Are Affiliates Overpaid?

I *wish* I had time to read this entire thread tonight:

Corbin Fisher asks the controversial question: are affiliates overpaid?

When you read threads like this one, you've got to say that at least SOME affiliates are definitely overpaid, or at least are asking to get paid to do NOTHING. Of course, the question then becomes, "is it worth it to overpay people like this fellow?"

And you know . . . for some of those fellows -- if they have good traffic that converts -- the answer is YES, it is worth it. Sometimes, at least.

*****

Honestly, I do not begrudge our affiliates the 50-60% we pay them and in some ways in the case of some people imagine it is unfair to them / they are underpaid (example: affiliate sends a customer who buys a non-recurring membership -- when he rejoins after that membership expires, our affiliate doesn't get paid at all unless the customer goes back to the affiliate's site and clicks through to ours again). On the other hand, I think people need to realize that sponsors don't get the whole 50% in a supposed 50/50 split. In our case we also eat the ccbill fee, which leaves us with only 35% (or 25% in the case of the affiliates we give 60% to). And obviously there are all of those other expenses and work that Corbin mentioned in the initial thread, but I don't know if taking those into consideration makes for a very good argument. A fun argument, for sure, but one that's not really win-able.

At the end of the day you just have to figure out whether or not it's worth it to provide competitive rewards to the people who promote you. You have to put aside whether or not everything's perfectly fair and equitable and decide if it's WORTH IT. From my perspective, the answer is HELL YES it's worth it.