I once promoted a sponsor, and opted for the per-signup program.
They did not pay on trials, they said.
Only, they did not have any trial (remember that).
I had a CTR of about 1:40 from my gallery.
I had one conversion immediately, on the first day, in the few first uniques sent.
Then, I sent them 7000+ uniques and got zip conversion.
I was sweet-talked into switching into the recurring program, which paid less, because alledgedly, "people" were obtaining better results then. Mind you, (do you remember?) there were NO trial subscription, so I could not fathom what could have explained the better performance... IMO, it was BS, but in for a penny, in for a buck I told myself...
So I sent them another 4500 uniques, for fuck-all, zip, nada, zilch conversion.
As far as I can remember, I ended up never getting a check from them, because I did not exceed the minimum payout amount.
Now, these people were running their own billling software, undoubtedly written by Gilette...
All odds are, they are swindlers...
This outfit is still in business, doing good, apparently paying their salaries, placing their paid-for advertisement on boards, etc...
The other outfit I promoted was 1000facials.com, and they converted at 1:600 to 1:1000, day in day out, and I was always very happy with them.
If the swindlers above were truly converting at 1:600, then, applying the Poisson statistical distribution, the odds that I had simply been victim of bad luck, sending them 10000+ uniques and getting only one conversion, at the frequency we were submitting, was 1 in 17 million years, if I remember my computation correctly.
Should we give them the benefit of the doubt on a 1:17,000,000 odds that they are honest ? How far can you stretch the benefit of the doubt?
Very unfortunately, their rep was an esteemed acquaintance of mine. He probably knew, and thus probably lied to me.
During later conversation, it became clear, almost admitted, that they screwed me.
I'm a good sport.
I understand that he gets paid good money for doing a thieving job, but in this world, it's often par for the course. I don't hate him any more for that, I'm not in his shoes, having to pay house and family expenses...
It was nevertheless a brutal first experience.
Live and learn.
Hence, I cut my losses, notified all the galleries owners that I'd pull out the gallery, and pulled the plug on everything. The cost to me was enormous in time and efforts, and the damage to my credibility as a serious TGP submitter was certainly not improved.
It also disgusted me forever of TGPs.
I will never do promotion again for a sponsor who runs it's own billing system, unless I am verifiably convinced that they are honest.
If ever I get into MLM shit (affiliate program participation) again, I'll go only with outfits that use third party billing like CCBill et al. for then, there is a higher likeliness of getting paid.
When do you decide to stop promoting a sponsor?
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