5 Reasons a $250 Million Affiliate Company is Horrible!
It baffles me how a company that touts they spend “a quarter of a billion dollars annually” to market their affiliate offers can be one of the worst run organizations in all of digital marketing. I’m talking about Mindspark Interactive – the company that’s been running their toolbar offers for over a decade (the likes of Zwinky, iWon, Television Fanatic and more).
They’ve been around forever – which is no testament to their team of “Marketing Managers” or anyone else associated with their marketing. Their existence is based solely on their relationship with Google and the fact they’ve been allowed to arbitrage Google traffic for so long.
But things are a changing. Google has started to crack down on how many affiliates can run their white label products (a concept Mindspark didn’t even come up with – it was their affiliates). And now there’s a new player in town – Adknowledge. Adknowledge has recently released their own toolbar products and are coming directly after Mindspark. It will be interesting to see how many affiliates of Mindspark jump ship for a better run organization.
Personally – I’ve been an affiliate of Mindspark in some shape or form for 8 years, both directly and getting their offers through other companies. Not once have I ever thought “Wow, this is a great company to work with” and many, MANY colleagues within the industry feel the same way.
Here are my top 5 reasons which frustrate me beyond belief:
1) HORRENDOUS CUSTOMER SERVICE
Customer Service? Yes – Customer Service. I feel this is one of the most important aspects of an affiliate network. They’re one of the only companies that act like affiliates should be kissing their feet and work on their schedule. I’m talking about unanswered emails. Not just one or two. But many. And then your follow ups to those emails get ignored.
Because I’ve worked with them for so long I’ve dealt with pretty much every one of their affiliate managers and this isn’t isolated to just one or two people. It is the culture that’s been created.
I’ve done months of over 6-figures from them and I never hear a word from them. They never follow up or touch base unless they need something from you.
God for bid something happens to go wrong or break (Reason #4 below) then you’re really screwed. They show little to no ambition in getting anything resolved for you. If something goes wrong you can expect to have that problem last for weeks.
I guess when you have a large company throwing a large salary at you then you just become complacent and don’t really care about the mission of your job – helping your affiliates grow your business.
2) THEIR LEGAL AND ONBOARDING PROCESS
I’ve never seen so much paperwork in my life – seriously! Every other affiliate company I’ve ever worked with just needed us to approve their terms online, sign up online and then you’re up and running. It was literally a 6 week process when a company I was with a couple years ago got started with them. Another colleague of mine it took 3 months before they even got links to market! All because of paperwork. And it seems like they send new IO’s for us to sign every week. Now – this is more of a nuisance than anything else, but just one more aggravating aspect to working with them.
3) LACK OF TECHNOLOGY / INDUSTRY KNOWLEDGE
They recently went to CAKE. A huge step for them which they’re still trying to understand a couple years later. It seems any time you ask them a question about Cake they need to check with their technical team.
Although this is helpful for affiliates it’s still not what their official numbers are. Each day you get an emailed report with 3 different tabs on it. Good luck trying to make use of this. And guess how many times this repot has been changed over the last 10 years – NONE!
4) TECHNICAL PROBLEMS ALL THE TIME
I would guess you can expect at least two huge tracking issues per year from Mindspark. This means your pixel will just stop firing. A friend within the industry said they had a big tracking issue this week and last which resulted in no pixels being fired and resulted in a huge loss for them. Another former colleague has been working with them for 2 months trying to get a pixel issue resolved to at least be close to the numbers Mindspark is tracking. It just seems like “Business As Usual” for them anytime an affiliate has a big issue.
Other times their servers and sites decide to stop work. So you’re paying for ad media to go to a 404 page.
Keep up the great work!
5) THEIR AFFILIATE MANAGERS
In my humble opinion – they’re affiliate managers act like they have a chip on their shoulder. Why? Probably because of the high salaries they’re rumored to get. And word is they get ZERO COMMISSION. An affiliate manager that gets zero commission? Rather unheard of I think. They obviously have no incentive to help grow an affiliate’s business and this is reflected in the lack of customer service (my first point).
And let’s be careful what we call them – don’t call them an “affiliate manager”, they’re “marketing managers”. They’ll be quick to correct you if you make that mistake. But let’s be honest – they’re affiliate managers. They manage (or at least try to) their affiliates.
These managers wouldn’t be able to hang in a real affiliate environment, where other affiliate managers are grinding away constantly to reach out to their affiliates and helping them grow. Mindspark’s business would grow considerably if they brought affiliate managers in from other companies.
There you have it, my top 5 reasons.
Please share your thoughts – on what you think it takes to make a good/bad affiliate network or about experiences with Mindspark personally.
They’ve been around forever – which is no testament to their team of “Marketing Managers” or anyone else associated with their marketing. Their existence is based solely on their relationship with Google and the fact they’ve been allowed to arbitrage Google traffic for so long.
But things are a changing. Google has started to crack down on how many affiliates can run their white label products (a concept Mindspark didn’t even come up with – it was their affiliates). And now there’s a new player in town – Adknowledge. Adknowledge has recently released their own toolbar products and are coming directly after Mindspark. It will be interesting to see how many affiliates of Mindspark jump ship for a better run organization.
Personally – I’ve been an affiliate of Mindspark in some shape or form for 8 years, both directly and getting their offers through other companies. Not once have I ever thought “Wow, this is a great company to work with” and many, MANY colleagues within the industry feel the same way.
Here are my top 5 reasons which frustrate me beyond belief:
1) HORRENDOUS CUSTOMER SERVICE
Customer Service? Yes – Customer Service. I feel this is one of the most important aspects of an affiliate network. They’re one of the only companies that act like affiliates should be kissing their feet and work on their schedule. I’m talking about unanswered emails. Not just one or two. But many. And then your follow ups to those emails get ignored.
Because I’ve worked with them for so long I’ve dealt with pretty much every one of their affiliate managers and this isn’t isolated to just one or two people. It is the culture that’s been created.
I’ve done months of over 6-figures from them and I never hear a word from them. They never follow up or touch base unless they need something from you.
God for bid something happens to go wrong or break (Reason #4 below) then you’re really screwed. They show little to no ambition in getting anything resolved for you. If something goes wrong you can expect to have that problem last for weeks.
I guess when you have a large company throwing a large salary at you then you just become complacent and don’t really care about the mission of your job – helping your affiliates grow your business.
2) THEIR LEGAL AND ONBOARDING PROCESS
I’ve never seen so much paperwork in my life – seriously! Every other affiliate company I’ve ever worked with just needed us to approve their terms online, sign up online and then you’re up and running. It was literally a 6 week process when a company I was with a couple years ago got started with them. Another colleague of mine it took 3 months before they even got links to market! All because of paperwork. And it seems like they send new IO’s for us to sign every week. Now – this is more of a nuisance than anything else, but just one more aggravating aspect to working with them.
3) LACK OF TECHNOLOGY / INDUSTRY KNOWLEDGE
They recently went to CAKE. A huge step for them which they’re still trying to understand a couple years later. It seems any time you ask them a question about Cake they need to check with their technical team.
Although this is helpful for affiliates it’s still not what their official numbers are. Each day you get an emailed report with 3 different tabs on it. Good luck trying to make use of this. And guess how many times this repot has been changed over the last 10 years – NONE!
4) TECHNICAL PROBLEMS ALL THE TIME
I would guess you can expect at least two huge tracking issues per year from Mindspark. This means your pixel will just stop firing. A friend within the industry said they had a big tracking issue this week and last which resulted in no pixels being fired and resulted in a huge loss for them. Another former colleague has been working with them for 2 months trying to get a pixel issue resolved to at least be close to the numbers Mindspark is tracking. It just seems like “Business As Usual” for them anytime an affiliate has a big issue.
Other times their servers and sites decide to stop work. So you’re paying for ad media to go to a 404 page.
Keep up the great work!
5) THEIR AFFILIATE MANAGERS
In my humble opinion – they’re affiliate managers act like they have a chip on their shoulder. Why? Probably because of the high salaries they’re rumored to get. And word is they get ZERO COMMISSION. An affiliate manager that gets zero commission? Rather unheard of I think. They obviously have no incentive to help grow an affiliate’s business and this is reflected in the lack of customer service (my first point).
And let’s be careful what we call them – don’t call them an “affiliate manager”, they’re “marketing managers”. They’ll be quick to correct you if you make that mistake. But let’s be honest – they’re affiliate managers. They manage (or at least try to) their affiliates.
These managers wouldn’t be able to hang in a real affiliate environment, where other affiliate managers are grinding away constantly to reach out to their affiliates and helping them grow. Mindspark’s business would grow considerably if they brought affiliate managers in from other companies.
There you have it, my top 5 reasons.
Please share your thoughts – on what you think it takes to make a good/bad affiliate network or about experiences with Mindspark personally.