I’m on both ends as I own a network as well.. build a relationship with you affiliate manager/team leader. Once you have a base relationship established talk with them about what you’re thinking. For example I have affiliates pull their traffic and go elsewhere without saying a word. It’s kind of perplexing as they just disappear. Now as an affiliate I know my traffic can just dry up one day. Shit happens like that. The key is communication with your go to person. I have to tell people no I don’t have that offer or can’t pay you that much all the time. But I really appreciate the affiliates which I have a relationship built with that at least give me the opportunity to help them.

Just my 2 cents from both sides of the fence.

Do they get a % of each lead/sale you generate? So if they give you a pay bump they would be cutting into their margin or are they payed some other way.

Just voicing my opinion, but it is your site afterall.

If someone sends me 3 leads per month, it’s hard to ballpark their lead quality (and my profit)…3 leads isn’t statistically significant. Alternatively if someone sends 1,000 leads per month, I have much more confidence in my calculations. If that affiliate is bringing solid quality & ROI for me, I’ll work with them to grow the commission and their volume. However,if you send me 10,000 leads per month and the quality is crap…you’ll keep your street payout rate. The volume MUST be quality. Volume alone doesn’t do much for me. If I want huge amounts of crappy leads, I’ll just pick-up the phone and contact a random co-reg provider.

The little guy isn’t always screwed though. Every now and then I will dig into my affiliate base and look for hidden gems (small/quality affiliates who may need some help or motivation to give my offer more exposure). In this case, I’ll offer a higher payout or bonus if they give me a more prominent feature or post additional links.

At the end of the day, I’m up against traffic and revenue goals just like Publishers are (or should be). In order to hit my volume numbers (while still keeping a solid ROI) I have to balance the mix of “special” payouts and street payouts. If I giveaway the store I may do more volume, but I’ll miss my profit targets (it’s a numbers game).

FWIW, I typically don’t respond to brand new affiliates who ask for special payouts. I don’t have the time to waste on this…too many people promise the world and then never deliver. However, if you develop a month or two of history (and then ask for a bump) your odds are much higher…now you’ve got some skin in the game too!

I’m sure these affiliate networks have hundreds of retards and newbies signing up every day who will never send them more than a few hundred dollars in commissions ever. It would simply be a waste of money for them to spend a lot of time giving payout bumps individually to all of these people when it doesn’t improve the affiliate network’s business in the long term.

Thanks, nickycakes.