Network dropped me so I went to the advertiser directly - mixed bag so far

So the network I ran my biggest offer through cut me in December. No warning, no reason beyond 'traffic quality', and about $4k that I did eventually get after six weeks of chasing.

Here's the thing though - I knew who the advertiser was. It was on the landing page, it was in the terms, it was never a secret. So I emailed them directly and asked whether they run their own partner program.

They do!! Payout is $41 against the $34 I was getting through the network. Weekly instead of net30. I'm talking to an actual partnerships person instead of an AM who answers every third message.

Genuinely, why does anyone use networks at all

ask me again in march when they owe you eleven grand and there's no network standing behind it

Caveat before the tip, as always: I run about a third of my volume direct and it's the better third, so I'm not arguing against it.

What you have actually bought with that extra $7 is concentration risk. 1) One advertiser, one contract, one accounts department, and if that department decides in April that your traffic looks funny there is no second party in the middle whose reputation depends on paying you. 2) The network was absorbing disputes you never saw. Every fraud flag, every duplicate, every advertiser having a bad month - the network ate a share of that because it needed you back next month. Direct, you eat all of it.

3. Weekly payouts are lovely right up until the week they aren't, and going direct means you find out about a cashflow problem at the same time the advertiser does rather than a month later.

Do it. Just don't put your whole month through it, and get the reversal window written down before your second cycle.

Did they ask why you weren't coming through the network any more? That answer matters.

they didn't ask. i didn't offer

Depends what you're running. Direct works when the offer is evergreen and you're going to be on it for a year - you amortise the relationship, you get the creative early, you get told before a cap changes rather than after.

It's a bad trade if you hop offers monthly, because every direct relationship costs you two weeks of setup and a tracking integration you have to build yourself. The network's actual product isn't the offer, it's that switching costs nothing.

Also worth knowing: an advertiser who takes you on straight after their own network dropped you has made a decision about that network, not about you. Sometimes that's a good sign and sometimes it means their partner program is where the traffic nobody else wants ends up.

Everyone rediscovers this every few years and the conclusion is always the same, which doesn't make it wrong.

In 2014 going direct was most of what I did, because the networks were three men and a spreadsheet and the advertiser was usually easier to reach than the network was. Then somewhere around 2017 the advertisers built compliance departments, and the direct relationship stopped being a phone call and started being a vendor onboarding process with a W-form and a security questionnaire. The margin was still there, but the friction ate the difference for anyone doing under about $20k a month.

What's changed since is that the good advertisers got better at partner programs and the bad ones got much worse. So the answer isn't direct or network, it's which advertiser. You got a good one on the first try, which is genuinely lucky and not a strategy.

The part I'd hold onto: you found out who the advertiser was because it was written on the landing page. Half this board doesn't know who is actually paying them.

Adding one thing to what Marta_K said about disputes.

The network also gave you a float. Most of them pay you on a schedule regardless of whether the advertiser has paid them yet, which means the advertiser being 30 days late was the network's problem. Direct, it's your problem and it arrives with no warning.

Ask them what their own payment terms with media partners are, in writing, before February. If the answer is vague, that is the answer.

Three months in, updating because Marta_K was right about the part I was least worried about.

Payout is still $41 and that's real. But week 6 they paid four days late with no message, and week 11 they paid nine days late and I only got an explanation after I asked twice. Nothing sinister, their finance person went on leave apparently. But there's nobody to escalate to and that's the bit I hadn't thought about at all.

Still worth it on the numbers. Not the same thing as easier, which is what I thought I was buying.