Picture this…
You managed after numerous attempts to get a CPA affiliate campaign to break even and even be slightly on profit.
Day n+1 you broke even. You spent $100 and you made back $100.
Day n+2 you managed to get $20 in profit. You spent $100 and you made back $120.
That good trend continued for the next 5 days.
So on day n+6, you spent $100 again and made back $120 again.
All in all you’ve spent $600 and made back $700.
However, because you’re on delayed payments you don’t actually have this $700 in your bank (or Paxum or PayPal etc) account.
And you are of the “fortunate” ones that are on “Net 15” Payment Terms.
That means that you get paid 15 days after reaching whatever minimum payment threshold the network you’re with is having…
…And/or they pay every 1st and 15th of the month.
So now you have a choice to make…
Do you spend another $700 or so hoping that the campaign EPC remains the same and that you can optimize it further?
Or do you wait until you get paid, risking losing the campaign’s (and your) momentum?
.
.
Say hello to the Cash Flow Symptom…
If you came here from reading Kevin’s story, it’s important to note that there are many “Kevins” in the world.
All facing the same issues.
Maybe you’ve experienced or are experiencing now some of the same issues.
I shared that story to illustrate some of the nuances with CPA Affiliate Marketing.
And to illustrate a few educational topics that are considered important in the industry.
One of those very key points was the “symptom” of having cash flow issues…
And what this can do to your ability to be successful with CPA Affiliate Marketing.
Notice that I call this a symptom and not a problem (more on that later)…
But …
why is cash flow considered such a key point?
Because…
Cash flow can and will directly affect your ability to not only scale but also maintain your marketing campaigns.
Kevin experienced this first hand during his journey…
There are media buyers out there that are literally concerned with how their revenue flows in-&-out of a specific Traffic Source to a specific Network and back to that specific Traffic Source again (through a specific payment processor).
So much that it affects and influences their decision making on running campaigns or not.
Delayed Payments
The issue mainly exists because affiliate networks need to protect their …ears.
So they have various mechanisms in place to avoid affiliate marketing fraud.
The easiest way for them to do that is to put the affiliates on a minimum threshold revenue reached before they pay them.
And to also have delayed payments on top e.g. Net 30, Net 15 and so on.
As an added protection.
So a Net 7 Payment term means that you’ll get paid 7 days after the invoice is created and minimum threshold payment has been reached.
Similarly, Net 30 means that you get paid 30 days after. And so on…
Now to be fair this is not only happening within the CPA Affiliate marketing but with affiliate marketing platforms in general.
JVZoo has instant and delayed commissions where every new affiliate marketer gets placed to delayed commissions by default.
Clickbank requires you to have sales via 5 different payment methods before they can pay you.
Nowadays pretty much every affiliate network has delayed payments of some sort.
So what can you do about it?
How can you avoid it so it doesn’t directly affect your ability to scale and maintain your marketing campaigns?