Comments on: Microstock Moonlighting with Referral Programs

By: MajusC00L

MajusC00L — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:25:27 +0000

Actually, until the infamous V2 of last June, referral period was of 5 years. With V2, they reduced it to 1 year but for all the affiliates that you had prior to V2, you will keep the 5 year period. All the new affiliates will be yours for 1 year only.

Also, before V2, it was possible to have affiliates who were more ancient members than you. Any non affiliated members clicking on one of your banner link somewhere would instantly become your affiliate. I had 5 or 6 affiliates like this and they were members of Fotolia a year or more before me.

Last August, Fotolia apparently cleaned the whole thing and these affiliation were stopped (showing a red button in the affiliates list). You can now only affiliate new members.

Hope this answered some questions.

Friendly

By: Matt Antonino

Matt Antonino — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 04:36:20 +0000

http://us.fotolia.com/Info/Faq#d01

Says one year in the FAQ – maybe they recently updated it.

By: victoo

victoo — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 09:22:45 +0000

weird…
my affiliates at Fotolia show an expiry date of ONE YEAR after they registered.

By: Lee Torrens

Lee Torrens — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 13:28:31 +0000

My affiliates at Fotolia show an expiry date of five years after they registered. I can’t find anywhere on the site where it states the limit is only one year.

-Lee

By: victoo

victoo — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 12:05:10 +0000

There is length of time specified in Fotolia referral program. Only one year…

By: Lee Torrens

Lee Torrens — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 19:31:33 +0000

Rewarding for referring both buyers and contributors certainly affects the way I promote different agencies, so from my perspective, yes.

It all depends on what you need. For example, iStockphoto’s strategy seems to reflect a need for more buyers but no need for more contributors, in many ways other than their referral program. So I imagine they save a lot of money. Other agencies with smaller portfolios desperately need contributors, so they pay for them.

By: john

john — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 17:11:37 +0000

wow great comparison chart and data on all the programs out there. i’ve collected a ton of data on this as well for our site if you need anymore notes but it’s definitely going to help us in choosing the right path for our affiliate program. i always thought a referral program was a nice way to get traffic for a site while at the same time rewarding people for spreading the word and putting their reputation on the line. do you think it is necessary for a site to reward a referrer for both buyers and sellers they send to a site?