Affiliate Junktion - FORGET IT!

I have never been so mad with an Affiliate Marketing program as I am with Affiliate Junktion. This is a program I joined when I first started in February. Of course, I didn't know much at all about marketing when I started, so I get very few signups.

Around September I started using Google & Yahoo advertising. I needed to make some real money with this stuff and I figured the exchanges were okay, but I needed immediate response. With PPC, I got it.

In September I got 2,148 confirmed leads. If you don't know much about Affiliate Junktion, this is the summed up version.

You get a $75 sign up bonus when you buy hosting ($60). You upload your site and then you start advertising. You get paid $2 per lead. When you hit $200 in earnings (excluding the bonus), you get paid.

Here are the problems I found over my past 3 months advertising:

NZD - That's right - Instead of $2/lead in USD, they switched the platform to NZD. At the time, that was about 70cents on the dollar, so you still got about $1.40/lead - Not that bad. As time has gone on, that same NZD is now worth about 52cents.

So for each $2 lead, you are barely getting a little over $1

But it gets better. See they don't actually pay for these "leads" - Nope, what they do is they keep all these leads in Pending Status. The payment terms USED to be 30 days after the month commissions were earned. Now it's 45 days. That money that I earned in September was JUST released yesterday (November 30th)

It Gets EVEN BETTER PEOPLE! Here is the real kicker - You know that whole "Paid for Free Leads" thing they advertise? Well, I sent nothing but Yahoo & Google PPC advertising to get my 2,148 leads in September - How much are they going to pay me? $1,473....NZD - This works out to be about $750ish -

That $1,473 NZD INCLUDES my previous earnings of $193 (Including my bonus and the previous signups)

So for me spending about $1,300 in PPC advertising in JUST September, I am getting back ROUGHLY $800....60 days AFTER I spent all that money.

Affiliate Junktion holds onto the payments for that long because not all these leads are "approved" - Now, I understand normal terms and conditions. I'm not some huge whiner who thinks I should make what the owner of a company makes. But by them paying 1,473NZD they cut off nearly 70% of my APPROVED LEADS! (Not clicks - I got THOUSANDS of clicks, these are just the "confirmed leads" that I was SUPPOSED to be paid for....

Cutting off 10-20% of my leads I MIGHT understand - But 70%!?!?!?!

What does Affiliate Junktion make from users who buy hosting? An IPower Affiliate Earns $100 per signup

So even if only 10% of my 2,148 signups followed through, Affiliate Junktion would have made over $20,000 - Oh, and I'm just GUESSING, but I would assume they get paid in USD still.

I think 10% of my signups would be too low actually - I think Affiliate Junktion sells itself damn nicely and I would venture to say that closer to 20% of my leads would actually follow up and use the program.

Now obviously I don't actually KNOW how many of my signups went through and bought hosting. But doesn't 10% seem like a reasonable number? My 2,148 signups were people who visited my AJ site, clicked through and THEN left their name & email to figure out more info -

Wouldn't it make sense that at least 10% of those people, after giving name & email info, would actually follow through with the program?

So out of $20,000 (Probably more), I am getting about $800...And that's AFTER I spent close to $1,300 on advertising to get those leads.

This payment is just for September. In November my Affiliate Junktion signups went way down. I kept sending in 180 to 220 clicks daily, but suddenly I was only getting 15-20 signups/day. I changed my site to something I thought looked better, and I sent in a support ticket.

I got a response that users were committing some type of fraud, so they implemented some type of double confirmation for a lead to count.

Over the past 2 weeks my "leads" haven't even covered my advertising costs.

Affiliate Junktion has changed the terms and conditions of their website continuously over the past 3 months. NZD was just the start. They used to have a program where if you got 2,500 signups/month, for 3 months, you would start earning $4/lead. That is now gone. When I first signed up in February they paid $2-$5/lead - USD - Now it's $2, but NZD - IF you don't get 70% of your leads slashed, of course.

Affiliate Junktion offers no residual income. You get the $2/lead (if you actually ever get it) and that's it - They offer no bonuses - They took that away. They also had a guarantee of $150/day in your first 30 days when I first signed up in February - That was cancelled by March...

I also get nothing but robotic email responses to my inquiries -

I am fed up with Affiliate Junktion myself. The program seems like such a great way to make money online, but the actuality is that they don't take care of affiliates AT ALL. Maybe it doesn't matter - Maybe they have so many now that a couple of unhappy people won't bother them one bit. But as for me, I know I have a lot of people ask me about Affiliate Junktion. I used to say go for it, it's an easy way to make money...Get paid for free leads you know?

But the reality is that they change the terms & conditions whenever they feel like it. The NZD payments structure is incredibly cheap. And the slashing of 70% of leads is outright wrong - Remember, those are the actual LEADS - not just people who "visit" the site - The banner ads of Affiliate Junktion say "Get Paid for Free Leads!" - It's a crock -

No bonuses, no residual long term income. Forget them - I'm going back to focus on GDI. I don't need a company that changes terms and conditions any time they please. And I may not be some top marketing guru with thousands of fans, but I do have about 100 visitors every day. I'm going to tell each one of them about it - I hope I can save you from making the same mistakes -