The LINKSHARE SCAM

I don't get pissed off to often at programs like Linkshare when they don't perform but check out the abysmal results from my most recent site venture

265130 Impressions
1370 Clicks

ZERO SALES

I placed all banners in prime retail, I even had offers for some Handango applications were FREE!!!! NOT $1, NOT $2, Free! and they were suppose to generate $1 per FREE Download.

So basically Linkshare paid me NOTHING for their advertisers to receive over a quarter of a million page views and 1370 new visitors to their site.

Anyone want proof i'll send you the screen shot from my Linkshare account.

RIDICULOUS!

Anyone else running into this issue with Linkshare

 

optimization, optimization, optimization!

Why did you let an offer get 1370 clicks and 0 actions before doing something about it?

 

10 years of internet optimization I definitely know how to optimize, the site is a secondary site I just threw up with a few pages, I just threw it up and let it go, two google ads netted me a bunch of cash so I didn't focus on Linkshare, I had actually never used them for any large projects and completely forgot about the site until today as I sold the site a few days agao and when I logged in to Linkshare, voila!

Adds were header and top left displayed for optimal conversions on the type of niche site I was running. Ads were niche based as much as humanly possible.

On a side note, Google Analytics showed 287,430 visitors, my own analytics software showed 286500 which doesn't match even close to what Linkshare had, and all of the banners were running full Linkshare links no mods to mess up reporting.

 

If your letting any offer get beyond 200 clicks without a lead you can blame yourself pretty much after that point. All the networks will take advantage of you when they can for any reason they are out to make money and if something is wrong they won't give you a call to let you know.

Worst I've seen
24k clicks / 0 leads thanks to a typo

 

When the clicks get past 200 without generating any sales, I move on. That is your best bet because you are dealing with the wrong company.

 

Agreed with all the comments above. I just thought it was funny. Like I said, my company generates tons of sites with a lot of targeted and original content and then we sit on it, some sites generate $10,000 in revenue, some generate $50 a month in adsense, this was just a site that fell through the crack on our side and by the time we got to it we realized 1300 clicks and no sales, VERY TARGETED TRAFFIC TO VERY TARGETED LINKS. We don't use linkshare, CJ.com or any other affiliate sites because they don't work, other than ClickBank from time to time since users like downloadable info. I just thought it was funny since we didn't remove the campaign since it was only a small traffic generating site.

 

Linkshare does suck and to include my own experience I have included their clickable programs on my classifieds site for over one year now on a site that gets over 5000 actual visitors a month. The banner impressions do not match the actual visitor numbers as their banners load on my main page. I actually had my first sale about 4 months ago. I supposedly made 13 dollars commission as it states in the "baseline commission" advanced reports. The sale was complete and no cancellations! I have received nothing no payment notta! It does not show as a balance in my account at all. I actually went ahead and tested the orbitz link through a family member by purchasing airline tickets through their services via my weblink. With cookies enabled on a their computer, there was no record of the transaction through my affiliate account.
I smell a class action lawsuit here and it is about time us little guys stand up against the corrupt corporations. Somebody please start linkshareclassaction(dot)com.

 

I have two blogs, and both feature ads from affiliates in the Linkshare program and the Commission Junction program. I do about $3,000 every month with CJ, with Linkshare...ZERO! For the year and a half I have been members of both programs, I have done tens of thousands with CJ, and $250 with Linkshare. I Finally got smart and emailed them with my questions and they emailed me back a simple "we have reviewed your links and reports and have found no problem".
Linkshare is a total scam!

 

Man, that's sad

 

That is a bit strange

 

Is there anybody here performs the roll of advertisor? I am freshman advertisor on CJ.com. About to join linkshare.com network!

 

Most advertisers on affiliate marketing networks like CJ, linkshare or Google affiliate network do have their own inhouse affiliate program, if you are truly disappointed with those networks, I guess you can choose to join the inhouse one.

I am not sure whether publishers will be charged when they withdraw their commission from the network, but I do know, advertisers will be charged 30% of the total commission paid out. and I am pretty much sure, advertisers will be happier to pay that ammount to their fwllow publishers.

Take CJ.com for example. If I setup a program which pays the publisher 10%, and CJ will charge 30% of the ammount we paid out, so that would be 3%, which comes to a total of 13%, that's what I am talking about!

Perhaps, you guys tend to believe those affiliate networks' tracking is more accurate and objective! But that is not true....

 

it is always good idea to know when to move on

 

LOL, that's the differences between advertisers and publishers> i guess all publishers will favor the PPC campaign, but on the contrary, all the advertiser like PPS or PPA campaign better. There is some kind of balance within the marketing fields, so we got both chitika.com or linkshare.com!!!!!!!!! funny stuff, funny thing to communicate on such theme with some many fellow publishers.

 

200 no click move on

 

I can top all of that.

I have been using Linkshare for three of my client's sites as well as a few of my personal sites over the past year. While it is a good program, with a lot of top-notch advertisers, very good communication and a fine set of advertising and reporting tools, I have not been able to make any sort of money from it. These are sites covering all sorts of different niches, traffic patterns and demographics. From beauty to fashion to entertainment to politics.

One of these client sites has generated over 2 million ad impressions, over 2,500 click-thrus and whopping total of just TWO sales in all of that time. The other sites have generated nothing at all. This is in spite of the fact that the ads displayed are updated constantly, sometimes daily, most of them are sales, coupon and other incentive ads and the site runs both text and image ads. Needless to say, this has been very frustrating, as all I all gotten out of tens, if not a hundred hours worth of work, is generating a ton of free advertising for Linkshare's clients while not yet earning a penny in payouts over that time. On the other hand, that same site earns hundreds per month via AdSense with almost no effort on my part.

As bad as LinkShare is, CJ is even worse. Not only do they not perform worth a damn, they will steal money from your sales, unless you makes sales every month, at least. For example, a client site had a sale for $200 and made a $40 commission on it. Well, since no more sales were made for the next several months, CJ would deduct $10 per month from the client's account until there was nothing left in the account at all. They then closed the account without any notice whatsoever. So, for all of the effort put it, not one penny was made, while CJ's advertisers got a ton of free advertising.

I actually had better luck in the past with Amazon and Entertainment Earth's affiliate programs on other sites. However, since I live in NC and since the money-grubbing Dems here passed a 'Net tax last year, Amazon and other programs closed down all accounts in the state (the same happened in NY and RI) and so they are no longer an option for me.

It has gotten to the point that unless you want to make a key-laden POS site that no one will visit more then once, there is hardly anyway to make a buck online anymore. I know I am not alone when it comes to being 100% frustrated.

 

You see the problem is this, everyone focuses on promoting the so-call "big players" like linkshare and others like them why? Because it's a herd mentally, they heard of the "Big Guys" from everyone else so they must good right? Wrong! Like Gordon Gekko said in the movie Wall Street: "Don't be a sheep cause sheep get slaughtered".

My word of advice is try giving the small and medium affiliates programs some play you probably discover some jewels. It's like investing in stock. If you bought Microsoft when they first went public you would have been rich. Why? because they were a little company and no one really heard of them and then they exploded through the roof.

 

NosferatusCoffin, your site didn't performed well for linkshare/cj cause it was simple content, not presell pages and something like that. That's why adsense did well but almost zero sales.

 

DPParadise,

So you are telling me that even though one of these sites would generate 2,500 click-thrus and only two sales is because of the site's content? When they click through to affiliate's advertisement, they are no longer looking at the site's content, but the ad. So that does not wash.

Essentially, either you would either have to commit to a full storefront and dedicated page(s) for such an program or setup a bunch of presell pages. 98% of site owners are not going to do that when they are just trying to make some money from niche-based selling.

As I mentioned, I had better results with Amazon and Entertainment Earth years ago with one site that had 10% of the traffic that these client sites have. And the ads it ran were no more niche-based than what the client sites have run over the past year.

Of course, the other possibility is that these networks are pocketing most of the sales and paying out only a few crumbs in commission just to keep you with their network. I am not coming right out and saying that, but it has crossed my mind more than once.

Anyway, I am trying some other avenues with a couple of these client sites and seeing how they perform

 

Just because you didnt convert does not mean that linkshare is a scam by any means.