Starting last week, we have begun integrating our MaxMalls.com Merchants (MMM) into TripleClicks.com (TC). Some of the first ones you'll see are represented by eight new departments at TC (Beauty & Fragrance, Education, Financial Services, Live Entertainment, Real Estate, Romance, Phone & Tech Services, and Travel).
Additional MMMs will be showing up soon within our other existing TC departments.
Why integrate? With MaxMalls integrated into TripleClicks…
A. ALL of our e-commerce offerings are centralized in ONE store. Just one store to promote and build around.
B. With our heavy emphasis and steadily-growing traffic at TC, we will no doubt generate more sales for our MMMs. And since 100% of MMM revenues go straight into the Executive Bonus pool, that means potentially much larger Executive Bonuses.
C. The addition of MMMs means a greatly broadened TC. Instead of just over 10,000 products (currently anyway), TC can soon trumpet the availability of over a MILLION products and services and, truly, something for everyone!
Questions & Answers:
Q: So if I refer someone to TC and they end up making a purchase at one of the MMMs, will I earn a commission?
A: Not directly, no. As has always been the case with MaxMalls, all MaxMalls revenues go into the Executive Bonus pool and are split up equally amongst all EAs. So long as you are an EA (Executive Affiliate), you'll receive one equal share in the form of an Executive Bonus.
Q: Why not just track MMM sales to me directly and pay me directly instead of having a pool?
A: We'd actually prefer to do that. And we've tried this, more than once, in past years. But it's simply not practical. For starters, individual tracking with hundreds of different merchants is very difficult to do accurately and has very complex reporting requirements. Each merchant also has its own policies on when it pays. Some pay weekly. Some monthly. Some quarterly. Some don't pay until certain amounts are reached. And so on.
Hence, we are constantly dealing with affiliates saying, "Hey, I placed an order (or I know someone who placed an order) with such and such store, so where's my commission?" And our Affiliate Support Team members winds up spending all its time tracking down these queries. More than 99% of the time, there's no problem, the order was successfully recorded and a commission is forthcoming. It's just that every merchant has different policies on when they pay out. And we can't pay you until we get paid by the merchant.
The bottom line is that we just cannot be spending all our time tracking down queries of this kind. It's completely counter-productive and takes us away from the areas where assistance is truly needed. It's SOOOOOOO much easier to simply put all the revenues received from MMMs into a pool and pay it out in shares to qualified affiliates each month. Clean and simple!
Q: That doesn't seem fair to me. If I refer someone to TC and they end up making a purchase at an MMM, it should be ME and me only that earns that commission.
A: That's one way to look at it. But please consider this: We have many THOUSANDS of affiliates referring prospects to TC every day. Some may refer many more than you and be responsible for generating many more sales from MMMs than you. Using a pool, you actually will receive MORE income than if we were able to track individual sales back to you and pay you directly. Not only that, but you'll get paid a share of the pool whether or not you generate ANY MMM sales. So it works both ways.
Q: Is there SVP associated with sales from MMMs?
A: No, for the same reason as above. Individual tracking is just not practical because we have to rely on the various merchants and they do not provide the information we need in a way we can utilize it for awarding SVP in a timely fashion.
Q: Timely fashiion?
A: Yes, imagine we were able to attach SVP to MMM orders and you generated a big order worth 10 SVP to qualify you for EA status this month. Because this merchant's reporting is inadequate and/or they pay us only quarterly, we can't award you the SVP until they let us know of the order and/or pay us...and so you lose your EA status, lose your larger EA commissions, etc. It just doesn't work. We must use a pool to make it work.
Q: So MaxMalls will ALWAYS be a pool then?
A: No. If a practical method of tracking sales individually comes along, we'll be glad to consider changing.
Q: You don't have very many MaxMalls merchants from my country. Why not?
A: We're open to adding many more merchants from all over the world, but in order for them to participate they MUST have an affiliate program. That is, they must be able to track any orders that SFI generates and they must pay us commissions on those sales. Not every e-commerce site on the Internet has this. If you know of a good e-commerce site in your country that you'd like to see at TC that DOES, let us know via our Suggestion Box at the Affiliate Center. Special Note: They may be even better prospects for our coming E-Commerce Associates program, which WILL have individual tracking, SVP, etc. Be watching for information on the E-Commerce Associate program SOON.
