Referral Program Status?

I've searched and am not seeing anything recent on this. Is the referral program working?


In the past year I've sent around a dozen links for people to buy images and have had no referrals. I thought this was kind of strange but it's hard to track because we don't know who buys images.


So a few days ago I sent someone referral links for two specific images they wanted to buy. A day or two later both images showed up in my sales in a row so I know it was the person I referred.


It has been a few days and I've earned no referral so far.

For me, a couple of months after iStock launched the new referral program and asked us to change our referral links the program stopped working. I used to get a referral every now and then, but since the launch of the new program just one.

Hi,

In the OP of the bug thread it says:

Reports of referral program not providing the stated free credits. See here for details. 31DEC12 KJ


Personally, I haven't had one referral since the new system started. That experience doesn't seem to be restricted to me either. I've seen a few reports of it not working as expected. As I only ever got a few referrals under the old system anyway, I've not particularly looked into it though.

If anyone would care to offer any more examples or details on how it's working or not working for them, I'll see what I can discover from HQ.

Lots of clicks, no referral earnings.  Surely one of those people would have signed up, but I guess the presence of 10 free credits prevents people from buying a credit pack within 30 days.  I'm not sure if it is working or not, as I only got one referral prior to the new referral system anyway.

Indeed. Kelvinjay will field this thread. Please do provide any and all examples.

With all due respect to the form moderaters, shouldn't it be the distributor's job to look into the systems to tell the contributors  if it is working? The contributors can give you annecdotal evidence of earnings under the new system, but the only people who really know what is happening with the refferal system are at HQ. I believe that the OP is asking for an official answer and not a survey of other contributor's experience with the program. nazdravie, feel free to correct me if I've read your question wrong.


 

(Edited on 2013-02-10 15:47:01 by Box5)

Okay, so should we not keep this thread open then? What do you reckon? HQ will ask me for examples of what the contributors are seeing. Period.

So if you don't want to help the mods help you reach HQ I understand. For anyone who does have some clear complaints(civility is key) we will provide you with an opportunity to communicate those issues. Otherwise, I don't know what to say.

Do or don't. There are plenty of people who would be willing to chime in.

(Edited on 2013-02-10 15:50:38 by Lobo)

Not my call, unless you have a badge you'd like to give me.


For the record I've had $0 referral earnings since the new system went into place, which is only a tiny decrease from the refferal earnings I had before the new system.

(Edited on 2013-02-10 15:54:11 by Box5)

Hrmm, drat we are fresh out of badges

Even the small piece you provided above is helpful. Clearly some people will have more detail to share AS the previous referral program was clearly lucrative for some contributors in the past.

Anyhoo, let's keep this conversation on track and on target.

Not a very interesting data point...

Late 2009 I created a few referral links for the old programme and from then averaged a not-very-exciting 1 referral a month until the middle of 2010. As I remember it, lots of people reported a lack of referrals around then.

With the new programme I put a bit more effort into adding new referral links around my other websites.
Since the new programme came into effect, I've not had a single referral.

Come to think of it, I had a site that had a few hundred image pages with referral links on it. It used to bring in a referral maybe once every month or two. I can't remember the last time I've had one. Maybe over a year. I took the site down in December but I would think I should have still been getting the same amount of referrals before that.

ETA: I found the historical data. I had 13 referrals in 2010 and 4 in 2011.

(Edited on 2013-02-10 16:26:11 by nazdravie)

The new system has never provided me with a referral. I used to get one every few months before it was changed.

Use to get a few. The new system brought it all to a halt so now I just ignore it all together

I had 65 referrals until the referral guidelines changed many moons ago. None since then.

It would be very useful for us to know what specific efforts people have made with regards to creating referral links, in order to try and get an idea of how the contributors find the program is performing. Just saying how many referrals you may have had doesn't really tell a full story. For example, if a contributor only created one link and posted it to some semi-neglected blog, then it may be entirely reasonable to have had no referrals from it. Also, it would help to know how any links were shared, be it email, web or on social media.

We have had several people on the forum question whether the referral program is working, so I'd like to use this thread to gather as much detailed evidence as possible, to try and identify if there is a technical glitch or usability issue that may be preventing people from getting the referral payments they believe they should be getting.

I posted two banner links on my web site, one that is on all the pages, the second one on my "stock" page, and I have not received one referral with the new program. I am getting ready to up date my site and plan on leaving the links off since they don't seem to work.

Never upgraded any of my stuff to the new system... too much trouble.

(Edited on 2013-02-10 21:22:26 by buzbuzzer)

I had referrals when we had the moo cards with a referral number on them. Now the linking is too confusing so I don't use it either. Did well with the old system, nothing with this one.

Also gave up trying to understand and make the new system work. Before that I got less than 5 over two years, and it was not worth the effort trying to make the links work with the new system.

My stats show two sign-ups from links, but zero referrals:


Views Clicks Clicks/Views Sign Ups Referrals


407 75 0.18 2 0


[edited to try and fix the formatting]

(Edited on 2013-02-10 22:55:51 by georgeclerk)