This is the third in a series of ongoing tips and discussions on affiliate marketing.

One of the challenges in dealing with advertisers on larger networks, like CJ, LinkShare, Performics(now Google Affiliate Network), is that when you as an affiliate apply to a program, you get no response.

I have on my account at CJ several offers that have been sitting without a response since 2007, yes three years. I look at the stats on the program and it still looks active, but there is 0, no epc, etc..

No contact info.

I am not going to reveal the name of the company, but it is part of a larger financial institution.  Maybe that is why? But the site is still up and there is a number on the site. I am going to reach out via the email on the site and see what kind of response I get.

This is probably an extreme example, but there are several advertisers, who take weeks to respond to accepting an affiliate application, talk about a way to turn off an affiliate who may be eager and ready to start working on some promotions, etc..

While we are affiliate managers not responding, we can go to the other extreme, as there are many affiliate managers, that don’t really know how to handle weeding out affiliates, basically they take the shotgun approach and terminate in mass affiliate relationships.

As an affiliate if you terminate me without at least giving me a chance to work on your product service and try to send some traffic, it is going to be pretty hard for me to trust you.

As with all businesses, the affiliate marketing space is a lot about trust and building relationships, the smart affiliates work closely with affiliate managers and advertisers to enhance the company profile and complement and leverage each other as part of the relationship.

One campaign I saw recently was where the company