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There comes a time in every affiliate career, when it
no longer benefits you to continue participating in a
plan. The reasons could include poor management,
changes in the product line, or any of a host of other
factors that reduce the quality of the program.
It may be tempting to simply stop promoting the
program and put an unsatisfying experience behind you,
but there is a lot to be gained by making a graceful
exit.
1. Contact the managers of the program.
The first thing to do is to get in touch with the
managers of the program. They are doubtless very
busy, but at the very least they should be able to
respond to you in email if you have a genuine
grievance with the program. In the best cases, the
managers will be able to shed new light on the
problems you see, and you might decide to stick with
it. If you give the managers a chance to make amends,
you might be surprised. In the event that the
managers ignore you or cannot satisfy your concerns,
continue with the steps below.
2. Contact your upline.
Hopefully you are already in regular contact with
someone in your upline, but particularly in Internet-
based affiliate programs this is not always the case.
If the managers were unable to make things right, it
is unlikely that your direct sponsor or anyone above
will be able to either. Notifying your upline is more
of a courtesy to explain why you are leaving. They
may pour more money into retention marketing as their
downline shrinks, if they don’t realize that people
are leaving because the program has fundamental flaws.
3. Cancel any credit card or PayPal subscriptions.
Many programs automatically withdrawal a monthly fee
from your credit card or PayPal account. If the
program is going well, this convenience can save you
the trouble of losing your downline when you forget to
make a payment. When it’s time to get out, however,
such subscriptions should be canceled immediately. If
the program has a process for ending your
subscription, you should certainly start there.
Perhaps you are leaving the program because you
suspect the program managers are unscrupulous or just
incompetent. In either case, it’s well worth the
piece of mind to contact your credit card (or PayPal)
directly to cancel the subscription. PayPal allows
you to do this on their web site, and most credit
cards subscriptions can be canceled with a 5-minute
phone call.
4. Contact your downline.
Here are the people that joined the program based on
your recommendation. If you’ve discovered the program
is not what you originally presented to them, you have
an obligation to share what you’ve learned with them.
If you can develop a reputation with these people as
someone whose opinion they can trust. By leaving your
current program, you illustrate that you have high
standards that not every program can meet. When you
share with them why you are leaving the program, you
are looking out for them, and they will be more
inclined to join you in your next affiliate program.
(Obviously this trust can be abused. If you
continually jerk them around from program to program,
they will quickly lose interest in sticking with you.)
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