Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Free Site Signup Review - Go To HELL

I hope this doesn't come off as TOO much of a frustration post - It might, but it is NOT my intention to complain...It just comes so naturally :)

Holy SHIT I've never been so frustrated with an Affiliate Program - Well, not never, but it's been a LONG time since I've been so fuming -

Free Site Signup is KILLING ME!

Last month they sent me 18 notice of earned commissions - Those at $50/each, along with my bonus, had my READY TO BE PAID commissions at $1030 -

Couple days later I go in and it shows only $250 earned - And my signup bonus of $100 GONE -

I have went around and around with these guys - After I paid the 1 year hosting, they somehow cancelled it for a few days. I had to call support to get them to look it up and get it back on -

I spent 2 weeks asking them to fix 1 of the links at the bottom of my page. They kept insisting it was correct, and all i needed to do was "clear your cookies and hit refresh" (As if I'm some f'ing moron, right?) - I finally told them I checked the link on 3 different computers, work, home and my buddies work computer - ALL of them had the same WRONG LINK - Just like I had explained. Suddenly they went in and fixed it -

Over my first month I was getting 1-2 signups (paid signups) everyday, spending about $8 advertising each day. This was a hefty profit margin, since Free Site Signup pays $50/referral. So for my advertising money, I was earning possibly $50 - $150 each day - On Limited advertising dollars

I was intentionally keeping it limited, because of all my experience with Affiliate Junktion. I was NOT going to drop $5k in advertising again and get totally screwed (sorry this isn't a very family friendly email, but i'm pissed still)

After I started to see 2-3 signups daily in pending commissions, I raised my advertising. I was like "FINALLY< some money to be made here!" I mean for me, this is what i KNOW how to do - Pay per click advertising - Yeah, it costs, but it drives visitors in - I am able to get 100+ visitors every day for about $10/day spending. If only 1% convert to a sale, that's $50 earned for each $10 in advertising....

Then the wheels all fell off - Several people from my personal email contacted me, saying their links weren't working right. I took a look and noticed no signups over 7 days, despite increasing my traffic over 2x - I contacted support who insisted everything was fine - But I was positive something had to be wrong - I mean, how do I go from 1-3 signups daily with light advertising, to zero signups over a full week, with 2x as much advertising?!?! Yeah, doesn't make sense at all -

I shut off all my advertising - I didn't email my list - I updated my site and moved it way down the ranks - But still, I somehow had faith in them. I guess it wasn't faith so much as it was almost desperation perhaps.

Because the truth is that if Free Site Signup could keep accurate records, I could easily earn $300+ every day with the program. I know exactly how to get MASSIVE traffic to a website - It's just a matter of if that traffic is WORTH me paying for

Free Site Signup is still telling me that everything they show is accurate and correct - but here is where I'm at as of this blog post (or should i call it Pissed Off Rambling :)

Yahoo charged me for over 5k clicks sent to my Free Site Signup page

I had 12 people from my PERSONAL email list contact me, telling me they joined, and 3 of them sent me their receipt (I had offered my list a special deal where I gave them my own PPC tips and tricks to get massive traffic for cheap - and yeah, several of them took it)

My pending commissions as of yesterday were $250 - Meaning only 5 people joined and upgraded?

The stats shown in my Free Site Signup back office shows over 1,756 clicks - Aside from the fact that this is RIDICULOUSLY low, lets say that's an accurate hit counter - Out of 1,756 clicks they are saying only 5 people paid $8.95 to join and get their $100 signup bonus???

For what it's worth, I have read that 'about' 1% of clicks or visits to your sites will "convert" into a sale for your website - Pretty low percentage, but lets look at that.

if only 1% converted, I would have earned 'about' 18 sales (again, I am 99% positive that their counters are VERY low) - So what Free Site Signup is now telling me is that they have The Worst Converting Pages in the INDUSTRY???

That is VERY hard to believe -

And beyond this, my signup bonus of $100 is gone from my pending commissions. Not exactly sure how that happened, and despite me sending in 4 different support requests, they continue to NOT answer that question specifically - They keep saying "We are aware of your case" -

When I was promoting affiliate junktion, they did a "pay per lead" deal - everyone that visited your site, then clicked through and left their email, earned you $2 each time. I was REGULARLY getting $250+ days there. I was sending 500+ clicks regularly, and would get 75-150 "leads" everyday -

And this is after NUMEROUS support requests sent in by me - They cancelled my account AFTER i paid the hosting fee - They had the wrong links in my page and insisted it was ME who didn't have a clue -

I stuck around so long here because of the earning potential - Fact is I could make a fortune with this - If it would keep stats accurately -

But instead, it looks like I wasted another couple months, about $500 - $600 in advertising, and countless hours of effort and promotion...

And you want to know what is worse than ANY of that? My reputation with my list - My clickthrough % from my personal email list is DISMAL these days. I used to regularly get 15% clickthrough (meaning 15% of the people on my list opened my emails) - Of that, I would also get a healthy "clicked links" % as well -

Nowadays, my opened and click %'s are TERRIBLE - Like often below 5% -

That is far worse than losing the Free Site Signup money. I really do my best to promote GOOD opportunities to my list - And the Free Site Signup fiasco made me look like a fucking idiot - Yeah, obviously I use my email list to earn money and build referrals - But I ALWAYS did it with the best intentions, and I always did it AFTER I tried the program out myself...In this case I did try it out - Everything did seem fine to me - Support was prompt - signups were showing up - Money was rolling in -

I don't really feel like any of it was "my fault", but I know for a fact that my reputation with my list will never be the same now -

and that just fucking sucks - As if it's not hard enough to build a list of subscribers, I gotta have a shitty affiliate company make ME look like the jerk -

Thanks a lot Free Site Signup - Go to hell -

And I do apologize for the Non Family Friendly blog post - But in this case, I still don't think it's enough

3 comments:

James and Donna D said...

Hey Paul: Really sorry to hear about your experience/"fiasco" with FSS. I can tell you I had a similar experience with them in the last quarter of 2008. Thankfully, I was "OUT" before I committed more $$$. Their customer service was horrific...I paid to upgrade yet even though they had taken my money...every time I would sign on they would tell me I had to "upgrade" to access the "upgraded member's area". So the whole cycle would start again, me writing, me calling, me waiting, them giving incredibly incoherent type jibberous answers. I kept all the correspondence...just so I could get a good laugh every once and a while.
As far as your reputation, yeah it's super hard to build a following, but you know what - there are millions and millions of people out there waiting to hear about what you have to offer. And you know where your heart is. I believe it is in a good place and that always ultimately reaps reward.
So, yes, I saw your promoting of FSS and I did think - wow - good for him - he's actually able to do something with them. But, as a novice IM there was no way I was going to tell you about my own bad experience with them...I always attribute my "bad" experiences with my "inexperience"...in the future, maybe I should "share". People can then decide if it's hitting on a concern they were having or not.
Keep on pluggin' and please keep those cards and letters coming. Your info is valuable and helpful to many of us on your list. I for one am not going anywhere.
For all you do, Thanks!
Donna D
James & Donna
ddnetbiz@gmail.com

Gerald Lum said...

Hi Paul, thank for the warning to us. So sorry to hear about your bad experiences.

KrlyQ said...

WOW!! That truly sucks!! This really hits home for me because I signed up with this affiliate program in June '09. I'm a newbie and a complete novice to this whole thing. It is for that reason that my sales are extremely low, but I expected that. I got into this knowing that I needed to learn about online marketing and how to drive traffic to my website. I have learned quite a bit and intended to go the long haul with this program in hopes of seeing improvement over time.
As I stated earlier, your post really hits home for me because just this past weekend I found that my FSSU page with affiliate leads looked VERY different from what I had previously. I didn't recognize a single name on the page. Then I found that my affiliate page that I had personalized had someone else's information. I cleared cookies (I'm not a complete novice to the internet) but the problem returned a day later.
I submitted a ticket and wrote, "This can only lead me to believe that I cannot trust that I will receive all commissions that are possibly due to me if my affiliate link can 'vanish'." I have yet to receive a response.
Like you, I was hopeful about this program. Because I am a newbie, it may seem to some that I would be ready to give up on affiliate marketing all together, but I am not. I know that with the right program(s) and vendor(s) there is good money to be made. Since the record keeping of FSSU is shady, at best; is there anything you would recommend?