Lack of planning...

[sarettah]

Can kill ya.

Last week, while looking for several different types of sponsors for a site I am trying to get off the ground, I signed up with niteflirt, a sextalk company, thinking that they might fit into the mix.

Got signed up, got approved, grabbed a few banners (although their interface for just grabbing banners really really sucks). Wrote a little ad copy and was going to add it to the rotation today.

Well, this morning, this shows up in my email:

I regret to inform you that effective August 15, 2007, DirectTrack (part of Digital River, Inc.), the program through which NiteFlirt administers its affiliate program, will terminate its relationship with the NiteFlirt Affiliate Program due to changes in their corporate policies concerning adult oriented content.

Operation until termination
The program will continue to operate as it currently does today until the termination date: August 15, 2007.

NiteFlirt affiliate payments

June Leads - will be approved on/around August 1st as normally would be the case
July Leads - will be approved on/around September 1st as normally would be the case
August Leads (partial month) - will be approved on/around October 1st as normal (earlier if possible)

DirectTrack access
You will no longer have access to your NiteFlirt Affiliate account through DirectTrack after August 15th.

NiteFlirt/DirectTrack creative hosted on your sites
You should remove all content as it relates to DirectTrack and NiteFlirt after August 15 as you will not get credit for any traffic after the termination date. You can easily identify this content by reviewing the HTML code on your sites. The code for text links, static and live listing banners will read something like the following:

"http://niteflirt.directtrack.com/z/###/CDxx/"

Going forward after August 15, 2007
NiteFlirt will be working toward building our own in-house affiliate program. The amount of work required to build our own program is non-trivial. We hope to have a product available for use in the next 9 months or so. We will be sure to communicate via email when this program is set to go live.

Questions and or concerns:
Please don't hesitate to send them our way via affiliates@niteflirt.com.

It has been a great pleasure working together to build the NiteFlirt affiliate program to what it has become today. We look forward to working with you together again in the near future to make it bigger and better than before.

Best,
Duncan
NiteFlirt Affiliate Director

So, after the 15th, no credit for sales, no affiliate program and they are estimating 9 months before they have something put together to handle stuff (at least they are being realistic in their estimate to put something together in house).

Should have had a back up all lined up, because "just in case" just bit them on the ass.

[Jace]

i guess I should be the first to ask it

what is a company that takes any pride in their business doing using a 3rd party for their affiliate system?

[sarettah]

Originally Posted by Jace

i guess I should be the first to ask it

what is a company that takes any pride in their business doing using a 3rd party for their affiliate system?

I have not a clue why they would not have had something inhouse, didn't even notice they were using 3rd party when I checked them out. But doesn't matter, if you are inhouse you need to have multiple processors available "just in case", if you are going through a service (like this) then you should have a back up available "just in case".

And the point of the thread; You should not have "circumstances" driving your planning. Crisis management only works so far for so long before it bites you on the ass.

.

[sassygirl]

sucks...always have back up plan in case the first one wouldnt work. But anyway, good luck sarettah

[zand_stein]

I have a regret on that because of I know company if they do some plans they always prepare for the other option or sub planned in case that theres some difficultieshappend with the first plan......