Mama Kat Thursday: March Disappointment

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The topic for the Mama Kat blog writing prompt this weeks is, "Share something you learned in March."

I've learned that affiliate programs are kind of like the wolf in Red Riding Hood disguised in Grandma's jammies; they talk a bunch of sweet stuff, but they can bite.

I've been buying my seed from Park Seed online for years and decided I'd try signing up for their affiliate program. Since I do a Wednesday Garden blog, I though having an ad from the company I use might be nice for my readers, who might be interested in ordering. 

Of course, they use a neutral party ad manager system I had to sign up through and I did describe in great detail that mine is a lifestyle blog covering different topics different days, with gardening being just one topic on Wednesdays.

Then I waited with baited breath, afraid my blog wouldn't be judged as suitable. I mean, it's not exclusively gardening.
To my great surprise, around the first part of March I was accepted as a Park Seed Affiliate!
 I very happily posted their ad banner on the side-bar.

Then, two weeks later, at end of March, I got an email telling me I was fired, that my blog "content wasn't conducive to attracting the correct audience."
What? 
I was not so happy with them about that, mostly because having their ad banner was something I'd really wanted and to have it given, then snatched away so fast was more then a little disappointing. 
 I suppose I felt a little deceived.

 This morning I shot off an email to Park Seed expressing my unhappiness and--guess what? I just now got an email back from Park Seed's Marketing Director with an apology for deleting me as an affiliate! Apparently they removed ALL affiliates last week in order to sort out illegitimate sites from legit ones and adding legit ones back in!
So I've been approved to carry their banner again! Yay!
I feel happy with them again!
I'm quite sure writing them sped up the process of re-approving me, though. Who knows where I was on the list?
So the final lesson here is it's worthwhile to be proactive and ask the company what's going on.
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So, what did you learn in March?

Thanks for Visiting!
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Comments

Happysuz said…
Good to know. I haven't done the affiliate thing yet as I'm still too small. I was with Amazon for a while, but didn't get any traffic. Hopefully later this year I'll try again.
Apr 9, 2015, 9:27:00 PM
KatBouska said…
Affiliate programs can definitely be murky water. They have no reason NOT to want you since you're actually bringing them traffic and customers. It's a good feeling though, to get to work with a company you already loved. I'm glad you found one that feels like an authentic fit and I'm glad you spoke up to keep it there!
Apr 13, 2015, 12:09:00 AM

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