Asked for +$3 on an offer and got a strange reply back

Running one offer for a client at a certain volume with one network since spring. Payout is fixed at whatever it was on day one and hasn't moved.

I asked the AM last week whether there was room on it. Framed it as a question about scaling rather than a demand, and named a number three dollars above current.

The reply wasn't a no. It was 'let me check what the advertiser's cap looks like on your sub IDs specifically'.

That phrasing is what I'm asking about. Is that a normal thing for an AM to say, or have I just asked someone to go and audit traffic that was doing fine unexamined?

you asked for more money so they're checking whether you're worth it. that's the process, not a threat

Caveat: I ask for bumps two or three times a year and I've never had one cause a problem, but I also never ask the way you asked.

The part that would make me nervous isn't the reply, it's 'on your sub IDs specifically'. That's not the sentence you get when someone is looking up a rate card. That's the sentence you get when someone is about to open your traffic in a different report to the one they normally look at.

1. Lead with the volume you're prepared to add, not the rate you want. 'I can put another 40% through this if the economics work' invites a number out of them; naming a number first invites them to justify the one you already have. 2) Ask for a test bump on new volume only, so the review is forward-looking. That's the trick, honestly - nobody audits traffic that hasn't happened yet.

If they come back with the bump and no comment, you're fine. If they come back asking about a specific sub ID, that's a different conversation and you should have an answer ready for it.

Had almost exactly this in 2023 and both things turned out to be true at once, which is why the thread is going to give you contradictory advice.

I asked for a bump. They gave me the bump. They also, in the same week, started sending me weekly quality reports that had never existed before and asked about two sub IDs that were, in fairness, not my best. Nothing was cut. But somebody was now looking, and they carried on looking for about four months.

So grindstone is right that it's the process and Marta_K is right that you've started a clock. Both. What were the sub IDs doing, out of interest - anything you'd rather nobody looked at?

Two people saying opposite things and both sound right. What happened after the check, OP?

op posted once and vanished. burner account, what did you expect