Why Do Vendors Never Answer Emails From Affiliates? It's Starting to Get Annoying

Anyone else have this problem? I think out of all the vendors I've tried sending support emails to, maybe 10% of them actually send a response back.

If you can't take the time to respond to an affiliate who is trying to help grow YOUR business, maybe you should be doing something else. I'd imagine these same vendors treat their customers the same way when they send in a support request and that is part of what leads to refunds.

I'm not even talking about me emailing them asking for a review copy of their product or anything. I'll just ask them a simple question regarding their product or ask if they have some banners I can use or some other very simple request that would take them 2 minutes to reply to.

If you're a vendor and you ignore affiliate/customer emails, it's losing you a lot of business.

 

I answer all of my emails especially from affiliates. I don't see why a vendor wouldn't jump on any opportunity to recruit a new affiliate!

 

it is very important to respond to customers and affiliates. If a vendor is not responding chances are he or she doesnt have it together very well, and are most likely not making any money..

 

when i just started clickbank 6 months ago, i emailed a few vendors and ask them about their new launched product. Initially, they are keen to reply you. But, after their product has a high gravity, they seldom reply you or totally don't care about you.

OR

suddenly, your sales are increasing and getting better results, they will email you and told you that you have done a good job and keep it up

 

Yeah, I wish all vendors could understand that...

Either that, or they are making a lot of money and couldn't care less about anything else.

 

I dont answer a lot of affiliates questions because a lot of them are asking for banners and other material..

All of my material is found at the affiliates link on the bottom of the sales page. I get many many of the same questions every week. I use to reply to them all seperatly, then i created a template and sent that.. Now it's just a waste of my time and I earn more by spending my time on other projects.

That said, I do read all aff questions and reply to those that are serious and have made an effort to research the market, look at creatives etc.

Sure, if a vendor does not have aff material and offer zero support they are leaving money on the table.

Just my personal experience.

 

ps. you will find new vendors with low gravity will be very active with helping affiliates, if a vendor already has high gravity and lots of quality affiliates already, they will more than likely be working on different projects and wont worry about helping a newbie setup an affiliate.

 

Yes, I will TRY to answer all emails as well. Although there are times when I admit I have been really busy and overlooked an email I am sure. However that said yes I agree as a vendor it is in your best interests to help affiliates out.

 

I take the time to answer almost all affiliate and customer questions. I can not take the time to write up unique landing pages for individual affiliates or teach someone how to use front Page, but I do let them kow that I can not help with that..

But when an affiliate needs something simple, I can spare the few minutes and get them going.

 

use that as a test - these vendors just saved you a bunch of time setting up campaigns - find a responsive vendor who will personally help you out a bit, check out NCMedia - he will tell you which of his programs are not selling anymore and where to direct your attentions on his programs, and share stats of them, and how to promote them... think hes even been known to go beyond this and really help in setup, but hes a busy guy so doesn't all the time.

I personally don't have time to really help setup things for affiliates on an individual basis, but I always answer questions, and I am interested to get suggestions / feedback...

just find people who will get back to you and give you what you need and progress with them, but I do understand the vendors who don't get back to you to be honest as sometimes I have 101 things to do and there just aren't enough hours in the day
Dan

 

Just a small suggestion, answering affiliates questions should be your "TOP PRIORITY" even if the questions are stupid, or already explained in your affiliates area several time - You can never know if the person on the other end is a potential super affiliate or already one...

By answering a simple (or stupid) affiliate question have a few benefits including:

1 - You will remind the affiliate to promote your product with your email. (In case he moved on or forgot about your product - this happen often)

2 - The affiliate will be reassured that he will find help in case he needs anything - it will give him more trust in promoting your product.

I know that if you have a big product one cant waste time, but the little things are important and on cant afford to ignore affiliates or they will simply promote a competitor product with better affiliate support.

Its like dating .. if you are friendly and give people attention everyone will want to be with you ... or in this case, promote your productlol

 

You said it exactly. Even if you feel like it's a "stupid" question, you vendors have no idea the potential that the affiliate has for your product. Hell, even if they aren't a potential super affiliate but someone who just makes you a couple extra sales a week, that's free money for you and all you had to do was respond to a simple email. Now they might go and start growing your competitors business instead.

While I can't speak for other affiliate emails, I know that I always look through the affiliate section before I think about contacting the vendor. If I don't find what I need, then I send an email.

Some examples that come to mind right now are:

Last week I was building a site for a certain Clickbank product and the affiliate area had the wide banners but no skyscraper ones. I like to use skyscraper banners in the sidebar of my sites so I sent the vendor an email asking if he had some available by any chance. No response back and that was over a week ago.

Another time, the vendor had some pre-made landing pages in the affiliate area and I sent a simple email asking him out of all the pre-made landing pages he has, which one has he found to convert the best so I could use it. This would have taken him less than a minute to respond to. Once again, no help from this vendor either.

Then there's the occasional email asking them for a screenshot of their average conversion and refund rate so I know what to possibly expect myself. Again, usually no reply. My guess here is that their product isn't converting that well or has high refunds and instead of being honest, they just ignore the question. If I were a vendor and had a quality product, I'd want to show affiliates my data to make them more excited about promoting it...

I know you guys are busy with other stuff, but the time it takes to send a quick response back could mean the difference in making some extra money, and not making anything. You're working on other projects because they are going to bring you revenue. Well answering the email should be looked at as potentially bringing you extra revenue too so why ignore them?

 

Like one guy told me several years ago - the amount of sales that I would bring him, its not worth his time to even talk to me. This was back in the early 1990s, before the internet exploded.

Affiliates do not want to talk to small players, they want to talk to powerhouse players. Unless you can really make some sales, their not going to be interested.

Personally, I wait for companies to get in contact with me. Most companies are always looking to tap into new markets. When your site gets big enough, people will be contacting you, instead of you contacting them.

 

Not "worth his time" to talk to you? That's some of the biggest bunch of B.S I've ever heard. He had no way of knowing beforehand how big of an affiliate you were. For all he knows, you were selling hundreds of thousands worth of other products before you even contacted him.

Seriously, how long does an email take to send? At the most, 5 minutes. I could understand if you were asking him to train you to be an affiliate or something else that would really cut into his time, but if you already know what you're doing and had a general support question, he's an idiot for even thinking that you're not worth his time to respond to. I wonder how many other people he did the same thing to that could have really grown his business even more.

 

Just try to find ather product to promote...
I'm ignore the vendor like this..........

 

Well yeah but it sucks if they have a unique product that nobody else has.

 

Those vendors are really stupid, I would always love to help my affiliates make more sales, more $ for me and them

 

I have promoted several products where the Vendor didn't reply. I guess that is just how some people work. They are losing out on free sales really!

 

Yep, even for a single sale, its worth the effort - if not for the money, it will add +1 to gravity. Which will attract more affiliates. (If a competitor with the same gravity as your product exists, most likely affiliates would go for the high gravity one) Therefore Every drops count and could make a lot of a difference!

Its common that when a publisher manage to own a high gravity product (if he is not very experienced at least), he might feel as if a few affiliates here and their are a waste of time. But its not, I have seen it even on this forum:

- Product A is a best seller with high gravity - but no to limited support (the publisher cant spend time on these, he finds it a waste of time)

- Product B is new, and gives affiliate support even to noobs, eventually Product B manage to take a big piece of the cake of Product A.

Then, Product A start wondering what went wrong?!

 

I always answer all emails. Problem is, a lot of affiliates are asking me to write articles for them. That's just absurd. They expect me to do the work and they'll just put in their clickbank id and submit to articles.

Real affiliates, the ones that actually make sales have never contacted me. They know what needs to be done and how it needs to be done.