Yesterday an email came through from one of the affiliate programs I market. You know the ones, changes in terms, changes in commission structures, more often than not reducing the amount of commission they are giving. The have the right to do this as much as we have the right to stop selling their products if the numbers don’t add up.
This was not the most interesting or worrying aspect of this email. This was an email from a dating site, and they had added to their terms that you must provide them with a certain number of female leads to male leads. A task which in my view is next to impossible.
N.B. Affiliates must ensure that the traffic sent to ******** is made up of less than 30% female leads per calendar month. Failure to do so will result in all leads being canceled.
Could all affiliates running promotions for ******* please ensure that the above is adhered to.
The question in my mind is in an open medium such as the Internet how does one control this? I accept that some sites are targeted at a specific demographic therefore a larger portion of that sites users will be within that demographic meaning that a higher number of referrals will be from that group. However with no restrictions on the types of site that you can market their services how does you ensure that you achieve their determined percentage.
At any rate, I would have thought that these dating sites attract far higher numbers of males than females, so their statement confuses me. I woud have thought that they want you to reffer more female leads than male, but that is not what it says.
