One morning back in March, I hit ‘Check Mail’ on my email client and was horrified to see more than 300 emails downloading.
When all was said and done, about 20 of those emails were valid.
285 of them however were all the same – see the screenshot below.
The email came from an adult dating site affiliate program manager who was trying to get affiliates to sign up for his program.
Spamming potential affiliates is bad enough, but worse than that… the email had been sent to hordes of people, all of whom had their email addresses visible because they’d been CC’d, rather than BCC’d.
I immediately assumed that it wouldn’t be long until I started receiving spam program invitations from other affiliate program managers and I was right – the first one came in just a couple of hours later from a program that I’m already affiliated with.
I sent a reply to the 2nd spammer to express my dismay and intent to drop his program.
His reply?
I will look forward to having you back on board after you realize we are the best converting dating site on the internet. Best of luck testing our competition!
Duh!
No apology – just a stupid pitch.
He did NOT reply again after I sent him a link to my “Art of Wooing Affiliates” article published on the Revenue Magazine site.
That wasn’t the only affiliate program that I ditched that day, however.
If you read the article linked above, under “Affiliate Tip” you’ll see how I found out which affiliate program was responsible for selling the email address to the original spammer. It’s a practice I employ with all independent programs.
About Rosalind Gardner
Boy, I feel that pain. I started getting pitches from an adult dating website seeking affiliates, and asked to be removed from their mailing list. Their response was polite and positive – my address would be removed immediately. However, instead of removing my address, they sent it onward, and within a few days I was receiving invitations by the dozen. Thank goodness for junk mail filters and spam catchers!
They could very well be email sending bots. Ugh, I hate them.
Little they know that these types of spam promotions do not work at all…
So did you drop them and are they the best converter?
Hi James,
I dropped them. Their loss more than mine.
Cheers,
Ros
Hate it when that happens! It has been my experience never to respond to these nasty spammers. It just verifies that they have discovered a live email address and they pay it forward selling it off to other spammers, making the situation worse.
I would freak if I had a spam situation like Ros. The Affiliate Tip in the article the “Art of Wooing Affiliates” is a good one. Everyone should read it.
Hi Rosalind. I haven’t read your e-mails for a while, but this one confused me a bit. It has adsense ads embeded. Isn’t it against adsense policies?
thanks for the link to the Art of Wooing Affiliates article. i am presently writing a short report with tips for vendors looking to attract more affiliates. i’ll be sure to add spamming to my list of “ways not to recruit affiliates”.
If you read the article linked above, under “Affiliate Tip” you’ll see …..
Ros, I couldnt see this article, neither could my browser.
It’s late, me and ie8 are probably tired, but interested to read your article.
Regards
Jon
Hi Jon,
Try this… http://www.netprofitstoday.com/blog/the-art-of-wooing-affiliates/
Cheers,
Ros
Sheesh.. Send him the link to your new article,
“The Art of How to Talk to People”
“The Art of Doing Business”
“The Art of Being Nice to People”
“The Art of Kiss My A**”
LOL
Hey Kit,
Knowing me… it would have been the latter for sure.
Cheers,
Ros
Hi Roz,
It’s way off subject…
…what is the name of the plugin you use for the Retweeting your posts?
It is for WordPress or another CMS?
Thank you
…
Hi Roz, again:
Never mind.
Found it.
Thanks
…