Forum Moderators: skibum
CJ just sent me a notice that I'd been terminated from an affiliate program. This is my most profitable affiliate program so it's very upsetting. The notice said that I was removed because of violation of the advertiser’s program terms. It also said that I'd been warned about this in the past.
I have not done anything wrong as far as I know. I was never warned by my affiliate (they did call me some months back for advice on how they could better help their affiliates but there was no warning). I was never even told what exactly I was doing that was wrong - or given a chance to remedy that. Just this notice of termination.
This affiliate program owes me a lot of money. My thinking is that perhaps they don't want to pay me?
Has anyone come up against this and is there anything I can do? Any help would be so much appreciated
They do make mistakes sometimes but things usually get sorted out after a while. Make sure you have an email account that can handle all the email CJ sends out if you work with lots of merchants or even setup a separate account just for all the stuff they send out. Skim through it all every couple days. Reply to any warnings as fast as possible and even if you don't think you are in violation of anything it doesn't hurt to be cautious and temporarily pull everything down until it is resolved.
No this is a different merchant jomaxx (I've been doing AM for 4 years without a single problem and now 2 in the past 6 months - maybe I'm due :o)
So here's the update:
I actually went in to check my CJ mail and found the day before that they'd emailed me a warning (to the CJ mail which I admit I never check since CJ usually sends things to my actual email address).
They said that I had 15 days to comply or they would remove me from that affiliate program. The next day I was removed (so much for 15 days).
I was actually bidding on a trademarked term of the affiliate seller(which many of their affiliates do). I had talked on the phone several times to the program's affiliate manager about this and he said that the company was aware of the bidding on the trademarked terms but as long as we weren't taking first place (their company had first place), they didn't have a problem with it.
Maybe they changed their opinion?
I know this is usually a no-no and was curious why they allowed so many of their affiliates to do it -which is why I talked to him about it to make sure this was ok.
Thanks Skibum - I did email the affiliate manager separately. Good idea. Sorry for the rant. It was just a shock.
On Google though, even if you have your own URL and bid the minimum, there is a decent chance you'll outrank the merchant if instead of including their own name in the title, it reads "Go with the the leader" or Buy your widgets here".
