CPA Deals - Watch Out for Crap - Use Credible Networks

I generally do not do CPA deals, but there are a few I run that fit my traffic demographics and keywords. So I do not have a big mailing list, and my income on CPA is limited to the conversions I can get with my natural traffic from SERPS. That being said, I have to admit that I have never had any kind of luck with stupid stuff like teeth whiteners and credit cards, or even life insurance quotes. I have tried, but with my online strategies, those kind of offers do not do well. What I discovered recently is that one network ran a long term CPA offer I liked, so I set it up within the pages it works on in my network of sites, and it began to convert. The first month it didn't work right so I tweaked it until it did work better and the next month it earned quite a good sum. The next month the merchant running the offer sneaked in to the network one night and eliminated 2/3 of the converted leads. I am guessing they did this to limit the amount they would have to pay that month. How do I know? I check the stats every day. The day before the cutoff it was the higher amount, and the day after the cutoff it had been adjusted with no explanation. These were all leads that qualified under the terms of the offer, so what they did was to essentially steal that money from me as the affiliate running the offer. I know why they did this.It was because the leads had not converted into higher paying customers for the merchant, so that merchant made a decision to limit the payout for my leads. It was a business decision, but in my opinion it was a bad one because those leads they eliminated in the stats all met the requirements for the payout. So the lesson for me is to be careful what networks I trust to run leads. That network should have set up controls to not allow the merchant to adjust leads for payout that already met the criteria. There was another category of leads that had not yet met the requirements, so I know they definitely came in and dropped the leads arbitrarily based on the fact that those leads were not converting in their system after they were paid, so they just estimated what they did not want to pay, and zapped those qualified leads.On another more credible network, they never do this. Once a lead shows as paid in the system stats I see, they never adjust the amount they pay. Leads are leads, and after I get the leads to them, they own the marketing rights to those leads, not me. So, it is right and morally straight for them to pay the leads as long as the requirements of the visitor are met.Watch out who you run leads for. Many small business networks are sneaky and dishonest and they will take money away from you. It is certainly the network's fault, allowing a merchant to take money away from an affiliate who sent qualified leads. They still paid me the difference, and when I sent a letter to object they sent me a letter stating that only non-qualified leads were zapped. I know better due to the way the stats are reported. Who do I call to get my money?So there it is. My rant for the day. Be careful who you run CPA offers for!

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