I’m frustrated with Linkworth
Thanks you for visiting. Please consider subscribing to the RSS feed.
I’m a little frustrated right now. This isn’t the post I’d wanted to write about Linkworth. I wanted to dig deep into their website and try to explain in simple terms all of the monetization opportunities that are available. But, I can’t do it.
I’ve had an ongoing problem with Linkworth. At the same time, there was a recent discussion over at the GeekySpeaky forum about aspects of Linkworth others find frustrating. In a nutshell, here’s what I’ve taken away from the discussions and my own experiences:
- The product offerings are so wide and deep, it is confusing to research and understand how one might wish to partner with Linkworth.
- The use of proprietary terminology is confusing. Explanations can be found on the site, but is it really partner/customer-friendly to have to go looking for explanations when common terminology already exists for most of these products? (Linksura?)
- The use of payment minimums when competitors do not.
- I have not yet found a way to change from a "preferred partner" back to a standard partner.
To be fair, I have a difficult time navigating the breadth of the site and trying to get my arms around the breadth of the offering so some of this may be due to my ignorance. Part of the reason I wanted to write my original post was to force myself to do the research.
I’ve written a number of paid posts for Linkworth, and currently have one text link ad running on my poker blog. The text-link ad took months to sell, while their competitor has sold over a dozen for the same blog, and has currently maxed out my inventory of 10. One might think rates would be an issue, but my rate at Linkworth is only 2/3 what it is at TLA, and has been for a long time.
I am a "preferred partner" at Linkworth, meaning I get a lower percentage (50/50) in exchange for Linkworth steering ads and opportunities to me, rather than the standard 70/30 split one gets if they’re wish to simply be listed in the marketplace with no marketing assistance from Linkworth. As I said above, I’m considering changing to the 70/30 split due to my dissatisfaction with volume of ads and opportunities. Initially, I had a reasonable number of Linkposts from Linkworth, but I turned one down in early June and didn’t see another inquiry for over a month. Was I being penalized? I don’t know, and customer service says no. But, my opportunities have been greatly reduced.
The existence of minimum payments affects my pricing, which is contributing to the reduced opportunities as well. Linkworth has a $25 minimum payment for Paypal, and just announced other payment methods are chaging to $100 minimums due to volume. One of my blogs had a price of $40 for a Linkpost, meaning my share was $20, and with the reduced volume I saw that I would not meet the minimum on $40 so I increased the rate to $50. Which is why I’d really like to discontinue being a "preferred partner" and go back to the 70/30 split, so I can reduce my rates again. Could I get more opportunities in the $35-$40 range, on my own, in the marketplace? It’s worth experimenting to find out.
On to my specific challenge with Linkworth: In August, there was a mystery credit of $20 added to my account, making me eligible for a payout. I inquired as to whether this was an affiliate payout, because my reports indicated no affiliate sales. I was told this was for a post I’d written, which was confusing because I’d only written one post and that expected-payment also showed in the account. The payment came through and I didn’t think about it again until September. When I checked the account in September, everything looked normal right up until payday when my account changed to show a $20 deduction - no notice, no message saying "hey we made a mistake". To make matters worse, I was now not getting paid for an ad sale and a Linkpost.
To me, the service was provided and I should be paid regardless of the minimum payout policy. It wasn’t my mistake.
I thought the mystery was solved shortly afterward. Linkworth released a message telling everyone they’d been "secretly" tracking affiliate signups for "partners", where they formerly only paid out for advertiser signups. Which I thought explained where the $20 came from. It doesn’t explain why it was taken away, except that the program was "secret" until they told us about it. So, now they’re paying out for affiliate partner signups, which is a good thing, but they took my money away because they made a mistake, which is a bad thing. But, the affiliate payment is now $25. So, I still don’t understand where the $20 came from.
Here’s the thing - it’s only $20, and if you made a mistake, fine. You should have told me. You should have given me notice. Believe it or not, I was planning to use the $39.03 that I’d EARNED writing a post and hosting an ad in August, so getting surprised by the deduction for a previous months’ mistake and lack of payout was very frustrating. Given that the mistake was Linkworth’s fault, that I’d notified them there was an unexplained $20 before it was paid out, and that they hadn’t notified me of the correction, I think they should have paid what I EARNED and they OWED regardless of payout policies. I submitted a ticket and was basically told to go scratch, that they’d just notified everyone. It was obvious from the tone that no one had researched my account for this ticket, nor the ticket I submitted prior to being paid the $20 that I didn’t EARN, and I was being dismissed as a whiner.
Maybe I am, but I have a real problem with not being paid what I EARNED because of a bookkeeping error on Linkworth’s part. I really think that, as a rule, a company ought to set aside policy to do the right thing. I don’t expect it now, but I thought it only fair to warn readers. Just my experience, I’m sure there are thousands of bloggers and advertisers that have been perfectly satisfied.
I use a plugin that automatically links to names that match my blogroll, so there may be affiliate links to Linkworth in this post. No, I do not recommend clicking them, but I don’t know how to use the plugin selectively.
Popularity: 19% [?]
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
Comments
Fellow frustrated LinkWorth member here. On principle I refuse to sign up for the referred member status and reduce my potential earnings to a a 50/50 split.
Due to my principles I am hearing crickets chirp over at LinkWorth. Nothin’, nada, zip. I’ve received no leads over there.
I really feel strongly about my earning potential and holding onto the 70/30 split, but I realize I no one will think I’m great until I get the chance to prove it.
Therein lies my quandary. Any suggestions on how to remain at the 70/30 split without selling out?
cardiogirl, low tops optional
Tim,
First, a big apology straight from LinkWorth for your frustration. If we could make every single customer happy, I think we would be the most awesome company in the world, but problems will always be there and I know it just isn’t fun if you’re on the side of anything wrong that happens.
Confusing…I can understand. We have a lot of products and services we offer. Sure, you can compare us to TLA, but they focus on one part of what we do. We have 11 products and several services. With that being said, we are constantly working on making things as easy as possible. And to TLA’s credit, they’re a great company and they help a lot of people make money.
Naming schemes…are you familiar with “Twitter”? or how about “Sphinn”? Meebo? Squidoo? It’s called the age of web 2.0 with odd names. Here’s a good story http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003866042_btview03.html
We can all our products exactly like everyone else calls them or we can brand our own product names. We chose to go with a theme and branding of our names and if we chose the route you suggest, then we would have people telling us we aren’t very original.
Let’s take the product you referred to “LinkSura”. I agree, it’s odd, but it’s a lot easier to say than “Single Url Rotating Link Ad” This is where it’s our job to educate our customers and we’re putting the final proofs on textual versions of tutorials that help educate on each product, then we’re going to put visual tutorials up soon afterwards. Will that solve it? Of course not. Just like I started with, we’ll never make everyone happy. But if you took the time to learn it and use it to your advantage, you might be singing a completely different tune and making thousands of dollars a month like many of our partners do.
Now on the money issues and not communicating with you, we’ll have to agree to disagree. Everything was communicated as we found it. Based on what you stated, if you walked into a bar and the drink was $9.00 and then you pulled out what you thought was a $10.00, put it down and walked out the door, then realized you gave them a $100 bill, then you feel it’s your fault and you would just walk away and let them keep it. Correct? Of course you wouldn’t! You would go make sure the transaction was handled correctly. It’s a lot different when the shoe’s on the other foot.
I did put a lot of thought into “do I just let them keep the money?” or “do I retract the money and allow them the opportunity to make more money?”. See, we are giving affiliates the option to earn $50 per referral now. Would you rather take $10 for the two that were a mistake or take the option of possibly earning $100 for the two referrals?
There’s also the fact that a lot of people spotted the bug and took advantage of the situation signing up bogus accounts. So we did what we felt was fair to us and to the customer. All which was communicated through emails.
I just wanted to make sure I gave you a better explanation of everything and hopefully change your mind and ease your frustration with us. If there’s ever any issue you feel isn’t being answered, you have my direct email here and I’ll be more than happy to help with anything that I can. Maybe even take you for a spin in our Helicopter.