I just received a call from a client desperately looking for help with one of their affiliate programs. After some quick investigative work with Commission Junction (CJ) support, it looks like Waterfront Media is almost 6 months behind on payments. So why have they not been kicked out of CJ yet after all these months of missed payments?
I guess the best case scenario is that eventually, owed money will be paid in full and locked affiliate commissions can then be released to their rightful owners. <Start rhetorical question> In the meantime, is it really fair to allow hard working affiliates (current & new) to continue spending more time and money in promoting programs that currently do not pay out commissions? <End rhetorical question>.
The best case scenario would have been for Waterfront Media to send out some sort of delay-of-payment notice to all affiliates. My client only discovered owed commissions after noticing that their internal records did not balance and was never notified by either Waterfront or CJ. At the very least, CJ should have disabled this advertiser and warned all affected affiliates until payment was caught up. After all, it has been almost 6 months since the first commissions were locked.
The way I see it, the longer the wait for owed payments to come in, the more difficult it will be for all parties (including CJ & affiliates) to get paid. This scenario is worsened by the fact that affiliates are still allowed to generate sales (& commissions) and the amount owing is only going to grow. This makes it even more difficult to catch up on missed payments.
Being an eternal optimist, I am still hopeful that things can be worked out and all Waterfront Media affiliates will see owed commissions. I guess CJ feels the same way as well since this advertiser is still active in their network. At this point though, the only thing we can really do is wait.
Here are sites listed on Waterfrontmedia.com – some of which are running affiliate programs through CJ:
Everydayhealth.com
The South Beach Diet
Fit Forever with Denise Austin
The Sonoma Diet
Jillian Michaels Online
What to Expectâ„¢ Pregnancy Club
The Duke Diet
Bikini Bootcamp
Dr. Andrew Weil’s My Optimum Health Plan
Dr. Laura Berman’s Passion Prescription
The Diabetic Living Diet
The Winsor Diet
My Calorie Counter
Psych Central
5 Factor Diet
Anyone else seeing locked payments for Waterfront Media properties in your CJ account or have recently pulled their offers?
Ian, good news for all your clients, the WFM funds were wired to CJ on Tuesday and will be paid as part of the standard CJ payment cycle.
That is good news Chris. Thanks for the update. I will definitely pass this info along. So being an eternal optimist does work! 🙂
Commissions in CJ are still markted as locked, but once the check is cut, I will be sure to update the comments.
Cheers!
Being the eternal optimist does work. As an update, the client has received owed commissions from CJ.
Let us hope Waterfront Media does not hold back anymore affiliate commissions.
I hope by now things had been worked out and payments have been made.