their terms and have to have me accept a different set of T&Cs, I usually act faster. If you are active and there for your Affiliates, guess what, they are usually there for you. Reach out and help them, don’t just reach out to just reach out though, make sure you have something to say and when it is time to send a new offer or change your T&Cs, you’ll have an opened line of communication to get your offer accepted faster.
2. Are you working with adware? On my Affiliate site, I do/did well with Jewelry when I was actively working on it. I have an offer and dead links from an old Merchant that was taken over by another OPM firm and that firm writes me asking why I won’t go active and why all my links are dead. It’s simple. They work with adware and parasites in the Commission Junction Network and if they won’t protect their Client, or even call me to find out what adware is there, then they aren’t worth my time and I wish their Client’s would find this out so they could move to a company that will protect them. (I will not mention who this is etc… because I do not want the drama, do your own research on your partners and OPMs and programs or you can hire me to help you sort through it, but this blog isn’t for outting and posting negative things about other firms and competitors).
3. How often are you changing your terms and conditions? Some programs change their T&Cs all the time. Unless the Affiliate depends on your program to survive, this is annoying and something that causes you to get removed or go to the lower priority list. You may also sometimes be forgotten as well because you became more of a hassle than you are worth promoting since you take too much time to go in and accept. The other thing that gets annoying is when you have to not only click on pending offers, but then click the date link that you have read, scroll through to the bottom then click accept then do that again for each additional offer then click accept again at the bottom just to get your links live again. Not only does that get annoying, but those same programs that want all that protection are also the ones that have all the adware and crapware in their programs too. It is funny how they feel protected but in reality they are the ones getting ripped off the most.
So those are some of the reasons from an Affiliate perspective on why you may be stuck in pending offers for a long time. Changing your terms to often, allowing partners that steal and not being active with us. So what can you do to help decrease the amount of pending offers out there and help get Affiliates going again?
I pretty much already answered that.
Reach out to each of them, you have everything you need because they are in your program to get in contact with them. Give them tools and a reason to promote you. Clean your program and remove the bad guys then let the Affiliates know. Send a newsletter letting them know to accept and also give them a coupon or bonus for accepting the new terms.
Commission Junction does send you have a pending offer email to us when we get them, but I know I usually ignore those emails. It is up to you to be proactive and get your Affiliates going again. If you still need help you can always write me and we can work on an activation plan for you. Just send an email to adamr (at) adamriemer (dot) me (not .com).
