The other day someone told me about the new Pepperjam Affiliate network and being as I like to check out everything new in the industry I decided to sign up. They accepted me so I logged on and took a look.
First thing I noticed is it’s a based on acceptance by the advertiser network. So I did like I do with all those kinds of networks and applied for every single advertiser. I got a bunch of approvals right away and it seems like a lot of the advertisers are on auto approve. So cool I let it sit as I’ve had other things to do. When today I get this email from PepperJam.
“Dear <affiliate name>,
Blockbuster has opted to terminate you from their affiliate program. Please remove your links, as you will no longer be receiving a payout for leads or sales effective immediately. If you are interested in the reason, please contact the aforementioned advertiser. Thank you.
pepperjamNETWORK
Advertiser Support Team”
Now keep in mind I’ve never even sent 1 click to a single link on PepperJam as I just signed up. And already I’m getting canceled?
So my question is this as a network owner do you care about consistency? Say I had just spent 3 days setting up blockbuster campaigns to earn us ( pepperjam and I ) money and then got this email? Instability in advertisers is a good way to lose new affiliates don’t you think? Anyone else had a similar experience yet?
I emailed support and we’ll see how they respond. I’ll post the response when I get it.
As far as I’m concerned there’s a ton of unknown about pepperjam. Are they going to pay on time? How consistent are they? I know they’ve been selling seo services for a long time but that doesn’t mean they know how to work with affiliates. We’ll see how they handle all these situations.
Next interesting thing I found out was no account reps by default. You have to email the admin@pepperjamnetwork.com and ask for one. Interesting I know when you sign up for some network like Copeac they give you an account rep to help you right away!
Thanks for your post.
We apologize for any confusion that you have experienced.
Pepperjam has been in the affiliate marketing space since 1999 – We’ve been active at public conferences like Affiliate Summit as an attendee, speaker, and exhibitor for several years.
In short, we have a relatively large team dedicated to helping businesses grow in the online marketing space, including search-engine marketing, affiliate marketing, and online media buying.
I just wanted to let you know that bec/ you should be rest assured that we are here to stay and we are interested in being as consistent as possible in every respect with Pepperjam Network.
The commentor above mentioned about getting assigned to an account rep. That process takes place after sign-up when we learn more about the affiliate and what they need to perform. If you’d like a personal account rep don’t hesitate to contact us at http://www.pepperjamnetwork.com/contact-us.php
same thing happened to me as well. seems they are a little shaky to begin with.
just another shit to affiliates.
Cool, one more reason I won’t sign up with them. There are tons of other *established* networks out there.
the first sign to me was the horrible black background, despite they say that they are 2.0 company lol
and after that i heard about we need to get approval first like cj( cj is not a good model at all).
and all the affiliate endorsed payperjam just say “they are great” but not any substance word to really think that pepperjam is worth enough.
beside Kris Jones doesn’t answer Smaxor complain, it was just a political answer.
at this moment i have not any reason to sign up with them.
maybe in the near future if a heard good things in the forums.
Interesting. Would be nice to see if they follow up with you. Sounds kinda rough though and not a good sign of things to follow.
you people seem like a bunch of whine asses. For crying out loud it’s free to join. You are just a bunch of bashers with no brains.
Appreciate the opinion Mason. However as far as I’m concerned they’re a 100% unknown. I think it’s the communities job to figure out who and what we’re dealing with. If you have something to add to that great. If you just want to throw stones feel free but but they have little merrit with no constructive reasoning to the opposed view.
I miss Kris Jones direct answer to Smaxors post? I mean why did he took the time to answer personally here and then doesn’t answer about the complaint, the only reaoson this post was made for?
Networks that require approval from merchants are scary, because it shows they care more about the merchant-network relationship than they do care about the publishers… Be more selective from the beginning on in what pub’s you approve for Pepperjamsearch and you won’t need a CJ-like approval process… That’s my oppinion.
I wasn’t that impressed w/ their offers at first skim but I actually think that is smart, making people asking for managers.
That’s what I’d do considering 90% or more of affiliates will just waste your time and make you no money. Employees are expensive even if you’re hiring girls out of a jeans store
The learning vault or whatever it was called really didn’t have anything. I would have at least stacked it with a few aff scripts around the web… like a certain tracking script that is very good… ahem. 
I’m sure it will be better than most of the joe-average networks. We’ll see how hard they hustle and treat affiliates when merchants get dodgy w/ their payments. That will be the telling tale.
Yeah I think that was the whole point of this post. As far as I’ve seen they haven’t come out strong in favor of affiliates or advertisers so it should be interesting when push comes to shove. As for some reason things always do in this business. Advertisers try and not pay because traffic isn’t converting for them even though you do what they ask. Or affiliates send bad traffic. Or somewhere in the middle. I want to see who they side with… are they with the affiliates or are they with the advertisers. Honestly any PR campaign will always say “we support both” but we ( all of us who have been around the block ) know that usually a network sides with one side or the other…. So where will Pepperjam stand?
I’ve had a similar experience. I was heavily promoting an opportunity that was expressly “incentive allowed”. I brought in many signups (earned myself around $100). Then I get an email from the program that the client has requested I cease promoting their products. When I asked for an explanation, the program stated that they were happy with my traffic but the client didn’t feel my traffic was quality enough.
Rough to say that incentives are allowed and then when I spend the time and money to get the signups, tell me that I’m not good enough. Luckily I hadn’t placed a lot of ad campaigns or it would have been money down the tubes.
But what are the gifts like? That is the real question. A follow up would be cool on this post to see what happened.
I would say give them a call, but I can’t find their phone number anywhere on their site. lame.
Must of not liked the way you smelled! lol
I also received a similar email
“You have been terminated from the pepperjamNETWORK affiliate program. Please remove your links, as you will no longer be eligible to receive a payout for leads or sales generated. This decision was made based on a variety of reasons, and we wish you luck in your future affiliate marketing endeavors.”
this means I have to remove all the advertisers? LOL. or just the pepperjam? gahhhh.
First off, just came across your blog today. I found it in my bookmarks, odd place to find a new blog but I will go with it. Great site, I love your angle.
Second, yes that consistency issue is pretty big. An even larger issue is that the the email is written like a punch in the face. Seems like peperjam could use some writers.